Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Are the Penguins overdue for a coaching change?

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins are off on Tuesday but there's still plenty to discuss when it comes to this team, including the lineup for this week. Hunter and Pat start by discussing how the Penguins could have to go 11/7 for a couple of games this week depending on how long Acciari and Harkins will be out for. Are there advantages to it or is it too clunky? After that, they analyze whether Mike Sullivan should be on the hot seat and potentially lose his job after this season. They discuss the pros and cons of what he's brought to the organization and ponder what it would take for the team to actually make a change. Also: Who pays the price if this team misses the playoffs again? Finally, they look at the week ahead and how the season is on the brink heading into their games over the next few days.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotos.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.Camino ConsultingAfter providing more than 20 years of service to small and midsize businesses, Camino is offering a digital seminar for families and couples. Go to www.caminoconsulting.ca and use discount code LOCKEDON for 25% off the rest of the month OR mention Locked On when reaching out for a business seminar and receive the first 5 profiles free.SleeperDownload the Sleeper App and use promo code LOCKEDONNHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelGet buckets with your first bet on FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your bet wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires 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.

The Penguins might have to ice a different type of lineup this week, and Pat and I are going to discuss that and a lot more right after this. Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes.

You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. joined by my host Patrick Damme. You can follow him on Twitter at Center for Wet, and you can follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O. underscore Penguins, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Fandle, make every moment more.

Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150.000 if your bet wins, visit fandle.com slash locked on to get started. So, Pat, as I tease for today's show, the Penguins might have a different type of lineup for at least a couple of the games this week, or potentially all three games this week, of course, with the Yager game coming this upcoming Sunday. And then as the Penguins might have to go 11 forwards and seven defensemen. And that's because Jansen Harkins was placed on injured reserve on Monday. He has been diagnosed with a concussion. Hopefully, all is well.

But with him, he kind of had pretty scary hit into the boards in that game against Winnipe. He didn't really play for that second half of that game. Again, hope all is well with him. but you look at cat friendly right now. This team has $20,000 in Calf's face. They really do not have any room to call up anyone from Wilkeshire right now, unless a corresponding move is made, like maybe like moving a Charlie to IR or long-term injured reserve.

So if they don't do that, they're going to have to play with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen. So the penguins have that for this week, considering how up a creek they are with a playoff race right now. Yeah, and I mean, I think, Like you kind of said, they may have to do it all week. If that's the case and that's the kind of concussion Nollachari has, it might just be in his best interest to put him on IR.

Simply put, if you know you're going to miss them for the week, then at this point it makes more sense to put him on IR and call up, say, Valteri Pustin in and get him back into the lineup without Achari available. If it's, and I know that concussions are very difficult to diagnose, to manage, to recover from. I have had multiple in my life throughout my hockey playing career. So I know that there can be days where you wake up and everything feels clear and you're good to go. And then as soon as your feet touch the ground, it comes back.

I know there are ones that debilitate you for days. And no concussion is made the same. They are all extremely different. They all are very extremely serious because you only get one brain and there's no replace in it. So if it seems like he may only be down for tomorrow night, then you can bite the bullet and go 11 and 7, maybe put some more onus on your top 6, which might not be the worst thing right now, especially if you put a guy like Ricard Raquel back up there, as we talked about yesterday. and it could really, it could just be a stall, just to wait for this guy to get back. But if it looks like he's going to be gone for the week,

put him on IR, get boosting in a car, and get him back up to Pittsburgh. Yeah, that's the thing. And I don't think he's going to be available for the first two games of the week, the game against Florida at home on Wednesday, and then the game at Chicago on Thursday. Now, he could be available for the game on Sunday.

