Penguins' Positional Battles: Left Side
There will be many intriguing positional battles for the Pittsburgh Penguins during training camp this season, and one of the most interesting ones will involve the left side on defense.
Video Transcript
I do wanna talk about the coaching staff a little bit, because, you know, we obviously know this was Dan, Head Coach Dan Muse's first season, as an NHL head coach.
He was nominated for the Jack Adams.
This whole coaching staff stayed intact, Hunter, and honestly I'm a little bit surprised by that.
I thought Todd Nelson would probably get pried for some interviews, same with Mike Sutters, but everybody's staying put.
I guess just looking ahead to training camp and looking ahead to the season, if you're Dan Muse, and you know, we know that Dan Muse is a very, you know, developmental focused coach.
That's why the Penguins hired him, that's why Kyle Dubas brought him in.
He's a very development heavy coach, and they like working with these younger players.
They like kinda getting the best out of guys.
I mean, what do you think this training camp and this season is gonna look like for Dan Muse and the coaching staff?
But just as far as some of these decisions go, we know that they work together with Kyle Dubas on pretty much everything.
This is a really collaborative effort from the entire coaching staff and the entire front office.
Just what kind of position is Dan Muse gonna be in during this training camp, and just faced with some of these decisions, especially as a guy who's very developmentally focused?
Yeah, I mean, I think he's just gonna reward opportunities really.
Like, if you're performing really well and, you know, y- say you have a really good pre-season game as a younger player, okay, I think he's gonna throw you right back out there for the next pre-season game.
Even though the, the pre-season is shorter, I th- I still think you're going to get more opportunities to show what you can do.
And hell, maybe he, he'll put that same veteran that the younger player is pushing in there as well, and be like, "Okay, let's see what you can do."
And if the younger player potentially plays a little bit better, okay, he'll probably relay that to the front office and then they'll have a conversation about it, you know, once we get closer to camp, once we get closer to the end of camp.
I don't think this is gonna be that long of a camp anyway.
I mean, it's probably starting- Yeah in two weeks.
You know, when you get a few practices in and the pre-season starts, and then you're kinda just down to morning skates.
And it feels like the games this year are gonna matter even more than they did last year.
Because you had a ton more practices last year.
I don't think you're getting as many, like, actual practices this year with the games.
You're getting some practices, but then you're getting some games, and I think those are gonna matter even more for some of these younger players.
Gotcha.
And, also too, I think my ADHD, like, brain kinda took over when I was asking about the Dan Muse thing, but I think you brought up kinda the point, brought home the point that I was trying to articulate with Dan Muse, is the fact that I think something that people aren't really talking about and that's gonna be a big factor in these decisions, is the fact that the evaluation period is simply shorter.
Like, they, they don't, they don't have as much opportunity.
They don't have as much time.
They don't have as many games to evaluate.
So I mean, for some of these players that are on the fringe, they really have to make themselves stand out if they wanna make this team.
And that goes for those fringe guys like Lapierre, Brazzo, all those guys.
You, you think that in these games, those are the guys that are gonna get the bulk of starts here.
Thems, them and then the Avery Hayes', the Rocco Grimaldi's, the Ville Leino's, the Hersheys, the Pickering's, et cetera, et cetera.
I think those are gonna be the, the, the guys that we see in these games, for, by and large.
Because remember too, now with, the new rules, veteran players can only play two pre-season games.
So I mean, not that they were playing many more than that before, they really weren't.
But even last year we saw Ricardo Rakell out of necessity being thrown into some of these, pre-season games.
That's not gonna happen this year, 'cause it's gonna be, again, there's a games played minimum.
And that's gonna be an emphasis.
But the fact that they only have four games this year to evaluate, the fact that they only have a week and a half to two weeks to evaluate, I think kinda changes the whole process.
And that's something I'm curious to ask Dan Muse about when training camp opens, because it is a lot different.
I mean, training camp was basically three weeks before.
You're basically cutting out an entire week to week and a half evaluation.
So again, it'll be interesting.
