The Pittsburgh Penguins kicked off the NHL trade deadline season Tuesday with the first post-Olympic trade, dealing away pending free agent defenseman Brett Kulak to get younger and faster Samuel Girard, and the team\u2019s ninth second-round pick in the next three years. The organization also did some roster shuffling, and before we knew what was coming, dropped the latest 3 Penguins Thoughts about what happens if Sidney Crosby is injured. <\/p>\n
Elsewhere in the Daily, on Sportsnet, Nick Kypreos stirred the NHL trade rumors with his latest trade board. Vincent Trocheck and Nazem Kadri are drawing significant interest. And Jack Hughes spoke earnestly about Team USA and their relationship with the USA Women\u2019s team. <\/p>\n
Gee, what else was going on in hockey? Oh, yeah, Team USA became a lightning rod for all sorts of anger by visiting the White House and the State of the Union speech, and President Trump surprised everyone by awarding Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom during the speech. <\/p>\n
Jack Hughes had some great comments Tuesday, too. <\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019m not going to change anyone\u2019s mind here about politics or any issue. I have no interest in trying, but I will stick up for sports. It would seem appropriate to direct political anger or praise toward the politicians responsible. We can ALL revel in the joy and accomplishment with athletes who did us proud and have done nothing but shine a positive light on hockey, say they loved America (and our dentists), and accepted the honors bestowed upon them.<\/p>\n
And the PHN comments section is very much not the place to get into that discussion about the politicians. Plenty of other places for that. <\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Penguins<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Hockey Now: OK, let\u2019s work backward. First, the trade. The Penguins dealt Brett Kulak for Sam Girard and ANOTHER second-round pick. Here\u2019s the Penguins trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n GM Kyle Dubas fielded questions via email from the handful of beat outlets, including PHN. Here\u2019s what we collectively asked and how Dubas responded, including about the potential loss of chemistry between Kulak and Kris Letang, and what they expect from Girard<\/a>. <\/p>\n Interestingly, the Penguins cleared four roster spots in Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton. What made that newsworthy is that 2023 third-round pick Emil Pieniniemi was among the demotions. And we have a Matt Dumba<\/a> update, too.<\/p>\n You know, I\u2019m supposed to ignore the comments or fanboy hate. Still, I wish I could go back and find the few people who were trying to discredit me for comparing Pieniniemi to former Penguins prospect defenseman Isaac Belliveau, who also shuffled back and forth between the AHL and ECHL. <\/p>\n And we had some real Penguins team analysis, too. The Sidney Crosby \u201cWhat If\u201d game. What about Malkin? And a couple of Pittsburgh-sized potholes in the road ahead highlight the 3 Penguins Thoughts<\/a>.<\/p>\n NHL Trade Talk, News, & National Hockey Now<\/p>\n Sportsnet: There are some heavyweights\u2013and rightfully so\u2013included on Kypreos\u2019s new 4.0 NHL trade board, from Jordan Kyrou to Elias Pettersson<\/a>. <\/p>\n TSN: Darren Dreger reports that a Nazem Kadri trade is starting to feel inevitable, and the Flames are getting strong offers for Kadri<\/a>.<\/p>\n RG.org: James Murphy reports that\u2013IF\u2013New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck will waive his no-trade clause, he will be traded, and the Minnesota Wild are very interested<\/a>. <\/p>\n New Jersey Hockey Now: When did Jack Hughes become a smooth spokesperson? Hughes addressed the criticisms, the misconceptions about their relationship with the Women\u2019s team, and the love of country. The Team USA hero<\/a> spoke well \u2026 through missing teeth.<\/p>\n TSN Video: Trigger warning\u2013it\u2019s the SOTU speech. Here\u2019s the Team USA entrance into the speech and the President announcing he\u2019ll award Hellebuyck the Medal of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n Detroit Hockey Now: Igor Larionov. The professor. Hockey legend. He stopped short of criticizing the IOC and NHL, but he said it\u2019s time to include Russia in these hockey tournaments<\/a>. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: connor hellebuyck<\/a> jack hughes<\/a> nhl trade<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> <\/p>\n Categorized:Links<\/a> NHL Trade Rumors<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins kicked off the NHL trade deadline season Tuesday with the first post-Olympic trade, dealing away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[58091,58092,10172,73,75,74,1067],"class_list":["post-123705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-connor-hellebuyck","tag-jack-hughes","tag-nhl-trade","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}