Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Will the Penguins be featured on NHL’s opening night?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Pittsburgh Penguins lost a member of their front office to the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, and Pat and I are going to discuss that coming up right after this. Your Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Huntser Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunser-Hodies, joined by my host, Patrick, You can follow him on all social media platforms at Send On For Wet.

Starting point is 00:00:40 You can also follow the show's Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. And you can find us on Instagram at Lockedon underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first list and watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Odu. Great organizations win because operations matter. And that's why you should get Odu. Try for free today at Odu.com slash Lockdown.

Starting point is 00:01:04 that's O-D-O-O-O-com slash locked-on a bit later on the show. We're going to get into a couple of schedule rugglings because the NHL schedule for next season is set to come out next week with the opening night schedule and then the full 84 game schedule. Yes, everyone gets used to it. We were having an 84 game schedule for the foreseeable future. It's not going to be an 82 game season anymore. You get those two extra-divisional games and you get a lesser preseason. Thank God on that because there's just way too many preseason games.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Thankfully, there's going to be way less now. And then a bit later on, we're going to discuss a couple updates regarding Alias Pedersen after some comments were made by Elliot Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast. But Pat, the news of the day on Tuesday, the Penguins lose one of their members of their front office, Vuki Mapofu to the Nashville Predators. He is now an assistant general manager with them after spending the last three seasons with the Penguins as their director of hockey operations in legal affairs. Kyle Dubus brought him in a few weeks after he took the job in 2020,

Starting point is 00:02:04 as GM and president. He was the manager of hockey operations in legal affairs for the Los Angeles Kings for two seasons. And then before that, he was with the Vegas Golden Knights. And now he got a promotion. He is an assistant GM in Nashville. And I probably wouldn't be surprised in the future, Pat. And I don't think you would be either

Starting point is 00:02:20 if he is a future GM in this late with the way that he continues to rise the ranks pretty quickly. This is a big loss for the Penguins, considering what he did for them in their front office, did a lot with player contract negotiations, did a lot with the CBA and salary cap compliance. And now, Pat, there's a pretty big opening there.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Could this lead to Brandon Pridham joining the organization? You and I kind of talked a little bit about that a few weeks ago when it was announced that he was not returning to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He worked together with Kyle Dubis. This would seem like a natural fit. But overall, your thoughts on this and what could be coming next for the Penguins front office because now there's an opening. First and foremost, it's congratulations to Mapofu because he has.

Starting point is 00:03:04 steadily risen through the ranks in front offices throughout the NHL. And it really is another signal that for the most part in the NHL, a new guard is moving in. And it is a lot less. Did you play? Are you a former NHL player, former pro hockey player? Are you a member of one of the NHL's inside boys club?

Starting point is 00:03:32 And a lot of it now, just given the way the league is changing, the way the economics of the league are changing and everything surrounding it, teams and organizations now aren't worried as much about their general managers or their presidents of hockey operations being former players. It's no longer did you play. The question now is can you think and can you understand economics? Can you understand stats, can you understand numbers? Because now we're in an era where the game is so much better trained, the game is so much better developed that the difference between the best teams and the worst teams is getting smaller and smaller. So you have to find the people who can play

Starting point is 00:04:20 quote unquote 40 chess. So this is a really cool promotion for him. As for the penguins, I mean, the name that we have to talk about is Pritam because he has the history with Kyle Dubus. But prior to joining the Maple Leafs, he played a big hand in the NHL salary cap, in the NHL front office. So it may have gone through certain changes and different CBAs, but the basics of it, the basic understanding of it is still there. and if you can get a guy in your front office who basically helped craft it, that's an advantage over quite a few teams because he will know most of the ins and outs. He will know what you can take advantage of, what you can't take advantage of,

Starting point is 00:05:09 and say what you will for the end of Dubas's tenure with Toronto, but for all the things that they got clowned for, one of the things they were quite good at is managing the salary cap. They just, like everybody else, got hit with a global pandemic, a flat cap, and everybody had to deal with that. They were just banking on where it would go to, how high it would rise. And that unfortunate global event put everybody behind the eight ball. But if that had not happened, they were in prime position to be a team like, say, Carolina or Montreal or as we look at it right now, the penguins who are going to have. a pretty clean salary cap over the next four to five years.

