The Pittsburgh Penguins have time to make decisions to keep Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak or to flip them
NHL Network: Elliotte Friedman on NHL Now when asked about the Pittsburgh Penguins and what they’ll do with newly acquired goaltender Stuart Skinner and defenseman Brett Kulak.
Kevin Weekes: “What about Pittsburgh? This kind of changed the calculus, because they’ve had a better season than we all thought they would have to their credit. Dan Muse is doing an excellent job.
And with that in the acquisition of Skinner here, is this a rental, given that he’s on an expiring contract? Like do they see this as being a rental for them, or are they looking to re-sign him in your in your estimation?”
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Friedman: “I think, I think Kevin, we let that play out and see how it goes. Like, don’t forget, they got four goalies.”
Weekes: “Exactly, yeah.”
Friedman: “Like they still have (Arturs) Silovs. They still have (Sergei) Murashov and they still have (Joel) Blomqvist. And I know they really like the two young guys. I mean, you know, you know goalies better than I do. I wouldn’t profess to be on the same level as you are with them. So you can decide what you think of these guys, but they still have a lot of guys.
And the thing about Kulak too, like I think Kulak’s are really good player. He had a rough year. He gets a reset. He gets a chance to try something else.
You know, I remember last year Kyle Dubas went out, and he traded for Luke Schenn from Nashville, in the Michael bunting, Tommy Novak deal. And the moment that he made that deal, and granted that deal was closer to the deadline, his phone was ringing like, what are you doing with Luke Schenn. So I have no doubt that Dubas phone will be ringing. You know, what are you doing with Skinner? What are you doing with Kulak? What are you thinking here?
… But What are you doing with, what are you doing with Skinner? What are you doing with Kulak? And then Dubas can make his decisions. Does he want to keep them? Does he want to flip them? He has time for this to figure out.
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But you know what Dubas is thinking. He’s thinking even though we’re off to a good start here and we’re in the race, we still have to get a bit younger, and we still have to collect assets. So I think you should be prepared for anything with him.”
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