He has started to skate a little bit before practice. this week. So that is great news. It seems like he's recovering decently well from it. But even I think if it's just these two games that he has to miss, I still feel like it's in their best interest to put him on IR and call someone up. So you're going 12-4-6 defensemen and not going 11-7. I honestly hate 11-7 for not just the penguins, I think, any team. It's just so, it just feels clunky. It feels uncomfortable. I just have never been a fan of that at all. So I hope that at the very least, if he misses these two games, they're able to call someone up and put a chariot on IR, so they'll have room to do it. It depends upon how a team is

built, the way I look at it with 11 and 7. If you have more, and we talked about this yesterday, this team doesn't have a ton of depth in general. But if you're a team that has more defensive depth, then you have forward depth, it can work, especially because chances are if you run 11 and seven. You basically have a third line, so to speak, on defense. Your four, five, six defensemen are rotating your top four defensemen stay the same. But at the same time, you look at this Penguins team. We bemoaned it yesterday for a while. They don't really have many defensemen outside of their top three in Latang Carlson and Pedersen. Everybody else is a distant fourth place behind those three, if not worse.

And then you look at the forward group and outside of Crosby, Jake, Rust, Malkin a little bit, there's not a ton there to speak of. So this really, I'm with you on that. Going 11 and 7 with this penguin's roster is just not a key for success. But I will say this about it. the way we have talked about them winning games this season in playing simple, taking what the game gives them, being responsible defensively, if you roll out 11 and 11 and 7 roster in a game,

you have to play that way. You can't take risks. You can't go outside the system because the lines are going to be in a blender. The defensive pairings are going to be in a blender. You can't try to do too much. You have to keep it extremely simple. So in an alternate universe, this might actually be helpful for this team because they're not going to be able to take risks and do things that go outside of the system. So maybe in a backward way, 11 and 7 forces this team to play a simple game.

I mean, we've been wanting them to play that way all season. I mean, when they've been at their best, they've been playing that low risk style where they're playing well defensively while still getting at least some chances offensively. And they're also finishing on those chances outside of the Harkins injuring the potential of going 11-7. Look at the four groups today. And you talked about Rickel potentially being in the top six. Well, Pat, it looks like you're probably not going to get your wish. She is still on the third line right now. I mean, I don't know what you can do with Raquel at this point, to be honest.

I was saying this to a couple people the other day. I know people want him to play on Cindy Crosby's wing or Gino's wing because you're at least putting him with players who can get something out of him, but no one has been able to get anything out of him, I feel like, this season. He had a couple of decent games when he originally came back from that injury that really derailed that first month or two of the season for him. But after those first couple of games, he just turned back to the player that we saw before he got hurt. Again, five goals in almost half a season here. I don't think it's working out for anyone who he plays with. And again, yeah, you can put him up there with Crosby and Malkin, but it's not doing anything.

so I don't really know what option they have for him at this point. You're still putting Brian Russell on the top line. Pull Jarvie is getting a look with Malkin and Riley Smith. I actually don't mind Pulliardy getting a look on on Gino's line. I think Paul Jarvie has played two really solid games looking like at least a decent depth option for this team. But in terms of Raquel, there's really no answer here just because he's not playing well with any line this year.

The biggest issue with Ricard Raquel, because I remember, if you remember last season, he did slump for a little bit, around the midway point, but he was getting chances. They just weren't going in. This is the problem this year is the chances aren't even there. I say this all the time on this pod in my writing when I was a coach. My issue starts when the chances stop coming.

If a player is getting chances and they're just not going in, I'm not that worried because hockey at its core is an inherently random game. There is absolutely no. way to predict goals. You just cannot do that. But it's when players like Ricard Raquel stop getting chances that it's a problem because it shows they're not playing well. Eventually, the puck start going in, unless you're the Pittsburgh Penguins, because as we've seen for the last two years, they're great at generating offense, but the puck doesn't go in. But on a on a macro level with individual players, you look at it and think, okay, is Ricard Raquel creating offense? Is he creating

possession. Is he getting chances, but they're just not going in? If the answer to all of those are no, and right now this year, the answer to all those questions is no, then you have an issue. It's not like he's going down to the third line and still getting those chances. That's not happening. He's just completely ineffective. For lack of a better term, he's been invisible this year. And for what he makes and what he's expected to do, that can't be the case. So again, I do think you eventually essentially and Mike Sullivan has to do this, you have to bite the bullet and give him a five to 10 game look with either Crosby or Malkin. And if the same stuff keeps happening, then you just have to throw your hands up and go, well, this guy's done. But right now, putting him with

Lars Eller is not going to ail or fix what's ailing him. It's not. I agree with you on that. I just, I push back a little bit with what you were saying just because he got those looks with Crosby and Malkin and he wasn't doing anything with those chances. So I'm not really sure what's going to change this time around when he's been so bad. You know, maybe he proves me wrong if he gets another opportunity with one of those top two lines. But I'm not holding my breath considering how bad he's been. Yeah. And you got to go, you know, Red Dead Redemption 2 old Western movie here.

