Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The Penguins promote Amanda Kessel into a big-time role!

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

A Kessel is back with the Penguins organization and has a pretty important title, to boot! Patrick and Hunter discuss the slew of front-office moves the Penguins announced on Monday, including promoting women's hockey legend Amanda Kessel to Assistant General Manager of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. After that, they talk about how ESPN sees the Penguins players' 2024-25 campaigns going in their yearly point projections. Finally, they wrap up the show with a story you may have missed - The Athletic's Front Office Confidence Survey showed that Penguins fans...well, they aren't happy.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotors.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM and add a big win to your summer bucket list!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kessel back in the Penguins organization once again, but it might not be the one that you think. Hunter and I are going to talk about that and more on the Monday edition of Locked on Penguins right after this. You're Locked on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host Patrick Damp. Follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4 Wet, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's account a follow at LO underscore Penguins.

And don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as YouTube. And of course, thank you so much for making us part of your daily routine because we're your team every day. And I set it in the open, Hunter, but Kessel back with the Pizzle. Back with the Pittsburgh Penguins. No, it's not, Phil. It's the best Kessel. It's the gold medalist. It's Amanda Kessel.

The penguins announced on Monday morning that they have made just an absolute slew of front office moves from promotions to hires. And we're going to get into all of those, if not most of them, because a lot of these you probably won't know. But there's a few that absolutely stand out that we've got to. to discuss, starting with the one that I so silly, sillily did at the start of the show, and that's Amanda Kessel. She has been named the manager in minor league hockey operations and assistant general

manager of the Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins. That is a huge move, I think, because they had her as basically a front office apprentice not very long ago, where she kind of got to work alongside a lot of people in the Penguins front office within hockey operations and basically just study what they did, see how she felt about it, see if there was an opportunity for her to work in the front office. And now she gets one of the more important jobs within the organization. She's going to work alongside recently also promoted Jason Spetsa, who has been named the assistant general manager and general manager of the Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins.

So those two are going to work in tandem to do one of the most important jobs for Kyle Dubus's plan to give this team a quick retooling. And that's work on the AAA farm team, the Wilkesbury Scrant and Penguin. So Hunter, your early thoughts on this. Yeah, this is a great move. As you said, she was working in the Penguins front office a little bit over the last year. And by all accounts, she seemed to love it. And now she gets to be promoted to assistant general manager at Wilkesbury, where she'll be able to help the next potential generation of penguins,

least a little bit, try and get up to the Penguins full-time. Also, we should add, she will not play in the PWHL after being promoted to the Penguins manager of minor league operations and assistant GM of the AHL's Wuxbury Scram Penguins. So she will be fully committed, Pat, to the Penguins' organization and being the assistant GM in Wilkesbury, but this is a well-deserved honor for her. And I do think at some point down the line, if she does a good job with this, and I think she will, there could be an NHL general manager job or an NHL assistant general manager job coming for her, whether it's with the Penguins or with a different organization. She seems to really like this.

And I do think that could be in the cards for her in the future. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing to keep in mind with her job that she has now gotten with the Penguins is that along with working with Spetsa for a lot of the Wilkesbury Scranton decisions, she's also going to see pretty much everything with Wheeling. It says right in the team's official release, we'll oversee the Penguins Minor League affiliate in the ECHL willing to ensure seamless communication between Pittsburgh and its member clubs.

So that is a really big opportunity for her, because as we know, Kyle Dubas has basically said, like he wants to retool this thing on the fly. He wants to stockpile draft picks and prospects. And that means that you're going to get a lot more of an influx of players at, Wilkes-Barre at Wheeling and making sure that they develop is going to be absolutely crucial to make sure that this plan gets carried out correctly and this team doesn't plunge into a longer

period of darkness than I think a lot of people expect once the big guns hang them up. Another big one that I know that you were very high on Hunter and I'll let you cook on it once I give the opportunity here. and that's Jonathan Ehrlichman has been named the vice president of hockey research development and strategy. They hired him away from the Tampa Bay raise in the major in major league baseball where he spent the last 12 seasons. He had several different titles in his time there, vice president of process and analytics. He was also the process and analytics coach, director of analytics, baseball research and development analyst. and he was the first data analyst in MLB history to head to from the front office and to the dugout

