Penguins/NHL
PENGUINS TRACKING BRAD BOYES? Penguins scouts and team officials have been flocking to Florida Panthers games over the last week and that continued Saturday night.
The Penguins had two scouts in attendance for Saturday night’s Panthers – Blue Jackets game, marking third time in four games the Penguins have been scouting the Panthers.
One hot discussion inside the organization this week was determining how much cap space the Penguins will be able to take on prior or by the March 5th trade deadline. It’s not expected to be much with the Penguins optimistic of Tomas Vokoun coming off LTIR at somepoint in March if things continue on the right trend.
With just a $1 million cap hit (pro-rated under $500,000 as of Feb 1) and previous history of meshing well with an elite center in John Tavares, to no surprise, Brad Boyes has become a player the Penguins are looking really hard at in recent weeks. While the Penguins are not involved in any substantive trade talks for Boyes yet, and the team would love to find another Pascal Dupuis type player to play with Crosby, word is Boyes could emerge as a top target and the Panthers forward is said to getting good reviews from Penguins scouts.
One NHL executive believes the Panthers could nab as high as a second round pick for Boyes. The Penguins do not own a second round pick in this years draft and are said to be against giving up high draft picks for the second year in a row.
A third round pick or mid tier prospect could be dangled by the Penguins.
Boyes has 15 goals, 26 points and a +1 rating on the season. What’s intriguing with Boyes is that his 12 even strength goals would tie him for 4th on the Penguins.
Excluding Pascal Dupuis who is out for the season, only six Penguins forwards (Crosby, Neal, Malkin, Kunitz, Jokinen, Sutter) have scored more than 4 even strength goals this season. The way the Penguins are built, secondary scoring is a major concern when you evaluate the Penguins in a seven game series.
