Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - A special Penguins-Jackets crossover with Jay Forster of Locked On Blue Jackets!

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

It's crossover Wednesday as another Metropolitan Division rival host joins Locked On Penguins for a special crossover. Hunter and Pat sit down with Jay to discuss both teams this offseason, starting with the Penguins. Jay asks both hosts how Kyle Dubas has done this offseason and if the Penguins are a contender heading into the year. He also gets into the obvious Erik Karlsson trade and how the Penguins really didn't have to give up much value to the Sharks before the roles are reversed. Hunter and Pat take turns asking Jay questions about the Blue Jackets as they could be a sneaky good team heading into the year. They also dive into the Jackets hiring Mike Babcock as their head coach and how they were aggressive in reshaping their blue line. The three hosts then dive into the Metropolitan Division and why it's going to be the best in the NHL this season before giving some August Stanley Cup predictions.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Right now, when you bet on a Super Bowl Winner, you can GET BONUS BETS EVERY TIME THEY WIN IN THE REGULAR SEASON! FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expire in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today is a special crossover edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast as Jay Foster from Locked-on Blue Jackets. We joins the show with Pat and I to discuss everything regarding the Columbus Blue Jackets from this past off season, why Adam Fantilli is going to be an absolute handful for the Penguins for the next 10 to 15 years, and how the blue jackets were pretty busy during the off season with a new coach and a couple trades for their blue line and, of course, some moves at Ford. All that plus so much more is on this edition. of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. You're Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. We've got another squadcast. We've got another Metropolitan matchup. It's our favorite frenemies today. We've got Hunter and Pat over from Locked-on Penguins. We're going to talk about a bunch of fun stuff. But let's start.

off with the big one. How do you think the Penguins offseason has gone so far, Hunter? I think it's gone, you know, obviously a lot better now that they have Eric Carlson. Beforehand, you know, they re-signed Tristan Jari to that five-year term. You bring in a bunch of bottom six-fords. You got Lariseller in there, Matt Nietto, Noachari. All three, very good defensively. Not going to bring you a ton of offense, but they're still going to improve the bottom six

from last year. Then you go out and get Eric Carlson, a player who can prevent. buy a whole lot of offense to this team, especially from the blue line. It's not just going to be Chris LaTang running the show from the blue line anymore. He's going to have a friend there to help him out, even though they'll be on separate pairings. It's funny, when I looked at Dubis's offseason, I was discussing this with Pat just the other day. I had it at about a C plus after a free agency. It's funny how about a month and a half can go by.

And now it's probably up to an A minus B plus. I think he's done a really good job this offseason getting the bottom six. back to, I guess, respectability, even though they maybe won't score that much heading into the season. They're not going to allow the puck to be in the back of their own net this season as well. You're adding more offense to your back end. If Tristan Jari can stay healthy, he's one of, I think, the better goalies in the league. And if you can go out and maybe sign someone like Tomas Tatar,

that's been rumored for the last week, week and a half, you can add him to your bottom six or even put him on your top six if you want to. Man, I mean, that's a really damn good. offseason for Kyle Dubas, even though he's only been on the job for two and a half months. So I think he's done all he could so far. He's also gotten out of some bad deals that Ron Hextall had traded for or signed, such as Jeff Petrie, got out of Casey DeSmith, who I think is an adequate backup, but I think it was time to probably move on at that point. And then McHale Granlin, who Ron Hexall traded for, and that was an utter disaster.

But I think overall, there's a lot to like about this off season. I definitely see them as at least a playoff team right now heading into the season. Yeah, I'd absolutely agree. And I've joked about it with Hunter on Locked on Penguins is the joke side of it is Kyle Dubus pulled off the Twitter meme of all of our bad players for your good player. But the serious distinction of it is the fact that he did something that we don't see in the National Hockey League, really ever, is he was able to clear out most of the mistakes of his predecessor without having to go into some kind of a tear down or, rebuild. So that's a really good sign for where the penguins are. And bringing in Eric Carlson, making sure that the bottom six is no longer at the very least going to get caved in defensively. They should try to get Tomas Tatar so they can put a little bit of a scoring punch in the bottom

six. But the biggest issue with the bottom six this past year was the fact that they got caved in defensively. So now they're back to that. So I mean, overall, it's a really good off-season. and I do think this puts them right back in the playoff picture, despite, as always, the Metropolitan Division just being an absolute dog fight. Yeah, the Metro is going to be a nightmare again. I feel like it had a couple of years where it was kind of okay to be in the Metro, and now I'm looking at the teams, and I'm like, no, we're going to have to fight like hell to get through all of these teams.