as an analytics coach. So this to me is a gigantic hire because it says a lot on the direction that the Pittsburgh Penguins are going under Kyle Dubus and Funway Sports Group. I remember before they hired Kyle Dubus, I was listening to 32 thoughts. And Freeman and Merrick were both saying that they really wanted to, the Penguins, that is, expand their analytics department, no matter. who they brought in. Well, you're seeing that now with this move that Dubus just made. Bringing in someone from the Tampa Bay Raise organization is a very big deal. For those that maybe don't follow majorly baseball, the Tampa Bay Raise are a very

analytically inclined organization. They are probably one of the most analytically inclined organizations in all of sports. Look at the players they select in the MLB draft. Look at the signings they make in free agency. They build their team. A lot of it is through analytics. They've been a powerhouse in MLB. excuse me at times and they are just usually again a very well-run organization poaching someone like that from that team that's a big deal now all i want the penguins to do is actually use them just because they had some analytic staffs under the late end of the rutherford era also the hexahl era but it felt like they really weren't using them to their advantage i want dubus to do that now

and actually use someone like this to his advantage you know when you're looking at making trades free agent signings, picks in the NHTL draft, all that kind of stuff. But it's nice seeing them add to that department. And it feels like I'm kind of surprised it took this long, considering how Dubus has been on the job for a little over a year. And I figured he would have made another hire or two before this one. But this is still a pretty big hire for the organization. Right.

And you can really see that this is Fenway Sports Group committing to the fact that they gave Kyle Dubus this job. They opened up a big bag of money to bring. him here and now they're giving him the autonomy to build out a pretty big staff because I know we only briefly touched on it a couple of months ago when the penguins made a bunch of cuts in their business. But that's to be expected when you get a new ownership group. They're going to start bringing in their people. They're going to start making their own hires. And now you're seeing that happen under Kyle Dubus to the point where they also hired Kevin Elliott as the head

athletic trainer. Lucas Maloy has been named the manager of hockey operations. They hired three amateur scouts, two professional scouts. They also hired Carol Popper as the goaltending coach for the Wheeling Nailers, as well as Kane Tee C as the goaltender coach for the Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins. So you can see now that, and when you go in, and if you've got some time today, we suggest you do it. We've only got so much time here on locked on to talk about all the hires. but you can see when you go to the Penguin's website and read the release of a lot of these people that have been hired,

this is the direction in which the organization is going under Kyle Dubus. There's some kind of analytical background there. There's some kind of non-traditional hockey background there. So they're really trying to expand their talent base so they can get some of the widest ranging opinions in order to help this team find market inefficiencies in the national hockey. League and continue to be competitive. Right. It's never a bad idea to bring in a lot of people with just very fresh new perspectives

for the organization. And just to end this segment on a very funny note, one of the amateur scouts, Chris Roke that was brought in. Pat, if you see on his bio, we kind of made it a little bit of a meme on the show. So he has 20 years of scouting experience, including a stint as one of the scouts of the Maple Leafs, 2018 to 2024. And who was, where was he before the Maple Leafs? he was with and hold on to your hats folks because i bet you're not going to believe this one

the sue greyhounds from 2011 to 2018 you knew he was going to hire at least one person from the greyhounds and the maple leafs for this announcement it's always going to happen no matter who they bring aboard when you see these mass hires at least one of them is going to have a background of the greyhounds you absolutely are and hey there's nothing wrong with hiring people you like and making sure you enjoy going to work every single day. I think it's why Hunter brought me on this show because he knows it's enjoyable, even if I can be a bit of a dummy from time to time. But that will do it for this first segment. When we come back, ESPN dropped its fantasy point projections for this upcoming season, but it is based in projections in the real world. And we are

going to talk about some of those projections that they had for the Pittsburgh Penguins, right after this. But first, we're going to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Indeed. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring,

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I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. And like we said right before we send it to break, we are 50 days from the opening of the NHL season. And with that in mind, ESPN dropped its 2025 projections for each and every player basically in the National Hockey League. Obviously, a little bit of an exaggeration there. When you go through the penguins, there's a few players who do not have projections.

