Couple of news flashes here on the Steelers' front to open one's Friday morning:
1. The players want Matt Canada gone.
2. They've got no idea if he'll be gone.
Funny thing about this particular weekly feature is that, generally speaking, it involves a whole lot of digging on the reporter's part. A whisper here, a hint there, even some sneaky stuff.
Not with this recurring storyline, anyway. Everything's served up on a silver platter.
I'm not about to name names, for obvious reasons, but one individual who's rather important to the offense went out of his way to share with me, this following a recent road game, a passionately expressed hope for what it could soon be ... with the right coordinator. He added that he believed all the pieces are in place but that he'd love to see how they'd be moved by pretty much anyone else.
I hadn't brought up coaching at all. He did. They always do. And in fact, another individual who's a regular contributor to the offense told our Chris Halicke within the past week that he's looking forward to the same.
Now, will there be a change?
Very different tune there: No player's expressed even a peripheral awareness as to whether or not Canada will be kept into the 2023 season, and one of them went so far as to say he's now having doubts there'll be a change. But even he professed no actual knowledge on the matter.
Guess we'll all have to see.
MORE STEELERS
2. Mark Robinson has been waiting for his chance to get on the field in an extended role, and that finally happened in Week 17 at Baltimore, earning his first career start and playing half of the defensive snaps. In case you were wondering if there's any frustration over not getting any significant playing time until now, there isn't. He's been focusing on improving, just waiting for his number to be called. But, with the focus of getting better every single day.
"Every day is crucial, man," Robinson told me. "Just being here, the experience that comes along with being on the field, the type of guys we have on the team, I never take it for granted. Just keep getting better every day. And by the end of the year, you'll jump forward. That's just the process of becoming." -- Halicke on the South Side
3. Not long after I talked to Robinson, I asked Myles Jack about his impression of the seventh-round pick, who sits only a few lockers away from him. Jack smiled really big, and just said, "That's my guy." -- Halicke
4. Jack has dealt with multiple lower-body injuries this season, including a hamstring injury and now a lingering groin injury suffered in the first matchup with Baltimore. After going through a situation where Jacksonville surprisingly cut him loose, Jack is fighting to play through injuries to try and prove himself worth the second year of his contract with the Steelers. "You know how it is. This is the hurt business," Jack told me. "Things are going to happen and you just have to continue to fight through them. At the end of the day, you have to accept that (injuries) are part of the game." -- Halicke
5. Those who aren’t familiar with Cody Sabol’s painting, you really need to check it out. We’ve even sold a couple of his paintings at our DKPS HQ downtown. Sabol recently did a couple paintings for Jaylen Warren and George Pickens. Warren has kept it -- which is quite large -- at his locker since Sabol gave him the painting. This one is interesting because not only is it a painting of Warren hurdling over a Saints defender, he’s accompanied by Pikachu in the painting. Ironically, Warren isn't much of a Pokémon fan, but that won't stop him from hanging it up in his apartment. "I don't know anything about Pikachu," Warren told me with a laugh. "I've got it all set up. I just need to get the picture there." -- Halicke
6. Pat Meyer has really done a great job getting this offensive line to play better and better over the course of the season. That doesn't come without a ton of work. More often than not, the offensive line is the last group to come into the locker room after practice. -- Halicke
7. Mike Tomlin's presence in the locker room after practice has continued to grow over the course of the season. Sometimes it's serious. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's both. On Thursday, Tomlin heckled some of us in the media, trying to get a few of us to do an interview. "You guys should come over and talk to Christian Kuntz," Tomlin said. "He's a great interview!" That got a laugh from several of his players, and some of us in the media, too. -- Halicke
PENGUINS
8. Moving Brian Dumoulin and his $4.1 million cap hit could be near-impossible for reasons that have little to do with his performance. Sure, he's someone that could be appealing in a cap-dump trade to a non-playoff team -- the Penguins could send picks or prospects over in a deal as incentive for a team to take on the remainder of this last year of his contract. The problem is that Dumoulin's contract has a modified no-trade clause that allows him to submit a 10-team no-trade list. Given how few teams have significant cap space this season due to the flat cap (only seven teams have more than $2 million in projected cap space) Dumoulin's no-trade list has a ton of power. If he fills that list with teams that would be willing to take on a cap dump, there's not much the Penguins could do. It's not uncommon for teams to leverage their no-trade lists in that way, either. That's how Phil Kessel forced the Penguins' hand in the deal with Arizona, because is no-trade list was otherwise full of teams that the Penguins couldn't make a deal with. -- Taylor Haase at PPG Paints Arena