And you got to give him that five to 10 game look and tell him, hey, pal, you're taking a seat at the bar at the last chance saloon. It's now or never go ahead and do it. But right now, you can't twiddle him on the third line. You just can't because it's not the kind of game he plays, nor is there enough talent on your third line center or your third line left wing that's going to help him there. It has to be with elite players who create offense and can help him break out of a slump. And if he doesn't, well, then it's probably time to figure out something else

and have him move on with his life's work. That's fair. I mean, I can give you that. And, you know, I didn't think we'd have a Red Dead Redemption too cameo on this episode from Pat. But, hey, you know, that's what happens when Arthur Morgan for life, baby. Pat's also playing that game for everyone. Love that game. But I think that I'll do it for this first segment of today's show.

Coming up in the second segment, it's a topic that a lot of people want to discuss, and we're going to dive right into it. What is the future of Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan? Should he keep his job after this season? Or should the Penguins part ways and try to get a new head coach? coach. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about Fandul. Get buckets with your first bet on Fandual America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 if your bet wins. You can bet on all your

favorite NBA players and teams with quick bets, live same game parlayes, exclusive prompts, and so much more. All you have to do is visit fanduel.com slash locked on and shoot your shot. that's Fandle, the official sports book partner of the NBA. All right, we're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, join by my host, Patrick Dam. So let's dive into it. You know, we get comments about this all the time regarding the head coach of Pittsburgh Penguins, Mike Sullivan.

I see a lot of the discourse in a couple of discords that I'm in on social media. And I think when it comes to Mike Sullivan, I'll say this. if they wanted to fire him this season, I think you would have seen it done already. I think the biggest thing for me is, and this is just my opinion, I don't think FSG wants to fire him before the extension kicks in.

And I will also say this. I think that extension at the time, you look back at it right now, it was a bit premature considering what has happened since then. I thought at the time it was a great extension because I thought there was going to be a lot more success from him, compared to what we've seen now.

That's why I was like, okay, it's cool. He can get the extension. I think he's going to win a round or two in the playoffs, especially just a couple years ago when they probably should have beaten the Rangers had Cindy Crosby, not gotten hurt, and if they had gotten actual goaltending in that series, but I digress.

After that, though, the results have gone down worse than I feared, and now the talk is really heated up for going to Mike Sullivan. But he's expected to make over $5 million per year on this extension. I believe it's around $5.5.5 million somewhere on. I believe it was Peter Lillard. run, excuse me, that reported that on social media, one of the insiders that did. I believe it was PR, though. And I don't think FSC is prepared to eat all of that money before it even starts kicking in. And I get it from people. You want a new voice in there. You're seeing a lot of coaches

get fired at this point. He's one of the longest 10-year-head coaches in the league. But I think if this were any other ownership group, I do think Mike Sullivan would have been fired by now. But I think FSG just also really likes him. I kind of think they see him as, I'm going to make a Boston reference here, obviously. I think they think of him as a mini Bill Belichick in a way, as a head coach, not as a general manager, obviously, because I know he ran the show in New England. But I think they think of him as a mini version of Bill Belichick. And that's one of the reasons why you continue to see him be the head coach of this team.

