Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Can the Penguins tame the Panthers and get their fourth win in a row?

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

In a special crossover episode of Locked On Penguins and Locked On Panthers, Patrick and Hunter are joined by Armando Velez! The trio discusses tonight's matchup between the Penguins and Panthers with both teams on a three-game winning streak. They get into what has led to the recent success of the two teams and what both will have to do to come out of tonight's game with two points. Then, Armando talks to Patrick and Hunter about what's going on in Pittsburgh - is it a rebuild, a retooling, or a secret third thing? They get into the state of the Penguins franchise and where it's heading. Finally, with the Panthers looking to repeat as Stanley Cup champions, Armando asks Patrick and Hunter what Florida can learn to try to replicate the Penguins' back-to-back run. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app or go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNHL to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM 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.

The Penguins will look to keep up their winning ways tonight against the Florida Panthers. And this is a special crossover edition with Locked on Penguins and Locked on Panthers. Your Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. And welcome into this crossover edition of the Locked on Florida Panthers podcast and Locked on Penguins. We are part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team every day.

Thank you for making Locked-on Panthers and Locked-on Penguins your first listen of the day. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandau. You can start the season with a big return on Fando. New customers can place $5 bet, and you'll get started with 150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Visit Fando.com to get started. On today's edition of the show, once again, it's a crossover edition where we are going to discuss a little bit about tonight's game between the Florida Panthers and the Pittsburgh Penguins, where both teams are coming in on a three-game winning streak, had a little bit of a rough patch in November where Panthers lost six of seven.

The Pittsburgh Penguins had a six-game losing streak and a three-game losing streak, but both are coming in with three-game winning streaks here. And here to discuss this are the two co-hosts of Lockdown Penguins, Hunter Hodes, and Patrick Damp. Guys, great to be connecting with you guys. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. two teams that have won some championships in recent memory.

So we've got some shared history, I'd say. Yeah, a lot of shared history. A lot of trade history, too, with back, even going back to like 2003, with Mark Andre Fleury and trading back for that where the Panthers got Nathan Horton. The Panthers traded Nick Bukstad and Jared McCann that created the cap space for Sergei Brabowski to sign him. And then the big trade that, the identity change for Patrick Hornquist for the Florida Panthers that event that really created that toughness for the cats there at the start of the

Bill Zito era for them. But I want to go, let's discuss more, first of all, of everything with the Pittsburgh Penguins and everything that's going on with them and just their retool, rebuild, question mark on everything that's going on there. It's second season for Kyle Dubus in the front office for the penguins after Jim Rutherford and Patrick Alvin went to Vancouver, and then they had the Ron Hextall era in between all that. But with everything there, how do you evaluate this Pittsburgh Penguins team

on just how they're trying to keep building with the Crosby's Malkin and Littang's because it feels like it feels at least from someone outside, who doesn't watch this team on the daily. it feels like it was mixed messaging on going for it versus trying to rebuild. I think they're trying to do a little bit of both. I mean, Pat, I have talked about it a lot on our show. They're kind of a year behind what the Washington Capitals have been doing. And you see where the Capitals are this year.

They're one of the best teams in the conference. And at least right now, even without Ovetian, they're looking like a contender, even though I would still take at least a couple of teams in the East over them in a seven-game series. For example, I would take the Panthers to beat them. I would probably take their hurricanes to be. them some other teams we would have to see but the capitals i think right now are at worst the third best team of the conference but the penguins they're trying to do this thing on the fly and not have this situation turn into a anaheim or detroit type situation where you're just bad for a while

and you're not able to take that next step i mean i wouldn't say Detroit is you know really bad right now they just can't take that next step anaheim david's been bad for a while and once that i guess that suckness and quotation marks really kicks in it just just takes a while to get rid of it. So I think Kyle Dubus is really trying to avoid that. They're going after every young player that they can at this point. You know, they just got Philip Tomasino last week. He's played really well for this team. He got a couple of goals. He's, in my opinion, already one of the smartest players on this team. You've seen the interest in someone like Niels Hoglinder, who I think makes a lot of sense. There's someone maybe like Trevor

Zegras down the road, who I think they could be in on just younger players that need a fresh start. Every time that situation comes up, the penguins are probably going to. going to be interested. They were in on David Eurocheck before he went to the wild. But you saw that asking price. The penguins were never going to pay back because they're not in a position to do it. If they were in win now, like the Panthers, obviously just won the cup and they're trying to go again this year, I think the penguins would pay that price every day of the week. But with how they're trying to stockpile picks, get more younger players in the lineup, they just aren't in a position to do that. So this is still very much a retool slash we build on the fly. And they've already kind of come out and said that. You know,

