Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Will the Penguins make more trades or free agent signings with Nick Brlansky and Nick Horwat!

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

We're only two weeks out (basically) from the start of free agency and that means it's about to get super busy. Yes, the 2023 NHL Draft is almost here, too. Hunter starts the show by welcoming the Tip of the Ice-Burgh boys as they discuss what the Penguins should do with the No. 14 overall pick. Should they just keep it? Should they attach Mikael Granlund to it and move down in the draft? What about putting it in a big trade package for a big-time player? They look into all of those options and discuss which is the best for the team. They also look at whether there will be more moves via trade than free agency since the class is super bad this year. Could there also be a solid mix? All 3 look at that as well before Hunter gets their thoughts on which player Dubas could go after during the offseason. They then discuss who else Kyle Dubas could be bringing aboard for his front office and if anyone is going to come in from other teams, plus can this team pull a Vegas and get back to being a contender only a year after missing the playoffs? All of that, plus much more is on this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NHLNETWORKBirddogsGo to birddogs.com/lockedonnhl and they’ll throw in a free custom birddogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase.ebay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit. eBay Motors dot com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit is only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go to FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, happy Friday. You've made it to the end of another work week. And with that, I have more guests for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Nick Berlanski and Nick Horwant of the Tip of the Iceberg podcast are on to discuss a lot of other topics relating to the Pittsburgh Penguins that's coming up 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, welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes, and I'm going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes follow this show's Twitter at Arnoldstel Pemings. And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day.

We are free and available on all platforms. Today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. You can download the GameTime app, create an account and use code Locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. Join me now, as promised, the first time with the three graphics here for, at least YouTube, but you can use it for audio kind of as well. I have Nick Berlinski and Nick Horwatt of the tip of the iceberg podcast. It's been a while since both of you have been on the show, but I figured I'd want to have you on before this stuff gets really, really busy. So I really

appreciate the time, you know, for you guys to come on. Take away, Berlanski. Oh, okay. Yeah, great. Glad to be on. Thank you for having us on. You know, we always like to come and talk to you, Hunter, whether that's on our show, your show, any other show. It's always nice conversing with you about the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yeah, it's great to be on again. And it's always fun chatting with you about the Penguins and hockey. And it's been a while. But hey, you know what?

We're all super busy doing our own things. We're all doing great at everything we do. And it's exciting to sit down and have this new roundtable chat, if you will. Yes. Again, you know, we got to do the two best Penguins podcast out there. Right. So. But, oh, no, there's plenty of great content.

Yeah, I got D.K.'s daily shot. You got the Penguins Collective, Jeff Taylor's podcast. There's plenty of great content out there. I'm really excited to have you guys back on. But to start off to today's show, just in this period of the NHL draft coming up, 12 more days. I think let's have the number 14 overall pick.

There's a slight chance that they could have moved up to the number four overall pick, but that was more of a dream than actual reality. When it comes to the pick itself, I'm going to be in the lab this weekend, really going over my big board of realistic options for the team. But when it comes to you guys, do you expect them to keep the pick, move it for an asset that can help you win now,

or potentially use it to trade someone like Michael Graham and maybe move down a little bit in the draft, maybe to like 19 for Chicago or something like that? It's hard to say what we expect with this pick just because Kyle Dubus is, his history and drafts are, he's very much a, I'll trade you this pick for two more in a later round. He's very much a trading down for more people, which in reality is exactly what the penguins need this draft. I just took a look, and we have six picks coming up out of seven rounds, and each of the picks that were traded are further back than where we would have landed. So it's going to be a difficult draft regardless for the penguins if they keep the first round pick and utilize it,

which there are plenty of prospects and what is supposed to be a pretty deep draft. but it's hard to it's hard to predict what's going to happen I think regardless it's a good choice no matter what either you strap them to say a Mikhail Granland and send him out of here that's a good

cap dump option right there if you keep it well then you got a probably good prospect out of it or if you trade it for an H.O. ready player then you got an NHL ready player there's no wrong options with this pick which is very rare for the Penguins Whenever I look at this draft, because I agree with Horwatt, I mean, there's a real volatility to what Kyle Dubus ends up doing when it comes to draft day. And I'm not sure what he's leaning towards. And if anybody says that they know what he's leaning towards, they're flat out lying to you.

So looking at this draft, though, a lot of experts are saying, oh, man, it's a really good draft, especially in the top 15, top 20. And Penguins can get a good prospect. I mean, that's great. but also when you look a couple days later at what's available in free agency, you're going to need to build through trades, in my opinion, especially with the amount of holes that the Pittsburgh Penguins have on their roster. And while yes, you know, if Amont Bay Mitchkoff, who's falling on a lot of people's draft boards is available at 14, I'd love to see the Penguins bring in another young Russian talent.