Another reason why I think he is still the head coach is because of his relationship with Cindy Crosby. It's been widely reported by a lot of people who cover this team on a whole-time basis that Sid and Mike Sullivan are very close. And I don't know if he would want to play for another head coach at this point in his career as a Pittsburgh penguin. But I also think him being close to Sullivan plays into him still being the head coach of this team. That said, I don't think he's had that good of a season. I think he could definitely improve in quite a few areas with some deployments, from his bottom six and the power play because I do think he shares the blame for that. But at the end of the day, I'm putting more of the blame for some of the failures over

the offseason on Kyle Dubis compared to some of the moves he made over Mike Sullivan. Because when I look back at some of the bottom sixes he's had over the years, they've been able to score more than this. And the biggest thing from Kyle Dubas coming out of Toronto, one of the biggest things that I remember reading was that his inability to build not as good depth. around some of the top players. And you're kind of seeing that here as well. Again, I'm not saying Mike Sullivan is like the worst head coach of all time or not.

I'm not saying he's the best head coach of all time. I'm just saying that I do think there are valid reasons to why this organization has not let go of him yet, even though I totally understand why fans want to see a new voice behind the bench. I know that was a very long-winded answer to this, but I felt like I had to say it. I was going to say there, save some takes for me, geez, because like you kind of hit on all the points I wanted to hit on as well. I will say this. I have spoken with some of my friends up in the Boston area who are Red Sox fans and they have knowledge of FSG because I've seen a lot of takes about how FSG and John Henry are cheap. and it's not so much that they're cheap.

It's that they're cheap in areas that don't affect the on the field, on the ice, on the court, whatever, on the pitch product, right? A lot of people in Boston don't like NESN that much. They think it could be so much more. And that's an FSG product, just like SportsNet. Pittsburgh is now an FSG product. But when it comes to the money they spend on their teams, They are not cheap. They will spend a lot of money on the teams themselves. However, I'm with you in that I don't think he's going to get fired this year or this offseason. They're not going to be afraid to pay out his contract should they fire him. But I believe they want the extension to start. They want to kind of say, all right, your extension's in place. Now it's on you. And to kind of,

of take the conversation a little bit of different direction. What you were saying about Kyle Dubus, I think it's kind of an apples to oranges comparison on the way he built rosters, because if you look at what he did in Toronto, a lot more draft capital, a lot more developmental capital, because he came in right at the start of the Matthews-Marner-Nielander era. So they still had a ton of draft capital.

They still had a ton of young players in the Marleys. And he parlayed those into young, productive, cheap players on his roster so he could go out and pay Austin Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Neelander, John Tavares. And then you had these guys who were in the Marleys for with the Marleys for a couple of years come up and they're making a million, a million five or less in producing well above that pay rate. You look at the penguins and not a lot in Wilkes-bear, not a ton of draft picks. So you kind of have to, like we talked about yesterday, you have to go shopping on July 1 and you are always going to overpay on July 1. Back to Mike Sullivan, though,

I agree in a sense that it's time to question his longevity behind the bench. He has done a phenomenal job, I think, every single year. The only year I put on him for this team not winning is the Islanders series when they got swept because they got out everything in that series. Outplayed. out-coached, out-goleed, out everything. And that, he wears a lot of that. But then you look at everything in the subsequent losses. 2018, that team was gassed. Two Stanley Cup runs.

They just, they didn't have it. And I also think the winner of that Penguins Cap series in 2018 was the Stanley Cup champion, no matter what. That was pretty much going to be the winner of the Stanley Cup that year. 2020 in the bubble, I can put on them a little bit. He probably should have gone to Jari earlier instead of sticking with Murray. But at the same time, your goaltender is allowed to make a save. Same thing in 2021.

Jari melts down. Casey DeSmith is hurt, so they can't even go to the backup goalie. That's a GM problem again. 22, same deal. They run back the same tandem. Jari's hurt. DeSmith gets hurt. Louis DeMing is a career HL or fringe NHL guy.

Again, nothing you can do about that other than get better players from your general manager. And then last year, that was just a deeply flawed team. I don't think Scotty Bowman, Herb Brooks and their prime could have lifted that team into the playoffs. But at the same time, then you look at this season, a little bit of improved depth, not by a lot, but improved compared to last season. And then you have the power play. Mike Sullivan doesn't, you know, leave the ice and go back to his office and do whatever he does when the power play starts practice. at UPM C Lemieux. He's part of it.

