is POJ good defensively?

easy no from mtl. 0 incentive to make that trade.

I mean, I’m a Pens fan so I’m going to be a little biased. But he did great in his first stint. Played top pairing minutes with Letang and didn’t look out of place. He’s just young, so mistakes started to creep into his game and was sent back down (but if we didn’t have the logjam at LD no doubt he’d be an everynighter). Sneaky good offensively. Great breakout.

Read the trade description...smh

legit still don't want him.

Strome isn’t worth that.

Overpay for Pittsburgh on the Strome trade.

I'm not sure Rodrigues' speed and versatility isn't more valuable to Pittsburgh that whatever Perry would bring at this point in his career.

no

that's the short answer. NYI and WSH exposed him in the Dzone, they just parked people down low on him and he couldn't handle it.
So in turn the penguins hid him in the Ozone for 60+% of his shifts. But he doesn't have the chops to be there, so he started getting benched in game. Till they had enough healthy bodies to send him back down to the AHL.

Truth is he's falling behind his draft class. Like a lot of other guys.
That's a class where the 1st round is already all over the league. He's not NHL ready though.
If you look at that class as a whole there are like 7-8 guys that simply haven't made the jump. It's time for them to but they are not. I know teams will come up with all kinds of excuses as to why. But their comparables are their draft class.

Frost in PHL, who is basically riding pine unable to crack the lineup.

Vesalanien in WPG who is probably a better player, but wasn't good enough to crack WPG lineup.

Bowers of COL who too has not been good enough to crack the lineup in COL. I don't think it's huge hurdle there either to get a bottom 6 role there.. You are talking about outplaying Jost and their 4th line. It's not a good sign for him.

Kostin of STL, who is in the KHL because he didn't make it on to STL after 3 years in the AHL. He should probably be traded for a fresh start at this point.

Lias who is basically flaming out.

Brännström who hasn't been able to stick in OTT. So much hype around him, poor guy got expectations put on him that aren't even reasonable and didn't really ask for it. But he's more likely to flame out than make it at this point. Especially with the depth OTT has in prospects on defense.

Liljegren in TOR, who TOR fans want to say is the next best thing since sliced bread but he's not really going anywhere on a team that has been desperate for defensive help. He's probably the best comparable. Penguins fans hype up POJ way to much as well, but he's simply not showing he's NHL quality.

Vaakananien in boston, who has basically disappeared. Passed up on the depth chart.

I think almost everyone else in that draft is playing on a NHL roster in some role at this point.
Those are the guys including POJ, who are falling behind the rest of their draft class.