But at the same time, I don't think he's going to be available. And of course, everybody knows draft picks, they're their magic beans. Will they work out? I don't know. I mean, the one pick that I loved and has worked out great from a couple years ago was Anton Lundell to the Florida Panthers. I wish the penguins could have actually stayed. I believe they were at 15 or 16th overall whenever Anton Londell was in the draft. Instead, they traded and traded it actually to Kyle Dubus in Toronto, who picked Rodion Amir of at that point. But no, when you look at the draft and when I'm looking at the draft, there's a lot of opportunity for Kyle Dubus to make his mark in different ways.

I end up honestly thinking that he trades the pick, but I could see why a lot of people want to see him make that selection because the Penguins prospect pool is abysmal is probably sugar-coding it, but that's what I'll say. That's being nice, Nick, about the Penguins prospect. Well, there's a reason why you got Corey Promen and all the other prospect writers saying that it's in the bottom third of the league. And that's just, it's, well, that's also the price you pay for winning three Stanley Cups in this era.

So I usually will take that any time. But you're right. This draft does have a lot of talent. You have, even with, if Matt Beechcroft does not fall, you have someone like Breeden Yeager, who has a ridiculous wrist shot. It's gorgeous. I absolutely love his shot. He's a center now.

He can also play wing if he has to, but he's a center now. You have Gabe Perrault. He might be there. That range. He's also very good. You have Zach Benson, who I think is the dream to fall to there. If they can get him, he's a bit smaller than some of the other players, but his all-round game is great.

If you can get one of those three at 14, if at least one of those is there at 14, I think you should keep the pick. But if not, I would just potentially move back, maybe attach McCaulellan to it and maybe move back just a few slots. Or also, from what I've seen, if you can trade it in like a big package to get, you know, a top four defenseman, maybe like a Noah Hannifin or a goaltender, you know, Connor Hellebubbuk, the Melka from Arizona. I would be down for that as well. But I think whatever they end up doing should be fine. I don't really think they're fully committed either way. But, you know, for people that will be mad if they keep the pick, I won't because there's a lot of good prospects in this draft.

And whoever they pick at 14, I think will instantly become the best prospect in this system, bar not. Yeah, that's an easy statement to make, considering who is it otherwise right now? Owen Pickering. It's Owen Pickering, and then, I mean, Sanpoulin's still there, but he has to kind of re-catch his legs still. They have that goalie out in Russia right now who had a really good year out there. He was playing very well.

I want to see him come over here a bit, but he's on track to be a steal in the mid-rounds. Yeah, I forgot about the goalie in Russia because we're also hyper-focused on Joel Blomfquist as well, who might be getting some North American playing time regular this upcoming season. So I mean, the Wolfsbury's Grant and Penguins are going to be an interesting team to watch this year just for the sake of our top prospects getting some North American play. Doesn't mean they're going to be a good team yet. Yeah. But it'll be at least a little more

intriguing than normal. Yeah, we saw that last year. We said the same exact thing. We said, oh, I mean, Pustin is there full season, pool in, leg array is all up there. We were excited to see what was going to happen with Ty Smith and everybody that was playing at the HL level and the team just it didn't come together i mean pustin had a great season Alex Nielander when he was in the wilkeshire was playing very well um but it didn't come together as a team um and murasheb is the guy you guys are talking about in russia he's from everything i've heard he he's been lights out so it's nice to know that at least you know you have Joel blunfist and you have thurgey murasheb i believe that's his name uh you have two guys in the pipeline that that could eventually make an

impact at the n hl level but they're still far out yeah yeah i have i have I had someone I think was coming to on one of the YouTube pages and asked like, oh, could he be an option as soon as like this coming season? I'm like, no, he's not ready yet. And Brian won't be ready for at least the next few years. Especially at a goaltender because those guys take a lot longer to percolate. Philip Gustafson took a while. Yeah, that's true.

Come into his own. And now he's, I mean, I know he's really good in Minnesota. But it took him plenty of years to really, you know, get over to North America, play well. I know he got traded in the Brassar trade. But goalies just take a bit longer than some of the other players. just how it is. Real quick before we get into a break.

Buy a window starts today, June 16th. Technically, as I keep saying on my show, it started at 11 o'clock last night, but they're just going to be nice and put it on Friday. But once for the next two weeks, I think we all are in agreement of who the top candidate is for a buyout. But my question is,

do you see him getting dealt first before they actually have to buyout? Because they could easily just, you know, drop a news dump today on a Friday afternoon, right before the Taylor Swift concert in Pittsburgh and just say, hey, we're going to buy out my Kyle Granlin these next couple years, get $7 million in cap space. You have to pay him for the next four, though.