But for the sake of argument, we're going to talk about a handful of players on the penguins in the way that the NHL ESP team sees them and how their season is going to go. One thing I noticed, Hunter, that I really didn't expect to see from ESPN, and I'm sure at this point, once we start to get closer to the season and more outlets start to do their projections, especially the analytical outlets that do very good work, we're going to see differing opinions. But one thing that I noticed was this, of the three of the four big guns on the penguins,

being Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Carlson, they have three of the four of them outperforming the way they performed last year. And overall, I don't want to say I totally disagree with it because we know that Sidney Crosby's a mutant. We know that Evgeny Malkin has been talking like a man who is out for nothing but vengeance and blood next season. We know Eric Carlson is going to be in.

more of a favorable environment this coming year. Now they do have Chris LaTang, on the other hand, as the one outlier. He will, they don't believe he's going to play all 82 games. They do believe he'll match his 10 goal total from last year, but he will fall down in assists going from 41 to 36, getting him a total of 46 points on the season. So Hunter, your thoughts on all of this. Yeah, I mean, I think for the big four here,

I'm not really super surprised. I mean, 98 points for Cindy Grosby. Ho-hum, I mean, the day. day he falls off will be a day that I just am surprised, I think, at this point. So 98 next season, I think that's very fair for him. I think he could potentially still hit 100 plus if the power play is a bit better. He would have hit 100 plus last season if the power play was just average overall. Eric Carlson, 14 goals, 69 points. Yep, I think that's pretty fair. I do think Carlson's going to have right around a 70 point season, this upcoming season for the Penguins, maybe 75 points. Anything more

than that, I think would be even more of a bonus for the Penguins. But I do think 70 points is right for him. Evgeny Malkin. Same thing. 27 goals, 73 points projecting to 80 games. Yeah, that's what I expect from him this year. 70 to 75 points as well.

If you can have him be, you know, point per game, 80, 82 points. I will gladly take that. But I think 70, 75 points with more consistent linemates, that's very good for me. Chris, that's saying, I would still say he can put up 50 points. If he stays fully healthy,

he gets a little bit more power play time, is more consistent, especially towards the late stages of the season where he can stay healthy. healthy. I do think he can push 50 plus points this year. There is one player, however, though, Pat, that I was really surprised by. So Drew O'Connor this past season, obviously, 16 goals, 33 points, and 79 games. This season, though, ESPN only projects him to have 12 goals in 30 points this year. I don't really know where that's coming from. I think he's going to be a 15 to 20 goal score again this

year. I think I'm going to, I think I have them going for 20 plus this season again. But 12 goals from him projected, I just, I disagree with that, honestly. I think that's a little low. Yeah, I agree, but I think I can understand it because this is a rare one where, or not a rare one, because there's a lot of them on the Penguins page, if I'm being honest, but this is one where they didn't actually write a quick blurb for their outlook. There's no text explanation. The way I can maybe contort myself into understanding this one is, well, I think he still could get between 12 and 15 goals, 12 being low point, 15 being a ceiling.

I can see it in a world where maybe this team gets off to a hot start and this team does pretty well through 2024 and into 2025 and they become buyers at the deadline or close to it and they actually go out and get someone to play with Sidney Crosby consistently in the top six, knocking him down to maybe a third line role, which would probably harm his production, or even, like we talked about on Friday with Kelsey, if there's a world where Cody Glass figures it out and bumps up to the first line, that could also get in Drew O'Connor's way. So, well, I don't totally agree that he's going to take this step back that ESPN has where he's going to have four less goals, but still do about the same in points. I think the way he ended the