Starting point is 00:05:56 So if you can get that guy into your organization, I would not hesitate. Yeah, I'm with you. And do business and Pridim, they worked pretty closely together during their time in Toronto. So I would not be surprised that this happened pretty quickly where Pridam joined the organization as an assistant GM and work to do stuff with the salary cap and, you know, player contract negotiations and everything else in between. Again, they just worked really closely. so wouldn't be surprised. You know, I would be a little surprised if he was maybe given the title of GM while Dubus was still the president. I know that was kind of floated around a little bit when Dubus first took the job as president of hockey operations and then he was talking about, well, maybe I'll hire GM, but maybe I might just keep it. He ended up keeping it. He hasn't really given that title away to anyone. I'd be a bit surprised if that happened with Pritum, but maybe if he joins the organization, that could be something that happens down the line. But like right now, I think he would just come in as an assistant.

Starting point is 00:06:52 that were to even happen. But I definitely could see at least him joining the organization with Mapofu. He's going to do everything now with the Predators. He'll do salary cap compliance, player contract negotiations, help with scouting, player acquisitions, everything with Chris McFarlane, who, of course, the Predators hired as their new GM following the Avalanche's exit of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Their search was really weird because everyone was like, what are the Predators waiting for here? That search was going on for, felt like six plus weeks.

Starting point is 00:07:22 and then finally came out there. They were waiting to talk to Chris McFarland, and he wanted the job, and they gave him a lot of money, and they gave him a lot of term as well. So he'll get to work under Chris McFarland in the National Predators front office, Vuki Mopoku, that is,

Starting point is 00:07:34 to try and help get the predators back to contending as soon as possible. You brought up a penguin's salary cap sheet as well, Pat. Looks really good. I mean, you look at it on Puckpedia man, not a lot of long-term commitments there at all. They're going to have so much money to spend. next season, the season after that, these season after that,

Starting point is 00:07:57 hell that two, three years from now, like, it's going to be, might be a little tough for them to even get to the salary cap for just because there's just not many players signed. There aren't. And depending upon who you talk to, you know, we, we operate off of the puckpedia page. That's like the extent of our quote, unquote, insider knowledge. But there are some people you talk to that the estimates for where the salary recap is going to go on Puckpedia are conservative, that there's a chance over the next few years,

Starting point is 00:08:28 those estimates you see on Puckpedia are on the low end. So there's a chance. It's going to rise even higher. And then back to just the replacement, if there is one for Mapofu, you look at the penguin's front office staff right now. And I don't, obviously, I don't know the ins and outs of every person's role in what they do day to day. But you look at the. title in responsibilities that Mapofu had, Director of Hockey Operations and Legal Affairs, there really isn't, at least to my eyes, an internal candidate to replace him.

Starting point is 00:09:04 Andy Sosier, Director of Player Personnel, but I don't, he doesn't strike me as someone that's going to know the ins and outs of the cap. Maybe someday down the line, if he remains in the organization, Spetsa could take that general manager role, but I also feel he is somebody that a lot of teams are going to look at to potentially give him a full-on GM job. I think in the next couple years, I don't mean to interrupt you.

Starting point is 00:09:33 I think they're going to start getting permission to talk to him. I think there's a real chance he's the GM really soon. It wouldn't shock me because he has been learning under Dubus for a while. He has been now with the Penguins for a few years. So I do think when you look at the Penguins front office staff, there aren't a lot of internal candidates, at least not to my eyes. So it does kind of feel like we're just waiting to get the announcement from the Penguins that Brandon Pridham is going to join the organization.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Yeah, him or someone else that we don't see coming. We've seen that before with Kyle Dubas in terms of plenty of player moves where it's like, oh, the Penguins run on this guy. Wouldn't be surprised here, Pat, if he did the same thing with someone that he wants to hire for an assistant GM job in the organization. Plus the other thing that we've got to be on the lookout for here in regards to this as well is how does the Hoffman family want to run the team? Are they going to be willing to spend more money to bring in a replacement? Or are they just going to be okay with Kyle Dubus running this show with the staff he has in place right now?

Starting point is 00:10:39 But we will see on that. But again, I'll say that if I read the tea leaves, it feels like there will be a Dubis pridom rebut. Union in Pittsburgh. I feel like that as well, but overall, we just have to see what happens with that situation. But that would do it for our first segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to talk a little about some schedule nuggets ahead of the schedule release, which is coming next week. And that's coming up right after this. But before we do that, we have to talk about one of our sponsors, which is Odu. Running a business should not feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together. One app for

Starting point is 00:11:21 accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odu comes in. Odu is an all-in-one business management software that brings every part of your business together in one powerful platform for sales and accounting to inventory and marketing. Everything works in one place, helping your team do faster, stay organized, and focus on growing the business instead of managing software. The best organizations know that success is not just about talent. It is about having everyone work towards the same goal. and that is true in sports, just like it is in business. Great organizations win because operations matter,