I want to talk about the Eric Carson trade a little bit more, because I was shocked at the return that San Jose got, I guess they get out of, I believe you guys are still paying like 10 million for Eric Carlson, so there's barely any salary retained. But the fact that Dubus basically gave up a first round pick and junk, like how do you feel the trade went from a penguin's point of view, Pat? I mean, it's an A plus to me because, like you said,

I do think a lot of the focus on it, though, is more on Eric Carlson going to Pittsburgh because you look at the return that San Jose and Montreal got since this is a three-way deal and think like, oh man, they didn't get much for that. But I've said it to Hunter. I've said it everywhere. I've written about it. San Jose just did not have any leverage anymore. A contract that big and an offseason where teams don't have a ton of capital.

space really limited what they could do. So, you know, the penguins, despite making all the moves they made on July 1 and taking themselves over the upper limit, were still able to pull this trade off. And it doesn't help that not only did Eric Carlson, not only does Eric Carlson have such a large contract, he also had no movement. So he kind of had the control, even though he didn't say like, oh, I architected it so I could go to Pittsburgh. It was in his hand. So, you know, with San Jose going into a full rebuild and now having to move a contract that large, they just exxed. They did not have the leverage to get a maximum return. But I think all things considered where they're going and where they want to end up, it's a good move because they got draft picks.

They got guys they can flip at the deadline. They got guys who can help with some of their younger players. So overall, I think it's a great deal for the penguins, a good-ish deal. for San Jose. Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I love it from a Penguins perspective. And it's funny, the first one pick that they gave up, I honestly think that pick was given up

so that the Sharks would take on, you know, Grandin's contract and, you know, Jan Ruda and all that stuff. I don't think that was truly for Eric Carlson. I think it was just for a couple of contracts at the Penguins sent back, especially Granley. You know, the fact that they got out of that full $5 million that he's going to be making for the next two years. That's a huge win.

You get Eric Carlson back, which that's the big part. of the trade. But you get out of some of those bad deals. You bring him back. From a shark's perspective, I understand what they were doing. They want the salary cap flexibility. They didn't really want to retain that much. It's funny, if you were Mike Greer, I honestly would have just wanted, he probably should have just wanted to retain as much as possible so that you get a higher return. But that's the ownership I don't think wanted to do that, which is understandable. It's their money. So they just didn't really want to retain. And that's while you see the penguins paying him $10 million.

That's a bit of a risk considering his injury history, but he's coming off of 100-point season. I expect him to be really good again this season. I don't know if he's going to hit 100 again, but maybe 75, 80 points, perhaps more than that. I don't think it's going to get 100, but I think somewhere in that range. The sharks, they're going to be set up

to probably be at least decent again in a few years. They can flip Mike Hoffman at the deadline. I thought, you know, getting him, even though the Canadians want to get that deal, that's a smart move. Grimlin, if he plays well this upcoming season, maybe get some top six minutes. I could maybe see him getting flipped at the deadline. Maybe the sharks retain a little bit of money there or something.

Jan Ruda, I think, is probably going to play top four minutes or considering their defense is really not that good. But I think from their perspective, they got what they wanted. It's just from an outside perspective, everyone else is like, holy crap, this return was so little because it was. But to the sharks, they don't think so because, again, they feel like they accomplished their goal. Right. The Sharks kind of got what they needed, I think. The plan is to probably go in a couple of years and spend in free agency, which good for them. We'll see how it goes.

In a minute, we're going to flip the script here. Hunter and Pat are going to ask me some questions about the Blue Jackets, who have also had a pretty eventful off-season. I think it's fair to say, so we'll do that in just a second here on this very special squadcast edition, R-Block on blue jackets and locked on penguins. But first, I've got to tell you guys all about Fandul because football season is about to kick off. Fandil is giving you the chance to win all season long because right now when you bet on a Super Bowl winner, you're going to get bonus bets every time they win in the regular

season. Just pick any team to win the Super Bowl. You could pick the Browns, the Bengals, maybe even the Steelers. I don't know if I would recommend that last one though. You're going to get bonus bet for every regular season victory and you can use those bonus bets on spreads, player props, overunders and more. So visit fandul.com slash locked on and start earning bonus bets now with America's number one sportsbook. That is fandul.com slash locked on.

