Penguins Video Q&A: The Hayes Trade, Draft Picks and Next Deal?

LAS VEGAS — From the hallway in Encore because Sphere quickly ushered us out after the draft. The big news of Saturday was not the Pittsburgh Penguins draft but the Penguins’ trade with the St. Louis Blues for Kevin Hayes.

The Penguins acquired Hayes and a second-rounder for future considerations. Essentially a salary dump by St. Louis facilitated by the pick.

Basically, it was trade for a second-round pick with Hayes thrown in. The going rate in the NHL has been a second-round pick to accept a $3.5 million salary, and president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas paid up, fulfilling his stated desire to acquire draft picks as urgently as he could.

The Penguins will now have a pick in all seven rounds next year.

However, PHN readers were not so happy with the deal. I received a few questions about it and where Hayes fits into the lineup, as well as some derisive comments about Dubas’s job performance.

We’ll get into where Hayes fits, what the Penguins see in the picks they made, and who was the jackwagon who decided to have a phone conversation right behind me? Seriously, we were in a 200-foot hallway, and Slappy chose my little area?

Like and comment on the video. NHL free agency starts Monday.