Starting point is 00:11:58 and that's why you should get O-D-O-D-O-D-O-com-Llocked-on. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-O-D-com slash locked-on. All right, we're back here on the Wednesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hans and Her Hodys, joined by my co-s, Patrick Damp, and as a reminder, everyone, we are down to three shows a week for the rest of July and for basically all of August as well. we're trying to stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. But if Kyle Dubis decides to drop a nuke of a trade on a Tuesday or Thursday,

Starting point is 00:12:33 we'll be here to react to that as well. It really comes down to what he wants to do the rest of the saw season. But for the most part, we are going to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the rest of this month and into August before training camp, we assume we'll start in early September. Now, Pat, this was published by the athletics Josh Yoey last week. We didn't really get to it just because we had so much to talk to when it came to. trades, free agency, the draft, DevCamp, etc.

Starting point is 00:12:58 But so the schedule is set to release July 16th. That will be next Thursday. You're also going to get the opening night schedule, I believe, next Wednesday. And according to Josh, the Penguins are expected to open this season in Carolina as the hurricanes will raise their Stanley Cup banner. That would be September 29th,

Starting point is 00:13:15 their banner raising night in Raleigh, North Carolina. Pretty cool. If that ends up happening, the Penguins would get to play on opening night. Now, obviously, it stinks because you haven't won in Raleigh since I was back in college. It's been almost a decade at this point. But overall, man, I'd be stoked if that came true. The fact that Josh is writing it and put that at the end of his article seems pretty good to me. We'll get the full schedule,

Starting point is 00:13:40 of course, next week. But I'm all for opening night. Sign me up, man. Yeah, I think that's going to be a lot of fun if that ends up being the case. And it shows that the penguins and Sidney Crosby and of Gennie Malkin and company are still a draw to the NHL, the NHL and ESPN and Sportsnet, TNT, all of them still look at the penguins and think, hey, they may not be what they were in the 2010s, but with not a lot of time left on 87's career, we got to try to get them on national TV as much as we can. And here is the full details from the NHLPR account. Wednesday, July 15th, the opening. night matchups on ESPN in the U.S. and SportsNet in Canada will be announced during or before the 2026 SP Awards. And then Thursday, July 16th, the complete 2627 schedule will be announced at 1 o'clock p.m. Eastern time. So this is really fun. I also think that like you said earlier in the show, we have to readjust our mindsets here because for the first time,

Starting point is 00:14:52 since the 1993, 94 season, it will be an 84 game schedule for the National Hockey League, which means two more games. There are two less preseason games now going into this season, which again, I will reiterate if you can't figure out your roster after a month of training camp and four preseason games, that is a you problem, not an NHL problem. but the one thing I do want to see this year is if I had my way, I guess is the way I should put this. The first month-ish of the season should be mostly in-conference and in-division games. The rest of the middle of the schedule, Western Conference, out of division, all that stuff.

Starting point is 00:15:42 And then the final month, same deal as the first. in division in conference really put an emphasis on those playoff races it's kind of like baseball in a way where they have a lot of those divisional series it feels like in early to mid to late september where you're playing a lot of those divisional teams so that's like the first thing i thought of when you said that which which i it's so NHL right because we saw that the last couple of years where you would see the flyers the rangers the caps the hurricanes in october once maybe twice through November and then you wouldn't see them again until March and April, which I don't hate that idea, but it would end up getting jam packed at the end where you'd see,

Starting point is 00:16:26 you'd see the caps three times in a month or you'd see the flyers four times in a month where if you can break it up to where you got two or three or maybe even four early in the season and then two to four in the end of the season, I would like that more because one, One, we know in the east right now, the metro is a jump ball outside of Carolina and probably the capitals, depending on health, and if that team gels. And then the Atlantic division is just murderers row at this point. So if you can get the Eastern Conference just going head to head for the final month of the season, you will have some fun games and some fun playoff races. And the same thing goes for the West. the central is still strong.

Starting point is 00:17:15 There has been some improvements in the Pacific, but it's still a little bit weaker, but you can see some teams on the rise. So I would like to see the NHL kind of get their West games out of the way midseason and then really focus on start and end. You get your conference and division games, so you can really get those playoff races juiced.

Starting point is 00:17:37 I can see that. I did find it like weird last season, for example, where they played the capitals, the Penguins that is early on in the season, and then bad they didn't see them until to their final three games of the regular season. Just a very weird scheduling quirk. There was one year where they didn't see the Rangers, for example, until the second half of the season.