Well, we're back here on this special crossover of the locked on penguins and locked on blue jackets podcast. So, Jay, Columbus, quite a few moves this season. They bring in Mike Babcock, Dewey the head coach. They trade for Ivan Provorov. They have the sign and trade with Damon Severson. Two pretty big moves there for their back end. They already have Zach Renzi coming back. which is going to be great.

They draft Adam Fantilli in the annual draft, which is going to be pretty annoying, I think, for a long time. If he turns out, it'd be really good, which I think he is going to be awesome, by the way. But overall, when you look at how aggressive Yarmine-pick-a-line-in was this off-season, do you think this is just him being like, okay, I got to do something to try and save my job here because the team hasn't had a lot of success lately,

or does he maybe just see the team closer to contending than I think a lot of the outside fans the media do? Yeah, I think it's probably a little bit of both. I think, I think Yamaka Kalan would go to his grave before he admitted that he was doing this to, like, save his job, you know, I think he will, he will swear up and down that he's doing this to improve the team. And it's such a weird, like, the team is in such a weird place right now, because

obviously they went and got Johnny Goddrae last season after finishing, I believe they were, what, bottom 10 team in the NHL after like season before last. I was expecting them to be any good this season. They go out. They get Johnny Goddrao. I'm like, oh, okay, maybe they're going to be good. They proceed to be even worse than last season because everyone is injured. Literally every single person gets injured.

And so I'm kind of looking at this. And I think a lot of outside people see this as a team that needs to continue to to continue to rebuild. But I think a lot of, like, Blue Jackets fans understand, you know, last seat, the Blue Jackets are a way better team than what they caught on the ice last season. They lost Zach Wrenzki 13 games in. Patrick Lainer was in and out of the lineup with injuries. Elvis Mosleekins was the worst goalie in the league,

which statistically seems extremely unlikely. You know, there was a lot going on. They had at one point, their top defense pairing was Erica Branson and Andrew Peek. you know like that's that's that's that's a rough night on the blue line for for anyone's money um so you know i think it's i would i would bet that yama thinks that this is just the logical next step um and i don't hate it in a vacuum like the the pro froth trade i thought i didn't like giving up the first round pick but i understand why they did it severson sign and trade i thought was fine he's making a little bit too much money for too long for my liking but

whatever, that's what you pay for when you go out and get a defenceman in free agency, which is essentially what this is. They had a big win at the draft, which I think probably accelerates that rebuild even more. But yeah, it's going to be interesting. I think it's probably, people are going to see the blue jackets. I'm going to knock on wood here because the blue jacket is to healthy for this. And that's what I do every time I talk about them being healthy.

They need to stay healthy. and I think they're going to take a bigger jump forward this season than a lot of people are expecting. Because I feel like a lot of people don't understand exactly what was so bad about last season. And it was that everyone was injured. Every single person on this team was injured. Well, despite our success over the past 15 or so years as Penguins fans, you don't have to tell us about injuries. We know those all too well.

A little shout out to one of my favorites in Taylor Swift. I just know that all too well. My question to you, though, is we brought it up a little bit there. One of the big off-season moves for the Blue Jackets was, and the three of us kind of talked about this before we hit record, is one of the big off-season moves is bringing in Mike Babcock behind the bench. Bit of a younger team in Columbus. You know, maybe they're not quite there yet. So what do you think this move says about where the franchise is right now?

Is it the right call? Do you think this is a good second chance for him? What are your overall thoughts on bringing in Mike Babcock as the head coach of the Blue Jackets? I kind of go back and forth on it. When it first happened, I was vehemently against it. Like, we did a couple episodes where Hayden, my co-hosts, who couldn't make it today because of work scheduling, we kind of threw a couple of names around. And Babcock was one where I was like, nah, no thanks.

