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Salary Cap: Pens 2024 Summer Thread: "Thus, knocking us out of these superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow a non-playoff bound gap!"

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I don't think Ty Smith is far enough along yet to say that he's awful. For as little as it means he led WB/S in scoring as a defenseman last season and has a very good NHL season under his belt as a young player. I would be cautious judging most young players who have come up under this team's coaching staff and management, honestly. While I don't completely agree with what Gurgs is driving at here I do agree that how they handle players/trades/etc. is very often bizarre and careless.
 
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SEALBound said:
Then why do you defend Hextall like he's your father or lover?
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Not sure my comments on Hextall's time here would qualify as "defending him".

It's like when I say Bylsma was a better coach than Mike Sullivan outside of the championships. It isn't saying Bylsma was a great coach.

Hextall made mistakes while he was here. I just think people don't realize that a lot of his decisions made sense. His last deadline here was dispicable and deserved firing.

That being said, he acquired Kulikov who is playing 3rd pairing minutes on the ECF favorite and Granlund who put up 60 pts this year.

There is a consistent trend with this roster where players are consistently misused and "forced" into roles because nothing is flexible.

We saw what happened when Dubas broke that up this year by moving out multiple of Sullivan's favorites in Guentzel and Ruhwedel. Suddenly, the top line is functioning with OC and a random WBS defenseman looks like our best defensive defenseman.

Weird.
 
Gurglesons said:
There is a consistent trend with this roster where players are consistently misused and "forced" into roles because of nothing is flexible.
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Ahhh Penguins Training Camp/Preseason in a nutshell.

"Well boy howdy we'd sure LOVE to play more young guys but we just so HAPPENED to sign like 3-5 journeymen vets who can PK mediocre and do just about nothing else useful and we can't NOT play those guys! Blame Hextall... er... Dubas? Whoever the current GM is. I can't keep track."
 
BlindWillyMcHurt said:
I don't think Ty Smith is far enough along yet to say that he's awful. For as little as it means he led WB/S in scoring as a defenseman last season and has a very good NHL season under his belt as a young player. I would be cautious judging most young players who have come up under this team's coaching staff and management, honestly. While I don't completely agree with what Gurgs is driving at here I do agree that how they handle players/trades/etc. is very often bizarre and careless.
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Nah, Smith is an absolutely nothing piece at this point. He has passed through waivers already with no one claiming him and Carolina traded for him purely for contract reasons at the deadline. They're probably not even going to hand him a qualifying offer.

Smith's problems are identical to Pouliot's problems: he's too slow at processing the game to be an effective OFD in the NHL. The only difference with Pouliot is that he got a chance to play on a bad Canucks team, but he firmly showed he wasn't cut out as a NHL defenseman.
 
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Empoleon8771 said:
Nah, Smith is an absolutely nothing piece at this point. He has passed through waivers already with no one claiming him and Carolina traded for him purely for contract reasons at the deadline. They're probably not even going to hand him a qualifying offer.

Smith's problems are identical to Pouliot's problems: he's too slow at processing the game to be an effective OFD in the NHL. The only difference with Pouliot is that he got a chance to play on a bad Canucks team, but he firmly showed he wasn't cut out as a NHL defenseman.
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Yeah, imagine a player turning out that passed through waivers unclaimed..


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Empoleon8771 said:
Nah, Smith is an absolutely nothing piece at this point. He has passed through waivers already with no one claiming him and Carolina traded for him purely for contract reasons at the deadline. They're probably not even going to hand him a qualifying offer.

Smith's problems are identical to Pouliot's problems: he's too slow at processing the game to be an effective OFD in the NHL. The only difference with Pouliot is that he got a chance to play on a bad Canucks team, but he firmly showed he wasn't cut out as a NHL defenseman.
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I guess. He's only 24 and had to slog through the Penguins system the last couple of seasons. He wasn't bad from what I recall when he did get some shots in the NHL here. I don't think he's ever gonna really break out into something big but I could see him establishing himself as a sheltered powerplay specialist/OFD somewhere and having some success at it.

I just don't trust writing players off when they leave this team, anymore. And without even getting into Sullivan it's pretty obvious that WB/S wasn't being run by some braintrust either since all those guys are now looking for jobs.

