Penguins Update: No Takebacks

As a kid growing up in Bethel Park, my friends and I were avid baseball card collectors. Occasionally we’d flip ‘em or swap ‘em.

“No takebacks!” was a familiar refrain following such sacred transactions.

Unfortunately, the same rules apply to the NHL draft. When a player is selected, he’s yours. No do-overs.

Okay, Buker. What are you getting at?

Having read Other Rick’s latest lament about the Penguins burning their first pick in this summer’s draft on Owen Pickering instead of Maveric Lamoureux (pictured above)? While my esteemed colleague and I don’t always see eye to eye, I can definitely see where he’s coming from.

Statistically, there wasn’t much separating Pickering and Lamoureux as 17-year-olds.

Ironically, each had the worst plus/minus on his respective junior team.

The clincher for me may well be Lamoureux’s player description on Elite Prospects:

In the offensive zone, he activates, often ahead of the play. He anticipates openings and makes sure to become an option. He turns shots into passes from the far corners of the offensive zone. In transition, he uses the middle, tries to slip pucks through defenders, and identifies cross-lane opportunities. Defensively, he’s ultra-physical and gets on players early.

Yes, there’s a reason I bolded that last sentence.

I’m thinking specifically of comments Pickering himself made after being selected with the 21^st pick…eight slots ahead of Lamoureux, who went to Arizona.

“The thing I would like to work on is physical strength,” Pickering said. “I feel like that’s … the natural path for me, just kind of filling out… It’s about being strong, being able to battle.”

The operative words in the statement are being able to. As in, he isn’t able to at this stage of his development?

In his defense, Pickering sprouted from 5’7” to 6’4” in a ridiculously short span. It’s only natural he has some filling out to do. And there’s certainly ample room on his coltish frame for muscle to be added and for the physical maturation process to occur.

For the record, both players are on the lean side. Lamoureux goes 6’7” and 200 pounds. Pickering 6’4” 180.

Am I splitting hairs? Perhaps. But like Other Rick, I long for a guy who plays an honest-to-goodness physical game. Now. Without qualifiers, like wait till he grows into his frame.

It’s been so long since the Pens have had a bona fide physical presence on the blue line…or anywhere for that matter. You have to set the WABAC machine to the start of the 2019-20 season and Erik Gudbranson. Guddy was gone by the end of October.

Indeed, we shed physical players with greater efficacy than fleas dropping off Rover after he’s been fitted with a fresh Hartz Flea & Tick Collar. I guess that’s to be expected given Mike Sullivan’s “just play” mantra. In “Sully’s” book, middleweight Zach Aston-Reese was a heavy player.

It’s beginning to sink in that GM Ron Hextall doesn’t necessarily have a bent toward muscle, either. Yes, he drafts size. But judging by his picks with Philly, size that rarely translated into tough. They equated to…well…Pickering.

Maybe Hextall knew what he was doing when he selected the Manitoba native. Quite a few rival GMs complimented GMRH on his choice, not exactly a common occurrence. And the kid certainly has the raw tools. Perhaps Pickering will, indeed, fulfill his promise and blossom into a rangy, puck-moving second pairing defenseman as envisioned.

However, Lamoureux (who can fight and fight well) may have eventually provided a Zdeno Chara-type presence for a team that in IMHO could sorely use one. Wrapped in a kid who can play.

Guys like that don’t come along very often…especially in this day and age.

No offense to Pickering, who by all accounts is a good kid and a solid choice. But it kinda makes me wish we had a takeback.