Don't want that. Like, anyone but that. And so he kind of went in a no pile immediately. And then there was a lot of back and forth on Elliot Friedman saying that Babcock was out and other people saying, no, he's still in. And then Friedman saying, well, now I'm hearing that he's still in. And he was, you know, he was hired and then he wasn't. And it was a whole hokey-cokey of coaching decisions. The more I listen to him speak and the more I kind of pay attention to what he seems to be doing, the less wary.

I'm still wary. this is a very young team. Obviously, he's had issues in the past with, you know, young players and, you know, bullying and things like that. He spent the last three years coaching in college. So hopefully he's learned, you know, a couple of things there about coaching young players. The Bullock has, I believe, are the youngest team in the league again, despite the fact that they got older this offseason. They are somehow still the youngest team in the league. But I think what Babcock is going to bring is structure.

which is something that they needed so very badly after Brad Larson. As to the question about what this means for where the team is, a couple of years ago they hired Brad Larson as coach, and I think they hired him because they knew the team was going to be bad. They didn't want to spend a lot of money on, like Gerard Gallant was in the conversation right up until he wasn't. He was going to command more money than Brad Larson. And you don't want to pay money to a coach if your team is going to serve.

suck, you know? So I think they were like, right, we're in a rebuild, we'll hire the new coach, we don't have to pay him anything. And then he overachieved in that first season, I think, the blue jackets were better than people expected. And then obviously last season was just god-awful from a point of view, from like basically every metric. And a lot of that was injury, but I think a lot of it was also poor coaching. Hiring of Babcock to me says that they are maybe over-correcting a little bit on the effect that Brad Larson had, I think they're going a little bit too far in the other direction of players coach versus like GM's coach. I think Babcock is going to hold them accountable, whether that's a good

thing is, you know, kind of up for debate, because I tend to feel like you shouldn't have to go to work and be accountable by like being punished for making mistakes, but that's, you know, maybe I'm just coloured by the Twarderella seasons. I think Babcock will probably be fine. I just hope that he has learned from kind of his timeout of the NHL because, like, he did fine in Toronto. Obviously, he was very good with the Red Wings, but, like, I could probably have coached the Red Wings to a Stanley Cup in those in that time, you know?

Unless you're playing the fact. He's got a half-decent roster to work with. So we'll see how it goes. Right. And it's funny, you discussed this a little earlier on in the show. And, you know, from one team who has some goaltending questions to another, Elvis Merslickens has his worst season of his career this past year, 30 games, only wins seven games. 4.23 goals against average, 8, 76,000. You weren't lying, J. Those are flat out awful numbers, someone among the worst in the league, excuse me.

And he signed for four more years at 5.4 million. And now that's more than Tristan Jardy money right there. And I know he's a bit younger. Are you confident in him to bounce back this upcoming season? and if he does, just how high do you think the ceiling rises for this team? Yeah, so this has been a big kind of topic of conversation on Locked on Blue Jackets. I don't think Elvis is going to be the worst goalie in the league. If they can get league average goaltending out of Elvis, which I looked it up the other day,

is this season league average goaltending was a 904 safe percentage. If they can get a 904 out of Elvis, I think that is enough to give this team a big boost. The contract always looks rough, but I think what people don't remember is he signed that contract, I believe, either immediately before or immediately after the passing of Matisse-Kipelenex, which was obviously awful and traumatic, and I think is still affecting him deeply even now. So, you know, I think he had a really good rookie season. He goes out, he signs this contract extension. Everyone's excited. He's the goalie of the future. His best friend dies in front of him. And he's got to go to work where his best friend was every day and he's not there. And I think it's

been a really tough couple of years for Elvis. Blue Jackets have picked up a new goaltending coach. Nicholas Baxter, not that, Nicholas Baxter. The finish one is going to be the goaltending coach for the Blue Jackets. I think that will help. Not that I think Mani Legacy did a bad job, but I think having a new voice in the room is probably good. And for the first time in his career, Elvis doesn't really have competition because it was always him versus Corpus Arlo. And I think he's either going to have to, it's boom or bust for Elvis this season.

You know, his backup is going to be Danil Tarasar, who I believe is 22 years old and has about 15 NHR games under his belt. So if Elvis starts to struggle, there's a new kid right behind him and the Blue Jackets the Blue Jackets need Elvis to be better than he was this season. I think he knows that. I think he knows that more than anyone.

