Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Can the Penguins find a trading partner for Tristan Jarry?

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Is there a chance that the Pittsburgh Penguins find a trade partner for Tristan Jarry out west? After seeing the Los Angeles Kings lose to the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night, Hunter and Patrick believe that the Kings could be a destination to send Jarry this offseason. They look at how it makes sense for the Kings because of their goaltending situation and how Rob Blake hasn't shied away from making big moves to help the team. They also look at how that move would help the Penguins moving forward before looking back on a polarizing season for the team's big offseason acquisition, Erik Karlsson. They discuss how he had a season of highs and lows and give their take on whether he'll be better next year. finally, they tackle the biggest question surrounding the organization...is it time for a rebuild?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monopoly GO!Get in the game and join your friends. Click HERE to Download MONOPOLY GO! now free on The App Store or Google Pay. The mobile hit twist on classic MONOPOLY.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.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET!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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Trading a goalie who makes $5 million a year for the next four years may be a challenge, but there is a team out there who could be a taker. Your Locked-on Penguin, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes.

You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow our show's account at L.O. underscore Penguins. And we thank you for making this your first listener watch of the day, because we're your team every day, and we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And today's episode is brought to you by Monopoly Go. Game off, we got to talk more about Monopoly Go, this fast-paced game that lets you team up with friends for tournaments

to unlock awesome prizes like unique stickers for trading, cool playing pieces and hilarious emojis for taunting your friends. So download Monopoly Go Now free on Google Play or the App Store, game on. Okay, so I said it there in the opening. One of the big questions surrounding the Pittsburgh Penguins going into this offseason is what to do in goal. We saw how this season played out. Tristan Jari struggled down the stretch,

was replaced by Alex Nadelcovic, a guy who we believe is going to head to market on July 1st, thanks to his pretty solid play down the stretch to keep the penguins in the playoff hunt. And then you have a guy like Joel Blumquist, who appears ready to take the next step and make the move from the American Hockey League to the National Hockey League. And that leads all roads back to Tristan Jari, who once again, as we saw the calendar flip into March and we get into the dog days of the season, where this team was fighting for their playoff lives.

He was wildly inconsistent and ultimately replaced by the aforementioned Alex Nadelcovic. And then I had the thought this morning before we started recording because I was watching the Edmonton Oilers dispatch the Los Angeles Kings for the third year in a row. And I did what all of us hockey nerds do. I ran directly to cap-friendly to see what the King's cap-friendly and cap situation looks like heading into this offseason. First and foremost, they will have just a shade under $21 million available to them this offseason.

And they don't have a ton of unrestricted free agents coming up that are worth resigning, save for maybe defenseman Matt Roy. They also have a lot of RFAs that they will have to deal with. But then you look at their goaltending situation. They have four goalies under contract at the NHL level right now, but they will all become unrestricted free agents. And that is Cam Talbot, David Ridditch, Aaron Dell and Phoenix Copley.

So if there was ever a team that might need to make a move to get a goaltender for the foreseeable future who has history as a starting goaltender and is still fairly young, all things considered, it's the Los Angeles Kings. I agree, especially because I think the Kings are still in win now mode, even though they have lost to the Oilers through street years. And that movie has gone the same every single time. The movie started out, at least as like a classic the first year, got worse than the second year, and then was flat out awful this year. And for the King's goalies in the playoffs, they played both Riddick and Talbot. Talbot got three of the games, Riddick got two. And while they weren't the main reason why they lost, they still weren't good enough.

861 for Talbot, his say percentage, Riddick was 872, combined 864. That's not good enough over a five-game series. I do think the main reason why the King's loss was because their special teams were awful. You can get by in a playoff series with one of your special teams being mid to bad, but you can't get by when both of your special teams units, especially your penalty kill, is giving up goals to the other team every time that team gets a power play. The Oilers Power Play in that series, Pat, was over 30% for five games.

