DK’s Daily Shot of Penguins: The prospects don’t align

DK’s Daily Shot of Penguins: The prospects don’t align

[Music] here’s the hard truth here’s the one thing that nobody associated with the hockey team is going to want to speak out loud there’s really not going to be much overlap if any overlap between the prospects who are currently being amassed and you know who good morning to you good Thursday morning I’m Dan katovich of DK Pittsburgh sports and this is daily shot of penguins it comes your way bright and early every weekday if you’re into football Andor baseball I also offer daily shots of Steelers and pirates in the same place that you found this development camp closed up yesterday in Cranberry with the annual scrimmage the players who were supposed to do well did well a good time was had by all and everything else and and being serious here it is the first time in a really long time that you can survey this scene overall and say to yourself there are prospects there there are prospects if you’ve been with me for a while you’ll recall a couple of development camps that I covered this was about three or four years ago where I would just show up and say you know what there’s one person maybe who has a shot at getting to the NHL never mind you know making some kind of impact or hanging around and I would point to valter Pon for example was somebody that I singled out one year Yan dros was another and he couldn’t cut it in the AHL and not lying to you here it felt like a waste of time it felt like a waste of everything just having the event much less covering it that’s not the case anymore when you have Braden joerger when you have Owen Pickering when you have Sergey morav the goenda when you have both of the second rounders who were just taken there are players legitimate players with legitimate hopes of helping your team what’s not there is something along the lines of the templates that I’ve been laying out for a while on this program based on the Bruins more than any other team although the kings are also a credible example of this where you win you win you win and then at some point you say we’re going to rebuild but we’re not sending Patrice berson out of here or if you’re La we’re not sending anj Kopitar out of here we’re going to find a way to reload well the Bruins and the Kings started their process a lot sooner than the Penguins of course the Penguins process really if you think about a line of demarcation here is the Jake gensel trade that’s it right there that’s boom that’s when it began that’s when you make a commitment after that to you’re going to go younger both for the near-term future and for the longer term future what doesn’t align though is jger having any kind of impact at least not a meaningful one I believe for as long as Sydney Crosby’s here if Genny malcin or Chris L Tang or even Eric Carlson this episode is brought to you by bet online your number one source for all your summer Sports needs this season from Major League Baseball golf NHL NBA playoffs get the latest odds and lines including all team matchups player props odds on just about everything that’s out there head to the website today or use your mobile device to get in on the action bet online where the game starts joerger as he and everyone in the organization of acknowledge needs to get stronger he needs to fill out a little bit more and chances are excellent he’s being sent back to the WHL where he’s going to be so far above the competition I believe that he’s going to be putting up video game numbers and no matter what it is that he tells himself like I’ve really really got to get bigger and stronger if it’s very different than having the actual physical motivation to do it in other words if he’s getting knocked around like a rag doll in the AHL or think of Jack hughes’s rookie season in New Jersey you know where everybody was just whipping him all over creation until he showed up a lot stronger the following year for the Devils he’s not yeah you see where I’m going here but the reason that I bring this up isn’t to make it all sound like Doom gloom and despair or whatever the reason I bring it up is that I want to underscore why I like a lot the off seon that Kyle dubis has had to date if you’ve been listening to this show you’ll know that I really didn’t like the one he had a year ago this one has been different this one he has been pursuing all kinds of players who are kind of mid 20s or late 20s but they’ve still got their legs they’ve still got their wheels they’ve still got their energy they’ve still got their fire you and I can right now scratch down on a napkin a top six for the Penguins we can also scratch out a top four on defense what itd be lacking theoretically is the same thing that was lacking through most of last season which is you know there’s got to be that oomph there’s got to be that jump yeah it’s nice if they can score but it’s nicer if they can at least wear the other team down a little bit the guys the Penguins got last year all these 30s somethings to fill out their bottom six didn’t either they never scored they never sustained the attack they never got in anybody’s faces they never were hard to play against which you recall was the goal the stated goal of both dubis and Mike Sullivan at the time this group the one that’s going to go going to Camp comes with a lot of options which is also healthy because that’s competition but also a lot of people in that age bracket now yeah I know you’re thinking right now yeah they got Kevin Hayes and they did get Kevin Hayes they got Kevin Hayes in large part I thought this was obvious to get that second rounder from the Blues in 2025 that’s a nice future asset but almost all of the rest of the recent acquisitions have been people who fall into the category that I’m describing and that’s good that’s good because they can and will be ready to overlap with Sid and Gino and everybody else the kids in Cranberry not so much when we come back J1 [Music] Q today’s j1q comes from Matt who says DK I know the prospects aren’t much to write about yet but is there enough to have a little hope the last couple of drafts seemed good the Jake gensel trade brought back some pieces is it enough to get excited that the future won’t be Generation X again oh man poor Generation X I mean before I proceed here I covered Generation X and look I know they weren’t good enough obviously at one point they had had an 18 game losing streak but they tried so hard and there were actual players on that roster Mark hre flurry was on that roster don’t forget Brooks orpic was on that roster for a very brief period of time I should had the greatest player in hockey history was on that roster but yeah I get it that’s always the fear in Pittsburgh among hockey fans is that everything could go back to that uh I blame that largely on the Pirates because when they have rebuilds they tend to be a half decade of abject embarrassment before they can even float back up to 500 as they’re doing now but the one point I think that would probably be best to make here even though it’s not a direct answer to your question is that the salary cap has changed everything I really believe that pittsburghers need to stop fearing the future here you don’t have to be the Red Wings and suck for 10 years just because you’ve lost Pavo datsuk and Henrik Zetterberg the Red Wings made a lot of really bad Personnel decisions in that time they made one really really good one in Dylan Lin they made a spectacular draft pick and Morris CID but a lot of the Red Wings problems were their own doing you can build back up quickly in any cap League it gets discussed most often in the NFL but it’s also a reality in the NHL if you go back to Generation X that was caused 100% by finances Penguins couldn’t afford to keep any of those guys that they let walk away or that they traded for picks it wasn’t just yir yoger it was Alexa kovalev it was Robert Lang it was Martin straa all of them boom boom boom boom boom just like that gone and replaced by assets because they could not pay the bills this isn’t an issue at all in Pittsburgh anymore here’s another thing the team wouldn’t want to talk about openly they’re making a lot of money the Penguins do really really really well and not just the hockey operation but also you can’t nose dive your payroll in the NHL even if you want to there’s a minimum every salary cap system has both a ceiling and a floor and the NHL’s floor is around $20 million less than the ceiling so one way or another when Sid and Gino and these other guys are gone that’s a lot a cap space freed up I don’t mean to make it sound like a positive like yeah get rid of those guys for cap space get rid of Sid but when they are gone that’s monstrous cap space you can be the ultimate player in free agency but what you want to have in the interim and this again is what I like about what Kyle dubis is doing is an undercurrent a foundation of young Talent that’s coming up and buttressing that it’s smart I understand that it’s also difficult you’ve got Sid sitting there right now waiting for his final contract and Sid wants to see that you know his teams aren’t going to suck in his final three years he’s way too competitive to go along with that but a lot of those pieces are already there they just need some support and they definitely need immediate youth I appreciate the question I appreciate everybody who listens to daily shot of penguins we’re going to do one more of these [Music] tomorrow e

It’s a stronger group, but these prospects still don’t align.

#LetsGoPens #PittsburghPenguins #NHL

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