This Contract is a DISASTER...

This is backfiring on the Penguins like crazy. Today, we're going to be talking about Villei Koivunen's contract and the early returns on it. Spoiler alert, they are not that great or what we expected at all. We're going to talk also a little bit about Nick Robertson, how he's been good, but maybe not as good as you think, given his ice time. There's a lot of interesting things going on with the Penguins who are not off to the hottest start. But hello, everyone. Welcome back to Penguin Digest. My name is Nikos Ganguly. It's been a while since I've seen you guys. I feel like I say that every video, but I have been pretty busy. Luckily, my colleague Casey has been holding it down. I know you guys have loved his videos, so a shout-out to him, obviously. But we're going to be talking about Villei Koivunen in this video. A little bit on the Penguins' schedule, as Casey's kind of talked about, you know, the main things going on in the past. But I do want to break down Billy Corbin, because you guys know, if you've been around the channel for a long time, at one point, I was the president of the Billy Corbin fan club. But, you know, I announced that I was leaving. I was stepping down because I wasn't liking what I was seeing. But before we get into that, of course, make sure you guys do subscribe to the channel. We are currently at 67.5% of viewers who are not subscribed in the channel. I think we recently just hit 2,700 subscribers. Thank you guys so much for that. I appreciate the support, and KC does as well. So, with that being said, let's get into the rest of the video. So, I already have this pulled out. Obviously, the schedule of the Penguins are coming off, you know, a loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, who are not a good team. uh they were also down in that game and now they have to go up against uh kind of not a great uh not a great next three games they're the Colorado Avalanche which would be technically I guess tonight when this video goes up and then they have the uh the Vegas Golden Knights and then they have the Utah Mammoth three very solid teams and it also does not get easier there they have the Florida Panthers after that uh the Predators maybe they could pull that one out and then Utah again but that's you know looking down more towards the end of the month so looking at the Colorado Avalanche game uh it's gonna be a tough one the i believe the avalanche just uh uh lost against the uh the dallas stars in the shootout so they are going to need uh to pull out a win in that case and then uh the penguins what am i talking about they need to pull out a win too they have it's it's been interesting i mean a lot of the guys have been underperforming and like i said i do want to talk about uh the lines a little bit so obviously looking at kind of what we're getting into tomorrow we'll see if anything just changed of course or tonight i'm recording this the night before, but Ricardo, Raquel, Sidney Crosby, Brian Rust, yeah, it seems like that's been the move since Brian Rust has returned and been healthy, Tchenkov, Novak, Malkin, we knew that was going to be the move, and then Kuzmenko, Kendall, Koivunen, Koivunen and Robertson, the two bottom six right wingers, are who I'm going to focus on today, this is Koivunen coming into tonight's game, obviously, he only has two points, hasn't been as good as you wanted him to, if we kind of look at the graphic here, has never been able to really produce consistently in the NHL, 20 in 24-25 again this year he is only averaging 13 minutes of ice time with two points in five games, a plus three which is fine but uh i don't know what we're expecting for him in terms of production obviously maybe if he's the bottom six player you do want him to get 40 you know 45 points that could be what he's on pace for but it's a little less than that i'm talking maybe just like seeing him play he does kind of look a little bit behind uh everyone in my opinion I just I was expecting a little bit more from him um especially given his contract this is some stuff that I was seeing on Twitter this is from uh Josh Ohi uh one of the major Penguins writers he says I don't mean to pick on Billy Koevenin he's a nice kid but it feels like he's being forced into the lineup with the exception of his pretty goal in the opener which was nice I'll give him that doesn't look to me like he's ready to be a full-time NHL contributor and isn't one of their top 12 forwards and then he went on to say um he doesn't produce constantly is a step behind in releasing his shot gets muscled off the puck a lot isn't a pest in the NHL like he is in the NHL I'm not writing him off or saying he sucks I'm just not seeing enough and of course all this kind of comes down to his contract which is four million dollars for the next eight years oh my goodness I talked about this when the contract came out uh this is a huge gamble a huge bet I know people are like oh you know the cap's going up this is still a big contract uh you are betting heavily on him becoming either a top six player or a middle strong, strong middle six contributor, and right now, the early returns are not saying that, especially given the eye test from what I've been seeing, you guys let me know in the comments what you guys think, I think if he is making league minimum or $1 million, something like that, which might be league min now, I'm not too