I mean, that was the main reason why the Kings lost the series. But Rob Blake, he's been really aggressive, as the King's GM over the past couple of years, trying to get this team over the hump. You know, he's gotten Victor Arvinson via trade. He's gotten Philip to know. He went out and got Pierre-Luk Dubois. And while I didn't like the move at the time,

I thought they gave up a little too much, and that extension has looked bad. It's just gotten that much worse throughout the season just because he was not good. But still, he has shown an ability to make big moves. And I think this one, if he wanted to go out and get Jari, that would qualify as a big move as well. Another reason why,

I also think this does make sense for the Kings is because Jari would be playing in a system that's more suited for him. It's a team that's more defensively responsible than the Penguins are. It's a team that plays a lot of 1-0-0-2-1-3-2 games. And while the Penguins had that blueprint at times this season, it's just not the way I know the stars like to play. When you think of Penguins hockey, you know what we're talking about. 4-3-5-4-6-5 running gun games. But that system, I think, for the Kings, it suits Jari a little bit better.

And I do think he could have a pretty strong year, well, hopefully a strong year in 2024, 2025, if he plays in a more defensively minded system. For sure. You hit on a point I was going to make was that the Kings do play a little bit more defensively than the Pittsburgh Penguins do, which I do think would be more suited for Jari's style of goal sending. But then on the raw Blake point of it. He's got to start feeling the pressure because three straight first round exits to the same team in what has essentially been the same story over and over again. This isn't some sort of, okay, we're a young team that's figuring it out.

We went up against the big dogs. Yeah, they did go up against the big dogs because the Edmonton Oilers against their entire organizational philosophy have seemed to figure it out and actually been able to put together very solid rosters that are very much in the conversation for Cup content. but you mentioned the PLD trade and an extension. That's not looking very good. Rob Blake's got to be feeling the heat as general manager, so he's got to do something to sure up this roster. And then you look at what they have. They've got a few solid prospects that they could probably do to part with in a trade.

But if I'm Kyle Dubis, the thing I would be calling them on is draft picks, because everybody, and we're going to talk about it later in the show today, everybody loves the idea of those magic beans of draft picks. And this coming draft this summer, it's not looking too great for them. They don't have their second, third, or fifth round picks. They do have one, four, six, and seven. But the next two years, they've got their full complement of draft picks through all seven rounds. So if you're Kyle Dubas and your entire philosophy right now is keeping this team competitive,

but wanting to get younger and restock that pipeline, LA is a team that you can most certainly target to get both of those things. Yeah, they have one of the better prospect pools in the league overall. You saw that on full display when they made the Dubois trade last summer. Another big thing that the Penguins would obviously get in this trade is more cap-space, especially Pat, if you can dump that entire contract all 5.375 million per year with the four years left, that would be, I think, the biggest win for the Penguins. I know you'd hopefully be getting back at least a decent package,

but I will say goalie trades are very tricky. Sometimes you see somewhere a team gets a haulback, but other times it's a pure salary dump where you're really not getting that much back except maybe a mid-round pick to a C-level prospect. So I don't know what Jari's value will truly be at that time if the penguins were to go down this route. I don't think you're getting back a massive package.

I think you could work in, again, a decent pick, maybe at least an okay prospect. But again, the biggest thing that you'd be getting is that cap space to spend on other parts of the line, especially at Florida and then maybe on defense as well. And then you lower your cost of goaltending as well. We said it after the season ended. Bringing back Alex Adelkevich, while I would like it, it just ties up too much money in the goaltending,

especially if you do keep jari. If you do move on from Jari, that allows you at least a little bit of money to give to Dendelkevich. And then if you want to bring in another experience back up, if you feel like Blumquist is not ready, you can do that. Or if you feel like Blumquist is ready, you have a very, and I mean a very cheap goalie tandem that way. I'm all about spending as little money as possible at that position, especially if you don't have one of the five to seven best goaltenders in the league. Yeah. And that's the biggest thing is that people often forget. that in this era of hockey, salary cap space is an asset.

When you have a triple hard salary cap that there's no luxury tax system, you can't exceed it, having space is an asset. And if you can free up $5 million in a summer where you're going to have some of the most cap space you've had in the last 20 years, that frees you up in a year where there's not that great of a UFA class, you can go out and make some more trades and bring on some more talent that might cost you a little bit more. So this is a move. If I'm Kyle Dubus, I'm getting Rob Blake on the phone and saying, hey, UFA class isn't that strong this year, especially in goal.

