Penguins confirmed to be zeroing in on key free agent

New Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas has made the call to name himself the team's general manager, and he's certainly been among the busier NHL executives this summer after having brought aboard several new players. 

Arriving in Pittsburgh are the likes of forward Reilly Smith from the Vegas Golden Knights, goaltenders Alex Nedeljkovic and Magnus Hellberg from the Detroit Red Wings, and a major haul that was completed last weekend in the form of Norris Trophy winning defenseman Erik Karlsson from the San Jose Sharks in a 3-team trade. 

And Dubas may not be done yet. One particular free agent that's still on the open market is Tomas Tatar, who has been linked to the Penguins. And now, Tatar himself revealed that he's indeed been having talks with the Penguins.

"It was, but I don't want to develop it further," Tatar confirmed in a Slovak interview. "Keep it to myself. I said a couple of times who I was talking with and it always went the other way."

"The last few days I put some things aside and tried to look at teams where I would feel the best and it would make the most sense. Maybe that's why it moved in the right direction," he continued.

Originally hailing from Slovakia, the veteran forward was taken by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2009 NHL Draft, with whom he would spend the first several years of his career. At the 2018 NHL Trade Deadline, he was sent to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for a top draft selection that would eventually be used to take Joe Veleno. Since then, he's played for both the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils, the latter of whom he signed with in the summer of 2021 after being lured from Quebec to Newark with a two-year contract worth $9 million.