Do you think it's more likely he gets dealt than bought out? I'll leave Bernansky up to this one. He's got some passionate opinions, I think. I don't think they buy him out. I really don't. I know that, yes, the numbers, they make a lot of sense. But I feel like Kyle Dubus is somebody who believes in his own abilities to trade. find value in a trade. I think he's going to find it. I don't know if it's going to be an easy

pill to swallow. It might make more sense to buy out, but just a gut feeling. Something tells me that the penguins don't end up buying anybody out in this period. They're a team that historically never really has. I mean, Jack Johnson, we all know, was bought out after 2020, but at the same time, it's the only guy. And Jack Johnson was historic levels of bad. And I know McCale Granlin was not much better in his 21 games this season. But at the same time, it's a 21 game sample size. It's a different position. And while that $5 million cap hit is tough to swallow, the fact that he doesn't have

any clauses attached to it and the fact that it is a weak class at free agency this year, somebody might take a swing on McKell Granlin and it might not be a good return. But I do believe that Kyle Dubus is going to look to try to make the trade in favor of buying them out and having to deal with that cap hit over the next four seasons. Yeah, making a trade and getting something. something in return. As long as it is something is most oftentimes the better play. But there's just immediate cap impact that happens if you buy out McHale-Granlon. I mean, I'm partially with Branty and saying that I don't think they're going to buy anyone out either.

I won't be surprised by anything that happens, though. Let's say they keep him around and he has to start the season on our third line. Fine, so be it. I'm not surprised. by that. Let's say he gets bought out within the next couple of hours. Not surprised by that either because of how beneficial it would be to the team. And then let's say maybe he gets traded somehow. Not surprised by that either. Anything that happens with Mikhail Greer, that I'm not going to be shocked by. And maybe that me not being surprised by anything is also just me not being surprised by anything with this team anymore because they've done it all. They've been up, down, high, low, left, right. They've just, I'm senseless to it anymore.

But it's the smartest move I'm of the belief would be to buy him out. But I wouldn't be shocked by whatever happens. I'll say, I would be shocked if he is on the team next year just because he was such a bad fit. And I don't think Dubas is going to really want to attach himself to that contract. And, you know, I know it was only 20 games, but he had one garbage time goal against the flyers. Nothing really much else. But yeah, I mean, I do think in a perfect world, they can get rid of that whole salary and get like maybe future considerations back or something like that. But that's probably the dream for them.

But you're probably just going to have to retain a little bit of money for those next couple of years. But, I mean, yeah, also you do buy them out. And I know they don't like doing biots. I had Rob Rossi on my show on Thursday. He even said, point, like, they don't like doing them. And the fact that even said the fact that they even bought out Jack Johnson was kind of a little bit of a minor miracle. But the casp lease that you get for these next two years is worth it. The extra $4 million this year, extra $3 million next year.

Goes down a bit in the final two years. You have to pay $1.8 million in the final three years anyway. But still, I would very much consider it. Anyone else, though, buyout-out-wise, I don't think it makes too much sense. I had a whole episode on it. On Wednesday, you're not going to buy out Jeff Petrie and pay him $10 million for the next four years. You can just trade Yon Ruta. I think there will be a couple takers out there for him if you want to do that.

And again, Jeff Carter is going to be on this team next year and everyone's going to have to suck it up for at least one more year. That's just how it is. I hate it. I'm sure you guys don't like it either. But Jeff Carter is going to be on this team next season before he goes off into this sunset and becomes a family man after next season. But that'll do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, let's talk about this free agency class. I saw the quote from Greg Wiginski on Thursday about how bad it is.

I'm going to talk to Berlinstein-Horde about that. see just how many free agency moves that they think Kyle Dubus will actually make considering how bad the class actually is. But before we jump to that, we do have to discuss one of our latest sponsors of Locked On, and that is Bird Dogs. They make you look good. Heck, I love wearing the shorts a few times a week. They stretch khaki shorts and they are designed to fit slimmer through the thigh and leg giving you a truly sculpted look. They do the exact same thing as we will on, but they fit way, way better, especially better than regular shorts that are made of a stiff, restricting cotton.

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All right. We're back on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hodes. That is Nick Berlanski and Nark Corwatt of the Tip the Iceberg podcast. So as IT is going into the break, this free agency class, it's a class all right. It's probably one of the worst classes I've ever seen. You have some decent players there, but you also have a lot of players who I think are going to get grossly overpaid.

One of them I think is Ivan Barbish. I like him a lot, but some sucker is going to give him quite a bit too much, too much term and a lot of money. I like Tyler Bertuzi. I think in a lot of ways, he's like a very mini, mini version of Matthew Kachuk, but he's going to get a lot of money and he's going to get a lot of term. When you look at this class, and we're about two weeks away now, my friends, from pre-agency starting, it starts on a Saturday this year, which is perfect for me because I don't have my full-time job that day, so I can just stock Twitter and everything. Do you expect Kyle Dubus to make more moves to help this team via trade or via free agency? I would suspect it to be trade just because you're right. This class isn't phenomenal as you scroll through the upcoming unrestricted free agents.