I've got a guy that I think I can move that will help you out and maybe keep your job safe for a little bit while longer and give that, give Rob Blake that call and try to make that move. Agreed. And again, if you do go down that route, as I said, it opens up the cap space, but it also allows the penguins to maybe go after some other teams that are facing more of a cap crunch than them that maybe need to move on from a player that has helped them the last couple of years that the penguins could need in their lineup, whether it's a forward or defensive. Kind of like how the Penguins did with Vegas last year, right?

At the time, I loved the move because I liked what Riley Smith did in the regular season in the playoffs. He then went on to have the worst season, I think, of his career. But that's still a move that I would make every time just because you're banking on, him producing at that level and you're not giving up basically anything of value to get it. So if you do make this move, it opens up the possibilities for the penguins to go after some Crunch teams where they're not probably going to have to give up that much in assets to get that player, but they can still maybe get someone that can really help them try and get back to the playoffs next year.

Speaking of moves and trades, it is season and review time for us here on the Lockdown Penguins podcast. And when we come back, we are going to do the season review for one of the most polar rising players to put on a penguin's uniform this season, and that is Eric Carlson. But before we do that, got to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Monopoly Go. All right, game off. We got to pause to talk more about Monopoly Go, and I know what you're saying. That's a two-minute penalty.

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That's Hunter Hodes. And we're going to have to talk about them because it's season and review time. And I know we're going to get lit up in the comments, but it is time to review the of one Eric Carlson acquired in the off season in one of the better trades we have seen in quite a while where Kyle Dubus quite literally did the meme of trading all of our bad players for San Jose's good players. And overall, I think I'm going to let you dig into the numbers because I know that you've been pouring over them. I don't think it was a bad season for Eric Carlson. Also don't think it was a good one. His numbers, especially his counting stats, with the exception of his Norris winning season last year in San Jose, pretty much right in line with how he produced when it came to goals, assists, and points with his usual career numbers. He pretty much was right there except for that extreme 101 point outlier of a season.

But the biggest thing I had of my takeaway from Eric Carlson was this. One, when he disappeared, he disappeared for way too long. And then similar to something we always used to say about Eric Carl's, or not Eric Carlson, excuse me, Chris LaTang. When he made the mistake, he didn't just make the mistake. He made the big mistake. I mean, you saw that on full display in the Red Wings game late in the season when he just turned his controller off late in the third period

and allowed the Red Wings to steal a pretty crucial point, at least at the time in that game. If he doesn't do that, the Penguins get the two, points in regulation and who knows what happens the rest of the way. But you're right. When he was bad, he was flat out bad. But I do agree. Eric Carlson was by far the most polarizing figure on this team this year.

You ask one person, they'll say, oh, he stinks. You should never have traded for him. You should just kept Granlin, Petrie, and all these other assets that they moved to get him. And then you ask someone else who was like, oh, no, he was a God. He was a God. Okay. I'm not in that camp where he was a God.

all year. I'm also not in the camp that thinks, oh, the trade was a waste. Why make that move? I would make that move every single day because you're getting one of the top players in the league, despite him being over the age of 30, and you virtually gave up nothing of value to get him. And you gained salary cap space in the trade. I think people forget that. They gained salary cap space when making that deal. And when I looked at Carlson's season overall, I see that, someone who showed quite a few flashes a lot of times, but wasn't able to put it together consistently. I thought he had a really strong start to this season. He then disappeared a little bit. But when the games really got big down the stretch, that's when Carlson really figured it out.

He had 10 points in the Penguins' final 10 games when they were really trying to do the unthinkable and sneak their way in the playoffs after being in a 9-point deficit with only a few. weeks left in the regular season. He was one of their best players down the stretch. And if he can play at that level for a full 82 games next season, even though he's a year older, this experiment is going to work. You can see just based on everything that Kyle Dubas said in his media press conference, what Mike Sullivan has said, they are committed to having this experiment work. And why wouldn't you? I mean, you really didn't give up anything to get him. And look at his contract. I'm sorry. There's probably.

not going to be too many teams out there, maybe outside of the senators, just because there's that whole reunion storyline that would be lining up to trade for how much money he makes. And again, I also just don't think it makes sense because I think the Penguins are trying to get back to the playoffs next year. And I think he is one of their best players. Data-wise, if they do also want to make this work, you've got to have him with a partner, a consistent partner throughout the next season. and that partner has to be Marcus Pedersen. You cannot put anyone else with him but Pedersen. When those two were together this year, they were dynamite.