season. He's poised to have another very good year and build on what he's been doing. But if this team finds itself off to a hot start and really in the mix or Cody Glass figures it out, I can see that logic to where maybe he still plays very well, but he's not riding shotgun with Sidney Crosby, which takes a hit to his production. Another one that I'm really excited for, and this has been my player to watch for the rest of the summer, is Michael Bunting. they have him taking a big leap in 24, 25. While you look at just the point projection,

they only have him putting up six more points. They have him going from 55 up to 61. They have him putting up only two less assists, putting up 34 as opposed to 36, but they've got him taking an eight-gold jump going from 19 to 27. Now, I will be happier than a pig-in slop if Michael Bunting comes very close to 30 goals. I say that, and then I think about it and go, wait a minute. He was a man possessed with Hvgeny Malkin since he got here.

If you give him a full 82 or at the very least between 75 and 82 games, I can absolutely see Michael Bunting taking that leap because, The way he plays the game fits with Hvgeny Malkin extremely well. And it's the thing I constantly say. Being able to play with elite talent is a talent in and of itself. And he has shown since he's gotten to the National Hockey League, he can play with elite talent. Yeah, I've been really high on him heading into the season throughout this offseason.

I think if you can get 25 to 30 out of him, I mean, sign me up all day long. I mean, he fit in so well with Malkin and Raquel after coming over from Carolina. And I do think that's going to carry over just the play style on that line, the way that he's able to clean up the garbage around the net, the way he's so fearless also going to the net, it meshes so well with Afghani Malkin's game and with how he still is good at creating chances for a second line center in today's NHL, that I do think they're going to continue to mesh really well this year

and potentially the next season after that. One more for the point projections here, and that's Kevin Hayes. They only have him getting 14 goals and 32 points. 80 games last season, Pat, 13 goals, 29 points. We discussed that trade when it happened around the initial draft. I'm sorry, if he scores only 32 points this year, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. I want to see more for him considering how much he struggled this past season in St. Louis. He's coming in here, I think at least to be the third line center.

32 points, that's not going to cut it. I'm obviously hoping that he's going to go well above that, you know, 40, 45 points, something like that. 32 points. That's just, that's not for me, I think. I'd want that to go a lot higher for this year. I don't know if I would say a lot. 32 would still be a disappointment. I think if he's only putting up 14 goals and 18 assists, that would absolutely be disappointing. But if he gets to the high end of 30s, like he's approaching 40, like if he's got 39 or he's got, you know, 40 to 45, I'm very happy with Kevin Hayes. So if he can, if he can upgrade that by 5, 10 points, I'm very happy. happy, you know, increase 14 goals to 16 or 17.

Or even if you're just like a 20, 22 player, you know, for 42 points, something like that. I'll take that as well. Yeah, absolutely. Like that's, he's one of those players that his, it's funny. Like, you know, there's going to be people like listening to this right now going, what is the difference between that little of a point share? It's like, well, when you got them in this role, you want them to be a little bit more consistent. And if you add in.

8 to 10 more points, that tells you that in 8 to 10 more games, you're going to get production out of Kevin Hayes. And the role we're expecting him to play, you're going to want him to have more consistent production rather than what you're seeing here. Because if you look at it this way, 32 points. And if you say that he doesn't have a multi-point game, that's less than half the season.

You're getting production out of Kevin Hayes. You want to try to get ideally half the season of production. out of Kevin Hayes, where in 41 to 42 games, he's putting up some kind of point, whether it's a goal or an assist. And beyond that, it's bonus points. So we will see. Last one for me. Heartbreaking one. No projection for center Jeff Carter. Oh, wait, he retired. Oh, sorry, Pat. I just, I had to get that in because it's been the summer of making that reference. But, yeah, I mean, I think overall, though, these projections are pretty much right in line with, I think what you and I have been saying.

So I think if you can get to this level of production and maybe push it forward just a little bit more with some of the younger guys, this could be a team that pushes for a playoff spot. Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about that throughout the off season, right? I mean, this is going to be a team that I think is, you know, middling this year.