Dubus even said during his first press, or you know, we know that really no one's picking us to do anything. We understand that. And you look at how he speaks even after that with the moves he's making, the picks that he's acquiring. He knows that this team is not a contender and that he's trying to set up this team for future success. Yeah, one of the biggest things, and I've been saying this on the show for us, for Hunter and I on Locked on Penguins, is Hunter hinted at this early on his answer.

they're trying to emulate a little bit what the Washington Capitals did. And that gets oversimplified by so many people because Hunter and I, we have had our debates and discussions over head coach Mike Sullivan. And then people will look at the Washington Capitals and say, oh, look, they got rid of a couple coaches and look what happened. Well, that only scratches the surface. The Capitals basically did this thing where they held on to their big guys, Ovechkin, Baxter, Oshy, now the latter two are probably never going to play hockey again,

which is a shame because how great of a career both of them have had. But that helps with their flexibility. At the same time, they moved on from a lot of pieces that helped them win a Stanley Cup in 2018. And the penguins you can see are kind of starting to do that. They're holding on to their big guys, Crosby, Malkin and Latang. And everybody else is either on a short deal or they're going to get dealt. And they're going to stockpile young players and see who works out. Granted, most of them probably won't because that's just the nature of the beast,

but you get as many of them as you can, see who works out, see who will be a contributor and keep them around for at least the medium term and see if they'll be a contributor. And you stockpile draft picks. And this is going to be a wild comparison, but I'm not making it one to one. But it's just a strategy that I noticed is that Kyle Dubis, is taking kind of a Bill Belichick strategy when it comes to drafting and developing. If you remember when the New England Patriots were great, they would make these weird trades in and around the draft,

where they'd trade a second round pick and get a couple third round picks, couple fourth round picks. Kyle Dubus does the same thing where he goes, I'd rather have two or three guys who might make it, then put all my eggs in the basket of one draft pick, and if they bust, I'm out of luck. So the penguins are kind of doing that in the sense that you look at how many draft picks they've got over the next three years. They're trying to do that similar strategy where they're going to have a bunch of young players in their system.

And yeah, hope's not a strategy, but I would rather have 15 to 20 young players in the system and three, four, five of them work out than 10 to 12 and then only one or two of them work out. and then you have to fill that out with a bunch of over-expensive signings. You have to leverage a bunch of the future to get these people in trades. So it might not work out. It might be too little too late. But where this team is and how good that their core three still can play, I would take this strategy over just burning it all to the ground. Yeah, and then you can see how long it takes to get back up.

I mean, Buffalo is trying to do it twice with two rebuilds in the last few years. because Otto was still trying to get to break the door open. And I'm saying with the Pittsburgh Penguins, 10 picks this year, nine picks next year, nine picks the year after. And you can compare Sidney Crosby to Tom Brady, of taking less money to make the team around him better and taking risk on young guys. Like you mentioned to Phil Tomasino, who I watched that Black Friday game between the Bruins and the penguins just a few days ago,

where he got his first as a penguin. But also going for it in taking a younger guy, like a Rugger McGordy in a trade for him for Braden Yeager from what I saw. And you're going to have to leverage a few guys in the next few years. I mean, I don't know whether teams are going to take the Ricard Raquel contract or the Brian Rust contracts now or later. But also when it comes to the Pittsburgh Penguins, I mean, I never really had this team in the playoffs.

But at the same time, going into the – going into this draft, you have an op, the Pittsburgh Penguins also have an opportunity where if they end up getting a top five pick, they can surround that with Sydney Crosby if they signed their EOC immediately. The athletic was talking about, was it a mistake of letting Patrick Kane walk and not surround him with Connor Bred? Because those three are still under under contract, there's a guy, there's a chance for an opportunity for a guy like James Hagen's to be part of the mix for the Pittsburgh Penguins if he so happens to fall to the Pittsburgh Penguins and they happen to win the lottery. Yeah, I mean, it's always, you know, fun to think about that.

And I know everyone's going to get mad if the Penguins do win the lottery this year just because they're at the end of the window here. Then even obviously next year with McKenna, he'll be ready in 2026, which is going to be a lot of fun. So I know the whole hockey role will go crazy if that happened as well. But yeah, I mean, even though they're on this three-game winning streak right now, there's still, I think Pat would agree with this. that there's a decently good chance that they will have a lottery pick this year, just considering how before this three game winning streak,

they were playing legitimately awful hockey. I mean, it was pretty hard to watch on a nightly basis with so many fundamentals that were missing. But this past week, a lot of those fundamentals returned. They were playing good defense in their own zone, or at least a lot better compared to what they were doing for a lot of their other games this season. They were getting the depth scoring, the stars really good. And I think the biggest thing of all, the goaltending was finally very good this past week. Nadelcovich was great in this game.