When those two on the ice, 82 games, 858 minutes of five-on-five ice time, those two together had 54% of the shot attempts, 48 goals for, 37 goals against, a 53% expected goals for rate, a 55% scoring chances for a rate, and a 56% high danger chances for rate. Pedersen allowed Carlson to be himself when he was on the ice. Sherwin Carlson would make a mistake. Pedersen would be right there to cover for him.

The pairing just makes sense in a variety of ways that has to be the Penguins' top or even second pairing next season, whatever you think of the Latang pairing or Carlson pairing. You can make an argument for one of them being the top pairing, but I kind of consider them as two top pairings, depending on who is with Lettang. But anyways, that is who the penguins have to pair with Carlson for next season. You know who it can't be, Pat?

It cannot be Ryan Graves. Those two were awful together this season. In 70 games, they had 381 minutes of five on five ice time. They were a little bit above water in shot attempts, but seven goals for, 12 goals against, 48% scoring chances for a rate, 49% expected goals for rate, high danger chances they were above water at 52%, but four high danger goals for,

eight high danger goals against. Throw that pairing into the Monongahela River. You cannot use that pairing at all. I don't care what injuries happen if they do for next season. You cannot pair Graves with Carlson. It does not work. So while I like that Carlson was figuring out towards the late stages of the season, I want to see that on a more consistent basis for the 2024-

20-25 season. I don't think he's as good as a few people I've seen him say he was, but he was not nearly as bad as some of his detractors say he was. I will very much push back on that. I think for a lot of this season, he was as advertised. I mean, just looking at his raw points total, 11 goals, 56 points this season, by some of the way people talk about him, you'd think he had 20, 25 points, but he almost had 60 points. And if the power play had been at least a little bit average, we're probably looking at 65 to 70 points from Carlson this past season. I don't think you're seeing a lot of people go at him as hard as they have throughout the last few months. I know I've been rambling for the last five to six minutes about this, but that's how I really feel about Carlson's season.

And overall, I think you're going to see a big year from him next year, just based on the way he finished the season. And the biggest thing that the Penguins have to do to make the Eric Carlson experience work is whoever they get in on the coaching staff, to join Mike Sullivan has to unleash him on the power play. This was one of his worst career power play seasons with a very, very unimpressive 17 power play points. And it has to be a moment where the coach, whoever it is, including Mike Sullivan, has to sit down with the likes of Eric Carlson, Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin, and whomever else joins them on the power play and say, this guy is the quarterback. He runs it.

It is his power play. You adapt to him, you let him run it, and you let him cook. Because when he is at his best, you look at some of his best seasons. He has put up 25 or more points on the power play. He has scored close to double-digit goals on the power play, and you have to let it run through him. Otherwise, we're going to get a repeat of this year where he looks fine enough at 5 on 5, but the power play is an absolute disaster.

Agreed. And you saw him start to cook a little bit on the power play towards the late stages of the season. I felt like his decision making on the power play was a lot better. I felt like he was shooting a bit more from the point on the power play. He was moving all over the ice. And that's the version of Eric Carlson of the power play that I want to see for the entirety of the 2024-2020 season.

For sure. Speaking of next season, we're going to address a popular talking point from a lot of fans and even some media members that maybe after two seasons of missing the playoffs, it's time to start the rebuild. Spoiler alert, I think they're all wrong, but we will get into more of that in the next segment.

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Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. All right, we're back here on the locked on penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. And the talk will not cease this offseason from a lot of people. And I want to preface it with this. I totally get it. I don't think it's coming from a cynical place.