And he has to wear some of that as well. So I do think that to make a long, belabored point here, FSG is going to let the extension start next year. But the minute the NHL season calendar flips to 2425, he is going to be under a microscope, regardless of what happens the rest of this year. Because once the calendar flips and the extension starts, arts, like I said, FSG is cheap around the margins, but not cheap when it comes to the teams

themselves. So if they do some facelifts of this team and this roster in the offseason and we're getting similar results, month and a half, two months into the season, they probably won't hesitate to let him go and find a new head coach. Plus, they spent a lot of money to bring in Kyle Dubus. And as much as good of a relationship they may or may not have. Mike Sullivan isn't Kyle Dubus's guy. Now, let's hope that the Leafs don't get rid of Sheldon Keith because I like Sheldon Keith, but that is Kyle Dubus's guy. And if he's available and Mike Sullivan gets fired, Sheldon Keith might have to learn Jinser, buddy. I love that meme. You just put out there. But speaking of the Kyle Dubus relationship with Mike Sullivan, you know,

every way I've seen videos or audio of his GM show with Josh Gets off or just interview with the full-time media, he spoke glowingly about Mike Sullivan. It seems like they have a really good relationship together. But even outside of that, when it comes to this season as a whole, say they miss the playoffs and the way this is going right now, they very well may. That's back-to-back seasons of missing the playoffs and also not even winning a playoff series in six years. Who pays the price for another failure in this city?

going to be the core. It's not Cindy Crosby. It's not a Ganyi Malkin. It's not Chris is the thing. It's not Eric Carlson. Sure, it's other players in the roster that will pay the price. But who outside of that gets to pay the price? Because you saw last year, Pat, it was the front office. Rod Hextall gone. Brian Burke. See you. This time. Is it the assistant coaches that paid the full price? Or do FSG maybe say, oh, no, Hunter and Pat, you guys are dumb. We're actually going to fire him right now after the season before this extension kicks in because someone is going to have to pay if this team misses two years in a row, especially in a conference that especially right now is weak. So that's my question I have to you. No, I totally agree with

you there. I mean, the thing I'm saying is this. I think it's highly unlikely that they would fire him after this year. But I don't think it's out of the question, especially if they missed the playoffs again. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did, but I agree with you. I do think it's unlikely just because his relationship with Cindy Crosby, his relationship with Kyle Dubus, his extension hasn't kicked in yet. They all seem to think the world of him, especially the ownership group. But would I be surprised if they let him go?

No, just because they haven't won a playoff series in six years. And this will be two straight seasons of missing the playoffs while the core is still performing at a high level. To me, that is unacceptable all around. No, I totally agree with you there. Like, there's no excuse to miss the, well, there are some, but they're not this to miss the playoffs. The other thing I also kind of want to touch on it real quick before we move on is the whole everyone speaks glowingly of them. Now, we know that FSGs has been speaking glowingly of him pre Kyle Dubis and Kyle Dubis is speaking glowingly of him now.

it would be bad business to go out there and bury your head coach publicly. Like, he's not going to come out and say like, oh, Mike Sullivan wasn't my guy. I don't know about him. I'm still evaluating, blah, blah, blah, because that is not conducive to success. It's just not. And similar to how I say this stuff about head coaches where, you know, pro athletes of full-time job now, guys aren't going to work a shift at the mill after the game, you know, this is their full-time job.

They are the 1% of the 1%. So getting the hard-ass coach that cracks the whip every single day isn't going to really make that much of a difference. At the same time, it applies to coaches and management. Yeah, you should be critical when it calls for it. I've said that on this show before that I think it's long past time for Mike Sullivan to give this team a kick in the behind and maybe call some players out, maybe not be a jerk about it, but say like, hey, the way we're playing is unacceptable. The way the power play is failing is completely unacceptable. It's fine to have your teams back, but eventually you've got to put their feet to the fire.

And the same can be said for the general manager. Now, Dubas doesn't have to go out and say Sullivan's terrible. I can't wait to get rid of them. But he can go out there and hint and say like, hey, we've tried everything on this power play and it's still not working. Eventually, the coach has got to figure this out. But it's not conducive to success to have an environment that's toxic. Everybody gets called out. Everybody's sniping at one another.