EDIT: But as far as "value?" Yeah... he's not worth anything. I'm not upset they didn't try to work out an individual trade for a pick or a player swap or anything like that because there wasn't a market for him.
 
Empoleon8771 said:
That's a separate discussion entirely. I'm saying Smith is a nothing piece.
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Maybe. Maybe not. Having a 23 year old on a league minimum deal this year that put up solid analytics and 4 points in 9 games the year previous would've been cool to see get some minutes over say Ryan Shea or Chad Ruhwedel playing 31 and 47 games respectively.

But hey, I should probably trust the coach and franchise who has developed 0 young players in the last five years I guess.
 
If Carolina didn't qualify Smith and he was interested in coming back, I'd toss him a 2-way deal. He's not the worst option if you need that 7/8/9 PMD to fill in for injuries. I highly doubt he ever seen regular NHL ice. I'd be very much interested in bringing Ryan Shea back. If they wanted to toss him a 2-3-year deal like they just did with JSI, I'd be on board. He could essentially be the Rudwedel replacement where you keep a capable 6/7 on the roster to play here and there without the worry of stunting development if you must HS him for 20 games in a row.

Looking at the roster, I completely and utterly forgot about Jack Rathbone. Totally spaced he we picked him up from the Canucks. He's another guy like Smith who had a promising start and then sunk into irrelevancy.

Gurglesons said:
Are Penguins fans really saying they wouldn't trade Letang, a 1st and Pickering for Marner in the trade forum?
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Yes.
 
People are a little weird about Marner. Guy is a like consistent 90ish point player who also plays some very respectable defense and on top of that is simply fun to watch. I get that he hasn't had the success fans want in the playoffs but I dunno... I'm not that worried about that these days re: the Penguins plus I'm not sure how much of that is really on him and him alone.

Letang, a 1st and Pickering seems like a steal to me. I love Letang but he's at the end of the road and I don't think his level of play is THAT difficult to backfill at this point, sad as it makes me to say that.
 
BlindWillyMcHurt said:
People are a little weird about Marner. Guy is a like consistent 90ish point player who also plays some very respectable defense and on top of that is simply fun to watch. I get that he hasn't had the success fans want in the playoffs but I dunno... I'm not that worried about that these days re: the Penguins plus I'm not sure how much of that is really on him and him alone.

Letang, a 1st and Pickering seems like a steal to me. I love Letang but he's at the end of the road and I don't think his level of play is that difficult to backfill at this point, sad as it makes me to say that.
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Ridding yourself of Letang also gives you a better compliment in terms of building out your 2nd and 3rd pairings. You can bring in a player like DeMelo and go for a low cost high potential signing like Kylington on the LHD side.
 
ChaosAgent said:
"Fans who don't want to see the guys ride off into the sunset disgust me."

"Please get rid of Letang even though we "love him.""
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Letang won't waive for TOR anyway.

If the price were Malkin instead I'd do the same deal with some tweaking TBH. Are these guys NOT at the end of their road? That's all everyone was bitching about all year.
 
BlindWillyMcHurt said:
Letang won't waive for TOR anyway.

If the price were Malkin instead I'd do the same deal with some tweaking TBH. Are these guys NOT at the end of their road? That's all everyone was bitching about all year.
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Of course I do either deal. Not that it would happen.
 
ChaosAgent said:
"Fans who don't want to see the guys ride off into the sunset disgust me."

"Please get rid of Letang even though we "love him.""
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This place has a weird defense mechanism for Malkin that somehow doesn't apply for Letang. I don't really get it.

If you say Malkin is toast and the team would be great to get out of his contract, you'd get an army coming after you. Say the same thing about Letang? Not a problem.
 
I don't understand the logic of "getting out of Letang's deal will cost a 1st, so they should trade him". Like even if it were true, why are the Penguins of all teams paying to get out of deals? It's the same logic as Graves, the team is going to suck in like 2 years so why do we care if a deal is bad in the long-term? Bad teams don't pay assets to get out of bad deals, they take on assets to acquire bad deals.

This team committed to the "bad long-term deals" path in the 2022 off-season, you don't just magically jump off that train 2 years in because you're scared of what a 40 year old Letang is going to look like.
 
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