I don't think it's even unfair to talk about. Because when you have the type of team, the Pittsburgh Penguins do, with the goals that the Pittsburgh Penguins have, missing the playoffs two years in a row raises a lot of questions. And one of the biggest questions right now is, should this team finally say goodbye to this era of hockey and start the rebuild? I don't think so. I think it's a flawed argument because, one, every team in the salary cap era that has been one of the better teams, you look at Chicago, Detroit, now it's starting to look that way in Tampa Bay, when these teams commit to being one of the best teams in the National Hockey League and consistently going for a Stanley Cup, they have a core of players who are productive and the driver.

of the bus. Sidney Crosby nearly put up 100 points this year. Yes, Evgeny Malkin, Chris Lattang, and even the guy we just talked about Eric Carlson, have probably taken a step back. But all of them got in the realm of 50 or more points. Evgeny Malkin almost put up another 30 goal season. And when you look back at, say, Detroit or Chicago and now a little bit Tampa Bay, I'm excluding Tampa Bay right now because they still have a ton of elite pieces and they can make some savvy moves to get right back into it after their first round loss against Panthers.

But you look at Chicago, Jonathan Taves, injuries in a long career caught up to him. Patrick Kane had to get double hip surgery. He's back. He looks solid, but not like Patrick Kane did in his prime. You look at the Detroit Red Wings, Henrik Zetterberg, Nick Lydstrom, Pavel Datsuk, all these guys were. starting to seriously decline, whether it was health, whether it was just the passage of time, the time had come for these teams to finally rebuild. While yes, the penguins are flawed, they are extremely flawed, and it's not going to be

easy to get back to the top of the mountain. But when I look at the way this team is currently constructed, when I look at the guys who are the ones that will help lead you to maybe not a championship, but another deep run, I see four players who are still extremely good, and now the onus falls to management to surround them with better talent. It feels like we've been having that conversation for the last few years. They just have gotten, in some ways, incompetent management, especially under the Hextall regime where he bungled this roster numerous times,

and to at least a little bit of a lesser degree, Kyle Dubus was some of the moves that he made on July 1, to not really shore up the team's depth the way that I think I wanted him to overall. Again, this goes back to a couple years ago after they lost to the Rangers and that seven games series, they blow the three one series lead. That's when I feel like this contingent of fans, or some of them were like, oh, time to blow it up, let's hang in Malkin or free agents, it's time to just end this now and look to the future.

But the thing at that time that was true is still true today. Crosby, Malkin, and Lattang are still very good players, and they are not and have not been the reason why this team has fallen short a couple of years in a row. You already said it. Sidney Crosby had almost 100 points this year. I've been Malkin. Sure, he's lost his step, but once he got a little bit of help from Michael Bunting, you saw what he could do on a nightly basis.

and I'm really excited about that second line heading in the next year. Let's hang was fabulous for most of the season before. He got banged up a little later on. Eric Carlson was figuring it out towards the late stages of the season. Why would you just give up on that now? I get that some people say, well, you don't want to be in the middle. You don't want to be in the middle. I very much agree with that.

I think you should commit to one direction and other. And that direction right now, for me, is still trying to get back to the playoffs in seeing if you can produce some magic, one last time before you do truly close this era of Penguins hockey. Say you do move on from Crosby in this imagined world. I don't think they're going to do that this off season or even next year, but just bear with me. Say that happened. Okay.

Kiss of Guinea Malcon goodbye. Kiss Chris Littang goodbye. Kiss Eric Carlson goodbye. Kiss all these core players go by. You can say Brian Rust in there as well. Why do people want to rush into being bad? when there's really no reason to do it at this point. The comparison to the Red Wings I've seen people make on social media,

it doesn't make any sense. You already alluded to it. Those players were in full decline. Sidney Crosby, while he's not putting up 105, 10010, 120 points seasons, he's still at over 90 points this year. I already discussed what I said about Evgeny Malcon, but he's still a very good second line center. Carlson and Lettang when they're on their games,

They are two very productive defensemen. Why give up on that? You need to just get the moves around this core right, especially with some cap space this summer, so that you can go back and try to make the playoffs next year. I still feel like this team is close to getting in. I look at this conference next year, right? Okay, Florida's going to be really good.

Boston should be in the conversation. Toronto, the Rangers, the hurricanes. Those are the big ones for me. I don't think Washington's going to be that good. They still need a whole top line. I don't think the islanders are going to be that good, especially if Lou Lamarillo stays there because he doesn't really make that many changes.