You do that. You become essentially the Eugene Melnick Ottawa Senators because you remember how, and I don't mean to speak disparagingly of the dead, but that is what that team's environment was when he was owner. Everybody walked on eggshells and everybody was afraid to do their job because they knew they could get called out. If you do that now, it's just going to make things worse. Agreed. I don't want a toxic work environment or anything like that, but I would potentially want to do this to, as you said, challenge Mike Sullivan, at least. tactfully, I would say. On the GM show, when you meet with the media, on the trade deadline, anytime you meet with the media.

Just tactfully do it and just say, like, yeah, this is not good enough. And it's on you and your staff to fix it. Or there's going to be consequences. Just because, again, missing two years in row, that's not going to, especially with how the score continues to play. And putting people on notice isn't the worst thing. You don't have to be a jerk about it.

But you can call obvious things obvious. Right, no, I agree with you 100%. But I think we've gone long enough on Mike Sullivan. We could probably go 30 more minutes, to be honest, regarding this head coach. But that would do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show, we're going to look at the updated standings for the playoff race and the week ahead for this team. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about Sleeper,

which is the official daily fantasy app of the locked on NHL network. Sleeper is our number one choice for daily fantasy sports, and especially Daily Fantasy hockey because it was Sleeper, You can win one or times your cash in daily fantasy hockey contests. You can do this by yourself. You can do this with your friends. Heck, you can even do this with your family, and you're not even limited to just hockey.

You can do NFL, NBA, MLB, and college football, all-on-sleeper. All you have to do is pick weather studs like Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Alex Lovetch can now be scoring again, or Nathan McKinnon will record more or less. There are stats. Goals, assist, plus minus. You can throw saves in there for goalies. And to win a one-hard-time-times bet on sleeper.

You need to correctly predict the outcome of eight player stats. You heard me, Penguins fans, you can win 100 times your money playing daily fantasy hockey with sleeper, start paying attention, and nail your picks so you can start winning big. Use promo code locked on NHL, and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. That's code Locked on NHL. So he said it was terms of use for details and locational availability. All right, we're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. Join with my host, Patrick Dam. So the standings are continuing to get dicey for the Penguins. The Flyers went again on Monday. Pat, you jinxed it. I'm blaming you because, yeah, they did look bad before the break. But now they've come out of the break and they're looking like they did for the most part in the first half ever. I know they lost five in a row before heading into the break.

But before that, they were looking like a playoff team. And now they're continuing to look like a playoff team this year. And I still honestly can't wrap my head around that. Right now it's the break served them well. They were struggling before the break, and now they're right back to where they looked. So I'll wear that, but I'm going to say this. It wasn't like it wasn't without evidence. That's true.

I know. I just have to give you a little bit of crap there because it is funny. The lose five of a row, they're coming back down to Earth. They come out of the break, and now they've won to one in a row. They're in third place in the Metro, 64 points. The penguins are 11 points back of them, though. They do have the five games in hand. I will continue to ride that copium until they lose potentially all those games in

hand. The Devils have also started to win a little bit more. They're fourth in Metro right now. 56 points, but the Penguins do have two games in hand. The Islanders are 56 points. The Capitals have 54. Penguins, I mean, fourth place is there for the taking in the Metro, but still, that's not good enough right now. You look at the playoff race as a whole for the wild card. And the Penguins right now, seven points behind the Detroit Red Wings.

They have 60 points, 27, 18, and 6 for their overall record, 51 games for the Red Wings, 49 for the Penguins. This week, man, it's probably make or break time for this team. If it's not already, to be honest, they're going to have to bank every possible point this week. They're going to have to sweep that back to back. And I think they're going to have to get at least a point in that game against L.A. Or, I mean, preferably you win that just because you're honoring Yarm or Yager, for God's sake. But it's past time for this team to show consistency if they want to be in the playoff race.

you can't be rotating win loss, win loss, or win-win, loss, or even just a two-and-one-in-one stretch. You're still dropping points when you do stuff like that. It's beyond time to go on a six-game winning streak, a seven-game winning streak. If they're not able to do that, then there might be toast at this point. This is such a big week. These next six to ten games are so big, especially these next six. Five of those six are at home. Two of them are against the flyers.

and the Islanders two teams that you are chasing in the Metropolitan Division. You have to bank those four points. And you play a Blackhawks team this week. That is confirmed now. They are not going to have Connor Bedard. He's not going to be returning until next week. I know that's on a back-to-back. That one has to be a win.