There's a lot of 30 plus year olds. It's a lot of older wrong side of 30 players that it's also a bunch of names. You don't know if they still can't perform at their former glory level like Patrick Kane or Jonathan Taves, who's retiring anyway. Or Vladimir Tarasagos, 31, Ryan O'Reilly, 32. They're all great players that could still cut it in the NHL, that's for sure, but at what level? And because of that namesake, the price tag is going to be high. You're going to have to really dig to find the right guys and the certain players. And for Kyle Dubus, you might be looking a lot at Toronto.

I mean, Kerrfoot, Hull, and Michael Bunting, come on down, maybe, apparently. They're bringing in Justin Hull, there's some problems. Oh, yeah, we had too many defensemen. Too many defensemen as it is. So let's start there. I mean, this would have been, back in 2015, this would have been the best free agent class you've ever seen. I mean, Pat, like you mentioned those names and I'd just sitting there thinking, man, when I was in, you know, high school, if I would have heard these guys were all,

Up for grabs, I'd say, what do you mean? This is a bad free agent class. But no, when you look at it now, and that's the problem because there's so many bad free agents. You mentioned it, Hunter. There's so many, not bad free agents, less than stellar free agent options. The ones that are actually decent are going to get overpaid above and beyond everything. Do I believe that that's going to make Kyle Dubas want to trade more assets and want to pick more things up via trade? Yes, but also I think the problem is you look at the Pittsburgh Payman's organization,

They don't have very many tradable assets. I mean, they don't have a great prospect system to go off of. Everybody talks about the fact that they need to build that back. So how much do you really want to trade the draft picks that you have? And again, you're not trading Granlin for anything worth a substance. You're not trading Brian Russ because he has a no trade clause so people can get that out of their minds. You're not trading Crosby. You're not trading Malkin.

You're not trading Latang. And if you trade away P.O. Joseph or Ty Smith, then what's left to rebuild the rest of that defense? I mean, it is a difficult situation for Kyle Dubus. I think you're going to see a kind of a combination of both. You're going to see a couple trades made. But I also think he's going to go in and try to find some value in the free agent market. It's not going to be the big names. Like even last year, a couple names that we liked.

I mean, Mason Marchment would have been a phenomenal signing. But those guys just aren't on the market this year. I mean, Max Domi, maybe. But again, what are you getting from Max Domi? unless he is his peak Chicago Blackhawks form, which again, he was playing in such an elevated role that he's not going to play in Pittsburgh. You're never going to get the right actual value out of that contract because you're going to overpay and he's going to under deliver.

That's just the sign of the entire class this year. So you're really going to have to dig deep for value in the free agency class. And a lot of these signings, people aren't going to like right off the bat because they're probably going to say, wait, really? And it's what's going to happen. But you just have to preach patience. with Kyle Dubus on this one because he's working with what he's got and he doesn't got very many options in the free agency class.

And the trade thing is what makes my, was what made my answer so hard. It was, yeah, maybe he's going to make more trades, but you're right, what does he have to trade away? It's not much. And you also don't want to pick on the, pick through these free agents. That's why I, you know, looked at the Leafs who they have coming up because he's going to stick with familiar guys just because he knows what they can do. you don't know what this class is going to be.

Like I mentioned, they're all 30 over, which it isn't bad. Like, you can get value out of a 31, 32-year-old. I mean, look at the Penguins this past season. Three of their best players are 35 plus. Not saying that all these guys are going to fall off the cliff once they hit 30, but it makes it harder to sign guys, especially if you're looking to sign guys longer term. So at the price that they're going to request, it's going to be hard either way.

It'll be a busy off season, but it's just the strangest way ever. Yeah. I like both of your answers on that. I will say I did do a deep dive into the assets. And sometimes a lot of these players that get traded, they don't go for as much as, you know, the asking prices because it just goes down. You know, Jacob Trick and Win for Magic Beans and Ron Hextel couldn't even do that. So, I mean, I think they have the assets to pull off, you know, some trades. Obviously, they don't have the assets like they're like a team like the Kings do or maybe like, I don't know.

other contender out there, you know, I'll think of something. But Kings were the first one that comes to mind because they have a great prospect who want to have a lot of picks. But I slowly think they can go out there and get a couple of decent players via trade. But I agree, Berlanski, I really think with how good Kyle is at looking at the free agent market and getting cheap quality depth, I really think that's probably what you're going to see when July 1st comes around in two weeks and a name I'll put out there, put out there couple times on my show ready, David Camp.

