— The Penguins kicked around trade scenarios for Calgary Flames LH defenseman Noah Hanifin prior to free agency and signing Ryan Graves, a signing the organization saw as a high value signing compared to the cost of trying to acquire Hanifin or a similar mold defenseman whether in the summer or sometime this coming season as head coach Mike Sullivan had been a big proponent behind the scenes that team had to upgrade the Left hand D spot for the 2023-2024 season. The team seriously weighed a future first-round cost for Hanifin but going the free agency route with the Graves signing paid huge dividends to pursuing Erik Karlsson (saving draft capital) or any fallback plans were Pittsburgh not able to acquire Karlsson. Dubas is calculated in everything he does and one of his best attributes is he takes big swings in trade talks. One significant Karlsson fallback plan the Penguins looked into this summer wasn’t on the backend. Multiple league sources say the Penguins circled back to To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

— Pittsburgh bringing in forward Colin White on a PTO continues to fit a similar bottom-6 trend of speed and limited offensive upside. With few young players ready to push for bottom-6 roles, Pittsburgh is primed to have a ton of competition for the final or two forward spots. They’ve gone into camp believing they have as many as 17-18 legitimate NHL forwards on the camp roster.

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Fenway Sports Group interviewed Doug Wilson very early into the GM hiring process last May and despite honing-in on hiring a younger executive when the process got near the end with Kyle Dubas and Mathieu Darche being the two finalists, Wilson was someone that really impressed ownership from the start, and he was an individual they kept in the back of their mind throughout the summer. Kyle Dubas is getting paid nearly $7 million per season so it was always going to be his call to bring on a prominent veteran NHL executive like Wilson, but the willingness to bring Wilson on board and selling Wilson on the position/role has been just more proof to many in the organization of how great Dubas excels in being a CEO at running and putting an elite staff under him. Dubas is going to have some misses with decisions on the ice, but it’s just been night and day at how he’s running the organization behind the scenes compared to the Hextall regime that operated with roles for the front-office staff and interactions with the staff as a whole that were archaic.

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— For a few hours on Tuesday Columbus Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner held Mike Babcock’s coaching future in balance after the accusations made by Paul Bissonnette that he was forcing players to hand over pictures and these players were uncomfortable with it. As the accusations have been denied and multiple Blue Jacket players have come out in support of Babcock, If Jenner or even one had publicly supported what Bissonnette said, Babcock would not have made it to training camp.

— The Colorado Avalanche one year, $1.5 Million signing of forward Tomas Tatar was a sneaky good September signing. There was word last month the Penguins had some preliminary talks with Tatar, but it doesn’t sound like anything got serious. To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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