You do have a Panthers team coming to town on Wednesday. You've played them pretty tough all year. You need to stack points. There's no room for error. It has to start on Wednesday, even though it should have started more than a few weeks ago. Well, it's exactly what you said during the break. We talked about it after we had our freak out after the Arizona game, rightfully.

But games in hand only matter if you win. And we're to the point now where the games in hand are starting to dwindle away. They're starting to catch up in games played with the rest of the conference. So at this point, you're still seven points out of the second wildcard. And I think it's only two or three games. You're behind Detroit now. So they haven't done that. That has been the failing is the fact that they had all these games in hand and they didn't take advantage of it.

They dropped games that were very winnable. They played, I don't want to say down to competition in Winnipeg because Winnipeg's a very good hockey team, but they definitely played down to competition in Minnesota. And maybe at this point it's safe to say that they're not playing down to competition. This is just who they are. The hard conversation here is that maybe this team isn't as good as we want them to be. I also think we talked a lot about it. The Kyle Dubus quote unquote deadline to decide what he's going to do with this team,

like you said, these next two weeks might give him the answer he needs. If this team can't pull within a handful of points of the second wildcard or even third in the Metro, maybe you punt on this season. that's hard to say. I know we talked about that yesterday, but if they can't stack wins, yeah, it's great that Sidney Crosby's having a hell of a year and Chris LaTang still looks good. Eric Carlson's producing to his career pace, but if the rest of the team doesn't want to join them, you have to sit down with these guys and have a hard conversation of like, listen, this year isn't it? And next year, this off season, we're going to make some tough decisions. You guys are going to be

okay, you guys are going to be safe, but your supporting cast has to be better. And we're going to make some tough decisions to make that supporting cast better, which also folds into our discussion from the last segment. Maybe you tell them, hey, we're going to rebuild this roster top to bottom around you guys. And I know you like the coach, but if we do that and we get the same results, he might have to go to. Right. Now, I don't disagree with anything you said there.

I mean, I've been against punting for the last several weeks just because of how mid this conference is and everything else. But the Penguins also haven't woken up yet. And that's a very real thing that we have to discuss because you brought it up when you were talking there. I think this might just be a very mid to okay team this year that is not even good enough to make the playoffs in a conference that is not good. And that's concerning, considering the amount of talent that is on this team, the amount of talent that was brought in over the offseason, the fact that you can't make the playoffs, especially when there are teams all around the conference and all around the league,

especially that are having down years that some of us didn't expect them to have, like the Devils, for example. I mean, that's concerning to me. So it is a very real possibility that they do punt on this season. If they do, you know, I'll live with it. And, you know, we'll look through the positives coming out of it. That's what we like to do on this show. but even if they do point,

I think they're going to go make another run at this next season. They're not going to blow this thing up, as I know some fans want them to do. They're going to give this another go at it next year, even though this core is going to be another year older. I don't think they're just going to start the rebuild before it's necessary. I think they're going to go all in again next year and until these players show that maybe they're slowing down a little bit.

But overall for this season, at least, the run should have started a few weeks ago, as I said. But I know it hasn't. But if they have any chance of getting back into even sniffing top three in the Metro or fully getting back to the playoff race, it has to start on Wednesday at home against one of the better teams in the conference. But I think that I'll do it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for tuning in, whether you're listening to it or whether you're watching on YouTube. to Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Wednesday to preview the game against the Florida Panthers. And then on Thursday, we'll recap that game, get you all set for the tilt in Chicago.

And then Friday we'll recap that game, get you all set for Yager night on Sunday at home against the Los Angeles Kings. But again, that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We really appreciate it. We'll be back on Wednesday.