People forget how good his rookie season was. He was very good in his rookie season. He had five shutouts in the space of eight games in his rookie season. It was bonkers. I don't know that he's going to get back to that level. But like I said, if you can get, you know, a 905, a 904 or 905 out of Elvis,

he might not be winning them games, but he's definitely not going to be losing them. And I think that's all they really need to ask of him because this lineup feels like it's set up to score goals. You've got Patrick Lainer, who hopefully is going to be healthy. I think he's potentially a 40 goal scorer. Karel Marchenko decided that he only scores goals now. You know, Johnny Goddrow, I think we'll probably have a better season

with consistent line mates. You add Adam Fantilli. Healthy Zach Wrenski is going to work wonders on the power play. The Blue Jack, I think, will score more goals this season. And so the goals that Elvis lets in, I think, will be less magnified because the Blue Jackets really, really struggled to score last season. And when you're not scoring and then you're allowing goals, like, it's tough. Yeah, and we've said that on Locked on Penguins about goaltending is Tristan Jari doesn't need to be a Vezna candidate.

He just needs to not give games away. The Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup with Darcy Kemper. Like, you know, Dosti care is like flying only, but. Go ahead, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say, if he can do it, then, you know, surely. Why not?

Why not? Should be able to. Elvis should be able to, like, we've seen it before. Good goaltending can really carry a team. Bad goaltending can really sink it. But I think average goaltending is underrated in this league, I think. Right. I mean, heck, I mean, I was saying I didn't mean to interrupt you there.

But Aidan Hill just won the Stanley Cup of the days that's all night. Yeah, you got a nice video. And in fairness, Aden Hill was very good in the playoffs. What? But he's going to be a really fun, like, pub quiz question or, like, Puckdoku Square in, like, five years time, you know? Who was the goalie for the start for the Vegas Golden Knights when they won the cup? You know, just a really fun story. But do you guys have anything else, or should we do some fun predictions?

I got nothing else, Pat, do you got anything? No, my main, I was going to ask about Fantilli, but you beat me to it, and then I got the Babcock question. I mean, I will always talk more about Adam Fantilli, so. I was just going to ask how many backflips you did once you found out they got them, but as I can tell, just by the grin you have, it's at least five. I, yeah, and like, I've talked about it at length on logged on blue jackets, so we'll go into too much detail, but like, this is a franchise changing move. I would have been happy with Leo Carlson. I did a lot of research on Leo Carson once I figured out the blue jackets would. drafting third overall. I was like, okay, he's going to be great. And he's going to be very good in Anaheim. Adam Fantilli is the best NCAA player since Paul Korea. Like, he's doing stupid things in Michigan. I think he's going to be really, really good for this team.

I didn't do any backflips, but as we covered a little bit ago off Mike, I had had a lot of wine by the time the draft rolled around. And I don't know that backflips would have been the best. but needless to say, I'm very excited for Adam Fantilli to do for Penguins fans what Evgeny Malkin and Sidney Crosby do for Blue Jackets fans for the next 17 years. Well, let's pump the brakes a little bit. We're temporary expectations here at Locked on Blue Jackets, I promise.

You went the opposite way that I was going to go, Hunter. I was just going to say, like, you know, if he can even do a little bit of what he's done at the college hockey level in the NHL, that's an absolute win for the Blue Jackets. For sure. And I do want to clarify, I'm not comparing him to Sydney Crosby. They're two very different players, but. Yeah, you know, one of the best of all time to a guy who just got drafted.

Right. Give him time. I'll give him time before I start comparing him to the all-time grades. Let's take another quick break. And then we'll talk a little bit about how much of a nightmare the Metropolitan Division is going to be. this season. Okay, we're back with a special crossover episode

of Locked on Blue Jackets, locked on penguins. I've got Hunter and Patrick from Locked on Penguins here. And the Metropolitan Division appears to be the Thunderdome. Again, we had a couple of years where it wasn't that bad

and now I'm looking like it's going to be a nightmare. Like, I think Hunter and I have talked about this on the national show. Like, there could be five playoff teams from this division. Yes. I mean, the devil's

going to be annoying this year, annoyingly good, I think, is the way to say it. Jack Hughes, Nico Heeshier, Timo Meyer there, Dougie Hamilton, their young goalie Schmidt is also very good. Their whole forward depth is just... I know. I hate it. And these aren't your devils from the 90s that are going to trap their way to wins, know that they're going to outskate you and they're going to score quite a few goals. They're actually a fun team to watch now. And that's going to be quite the test for the penguins and the Blue Jackets this upcoming season. The hurricanes are going to be really good yet again.