Starting point is 00:17:58 All of their matchups were in the second half. The Hurricanes, it was almost kind of the same way last season, where they played once in the first half, Pat, and then the rest of the season series was literally just down the stretch. Hell, it was three times in the same month. Just, again, really strange scheduling quirk. So I am curious to see if that changes on this schedule.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Obviously, I like knowing when the California road trip was, is excuse me, that was really early this past season. The Western Canada trip overall, that's also one that I like to look for as well. The national broadcast schedule, I feel like usually gets released about a week or two after, at least the TNT schedule does. I am sure no matter what the Penguins are. going to be up there in terms of national games. Now, Pat, will they lead the NHL in terms of national games?

Starting point is 00:18:48 No, but will they be top five? I still think so considering the amount of high-end talent they have. And, of course, Sidney Crosby always a draw for national audiences. That's, you're probably going to see the usual suspects. The Rangers, the Flyers, the Capitals, because it could be Obies last season with Gino. The Red Wings, you get like a game or two there, the Bruins, of course. I know I'm forgetting some, Pat.

Starting point is 00:19:12 But those are just five I can list off the top of my head that you usually get at least one national game of season against those teams, if not two. I mean, you know we're going to get Penguins Capitals and Penguins Flyers on national broadcast just because they are the top rivals. And I do think last year and we talked about it on the show, the reason that they had so many Penguins Caps games at the end of the year is I do think there was a lot of talk that last year was going to be the final year of Malkin and OVV. And the league kind of looked at it and went, well, if that's going to be it for Sid versus OV and OVee versus Gino, we should juice that at the end of the season just in case, especially because going into last year, there was a thought that neither the penguins nor the capitals were going to make the postseason. So they weren't going to sit there and hope that, what if we get another Penguins Capitals series when you looked at both rosters going into last year and went, I don't think we're getting. that. So they kind of juiced it that way. And I think we'll probably see something similar this year because even though Ovi, I don't think is going to ever do the farewell tour, I think he is a guy who is going to play a season out. And then whenever it ends, he's going to do the season end

Starting point is 00:20:28 press conference and say he's done. There's still that chance that this could be his final year. So you're going to put him versus Sid near the end of the season. Yeah. And I'm also not going to forget, Penguins Avalanche, just Sid versus Nate. The networks love that. And Penguin's Oilers, Sid versus McDavid, I'm sure one of those games of those two matchups between those two teams will probably be on national TV, whether it's ESPN or TNT. So there's a couple more teams off the top of my head as well. But schedule gets released next week. Pat and I will have our reactions to it later on next week, give you our thoughts on where the schedule. is a bit easier and then where it gets harder because there's going to be plenty of both

Starting point is 00:21:13 on the 84 game schedule. But that's going to do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show, Pat and I are going to read the tea leaves a little bit more with Elias Pedersen. Could he still be a Penguins target? That's coming up right after this. All right, we're back here to close out the Wednesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunters, Holties, joined by my co-host, Patrick Gamp. And Pat, on Monday, 32 Thoughts had their final episode of the year a four and a half hour marathon where they just went through all 32 teams if you are a sicko and listen to that uh you're awesome i'm one of them pat i finished it today took me two full days to do it just it was insane seeing them go through all teams like that i had to take breaks in between

Starting point is 00:22:03 again awesome but during the penguin segment which was about at the three hour seven minute mark you ran for about seven minutes freedman floated the idea of peterson of the penguins you and i have talked about this and he said that he wonders if peterson would be a fit thing considering the way the Penguins played last season, the way that Kyle Dubus was hyping up the organization after this past season saying, hey, if you are a player in your 20s that you feel like you need a change of scenery, you can get that here.

Starting point is 00:22:30 You'll have a coaching staff behind you, a development staff behind you, a front office staff behind you. Plenty of players had career years slash bounce back seasons this past year. Ryan, say, Ryan, excuse me, Igor Chinov, Eric Carlson, Connor Dewar, Blake Lazott. Like, I think he, going down the list. So many players had such great seasons with the penguins where, again,

Starting point is 00:22:53 Dubbus is like, hey, you can be that type of player if you come here. Then I saw earlier this week, Jay Fresh, who was a great follow on Twitter, says that he thinks the holdup could be on Pedersen's end because he has to waive his no trade clause, which is a full no trade clause. He brought up Dubis having that line about how Pittsburgh is a great destination and all that. And Josh Yoey tweeted underneath ding, ding, ding. So it sounds like it could be on Pedersen's end where he may not want to wave to Pittsburgh right now. He also may just want to stay in Vancouver. But when I was also listening to the Vancouver section of 32 thoughts,