sure, he is not on the NHL roster, I just think it's true, and I feel like I've been picking on him a lot, and I'm not trying to, but if you look in the AHL, there are guys who definitely do deserve a chance, I mean, I was looking at the roster today, someone like Avery Hayes, I think, is a right winger, could come up and maybe give you a different look on that third line right wingers spot. We're still waiting on Rucker to break in. I don't know what's going on with him. Maybe that's, I don't know what's happening with him. That's probably a video for another day and then maybe Bill Zonning gets a shot and then Atlee Calvert has been really good in the AHL as well. These are four guys who I think could give you similar production to Billy Coivin and are either younger or making significantly less money and this is again, this isn't to hate on Billy Coivin and I think he can be a solid NHL player at some point. It just seems like his contract is kind of anchoring him uses decisions in terms of what he actually wants to ice in terms of the best roster and speaking of uh roster deployment nick robertson is on the fourth line which is super interesting uh he was on the first line moved to the fourth he leads the penguins in goals of course and obviously the penguins have gone found money with him he was a trade uh in the offseason with the least for fourth round pick he was amazing in preseason this is i know i'm using a lot of yohi teams but i just you know he's kind of reliable for watching the Penguins games one how many players have been demoted from the first to the fourth line while scoring four goals in the first seven games of the season the Nick Robertson deployment is interesting and for those that you know may not have been which is probably a lot of fans who may not have been as familiar with him during his time in Toronto he was always kind of a streaky scorer uh kind of a low leverage scorer too like I think he's capable of scoring 20 goals in this league maybe even 25 at his best but uh in terms of playing in high octane positions defensively I just don't think he's that responsible I think he's a smart player um you know he has a really good motor he tries really hard but you can try really hard and still really still not be that good I mean looking at his ice time here we can see uh we can see it dwindling let me just switch here uh we can see it dwindling or not even dwindling he's just averaging four five minutes I mean 11 minutes 11 minutes 10 minutes that's like 8 minutes 10 minutes 13 minutes it's like it's really not a lot it's really not a lot uh for what uh Nick Robertson can offer to the team I just think uh while he has been strong in these first few games uh the fourth line deployment does kind of make sense obviously we don't have a picture of him in a Penguins jersey yet but uh four points only goals no assists i mean if we can even take a look at his defensive stats there um or sorry special team stats you would think they would be a little bit better i'm sure he's not getting that much power play time but again zero assists maybe you want to contribute a little bit more there but to me this is kind of what Nick Robertson is if you look at his average time on ice it's the same as it was in Toronto uh he's averaging 10 minutes 11 minutes 12 minutes and put up kind of similar production uh like last year 32 points in 78 games 16 goals 16 assists obviously he's on right now he's on pace to score like 45 goals i don't think that's going to maintain itself because he's shooting 30 percent which is like what 17 percent above his career average so i think that's going to maintain itself but i understand why he's on the fourth line although it does kind of make the fourth line's role kind of weird and there's a lot of weird stuff going on with the Penguins deployment just because they really haven't been playing right again if i pull up the uh roster again things have kind of been all over the place in the bottom six even when Brian Rust's out i think they're still looking for some consistency and stability obviously Andre Kuzmenko his father passed away so that's been something they've been dealing with as well and then uh lazat and Duro are kind of in there the whole time well you've had Soderblom, Bazzano who i think is hurt right now i'm not entirely sure about that even Hendrix Lapierre there's a lot of guys on the Penguins who can play um that's why another thing about Willi Koyi and if he's not gonna play they have guys who can come in on the NHL roster right now I brought up the AHL squad, the NHL squad is like that, too, and Nick Robertson, while he's a skilled guy, I don't think he just has the chops all-encompassing to play in a top-six role and be responsible as he needs to be. I think he can get you a goal in the clutch, secondary scoring he's perfect for, but I kind of agree with the sentiment with Yohei about, well, not even the sentiment, the play is just going to be like this. It was like this in Toronto as well, and obviously, before we close out, Penguins, Avalanche, that would be, what is that? That's the 16th actually, so tomorrow technically, when I upload this, so let me know what you guys, how you guys are feeling about Nick Robertson how you guys are feeling about Willie Coyne and overall how you guys are feeling about the Penguins in general. Appreciate you guys watching. Have a great one as always and yeah, peace out.