They're going to be maybe fighting for that last playoff spot. Worst case, they're in the bottom 10 overall. Again, I don't think they're fully trying to, you know, compete for the Stanley Cup this year. those days are long past us and they'll be coming ahead at some point. But for this year, yeah, I still see the main middling team. I did see one projection also for Breville, eight goals, 20 points, and 73 games. Kind of want to see him go a bit above that as well, considering how tough last season was for him.

Yeah, I would be right there with you because that would be a little bit disappointing for him, given what they're hoping for. But again, like we've been talking about, these are a lot of bounce back candidates in guys that you're hoping can get themselves back on track from a disappointing season prior. But that will do it for this second segment. When we return, we missed this one when it first came out a couple of weeks ago, but now we're going to talk about it. You guys already a little annoyed with Dubus?

That might be the consensus for a lot of people, but we'll talk about that when we return after we tell you about our next sponsor, and that is eBay Motors. Passion driving patience, the formula for winning championships, is also what keeps your rider die. alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more. Whether you're into speed, power or style, eBay Motors has you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride

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We thank you for making us part of your daily routine. And we got to get right into this one here, Hunter. Every year, the athletic does a fan. survey and they ask fans to rank their confidence in their team's front office. And as I said to you when I sent you this one, because I know this one kind of fell under the radar for us, if you want to find the Pittsburgh Penguins on this front office ranking, unless you've got a big screen, you got to do some scrolling because the Pittsburgh Penguins came in 29th in confidence rank.

rankings falling all the way from 10th place going into last season. And the grades are definitely difficult. When you look at the public's outlook on it, they give him a D. They give him everything from the, or D plus, D minus. And that's non-Penguins fans. They put him at 29, 30th, 32nd, 26, 28, 30, so all the way down in the row. then you get to the Penguins fan base itself. Everybody sits amid a C, basically.

C, C plus, C minus, you name it. That's where they have it. I'll start here with this one. I can't give him a grade yet. I just can't. Because I know people hate hearing this. I get it. I totally understand it.

It's annoying. But he inherited a gigantic mess. It can really not be understated the amount of damage that Hextall and Burk did in just two and a half years to this organization. Compile that on top of this team being in go for it mode for basically 20 years. It was going to be difficult for whoever came in. Then Kyle Dubus has a very man off season last year.

Makes the Eric Carlson trade. Tremendous deal. Tremendous asset management would make that trade eight days a week. A lot of the signings, not that great. Some of the trades half and half outside of Eric Carlson. And so his plan to restock and retool on the fly is underway now. I can't give him a grade on it yet because we don't know how it's going to go. It could work out great.

In two years, we could be right back on track and talking about how this team could get to the Stanley Cup final. In two years, we could talk about what a disaster this is and how screwed this organization is. So at least for me personally, I understand the plan. I'm going to give him the birth to do it. I'm going to let him try it. and then I'm going to comment on it. But right now, I can't give him a true grade. I do think that's fair.

I will say the public grades just make me laugh. I mean, it's, you know, D plus D plus D plus. Most of these people public voting, it's Leaves fans. Either Leaves fans that still don't like Kyle Dubas, then it's funny, you scroll down a little bit. Number 30, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they're giving Brad Trilly being almost a D for basically every category as well. So they're mad at Dubis for what he did.

and leaving, and then obviously they're still mad at bad show living overall. So a lot of that is lease fans. And I also think part of it is also Islanders fans who also don't like Dubus for some reason. But, hey, I don't really like Islanders fans overall. I think they're mostly just annoying. But, you know, I'm not going to sit here and crap talk to Islanders a lot on the show. But I just, I take those public grades with, like, with grain assault. Like, I just, I don't care what lease fans or what Islanders fans or whatever other

fan base thinks of Kyle Dubas. I care about what, you know, this fan base. mainly thinks of his work. And it lines up with what I have thought of his work so far. Cap management, C plus, okay, that's fine. Draft and develop. I would move that from a C plus up to like a B so far. I think his drafts have actually been pretty solid.