They made a swath of moves this offseason, bringing in some new forwards, bringing in a whole bunch of defensemen. I'm not really sure what Don Wedell is going to be doing before the season because it looks like they have eight or nine defensemen on the roster right now, but that team has set up to be great. The Rangers, you always know they're going to be there. They're forwards, or at least the top end of their lineup is good.

I think they have a little bit of depth problems, but the top end of the lineup is great. Adam Fox is at least the second or third best defense. on the planet right now. I can't say enough good things about him. And when you have Igor Shostrkin, who is, I think it worse, the second best goalie in the league, you can win a lot of games. So they're going to be right up there as well.

Got the Penguins, of course. Got the Islanders who made the playoffs this past season. I think is a top three. Honestly, my top three is probably Basilevsky-Sha-Sirkin, Sorokin. Sorokin is criminally good. And it's annoying that the penguins will also have to face him, probably the next 10 to 15 years with the way he plays against them. It's funny, if I were, if I would rather pick who I would face, I would pick Igor Shusirkin,

and I can't even believe I'm saying that. That's just because of how else the Rokin is playing. Sometimes a goalie just has a team's number, like, and vice versa. Like, Sergey Pabrovsky against the Rangers for the last however many years, they just, they've had his number every single game, you know. You say that for the Penguins. Loves playing against team or hates playing against the team. I mean, you can say that about the Penguins for the last two Rangers goalies,

Henrik Lundquist and Igor Shestirken. The penguins have made both those goalies in the past 10 or so years look human. I mean, you look at their cup run in 2016 against Lundquist and just they tortured him. And even though they lost the series two years ago against the Rangers, he looked decidedly human against the penguins that opening round. But back to the point of the metro, I mean, it's typical metropolitan division. since this thing's inception in 2013 and 2014. Like, it's just a dog fight top to bottom because, like you guys said,

top two and three, top two to three is pretty much set. New Jersey, Carolina, the Rangers. And then everybody else is scratching and clawing. I mean, we just got done talking about it with you. The blue jackets are going to be better this year. I don't know if they're a playoff team yet or not. They're going to be in the hunt, I think. Yeah, they'll be.

The only bad team in the Metro is Philly because Danny Breyer finally said the dreaded R word in Philadelphia in rebuild. And that's always been my take with them over the past, you know, decade or so is that's a team that has been a franchise that has been too proud to rebuild. They always want to stay in it, which is admirable. You don't want to put a subpar product out on the ice, but they have been so desperate for it. and now they're going to do it. And they should. But that's one team in the division. One.

And other than that, I mean, let's assume the top two spots are locked up with Carolina and the devils. So everybody else is fighting for the rest of the spots. And as much as it annoys me that the NHL loves the whole team first, rivalries, don't promote your stars. nobody's bigger than the game kind of thing. The Metro is the one division where that is absolutely true because every team we play in the Metro, I'm just like, you know, I really don't like this damn team. I know.

Every time I'm like, man, like those guys. Like, when we started this series, I was talking to my co-host and we were trying to decide who we should do, like, who we should reach out to first in all the Metro teams. And he was like, we should probably pick someone that we don't have beef with. And so I kind of ran through. the teams in the metro and I was like well Carolina I guess we don't really have a lot of beef with

but like penguins beef rangers beef devils a lot of beef mostly from their side because they're mad about Johnny Godro still Capitals beef islanders beef like I would say the hurricanes too I don't think the penguins really have too much beef with the hurricanes I mean I know that penguins swept in the playoffs it was also 14 years ago other than that

these two teams really they seem to get along each time they play. I know the Hurricanes can play a little bit boring with their defensive zone structure, but the games are still pretty fun, but you said, Jay, Rangers obviously beef right now with the Penguins.