And even though he did not have that good of a month of November, he was still very good against the flames to at least end the month. And then you had Tristan Jari had a couple of really nice starts this past week. Was it least encouraging, even though he has had a pretty rotten start to the season. So it was nice seeing all of that come together, though we're just still skeptical that that's going to happen for the next several weeks, considering that we have a whole swath of other games to look at that, again, this could very well be a mirage.

Yeah, and this week is, we talked about it on our show yesterday. This week is a huge test for the penguins to see if this three-game win streak is something real or if it's just Mirage because we know how good your Florida Panthers are. I said it on our show. You guys didn't win the Stanley Cup by accident. It wasn't a team that just got hot at the right time. It's a genuinely great hockey team. And then you have a rivalry game with the New York Rangers. And then you've got the Toronto Maple Leafs who are starting to figure it out as well.

And then Colorado a week later, or about a week from today. And that's, we're going to find out, does this team, has this team figured it out and can they turn a corner or to do the great press conference NFL quote? Are they who we thought they were? Yeah. And we'll see as the, as the we are past the Thanksgiving benchmark and then we have another one coming up very soon in the new year. So we'll discuss, we'll see what the penguins can do. but we're going to transition over to segment number two, where the guys from Lockdown Penguins

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Again, download the app, use our code locked on NHL. You'll get that $50 bonus after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game. Welcome back to this crossover edition of Locked on Panthers and Locked on Pittsburgh Penguins. Now we turn it over to the guys from Lockedon Penguins on their Florida Panthers related questions. So I just got to ask this one looking at the standings and looking at all of the statistics for the Florida Panthers this year with, you know, guys like Sam Ron. Reinhardt continuing to be an absolute stud. Same with Sam Bennett, Alexander Barkov.

And despite you guys kind of jockeying back and forth with Toronto for the top of the Atlantic, are you guys just playing with your food at this point? Like, could you just take over already and save us all the trouble? It feels like at times they are because of how they're playing against the, when you think about them, they've lost in Chicago the last three years. So it's crazy to think that when they get up for certain games and when they don't. And I said this on the podcast yesterday. The teams that they have faced in the last two post seasons, they are 7-0-0.

The only teams that they haven't faced yet are Tampa Bay and Edmonton yet, in which they have later this month. So it's really crazy how they just turn to switch whenever a matchup of a familiar opponent comes to them. and crazy for the Panthers. And they're doing it with a whole bunch of turnover on their roster. They lose Brandon Montaugh, their free agency to Seattle. The power play looks a little different, which it went through a little bit of growing pains now that Aaron Eckblatt is back now on the top unit for the Panthers there.

But hey, it's really been for them, the special teams, both are in the top 10 for the Panthers, but they're also adding a little bit of an added element on the PK, which is seven short-handed goals, which is the most in the NHL three more than the next best team, which Sam Reinhardt leads the way there. I got to have a podcast sometime on just his heart trophy chances sometime in the next week for him. But it really comes down to how the Panthers have been able to manage without Barkoff and Kachuk, even before they went on their Finland trip for them, which that was in the middle of a seven-game winning streak for them. and Tomesh No shit came back to the mix. There was a point where Uvis Balinskas had to play forward

because Jonah Gajevich had back spasms that he wasn't able to come back from. So it's been a little bit of a different story this season for the Panthers. But the big picture is always to get healthy when they got to the postseason. Right. That's always the biggest thing I know for at least every team that wants to win the cup. But for this matchup, Armando, it looks like Sergei Babrovsky will not be playing. in this one, if that's correct. I believe you said he had a child this week,

which is awesome for him. And that would open the door for Spencer Knight to start. I just want to say, I am super glad that he's back in the NHL and that he is doing really well. And it looks like this year, when you compare at least some of the stats, you know, 9-11, 8-10 for Spence for Spenceor Knight, 890 for Brabrovsky, 2.31 goals against average for Spencer Knight, 3.04 for Bobrovsky. What's working for Spencer night this year now that he's back in the league?