Right there. He can play in your bottom six. He can score. He can pass. You can play defense. He can play in your penalty kill. That's a very typical Kyle Dubas signing. I don't think you're going to see him sign.

Someone like Josh Archibald as his first move in free agency and then have that stupid smirk on his face that Ron Hextall did when he was asked about Yelhan Larson. But I do think you're going to see, you know, players, you know, like a camp sign. You know, like people keep throwing out Michael Bunn. saying, I'm sorry, he's probably going to get too much term and money. Ryan O'Reilly would make some sense, but he's also a little over 30 now. If you want to get a little younger, you can go with a couple other decent options. But, you know, I do think it's going to be a nice mix, I guess a hybrid where, you know, you're bringing in players via trade.

They're also signing some quality free agents. And the best part is they can bring in some of these players that have a little higher cap pits because they have a decent amount of cap space. You just have to use that wisely. That's my thing because that previous two regimes. I don't really think they ever knew how to use cap space wisely. And I mean, no respect to Jim Rutford who brought the two Stanley Cups here. It was all of his work after that that wasn't really that good.

But I mostly talk about Ron Hextall where he just, I think the salary cap was just not his friend, to put it nicely. But overall, you know, do you have any targets in mind via trade or for agency that you've both been really taking a look at lately on your show that you think can make some sense for the team? You know, I've been diving into this class. and I've brought up some of my own names, but just want to hear some of your thoughts with names. Man, I love Ivan Barbashev, but that's a pipe dream at this point. I mean, the best thing that could have happened was Ivan Barbashev just absolutely crap the bet in the Stanley Cup final,

but it's just, it's not going to happen. He's going to be way too expensive. But I do think, I don't know who the guy would be. I do think Kyle Dupes, I mean, who the return would be. I do think Kyle Dupis gets in on the UC Saras sweepstakes. I don't know if they, have enough. But I do think that he's going to look at that and say, you know what, if I'm going to take a big swing, it's going to be on a guy like UC Soros because the penguins

need a goaltender. It's kind of against what the trend has been because you look at the last two Stanley Cup champions. It's been Darcy Kemper and Aden Hill. So it's, hey, figure out what works, get them in there that year and then figure it out again the following season. That's what's worked the last two years, but I do think the Pittsburgh Penguins are an organization that, especially with so little run left in this competitive era with Crosby, with Malkin, with Latang, you're going to want to get the goalie this offseason and say, hey, he's going to be the goaltender for the end of the Crosby era, and we don't have to worry about that going forward. Because that's, it's different if you have a young team like the Toronto Maple Leafs and you can say,

okay, you know what, Freddie Anderson hasn't cut it. Okay, you know what, Jack Campbell, we're just not willing to pay you that much money. We need to try something else. but when you have Crosby, Malkin and Latang, who, let's face it, Malkin might have three years left and he is done, done. Like he is not coming back, he's not signing another contract, he's not playing a game. So if that's three years and you're done,

you're going to want to get your goal tender for those three years and be able to just build around from that and not have to worry about that every single offseason. So I could see Sarros being a guy that Dubus is really a high on and really intrigued on this offseason. You say that three years thing, especially if you consider, even if you get a guy like Soros and then I don't know what his contract looks like,

but let's say he runs until the end of the Krosby term or the Latang term or whatever it may be, then you have those other goalies that we just talked about earlier, ready to go. So maybe you're able to balance a goalie for a short-term deal or short-term trade in a way to transition into your young stud who might be, I mean, who knows what kind of core we build. next couple seasons with Dubis. Who knows if we utilize this draft pick, and he turns out to be a real good player down the line. Next thing you know, you have that second wave, which is exactly what Dubus wanted to do when he

got here. He wants to win now and have that future built. There might be that gap here where we're trash and everyone get ready for that. But it's going to be interesting. And I think I like the idea of UC Soros. I've been pounding the drum for Conahellibuck since the first. the moment he said he doesn't want to stay. And, but again, it's going to be hard to make a trade for either of those two,

considering the assets we have. It's not much. I mean, if we shoot for the stars like that, it might involve losing someone important to us. But I think it might work out in the end. We'll love Hella Buck. I mean, I know he only has one year left. I don't know how an extension would work. He would probably ask for a little too much.

I'm not really sure I be interested in paying someone throughout his 30s, but I would love him at least for his season. Soros, Ahorah, he has two years left on his contract. He is the McIle-Grantman contract right now. Two years, five million per. Makes a lot of sense. That's a really good deal for him. He's probably going to get paid at the end of that deal, to say the least.