That's probably their biggest rival right now. Washington, that's been for a long time. It's a little down right now. Flyers, that needs no introduction. The Islanders, me and Pat said all the time. Always the freaking Islanders when something goes wrong for this franchise. Forever.

Not just recently. Forever. That franchise will always That's a big brother little brother thing But like we talked about Before we here record Like there have been two Columbus Pittsburgh playoff series

And both of them have this Despite the outcomes right Like I would love to sit here and be like Oh we beat you But every time You guys have taken a chunk out of us You guys work for both of those victories And I would want away from those series

going like man like they may be our little brother but oh my god they took a chunk out of us in that series that 2014 one year. Like I said they're going to meet in the playoffs again probably in the next couple of years I think and I am both looking forward to it and not looking forward to it um we'll see how it goes let's let's wrap up here let's do a couple of predictions and I've been asking each each host these. Who is your pick for MVP of the Penguins this season? Like this upcoming season, who do you think your MVP is going to be?

I have my answer. You go first. I'm going to go with Chris LaTang. Baring health, I think given that he went through such a hellacious year last year with injuries and just everything off the ice, he is such a fierce competitor. Crosby gets all the headlines for being the competitor that he is, and we all know it.

It's well written. It's well known. But this is a very proud, very competitive man. And I think he wants to have a bounce back year. And I think add in the addition of Carlson, taking a little bit of the burden off of him, I think he's due for a gigantic year. And we can't say breakout because he's a well-established player,

everybody knows who he is, but Crosby is going to be Crosby, Malkin's going to be Malkin. This is a big year for Chris Lattang in my estimation. I'm actually going to go with Eric Carlson this year because he really wants to win a Stanley Cup. It's really been the one thing that's evading him throughout his career. And he comes to a situation where it's at least a winning one. The penguins are not going to be as bad as the sharks are going to be this year. God willing, they won't. and he's going to get, I think, 25, 26 minutes in night.

Him and Chris is saying will probably be on the ice individually, but combined, combined 50 minutes out of the 60. I hope your third pairing doesn't want to play any game. Don't get a little bit of time, you know, poor P.O. Joseph down there, Chad Ruehdle, Mark Freeman, Ty, Smith, whoever's going to be on that. They can have five minutes, it's fine. Don't have a little bit of time just to, you know, make sure the puck doesn't go in the back of the own net,

and then the other two parrions can come out in the offensive zone and do their work. But Carlson, again, I don't think he's going to have 100 points. But I think he's going to get somewhere in that 75 to 80 point range. He's going to help the power play quite a bit. And I think they're going to start the season with Latang and Carlson. And he's also very much going to help the 5 on 5 play. This is a team that, you know, outside of the top 6 this past season, no one else really scored.

Well, that changes now. when you have someone like an Eric Carlson. And if you can put him with a defenseman who is defensively responsible, especially in Marcus Pedersen or Ryan Graves, I think that's going to unlock him even more. He's not going to have to be the quote-unquote guy that he was with the sharks his past season, but I still think he's going to have a ridiculous year for the penguins and just be that other great defenseman, I think, on the team.

That's really what I'm trying to say, because, again, the Penguins have really never had the situation that often in the big three-air. I mean, sure, they had Sergei Gonshire and Chris Lange on the same blue line, but Gonshaw was a bit older at that point. He still really run a power play, though. He was fantastic with that. And Lentang was still a bit young and coming up. But with this, two defensemen who are great offensively,

one, I think is a little bit better than the other. I think Carlson is going to do it all on the blue line this year, and he's going to be great. And I have him as a team MVP this year. Both solid choices. I literally answered this question last week, and I have no memory of who I picked because it happened more than 12 seconds ago. So I'm just going to go,

I'm going to go for Patrick Lainey, I think. He had 52 points in 55 games this season, and that was mostly not healthy. If he starts clicking, if he gets consistent line mates, he's 40, maybe a 50 goal scorer in this league. And I think he's going to get consistent line mates.

So that's my pick. We'll wrap up one last question. You're not allowed to pick the Penguins. Who's winning the Cup this season? The Dallas Stars. I love the Stars, man. They have that perfect mix of those young players with that, you know, older veteran group.

