BONUS EDITION: Thoughts & analysis on the Penguins trading for Kevin Hayes!

the Pittsburgh Penguins made a surprising acquisition on Saturday by trading for Kevin Hayes and Pat and I are going to discuss that in a special mini bonus episode of the locked on Penguins podcast 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 back to a special edition of the locked on Penguins podcast I'm one of your hosts Hunter hodies you can follow me on Twitter Hunter hodies joined by my Coast Patrick D you can follow him on Twitter sun forette and you can follow the show's Twitter _ Penguins so I know this might be weird to everyone out there we never really record on Saturdays we we wanted to get a fresh 10 to 15 minute episode out for you all after the Penguins acquired Kevin Hayes during the second day of the 2024 NHL draft and when I first saw this move I was definitely taken a back I was kind of stunned just because I did not think Kevin Hayes was even out there in trade talks and I did not think that the Penguins were even going to acquire him even if he was traded overall but that's exactly what they did today they acquired him along with a 2025 second round pick from the St Louis Blues in exchange for future considerations haven't seen that in a while so basically the Penguins got him for free and I know there were some people not happy about this move I think at first I was definitely a bit me about it just because I wasn't sure what was going back but the fact that the Penguins really didn't have to give up anything for him the fact that they also got a second round pick for taking the final two years of this contract I see that as at least a little bit of a win for Kyle dubis Kevin Hayes is also someone that can play third line minutes for the Penguins now do I think he's a massive upgrade at third line Center no I think he's a little bit better than LS Eller I think offensively he's a bit better but defensively I think that's where Eller has him by a little bit but this is still a player that I think can help the Penguins for next season and the season after that I also think he's more of a playmaker overall so if you stick someone like valter Pon next to him I think those two could really Thrive together and just getting that extra second round pick for next year's draft which I think is going to be deeper than this year's draft I think that's at least a decent bit of business from kis I think this is a very fine move overall Pat how do you see it everybody everybody with me now all together in through the nose out through the mouth it's June 29th this is not all that they're going to do this summer this is not going to be the one move that they do all summer is this a great move it's fine he's a third line Center he can eat up some minutes he's going to be Improvement an improvement on the bottom six which tells you about how bad the bottom six has been but you're paying a guy three and a half million dollars for the next two years you still have other moves you're gonna make I imagine we're GNA see a Riley Smith trade at some point this summer we're probably I would say likely to see a jari trade if that if that comes about they're going to have ways to free up caps space here we know that the salary Cap's going up we know that there are teams with a lot of a lot more room to play with than what they had at this time last summer so there's a good chance the penguins are going to do more for Kevin Hayes itself I'm right with you it's a me kind of move his numbers aren't exactly great he had a rough year last year only 29 Points in 79 games but two years ago on a not so very good Philadelphia Flyers team before torz decided he hated him in 81 games he scored 18 goals 36 assists 54 points and on a team I understand the Flyers weren't good he was really about one of the only players worth a damn they had but there's still some juice left in the tank here he's not completely washed up yes he doesn't have a ton of foot speed but you're not getting Kevin Hayes for his foot speed you're getting him for the ability to kill penalties you're getting him to eat up minutes when your top six is not on the ice he's going to chip in every now and then and if nothing else it gets right into the type of player the penguins have been missing this guy's not afraid to hit he's not afraid to go to the front of the net he's got some sandpaper in his game and he does the little things that help a team win am I over the moon with this acquisition no but I can see it helping in the next year or two I think it also shows you what Kyle dubis mentality is now every move he makes from here till the end of Crosby malan and lat Tang's careers are going to have draft picks attached to it he is going to stockpile draft pick after draft pick after draft pick and he's going to try to get younger prospects who may not be blue chip top of the level top-of-the-line prospects but he is going for quantity on this not quality he wants to have a very heavily stocked Prospect system so that in the final years of Sydney Crosby he's there to play mentor to what could be a transitional team and a transitional generation in Penguins hockey yeah man I really think people are undervaluing the draft pick part of this trade Kyle dubis has said on multiple occasions that he's willing to take on some salary as long as the team attaches a prospect or a draft pick to that player well the blues just did that with the second round pick which that has the potential to be a high pick in next year's draft because let's face it I don't think the blues are going to be that good next year I think at best they're a very mid team heading into next season but I could see them being a bottom seven bottom eight team in the league next year just because I I think again at this point I don't see them being that good overall when you look up and down that roster so I think that's being a little bit undervalued when you look at this trade overall and you also discussed something that I wanted to get into a little bit here too and that is Kevin Hayes play on the penalty kill these last couple of years he hasn't played on the PK too much in 77 games this year for the blues he only played 15 minutes last year with the Flyers played only 12 and a half minutes but he has quite a bit of experience playing on the penalty kill with the New York Rangers a few seasons ago for example 201617 he played 108 minutes on the penalty kill the next season 168 minutes the season after that in 2019 102 minutes and in 201920 with the Flyers that was his first season with the Flyers he played 140 minutes on the penalty kill I think Mike Sullivan is definitely going to deploy him in the penalty kill quite a bit during this season and that just gives them another forward that can