NHL Scouts Loved Penguins 1st Round Pick; Extended Conversation w/ Canadiens

MONTREAL — When rival teams praise your work, it stands out as especially shrewd and usually one that others wished they could do. As the National Hockey Now staff canvassed team professionals at the NHL Draft at the Bell Centre, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ pick stood out.

It has been quite a while since the Penguins received praise for their drafting work.

The last time multiple picks reached the NHL was 2015, and those players were Daniel Sprong and Dominik Simon. You can insert your own adjectives about that draft.

*Marco D’Amico and other NHN staff members contributed to this report.

Multiple NHL team execs from the player development and scouting realms praised the Penguins’ first-round pick of Owen Pickering. In a not-for-attribution conversation, one rival team brought up Pickering, unprompted.

“Great growth potential. He’s just growing into his body. He’s a top-four d-man for sure,” one player development exec raved to an NHN writer.

The Penguins plucked Pickering with the 21st overall pick on Thursday night. The 18-year-old defenseman was just 5-foot-7 when he was drafted into the WHL two seasons ago.

Now he’s 6-foot-4 and 180 pounds. That’s a lot of growing in a short time. Forgive Pickering if he’s a little gangly. You can read up on Pickering and see his introduction press conference at the NHL Draft here.

The folks who are paid to know these things like the pick, which speaks well of the new staff, including director of amateur scouting Nick Pryor and assistant GM Chris Pryor.

Pittsburgh Penguins Trade Chatter

The Penguins have a few years of a salary cap blessing: Kris Letang at a lower cap hit. That may bite them in several years, but for the foreseeable future, Letang’s $6.1 million cap hit is a bargain.

GM Ron Hextall has a few more holes to plug in the forward lineup. The Penguins have just four of their bottom nine forwards under contract for next season. If a prospect such as Drew O’Connor claims a spot, that makes five, but it’s still a lot of puzzle pieces to put together in a short time.

The NHL free agent frenzy begins in four days.

One interesting note from the draft — Hextall and Montreal Canadiens Kent Hughes had extended face-to-face conversations.

It’s speculation, but let me toss out a new name: Josh Anderson, the gritty power forward type who always showed well against the Penguins as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Like the Penguins’ Bryan Rust, Anderson has worked his way into the NHL from the bottom up. Recall he was a bubble and lower line player for Columbus before finding his scoring stroke.

“You can see clearly that we need a couple more forwards,” Hextall said. “I feel pretty comfortable with our defense, but we do need a couple more forwards.”

With Letang, the Penguins are set on the blue line, unless Hextall is going to have a Summer of ’69 experience and go wild with multiple trades.

And that’s why we’re keeping eyes on Anderson. The 28-year-old winger is in the third year of a seven-year deal with a $5.5 million cap hit. At 6-foot-3, 222 pounds, Anderson would be “truculence” and a physical scoring edge the Pittsburgh Penguins have not had in decades.

The Penguins are a little short on puzzle pieces they can part with to acquire a talent like Anderson, but it’s not impossible, and a big body near the net would surely tax the Metro Division defensemen.