9. Drew O’Connor opened the scoring for the Penguins on his very first shift of the game last week against the Red Wings. His reward for doing so? A whopping seven shifts the rest of the game that totaled just over five minutes of ice time. He was then a healthy scratch the next two games before returning to the lineup Thursday in Las Vegas. Has the coaching staff told him what he needs to do for a more consistent role? “No, I just think I need to continue earning every shift for myself,” O’Connor said. “Obviously I want to be in the lineup, so when I’m out there I need to be doing all the right things and not making any mistakes, just kind of building on each game I get in.” -- Danny Shirey in Las Vegas
10. Even dating back to the preseason when O’Connor was ultimately cut from the NHL roster, it’s struck me just how positive and upbeat he is, no matter the circumstances. While he wants to establish himself as an everyday NHLer, he’s also well aware just how special it is to be involved at any capacity. “I think it’s the only way I can be,” O’Connor said. “I don’t think it’s going to help anything if I’m not positive about it, but I’m here in the NHL. Every day’s a privilege. I want to be in the lineup, I want to keep earning more ice time, but I’m just trying to enjoy the whole process of it.” -- Shirey
11. Tristan Jarry has been pretty short with the media at times this season, at times even coming off as testy. And no, this isn't because of his funny non-answers to some of my Survey Says questions. It just feels like a different vibe from him compared to years past. The day before the Winter Classic was the best mood I've seen him in in awhile, with a smile on his face seemingly the whole time he spoke. He went out of his way to provide more lengthy answers to questions when normally he might have went with a one-word response, and he was even pleasant and thoughtful with answers when dealing with the same question twice because a reporter joined a scrum late. -- Haase
12. Coming from one of the biggest proponents of playing Rickard Rakell with Sidney Crosby, the idea that playing Rakell with Evgeni Malkin is some sort of out-of-touch move from Mike Sullivan is a bit ridiculous. Granted, I didn’t really like what I saw from Malkin and Rakell together last season, but they’ve been just fine during their 143 minutes together at 5-on-5 this season. In those minutes, the Penguins have outscored opponents, 10-4, with a strong 55.5% share of expected goals. “I played with him earlier in the year and I thought we played really well together,” Rakell told me this week. “I’m just gonna try to play hard and try to feed off Geno’s creativity. Hopefully we can create something special out there.” -- Shirey
13. Kasperi Kapanen ranks 16th on the Penguins with 279 minutes played at 5-on-5 this season. Despite that, he ranks seventh on the team with 12 points during full-strength action, and the rate at which he’s producing 5-on-5 points is higher than everyone on the team not named Crosby. Yeah, really. The 26-year-old continues to be a perplexing piece for the Penguins, as he seems to vanish for stretches, only to turn it on in a big way in limited minutes. He scored the Penguins’ only goal in the Winter Classic earlier this week to go along with a separate high-octane chance in only 7:21 of ice time. This was just two games removed from a two-assist performance in only 7:20 of ice time. On a deeper team, his inconsistency would be a bit easier to swallow. But for this Penguins team? It just sticks out like a sore thumb when he's not on top of his game. -- Shirey
14. About a month ago I wrote in this space that you might want to be paying attention to AHL-contracted Sam Houde, who had been playing on Wilkes-Barre's third line at the time. He's a 6-foot, 172-pound center/wing who has a lot of speed and isn't averse to going to the dirty areas. With O'Connor in Pittsburgh and Sam Poulin still on personal leave, Houde has been elevated to first-line center and has five goals and an assist in his last seven games. I asked J.D. Forrest recently if he thinks Houde still has another level to his offensive game that he can still reach. -- Haase
"I certainly do," Forrest told me. "I think that he put up some pretty good numbers last year in Wheeling, and had a little bit of time here with us. But you can see, he's got that playmaking ability and his speed can put us back on our heels. ... He's getting a little bit more ice time, a little bit different positions, and the confidence grows. From what we think he can contribute more offensively, for sure. We're not asking him to force it, but you can just see it is part of his game. So hopefully he keeps building on what he's already started this season." -- Haase
15. Another follow up from a past Insider bullet: Forrest told me back in November that one of the biggest adjustments for rookie forward Raivis Ansons (a 2020 fifth-round pick) was learning how to go 100% on every shift and "empty the tank," since it's not something he often had to do playing big minutes on a good junior team. Forrest also told me recently that Ansons has made strides in that regard.