But I would love to get on that, but I also know that Barry Tross is going to ask for the world in return. He is a general manager, I think, that is going to not get fleeced in any move that is made. He seems like he knows what he's doing. doing. He was a great head coach for many years. I think he's going to be a great manager as well. But these next couple weeks, I think are going to be a lot of fun, both trade-wise and frequency-wise. But we'll go away from that in the final second. We're going to get into just the front-offish structure of what they think it's potentially going to look like. And if Kyle Dubus will not bring in all of his Toronto buddies, if we'll maybe bring in people from outside the Toronto Maple East

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All right, we're rocking there on this episode of the Locktime Payments podcast. I'm on Trojee, joined by Nick Horwatt, Nick Berlanski at the tip of the ice bird podcast. So earlier this week, I mean, I've touched on this, you know, a lot over the last couple of days. Jason Spetsa was brought on from Toronto Maple Leafs as an assistant general manager. First front office hire from Kyle Dubus. And I know a lot of people were a little weird about it because assistant general manager to who? Because there's no general manager there. Do you guys expect Kyle Dubas to bring in other people outside of Toronto to fill out the front office?

outside of Toronto's the intriguing part of that question, really. Because I had mentioned on our podcast before that Brandon Pridham seems to be a frontrunner here. Out of nowhere almost because, I mean, when Dubas was fired from Toronto, Brandon Chanhan told, you know, other GMs, hey, Brandon Pridham's going to be the GM for the time being, kind of go to him for any general manager needs. And then they quickly shot him out of a candidate and said he's no longer in the wrong. running to be general manager, and they hired Bradshire Living, and then they added another cook in the kitchen with Shane Done. Suddenly, there's a lot of faces in there. Who knows how valuable

Brandon Pridham's job is in Toronto anymore, so I'd keep an eye on him. Expects Dubas to definitely request to speak to him. Outside of that, I also mentioned, just remember the names that made it late into the running for the GM job, Dar Shetolski, maybe, Steve Greeley, guys like that. They're outside of the Toronto market, but very viable options, as long as they're not feeling burnt by the team for how they may have been dragged along. I mean, to be fair, also, they were not really dragged along because Kyle Dubus was not mentioned until a week before he was really, like two weeks before he was really hired. Because before he got fired, it was not a possibility. And the penguins were just going along business as usual. And the second he got fired, it threw everything into a tailspin.

But when it comes to the rest of the front office, I don't know. I mean, look at what Kyle Dubus wants to do now that he has the full power. I mean, the one thing that we knew about Kyle Dubus in Toronto is there was a power struggle between him and Brendan Shanahan. Now he is the guy. He's the big boss. He's not going to bring in anybody that's going to go against him. But at the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's only going to be bringing in his guys from the Toronto Maple Leafs. I think there's plenty of names around the NHL.

I mean, we talked whenever the general manager and president of hockey ops position first opened up, up. We talked about San Ventura. I wouldn't be surprised if the penguins reached back out to him to see if he'd be interested in coming back to Pittsburgh in a higher role. I know he's, he's AGM of the Buffalo Sabres. And higher role than that is general manager. I'm not sure that Dubas would bring him on as general manager, but I'm not sure what he's looking for in a general manager. There's some people that have speculated that Kyle Dubus doesn't need a general manager. And you're probably right. You're probably 100% right. But we see where if you get more guys, that are like-minded, but at the same time have different opinions, it can only be successful.

I mean, look at what happened in Vegas, George McPhee, and I'm blanking on, and Kelly McCrimmon. Those two have worked hand in hand since the second year of the Vegas Golden Knights, and it worked so well that they went out and they won the Stanley Cup this year. So when it's working well, general manager and a president of hockey ops that are separated in two different people can be very advantageous for your organization. If it doesn't work well, then it could be a crap storm. I mean, look at what's going on in Vancouver. Jim Rutherford literally had to come out and say, you know, I got to stop talking to the media.

I got to stop talking to you guys because I feel like I'm overstepping Patrick Alvin. And he was 100% what he was doing. Patrick Alvin was not even a mouthpiece. He didn't even let him do that part. He basically just overruled him on everything and made Alvin an assistant general manager for the majority of his first couple of months on the job out there. but it's going to be fun after July. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of fun to be had in the next month when it comes to player personnel.

But everybody enjoyed the general manager search for six weeks, eight weeks a couple months ago. And you're going to get another one that's probably going to last again, two, three, four weeks at the end of this summer. So at least there should be something to fill out the normal dead spot of the Penguins off season. Yeah, for sure. And again, I've been saying this on my show so often. My listeners probably going to get sick of this. I would love a front office structure like what Vegas has or what Colorado has

where they promoted Chris McFarlane, Joe Sacka groomed him to be the GM, and now he's the president of hockey ops, and McFarlane is kind of making the roster decisions. Right away, I don't think the new GM would get that kind of power because I think the final decision would come down to Kyle. But I think eventually maybe he could pass that decision off to him while just being someone that he can go to, well, I guess still being involved in the final decision, but it would come down to the GM.

maybe someone that can really grow into the job, learn it, it's a first time GM. That is something that I would very much consider. So I understand what people are saying with, oh, maybe they don't need a GM. Yeah, I know. Kyle's running with Joe. He got a seven-year term. Robert Porter was seven times five. I heard it was seven times six.