Starting point is 00:23:27 Praterman was talking about how it's probably time for both sides to move on. Pedersen needs a change of scenery. It's probably not going to work out there. Penguins can absorb his whole cap hit. That's not an issue. I'm sure they will ask for retention to at least get a little bit more cap. And I'm sure there'll be a player or two that goes back in that deal to, you know, make it a little bit more palatable. But I still think it makes sense. I know our listenership

Starting point is 00:23:53 is a bit mixed on it. I know you kind of support the idea as well. Pat, where are you right now on it? We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. Are you still on board? Do you think he'll eventually say this happens? Do you think he would come around and agree to waive his no trade clause? Because he has a lot of say here. It's a full no trade clause after all. I have seen some reporting that he wants to stay closer to the West Coast for family reasons. So I do think that might be a bit of an impediment to getting him to Pittsburgh. But the idea of bringing him to Pittsburgh, I'm still very much on board with. And you hit on the topic that I keep coming back to. I don't think he's washed. I don't think he's done. I don't know if he'll ever get back to being a hundred

Starting point is 00:24:43 point player, but 70s, 80s, I can very much see that. He has got too much skill. He's too complete of a player to be this bad. And it just feels like oil and water in Vancouver now. They just don't mix. It feels like a relationship that has reached its conclusion. Right. And it's time for both sides to just shake hands and move on. The other thing that I don't think, or I think would actually be a bit of a selling point is one of their free agent signings. They signed Kuzmenko. And the last time he hit the 100 point mark in Vancouver, one of his most consistent wingers in Vancouver was Kuzmanko.

Starting point is 00:25:32 Now, I don't know who would have to move in and out for this to happen because you look at where Kuzmanko maybe slots in and it's probably the third line. and I know you're probably not going to move Ben Kindle off of 3C for Pedersen, but maybe you just shake lines up. And also maybe there's the chance that one of Brian Rust or Ricard Raquel goes back the other way in this deal to get them. And then all of a sudden you shake your lines up a little bit. But that's so much further down the road of a discussion.

Starting point is 00:26:07 But I do think you look at the player that he is, you look at what the penguins are trying to do right now, and he is smack in the middle of that Venn diagram. He's a young-ish player. He has had upside. He has played well in the past, and he needs a fresh start. That is checking pretty much every single box

Starting point is 00:26:31 that the penguins have said that they're looking for. And he'd also be a really good T2C if he's able to bounce back, You know, you can play him with Hvgeny Malk and potentially next season. Also maybe with Igor Chinokov. You brought up Kuzvanko. Maybe he comes up there for a spell and see if those two could rekindle their bond together after their time in Vancouver as well. You brought up one of Roussela Rekhle going back to Vancouver.

Starting point is 00:26:58 Honestly, I don't even think it would take one of those two going back to get Patterson. I think it will be a lesser player going back along with a pick and then maybe a prospect. Could be touchdown. Tommy Novak. What do you say? I said it could be touchdown Tommy Novak. That could be a piece that does it. Potentially.

Starting point is 00:27:16 Yeah. Then a prospect, don't think it's going to be like Ben Kindle or anything like that. There's just no way they're doing that. But someone else in the organization that maybe they're not so high on that they can send back. I just don't think it's going to cost very much at the end of the day. He has not been as good these last couple of seasons, though it's also been really

Starting point is 00:27:35 rough for him just because the Canucks as a team have been terrible. And I've said it before. If he bounces back to even a point per game player, and I'm talking, you know, 80, 85-ish points, I will gladly take that. We've seen, especially last year, the way that players bounced back slash had amazing seasons under first year head coach Dan Mews.

Starting point is 00:27:54 I think Mews would have a really good playing for him in place along with the rest of the coaching staff, and I think they'd be able to get more out of it. This is a player that desperately, in my opinion, needs a change of scenery, just because it's just not gone well in Vancouver. and I also think they need to move forward more as an organization. So time will tell what happens with that one.

Starting point is 00:28:16 Maybe it happens later this week. Maybe it happens later this off-season hell. Maybe it doesn't happen after all. But still, a couple other tea leaves that we felt like we had to discuss regarding that situation and the Penguins potential interest in Pedersen. But Pat, unless you have anything else to add on this, I think that's going to do it for the Wednesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for take the time to,

Starting point is 00:28:39 listen to slash watch this one pat and i will be bowed off on thursday unless the penguins do a massive trade and we'll be back on friday to discuss all things penguins and of course fan take friday send us your questions send us your takes all that jazz so for patrick damp i am hunter hodies thank you all so much for tuning in we appreciate it we'll be back on friday

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Will the Penguins be featured on NHL’s opening night?

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