"He's going in the right direction with that," Forrest said. "It's a focus with him in practice and after practice in the weight room, and we've had a few conversations. He's a pretty smart kid and adaptive, and you can see it in his game. He plays a pretty hard game, he has some big blocked shots for us, he's good with his stick and on the forecheck. He's doing a much better job of that, he's making the most of his minutes now. He's doing a solid job on the penalty kill as well. There's a lot to like about where his game is heading." -- Haase
16. Pretty funny story I heard this week from a guy who was in Wilkes-Barre: Mark Friedman and Ty Smith are roommates on the road, and those are just two completely opposite personalities. Friedman is always wired and Smith is super mellow. Naturally Smith likes to nap on game days and Friedman unsurprisingly doesn't. Apparently Friedman doesn't like Smith shutting the curtains to block out the daylight because Friedman is concerned with that messing with his circadian rhythm. -- Haase
17. Remember when Jarry scored a goal in the AHL in the 2018-19 season? About two weeks before that, he nearly scored a goal against the Rangers' affiliate in Hartford. The puck looked like it was going wide anyway, and the opposing goaltender wasn't that far out of his net at the time and threw his stick in the direction of the puck, which just went wide. The referees initially signaled an automatic goal, since that is the case when there's one player with a shot at an empty net and an opponent throws equipment. The goal was called back, since the opposing goaltender was still very much on the ice. The Hartford goaltender who threw the stick was Dustin Tokarski. When Tokarski was in the Penguins' organization the following year, I remember asking Jarry about that moment and he quipped (with a smile) that Tokarski had yet to apologize to him. -- Haase
PIRATES
18. The Pirates have some serious interest in one of the top international prospects. Right-hander Jun-Seok Shim is ranked as the No. 10 international prospect according to MLB Pipeline, and the Korean news outlet Spochoo cites the Pirates as one of the teams in the running for him. Based on what I've heard from a league source, the Pirates are the favorites to get the 6'4", 215 lb. 18-year-old righty, and if they do, he could be the headliner for this international class. The Pirates have made some pretty big splashes in the Asian markets the past few years, including Po-Yu Chen at the end of the 2020 signing period and Hung-Leng Chang last year. Shim could be another. The international signing period starts Jan. 15. -- Alex Stumpf
19. Not much new on the Bryan Reynolds front except that I have heard from more league sources since the winter meetings that they do expect Reynolds to eventually get dealt. Don't have a timeline for when, though. Could be before the season, the deadline, next offseason.
I will say that it was important for Ben Cherington in 2020 and 2021 to have the big trades done in January so he knew what players he had going into those spring trainings. Starling Marte, Jameson Taillon and Joe Musgrove were all traded in mid- to late-January with this in mind. That doesn't mean there's a hard deadline or that Reynolds will be on the opening day team if he is still on the roster come February 1. Just citing precedent and previous preferences. -- Stumpf
20. To borrow a Tomlin-ism on what I've heard about a potential long-term extension for the Pirates and Reynolds this offseason, never say never, but never. -- Stumpf
21. Zach Thompson was designated for assignment Thursday to make room for Rich Hill, seemingly because he was pinched out of the major-league rotation and the Pirates will have a collection of prospects to pull from Class AAA this season. Thompson struggled on the mound, but he was one of the nicest guys in the Pirates' clubhouse and was seen multiple times last year having conversations about mechanics or pitch tipping with young pitchers. He should be picked up somewhere. -- Stumpf