It's somewhere in that range. It's probably right around there. But this is his team, even if he does or does not hire a full-time general manager. And, you know, I had heard Steve Gurley interviewed very well. for the position, so I would not be surprised if they did circle back to him. I think Matthew Darsh was going to be the president if Dubus said no, so I would not be surprised if they went back to him. Either he went very deep into the search.

So it will be very interesting to see what happens. Once free agency really dies down, maybe you get into mid-July, that's when maybe you start doing some interviews, because at that point, most of your moves have already been made. You'll still see some trades or signings, but most of it, I think, is kind of done at that. point. Not a topic I wanted to pick your brains on is the topic of that may be being, you know, contenders or what they're stealing is for next season. Obviously, the playoff tree came to an end this past season. You know, they hadn't missed the playoffs since I was back in elementary school, which was, you know, very long time ago. But when you look at this team right now and you look

at potential moves that could be made, do you see this team getting back to contender status next season because you think about it, you know, the thought came up ahead today. Vegas, they missed the playoffs last year. They come back, they run it back, they make some, you know, trades or signings. They hire Bruce Cassidy. I know the Penguins aren't hiring a new coach here, but do you think you can see a situation similar to what Vegas did with how they kind of ran up back with their core players, but added around them and became a contender? And obviously you saw what happened. Do you think that's possible? I do think it's possible.

I figure this, the new president and Kyle Dubison, whoever he brings in his GM, plus this new front office structure, it should revitalize a lot, too. It's not that, you know, the core here was, you know, dead in the water by any stretch of the means. They definitely still have the hunger, but there should be a new sense of confidence within this locker room now. The fact that there's a smarter person upstairs, there's likely going to be smarter decision-making from that same mind. I think there's going to be a bit of a revitalization. It's not going to be, I don't know if contender status is where it's going to go, but it could creep into that as the season progresses just because,

you know, who knows who Kyle Dupis ends up picking up, who knows who's staying, who's going. Like I mentioned, I wouldn't be surprised if we start the season with McHale Granlin still on our third line. So maybe something turns around in one way or the other. I'd say it could get there. I just need to see some roster structure and some games first. but I do totally believe it is possible, yes.

I would say the same thing that it's possible because, I mean, anything's possible in the NHL, specifically once you get into the Stanley Cup playoffs, look at the Florida Panthers. I mean, the volatility of this league is unmatched. And as long as your team is not, you know, worst in the league, like Chicago Blackhawks, worst in the league, then you're probably going to have a decent chance

if you're in that middle ground, especially if you have the stars like Crosby Malkin to carry a team once they get into the postseason or at the very least, lead a team once they get into postseason. But I think the one thing you have to look at is they were one standings point away from being in the postseason this year. And there is no way on God's Green Earth that they don't get at least marginally better next season. So that right there tells you that they're probably a playoff team.

And when you look at this roster and when you look at more importantly, the friction that was had between Mike Sullivan and Ron Hextall last year, Hextall wasn't giving Sullivan the players that he wanted. I mean, maybe he did to a certain extent, but it certainly wasn't everything that Mike Sullivan was asking for in a lineup. Now, I get it. There's cap constraints. It's a salary cap league.

It's meant to make everybody on an even playing field. It's going to happen every year. You're not getting everybody you want. But to a certain extent, the penguins could have gone out and got Jacob Checkrin. That's obviously the biggest example. But probably even when you look at the offseason, I mean, trading John Marino for Ty Smith and then not being

able to utilize Ty Smith the entire season. I mean, there was a time when Jan Ruta was on injured reserve, and they didn't have salary cap space to bring Yon Ruda back. I mean, that's things that probably won't happen under Kyle Dubus. So just that alone is going to make this team better, which puts them in the playoffs. And who knows how much Kyle Dupes is going to change the face of this franchise over the next six weeks. But there's a chance that if he adds correctly, and like you said, Hunter, he has $20 million

in cap space. if he buys out McHale Granlin in the next couple of hours, he's going to have $24 million in salary cap space heading into this offseason and this free agency period. So do I think there's a chance that considering how good the core is, that they could turn into a contender once again next season? They could, but the work needs to be done. And that's what's going to be paid attention to over the next six weeks

and what Kyle Dubas is able to bring in and help with Mike Sullivan's team. Yeah, and I really do think they're going to have a good relationship together. I think they kind of see eye to eye with how they see a modern team in the NHL today. I just don't ever think Hector and Sullivan saw eye to eye at all during their tenures. And, you know, Brian Burke just, you know, had free tickets to games. They got to talk to season ticket holders, I think. But lastly, before I let you all go, I always have a couple of restricted free agents.