His drafts have been really good. I think that's a little bit of a tough. The trading, and also the trading C plus, move that up a little bit. I think that's a bit unfair. I would give that a B overall. Free agency C minus. Okay.

if we want to be real here, a C-minus is a pretty fair grade for free agency, which is because I haven't liked a good chunk of his moves in free agency, though, again, I'm willing to give these moves the benefit of the doubt like I did last year. I'll see some of them last year. I haven't worked out. Vision C-plus, I can understand it, at least though he has a vision compared to the last 10-year.

Total C. I think overall, from the fan-based perspective, that's a fair grade if you want to maybe argue for a B. I can see that if you want to argue for a grade a bit lower. I can at least see it. But I do think a C to me is pretty fair based on his body work. It can definitely go up. He's had some hits. He's had some misses. You average all that out, Pat. You get an average grade. A C. So I'm fine with that total grade from the Penguins fan base overall. I know some people will disagree with that, whatever. But I've been saying a C over the last.

kind of year at this point, I'm not really going to waver from that right now. Yeah, if I had to give it a grade, I'd be right there with you saying I would give them a C because it's been, you know, there's been highs, there's been lows, there's been wins, there have been losses. And, you know, I look down at the, the categories that they ask you to grade. Roster building C minus, yeah, that's right in line with where I'd put it. I'd say maybe I could bump it down to a D just because I did not like a lot of the bottom. six moves last year. Cap management, it's been fine. Like, you know, pretty much now we have a rising cap. So we'll see what happens over the next couple of years now that we don't have a stagnant

flat cap, how he navigates it. So it's been fine. Has it been good? Probably not. But I think it's been fine. It's not like, you know, Colorado level over here or anything like that. So once, once we see this rise in cap, maybe he does well with it. We will see. But that's another. one, I'd have to go incomplete. Draft and develop, like he said, I got to give him a B. He's done really well. The development part, we don't know yet, but that, who knows on that, but the drafting, I love, I've loved both of his drafts.

Trading, I'd give him a B minus B plus because he's won most of the deals he's made. Free agency, I'm knocking that down to a D just because it's not been great. Like, it hasn't. We got to be honest here. Vision, I'm willing to just give it a flat C, because it's not the most exciting vision, but it's a vision. And like I've said before,

the end of the Rutherford era and into the Hextall-Birk era, I don't know if there was one. I really couldn't tell you if there was or not. So just the sole fact that there is one now is an improvement by default. So I'm with you on that. Like if I have to give a grade, it's a C, but given the type of plan he's now trying to execute, it's hard for me to give him a grade because we need to get to the end of it.

It's not just, hey, he's doing well. Like, I don't know yet. We will see. Yeah, it's a multi-year plan. We'll have to see just for the vision what that is once he's, you know, done with said plan. Just going back to the trading. Yeah, just like looking at the deals he's made overall, I don't really feel like he's fully lost so many of these deals.

I mean, sure, Pat and I were definitely down on the Gensel trade. We were also definitely a bit upset with how the situation came to be, but we were still a bit down on it. But then we both looked like some dummies after just because, you know, Coyvenin played really well after bunting was well beyond our expectation. So yeah, we looked a little bit silly with that. I can fully say that on the show. The trade has worked out a bit better than we both thought it was going to be. But look at some of the other deals, you know, Riley Smith, I still make that trade.

It just sucks that he really didn't fit in. But, you know, some of these other moves, you know, the Kevin Hayes. Cody Glass, et cetera, et cetera. Eric Carlson, of course, he hasn't really fully lost a good chunk of these deals. So it shouldn't even be an average rate. It should be above average. And that's been his big thing as an NHLGM. He's been better at trades than free agent signings.

And so far, that's been the case with Pittsburgh. Right. It's what it's, that's the biggest thing about Kyle Dubus is rare is it that he loses a trade. He might not always win them. but it's extremely rare that he loses a trade. But I think that'll do it for the Monday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. As always, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to make us part of your daily routine.

Hunter and I will be back with a new episode for you on Wednesday. Should there be any news? And of course, if there's any big breaking news, we'll jump on here and do an emergency pod. But until Wednesday for Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Thanks as always for tuning in. And we will talk to you later. this week.