play in that situation outside of Brian Russ who we all know he's great on the penalty kill outside of Lars Eller if he remains on this team just because he's been involved in some trade rumors outside also of no aari if he remains on this team he's also you know we're asking questions about whether he's going to be on the team next year just because I think at least Le one of Eller or aari could be Expendable off of this trade but it just gives them an extra option for the penalty kill and he's been a good penalty killer before in this league he has and the penguins have had a pretty solid P or penalty kill excuse me over the past couple of seasons and we know obviously from this season how important special teams are because of how bad the power play was which we actually found out over the weekend this or considering it's only Saturday this weekend that it looks like Quinn is going to be in charge of the power play this year so I'm overall I'm very just me whatever on this acquisition and I understand the plan behind it and to your other point about the draft picks I mean I think you're right A lot of people are very high on St Louis for what reason I don't know they finished I believe six points out of a playoff spot and that was for the second wild card in the west and they finished I think 15 points out of third place in the central so it's not like this team is knocking at the door and then you look at what they have and what's coming up there isn't a whole lot there this isn't exactly a team that is freeing up cap space to make a big move or fit somebody in or take the next step this is a team that is probably on the precipice of a rebuild so you're probably going to get a solid pick in a deep draft next summer in the second round so overall I like this move from dubis but I'm not going to pretend like it was this great Savvy move it's a good depth player that's gonna help them out in some areas that they have needed help for the last two seasons right and do I think Kevin Hayes is quote unquote cooked no but do I also think he's as good as he used to be no he's just kind of fine at this point I don't think this is going to turn into a Jeff Carter type situation where his game completely goes off the rails this next season or two he's only 32 which I know it is kind of funny that dubis continues to get some guys that are 30 plus even though he keeps talking about the youth movement but I don't think you're going to see too many more moves like that during the off season I do think this move should show to everyone that the penguins are very much in a quote unquote retool on the Fly I guess and maybe M mini rebuild on the Fly there are not in a full L win now mode Contender mode he's made it very clear with this move and some of the comments that he's made this weekend that he's not interested in some of the big moves in free agency he's not interested in parting with a lot of Futures overall he's very focused right now on setting up this organization for Success after the big three and along with Eric Carlson retire and that continues to be made the case here with this move it does and if you need a little bit of a reason to like this move just a little bit more the Philadelphia Flyers are paying 50% of his salary so if he ends up succeeding here thanks a lot Philadelphia because half of that paycheck is coming out of your bank account right and I do think if they decide to keep Eller for next season for the final year of his deal I mean your bottom six centers Kevin Hayes and Lars Eller with how good Eller was for the Penguins this past season and with a potential bounce back for Hayes you can do a lot worse than those two as your centers in the bottom six if that's what they want to run with for next season and again I do think adding a playmaker like Hayes for the third line makes a lot of sense because you can put someone like a valter Pon next to him who's a pure finisher I think that can unlock him in more than one way and if you want to add another finisher to the third line maybe via free agency on a one or twoyear deal that would also make some sense as well I also like the move for those reasons yeah and you look at a lot of the things dubis has said during the draft they're not going to hand out any four five six plus year deals here over the next couple of weeks it's going to be one to three years Max you're going to look at some depth players I think that are going to come in to fill in whether it's middle six bottom six or defense so I think we're seeing his overall view in plan really start to take shape and come to fruition here it's not it's like you said they're not tearing everything down in starting from scratch this isn't going to be a scorched Earth campaign from Kyle dubis but he's also not going to do what he did last summer you're not gonna see the big deal for some big name that they could go get like there's not going to be an Eric Carlson type type trade this summer it's going to be trades around the margin he's going to free up some cap space to make some moves on the margin and you're going to see a lot of draft capital and a lot of prospects come into the system and it's going to be names that I'm I've been saying this for a while it's going to be names that you're going to be underwhelmed by you're going to see these names and think I don't know a whole lot about this person this player his history but he is trying to as my colleague at KD Ka Josh Taylor Put It Go with the Neil Huntington philosophy where instead of just banking on one or two prospects to make it you're banking on three or four to make it and your ability to get something productive out of three or four prospects rather than one or two is a lot higher right and speaking of prospects I do really like the job that KY dubis did during the 2024 and ital draft this weekend getting a player like Harrison Riku I think is their best defensive prospect in the system right now and a total rat in Tanner how I think he's very much a Sam Bennett type player you all are going to love him once he makes his Penguins debut I had him in my honorable mentions category on my big board that I dropped over the weekend and I'm super excited that they were able to get him in the second round as well as Max Swanson in the seventh round that could be a Flatout steal if he works out the only reason why he dropped to the seventh round is because he's 5 foot s but we'll have more details and analysis about the 2024 Penguins draft coming up for the Monday edition of the show as well as everything they do during free agency but for pastor damp I am Hunter hodies thank you all so much for tuning in to this special edition of the locked on Penguins podcast and we'll talk with you all on Monday for free agent Frenzy