And while you have the lightning, who knows what happens with Stephen Stamco's. And then you have some of the other teams that the Penguins will be in conversation with, right? The Sabres, but I'm sorry, they need to prove it before I finally believe in them. And I'll take the L on that. I believed in the Sabres heading into this season,

and they proved me way wrong overall. The Red Wings, I'm in the same boat. I will believe it when I see it with that team. You can throw Ottawa in there as well. I think they're going to try to take another step as well. The Penguins, with how close they got, they can still get to the point where they can get back to the playoffs. They just, again, have to make the right moves surrounding these core pieces.

I know they're not as young as they used to be, but they're still very good players. or if you get them at least a little bit of help, that can be the difference between them getting into the playoffs versus them not getting into the playoffs. And here's the biggest thing for me, right? I'm not denying that a time is going to come, and it's going to be a lot sooner than any of us want to admit,

where there is going to be pain, this team is going to be bad, they are going to be comically bad, because Crosby's going to retire, Malkin's going to retire, Latang's going to retire, Carlson's going to retire. Brian Rust might not retire,

but he's somebody that in three, four years, you could probably get some sort of a package for to assist in your rebuild. Trying to delay that pain or make it shorter doesn't always work. In fact, it rarely works. You brought up a handful of teams there. Buffalo, Ottawa,

the Columbus Blue Jackets, and I get it. there have been incompetent management around them, but they followed the model that you're supposed to follow for a rebuild. They sold everybody off, anybody that was worth anything,

they got returns for them, and they hoped for good picks. The other thing is, a lot of luck involved. You can't guarantee that if you bought them out now, that you're going to get another Sidney Crosby, you're going to get another of Gennie Malkin,

you're going to get another Mark Andre Fleury, you're going to get another Jordan stall, Chris LaTang, and on and on and on. And we know this because we're more connected now than we were back in those days. The next few drafts aren't exactly stout. And you're not going to get Macklin Celebrini this summer. That's guaranteed. So there's so much luck involved. And if you play the odds of this, it's a lot easier to get this team with this group of players

back into the postseason, then it is to sell them off and say, hey, in three, four years, we're going to be right back. We're going to be back in the mix because there's a more than likely chance that you do that. Your team's going to be bad for five, six, seven, eight,

maybe even ten years. And even on that timeline, maybe by year four or five, you're sniffing around the playoffs. Year six or seven, maybe you're in and winning around. This pain's coming. and trying to avoid it now, in my estimation, is going to extend it even longer.

Because there is not a world right now where this team can bottom out and get right back up to where they are now. In fact, you look at how good the penguins have been over the last 20 years. This is unprecedented. You're not going to get back to this. you might get to a world where you have a solid core and a competitive team and you're right in the mix, but we're not going to get another nearly 20 years where this team is among the class in the NHL. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I don't think they're going to get this type of luck again at all.

I mean, it's been pretty unprecedented over these last few decades with how lucky they've gotten a little bit with Lemieux and then especially Crosby. But for the people that do want to end this now, I don't want to hear any complaining for at least five years because that's how long it's going to be at least until this team starts trying to get back to the playoffs. That would be the case if they were to do this right now, at least five years, if not maybe six, seven, potentially eight. This team has very real flaws that were on display yet again this season. finishing was awful. I mean, heck, half their forward group was just not that good. Power play was bad. They couldn't get a save for the final month from their starting netminder yet again.

But some of these flaws are correctable, especially if you have a GM that recognizes them and learns from his mistakes heading into another offseason. If Kyle Dubas can do that, I do like this team's chances to potentially make the playoffs next year. least maybe have one more hopeful magic run where you can win a round maybe to, heck, maybe you can get really lucky you win three rounds or something like that. But I'm just not willing to give up right now. And last but not least, Sidney Crosby deserves to retire a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. I do not want him playing anywhere else.

I don't care at this point when anyone else has to say about that. Sidney Crosby deserves to retire a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins and I will be furious if he does not. Right there with you. And I'll finish it with this. I said it once. This is the the last point that I'll make on it. It is a lot more likely that this team can get back to the postseason in a league where half the league makes it into the playoffs. Then it is they can bottom out, tear it down, and rebuild and be back in short order. So take the odds in front of you, play them correctly, rather than trading it all in for a lottery ticket that very much might not hit. But that is going to do it for the Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins

podcast. For Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you always for tuning in, and we will be back with you tomorrow.