I mean, Jamie Ben had a career renaissance this past season. And no, I'm not going to make a Jamie Ben joke on the show. Tyler Sagan was also great. you have the young guys, Mero Haskinen, who I think is one of the most underrated defensemen in the league. Jason Robertson just had an unreal year. He's going to continue to rise the ranks of one of the best players in the league. Rupé Hince, he is awesome.

The fact that the stars were able to draft these guys, as Ben and Sagan got older, and now they're here and they're playing at this level, that's their skills to show how great of a job they've done drafting. And you have Jake Ottinger, who I think is one of the five to seven best goaltenders on the planet. he's in that in the top three, but he's in that five to seven range. They have a good mix of depth forwards.

Some young players I said, their defense, I also think is pretty solid. Pete DeBoer, I don't think he's that good of a coach, but he usually gets the most out of his teams early on in his tenures. I love the stars heading into this season. I think they're going to win the cup. Grab your rotten fruit and get ready to throw it. I'm picking Toronto. I again, I think they're finally going to break through.

I really do. Boston's on the way down after everything they've had happened this off season. It just feels like that year too because like it's mostly the same roster. They've had some really good, really sneakily good additions in guys like Domi. And I think as much as I don't like the signing on this. the ice, I think Ryan Reeves is a good locker room guy for them because you've heard it, you've heard whispers about them in their locker room, kind of being fractured a little bit, a little bit, there's clicks, these guys hang out, these guys hang out, they don't hang out

together as a group. Reeves has said publicly, like if I'm in the locker room and I'm around the team, it's a team. There is no, this group of players hangs out and goes out and these guys don't join them. That's something I think they've missed. And as much as I hate intangibles and blah, blah, blah, like, I just think this looks like a year where they didn't need to make any big moves. And I know Dubus goes out and they go and get a different GM and all that, but they made the right moves this off season.

They didn't need to freak out and tear it all down and rebuild because just hockey happens, man. It's a random sport. You can't predict it. And they have all the pieces they need. and they actually have some goaltending now. So if there was ever a year for Toronto to do it, this feels like it could be one for them.

Yeah, if it's not this year, I don't think it will happen. No, I think if they... It feels weird to say that this is kind of their last hurrah when you look at how young the core it is, minus like the shambling corpse of John Tavares. But if it's not this year, I don't know if it'll be any year. And I'd agree. I would agree with that.

I agree with Hunter. in terms of the cup winner, as much as it pains me to admit it. Ox on Blue Jackets listeners, no, the Dallas stars are my nemesis. Why, I couldn't tell you. Sometimes you just have a team in the other conference that you hate. And it's the stars for me, and I hate that they're good. I hate that they have Joe Pabelsky, who I love. I hate that they were lucky enough to get Jason Robertson.

Like, it's just such a good team, and I'm so mad about it. But Toronto, Dallas, like, Stanley Cup final could be. Interesting. That'd be great hockey. It'd be fun hockey, but also I would hate it. I would hate every minute. If people want to, I can't in good conscience recommend that people go check out Locked on Penguins, because, obviously.

But if people do want to, we didn't even get to talk about my nemesis, Jake Gensel, in this episode, if they want some Jake Gensel talk, where can people find you guys and your show? You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hode's. Pat's Twitter is at Sinnam for Wet. follow the show's Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins, or I guess we're calling it X now, but I'm still just going to call it Twitter. And you can find the show wherever you get podcasts, Apple, Spotify,

YouTube, Amazon Music, Sirius XM, all that good stuff. I was going to ask you, Jay, do the Blue Jackets win a game in Pittsburgh this year for the first time in almost a decade? God, I hope so. I know, I put that in the little side thing and then forgot about it. God, I hope so. They won a game against the Penguins this season, so like maybe they'll go one further and win one in Pittsburgh.

Who can say? You can find Locked on Blue Jackets, wherever you get locked on penguins. We're on all podcasting platforms who are on YouTube, Sirius XM. You can find me at underscore Jacob Foster, J-K-O-B, F-O-R. You can find my co-host who's not here right now. Hayden at Hayden H-971. Thanks for listening. Thanks for making us your first listen of the day. Every day, Locked on Blue Jackets and Locked on Penguins are free and available wherever you want to go. And thanks for listening, guys.

tomorrow or whenever the next episode comes out because I don't know when this is going live yet make sure you stay locked on