DK's Daily Shot of Penguins: Trapped on goaltending

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I've no doubt that in a perfect world, Kyle Dubus would want Alex Nelkevich back almost as much as Ned PERSON wants to be back. But this is not a perfect world that's been built here. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I'm Dan Kovach of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports ORG.This is Daily Shot of Penguins WORK_OF_ART. It comes your way bright and early every weekday. If you're into football and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates in the same place that you found this. I'll give Dubas PERSON credit for this. In his end of season press conference up in Cranberry last Friday, He was asked about Ned PERSON's future with the franchise. And he offered up one of the most candid open responses you'll ever hear from a sports executive.And I'll play it for you right here in its entirety. He's an unrestricted free agent.

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I think he's been very vocal about his views. We, as I said to him yesterday, we have a situation where we have a young goal tender that's also pushing in Joel Bloomquist PERSON. We're going to use this next stretch of weeks. The last two games here,they'll play one game this weekend, but then really the playoffs with Wilkes, how does Joel PERSON play? Can he assert himself at that level? And then we'll have more information of how we want to go ahead with our goaltending. So to put background to that,

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basically what Dubas PERSON is saying is that he'd like to have Ned PERSON back if he believes that Yuel Blumquist PERSON, the team's top goaltending prospect, wouldn't be ready to back up Tristan Jari next season, or even to compete with Jari PERSON for the starting job.I'm reading that one with a little bit of license, meaning that last part. But you don't generally have a prospect, really at any position, and then force them into a situation where they're going to be a backup, because then you're minimizing their playing time, you're slowing their development, and so forth, okay? Now, where Net is concerned, man, Dubas PERSON could have answered that a million different ways and not caused a single eyebrow to get raised. But he chose the honest way, and I'll always admire that.Now, that said, here's the part that he can't and won't say to that scenario. He's stuck with Jari PERSON. He's stuck with Jari for the remainder of Jari's five-year, $27 million contract, which still has four years to go. He's not going to move that thing. He's not going to be able to pay somebody to take it,meaning to do one of those, you know, we'll pick up X amount of the salary, because then he has to explain to his bosses at Fenway Sports Group why he just wrote up this contract last summer and all of a sudden they're having to eat X percentage of it. He's not going to do that. He's not even going to bring it up. I can promise you that. And the other thing that he's not going to do if he doesn't have to is put $8 million or $9 million into the goaltending position, unless he's got $8 million or $9 million worth of goaltending at hand. Now listen, I like Ned PERSON a lot on and off the ice. I can't remember the last time I respected a goaltender around here for his work ethic, for his commitment, for the way teammates love him, other than to go back to Mark Andre Fleury PERSON.That's not to compare Ned to Flower. I'm just talking about in the one specific sense. And it would be wonderful if he's kept. and it would be wonderful if he's kept. But I don't look at Jari and Ned and say, yeah, there's eight or nine million in goal tending there. That tandem right there.I don't. You can go back to the first two, even three months of this past season. And those guys to their credit, just to be fair here, were top five in the league as a tandem, principally based on safe percentage, but based on other metrics as well. And then they weren't. First, Jari started to slip. Ned PERSON came in, got hot. Ned as we all saw faded a bit at the end with that crazy stretch of 13 games in a row, understandably. And the cumulative numbers between the two ended up being about average, and you're not going to pay eight or nine million dollars foraverage. The other thing that you don't want to do, and I think this is something that Dubus PERSON wouldn't want to state publicly either, is trap Blumfist PERSON, is to say, hey, there's nowhere for you to go. There's nowhere for you to move up in this organization, because we've got one guy signed for five years, and let's say that Ned PERSON were to get a contract. I'm just going to make this up. I haven't done any research on this. Certainly not any reporting. Something in the range of two years and I don't know, three million plus. I'm thinking along the lines of what Casey DeSmith PERSON was getting with a little bit more becauseNed was able to end the season as a very clear number one. Well, if that happens, then Blancfist, who was an A.H.L. ORG All-Star. The Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins only All-Star. And he's 22 years old. He's got a bright future ahead of him. But he needs to play.And he needs to advance if and when he's ready to advance. Trapped is the word you're looking for. Dubus PERSON is trapped. He trapped himself with that Jari PERSON contract. Really did. The best case scenario that Dubus has now is that Jari PERSON plays extremely well, becomes richly consistent,becomes the ultimate teammate to the extent that his teammates will talk about him the way they have about Ned PERSON. And that will require one hell of a transformation for somebody who's already guaranteed to get paid a lot of money over a long period of time. It tends to not happen like that in professional sports. Tough, tough situation, but you know what? It sure makes the Colorado Cup playoffs worth monitoring, doesn't it? When we come back, J1Q. Today's J1Q. Today's J1Q comes from Nikolai, who says, If Kyle Dubus loses the locker room with the Jake Gensel PERSON trade, and then tells the whole world that Alex Andalkovich's PERSON run was a, quote, hot goalie,and quote, even if it's just to raise Tristan Jari's PERSON trade value, is Dubas PERSON a bad communicator, a bad GM, or both? You know, he's clumsy, I think at times is the best way to put it. I've now seen and heard enough scenarios with Dubus PERSON to believe that he means well in his interactions. They don't always come out just right. He's really, really intense.He's really, really focused on what it is that he's doing. And it feels to me as if when he has to really, really focused on what it is that he's doing. And it feels to me as if when he has to relay any of that to the outside world, well, let's just say he's exactly the type that you would expect to be named team president and then to name himself the general manager, because it's one less conversation he's got to have. Again, not to suggest he isn't talkative or friendly or anything like that. I've found the exact opposite to be true,but it's that he knows what he's thinking. He believes that it's right and everything else that happens is ancillary. Does that make sense? So even in an extraordinary case, like the Jake PERSON trade, and again, we're not revisiting for the millionth time the actual trade,just talking about its execution because that's what you brought up, the execution. One of the things that Dubas PERSON did, the Jake PERSON trade that was tremendous, was that instead of letting Jake PERSON find out about it in some other form,and instead of telling him via text or over the phone, he drove to Jake PERSON's house and sat there and relayed to him why it happened exactly what was going on, what it meant, toward the future and everything else,and it was done face to face. It was done in person. That's really, really cool. You know what he didn't do? Dubus PERSON? Never did that with Sid PERSON.Now, do you owe that to Sid PERSON? You can debate that up, down and sideways. There are people who will go, I have to tell the player or anything. Sid PERSON's the resident living legend. There are exceptions to this sort of thing.The last time we had a resident living legend, as your first line center, he ended up owning the team. But even before he did, you'd kind of talk things over. You know, that when the penguins picked up Paul Coffey, Tom Barrasso PERSON, and so forth,they didn't run it past Mario PERSON for his approval, but he didn't find out about it from somewhere else. So that's what I mean when I say it's more about clumsiness than it is any sort of malice. And I don't know if that has anything to do with his having come here from Toronto GPE. And the really hyper something, I can't even come up with a proper word for how crazy that atmosphere is up there, that he'd have to deal with on a daily basis. Everything here in Pittsburgh GPE, it just, our heartbeat's a little slower.You know, it's just as passionate, it's more passionate, but it's a little slower, you know? I appreciate the question. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Penguins, and we're going to do another one of these tomorrow.