Well, they did sign Alex Nealander. That was, you know, the interim guys and Mike Sullivan did that all together. But they still have a couple left. Drew O'Connor and Ryan Pee. handling both RFAs. Kyle Duba's has not signed either of them yet. Do you see both of them back on the team next season in a full-time capacity? Yeah, I would assume so, yeah.

When you look at all the RFAs, I mean, none of the qualifying offers go over a million dollars. So I think Kyle Dubis, especially with the amount of cap space that he has and the amount of holes he needs to fill, you need to take the free spaces when they're given to you. Drew O'Connor is a free space right now. He's a restricted free agent that was making less than a million dollars last year. Same thing with Ryan Paling. And these guys are younger, a little bit faster, a little bit hungrier. And the penguins, they lack that a lot last year.

These were two of very few players that could provide that for the penguins. And it's been the theme through the entire episode here. There's not much out there to be had. So you got to take the free spaces when you can get them. Those two guys, I know Pustin is an RFA as well. You sign the guys that are easy to sign. And the RFAs are pretty easy to sign for the Pittsburgh Penguins this year. Yeah, I've been beating the drum for a while that Drew Connor should have a full

time roster spot for all eight two games next season played great at the world championships overseas i think he should definitely be on the third or fourth one i've seen people say he should be in the top six or try him out there no i don't think he's really shown anything to be considered in the top six just look at his numbers i test i just think that's a little wish he just he just doesn't have the finishing ability to be a top six game i completely agree neck yeah i if he finishes a bit more next season try it out but i think right now with what I've seen from him. And I think he played well last season.

I don't think he can be on your second line with Havgeny Malk and Marcard Raquel or whatever winger you have next to him there. I think in a third or fourth-line role, he works very well. And Ryan Pilling, I'm still intrigued about him, but I want to see how his back recovers. He really had that brutal injury last season, just came in and out of the lineup so many times. I want to see how that recovers during the off-season, because if that is fully healed and he goes into next season healthy, I'm really intrigued about him in a third or fourth-line role because I thought when he was healthy, he was impressing me at times.

I think, you know, those are two solid options for your bottom six. Outside of that, though, I know Carter's probably going to be on the fourth line. They need to revamp that entire unit. It was a big weakness with the team last season. But I think that will do it for this episode, The Lockdown Penguins podcast. I really appreciate both of you coming on to discuss a whole bunch of different topics relating to the team. Just tell me both of you, what do you got planned for the show going forward?

Well, we got to get a lot of guests on because we're running out of topics. But fortunately, fortunately, this slow season, I mean, you mentioned it, literally one signing so far this off season. Yes. In three months, they've signed one player. And it was Alex Nealander to a one-year deal. So it's time to do something, Kyle. Fortunately, they're going to start doing stuff here in the next couple weeks. Draft's coming up.

So we're going to obviously cover all of that. But then we're also looking to get a bunch of guests on starting to make that list of names. And obviously, Hunter's always at the top of the list because he's so gracious with his time. and we always love talking to him. So you can see probably Hunter Hodes at some point this summer on the tip of the iceberg. And then also a host of other guests next week. We'll have Jacob Pontori on from inside the penguins.com to help us break down all of the prospects that he is written about, which has been a long list. So that might end up being a long episode.

But hey, if you want your all-inclusive list of Penguins prospects for the 14th overall selection, we'll have Jacob on Tori on next week. But other than that, just, you know, penguins content as much as we can. Try to keep it fresh, try to obviously cover all the news. but at the same time, have a little bit of fun. So that's what you can expect from the tip of the iceberg podcast. Yes, please go listen to their show. Everyone that listens to slash watches this.

They do a tremendous job with our Penguins content. And I think this whole community is blessed that. There's just a lot of really good podcasts out there that can deliver quality content about this hockey team. But, yeah, I'm excited. It's another full week of episodes done here. I'm going to be in the lab this weekend going over my big board. I have a couple buddies from Penguin's Twitter as well. we'll be comparing my big more with theirs to see how they overlap for the initial draft.

Really excited to get that for you all next week. I'll be diving into some financial draft talk. And then if Dubis wants to make a move or two, I'll obviously have a breakdown and analysis of that. And I might have to wait for another week. But that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for tuning in, whether audio or video, I'll be back with another episode for you all on Monday. For those that are listening in Pittsburgh, stay safe this weekend. If you're going to the Taylor Swift concert, just be prepared for a lot.

lot of traffic. But again, thank you all so much for listening slash watching. Very much appreciate it. I'll adopt with another episode on Monday.