Yeah, first of all, before I get to Spencer night, night. I want to say congratulations to Sergey Robovsky. I'm bringing another child into the world. He definitely had a little bit of an up when he had his previous child back in late 2021. I used the hashtag Dad Bob for him at the time. So great to be able to use that once again. And hopefully he gets a personal boost. But also with the transaction, which Mackie Semoskevich is the only player who's waiver exempt for the Panthers, he's been sent down, but he won't play a single game in Charlotte. It's just a paper transaction. So he won't be playing tonight for the Panthers, but they need a backup goaltender. So Chris Trigger is part of the mix for tonight as the backup

goaltender more than likely. But Spencer Knight, he's not, he's not all over the place in his, in his own net for him. And he's just really patient in his own, in his crease. So that really what it comes down to and just, he doesn't get so, so down after giving up a goal. His answers are so there's a little bit more of a maturity there for what his answers were now versus what they were a few years ago when he was first entering the league because, I mean, he started 4-0 in the four games that he had come after signing his ELC out of Boston College and then had a little bit of a dip. I mean, that's goaltending development for you. And then obviously the player's assistance, a stint that he was a part of last season when, sorry, two seasons ago for the Panthers.

and just for him, just his ability to just recover, get a full season in the HAL for him, which paid so much dividends as the Panthers used that waiver exemption to their advantage there to still get him full seasoning and really came down to just going back to the basics of developing in the farm for him. And even though the general manager who signed Sergey Birovsky and Spencer and drafted Spencer night at the same time is no longer there in Dale Talon. It looks like to be the right move looking back at it now that it's been five years with both of them being part of the mix.

Bringing in a $10 million two-time Vezna trophy winner, getting a cup out of it and also developing. I mean, that's the best of both worlds when it comes to trying to still contend for a long time and crazy to think that that was just the beginning of the Panthers just scratching the surface for becoming champions. Well, you guys know this now after winning last year. We, Hunter and I know this after 2016-17, that banners fly forever. So you kind of, after you get your win, you don't really worry about what comes next.

And fans don't like to hear this one. But, you know, sometimes it takes more than a year or two for moves like that to come to fruition. Sometimes it's a longer process, figuring out the right way to utilize that talent or develop that talent. So it's good to see that that worked out for Panthers fans. The one last thing I want to bring up is that you might not expect this, especially with the season that the penguins have had to date. We talked about in the first segment, looks more like a team that's going to be figuring out who they want to draft

come this summer rather than how they could win the Stanley Cup while the Panthers worry about how can we keep the Stanley Cup. But this could be a very exciting game tonight because when it comes to these two teams, the Penguins, they are the second worst team in the National Hockey League for goals against per game at 3.7. And not far behind them are the Florida Panthers at 3.2 goals against per game. So if you don't like defense and you like offense, this might be your game to watch. So take the over.

More just kind of similar to what I asked first. Is this just a team that's, hey, we're the defending champs. Our goal is to get back to the playoffs. As long as we get there, we don't care how. Or is this a bit of a concern for the Panthers early in the season? Well, sometimes the Palm Race has been a little bit more aggressive towards the end of games when it comes to pulling the goaltender for them and bringing on the extra attacker. I mean, it's just like going for on fourth and three.

Now coaches and front offices are using analytics more to go for those. go for it in those situations. So that might inflate the goals against it a little bit. But the Panthers, thankfully, Moneypuck is a good resource for five-on-five goals. They're actually 20th in the NHL. Still not the best. Still kind of in the bottom third of it. But really, it comes down to just new pieces on the blue line.

I mean, Nate Schmidt is now part of the mix for the Florida Panthers. Uvis Pilitskas is now getting a full season under his belt on the defense after coming over from Latvia. the Panthers also scouted him from when he was in the World Championships just a few years ago and also found a little bit of that and also was a big part of the beginning of the season last year when Bontor and Eckblad were missed the first 16 games of the year. So they saw him as a little bit of a piece to build through these next few years, even though I've been hard on him a few times.

And they had to start to beat Toulikov in the second pair for the Panthers. And now they're starting to tinker with the D-Pairs. now putting kulikov and balinskis on the third moving nate schmidt up with mikola i still think that they need a top 4d going into the trade deadline for for them but really it really comes down to just the bill coming a little bit due with the with that part because there was no way they were going to pay montour almost eight million dollars for his contract it's just uh and thankfully uh for them caps going up uh the majority of the majority of the majority of keithy andles buyout has been gone for the last two years but it'll be

completely off their books come this summer for them. So, hey, it might be $1 million, but it's still big for not squeezing out so many players on the roster because this year they've had to carry 22 out of a possible 23. So that's also helpful for the depth of the roster for them. But hey, it's just once again, like we said, it's about getting, being at your best come mid to late April and beyond. Right. No, I hear you.

And I think for this game again, you know, my biggest key for the penguins, you know, they're, Pat and I, we discussed this a little bit on Monday. They're going to be in for a rock fight all game long. The Panthers are, excuse my language here. They're a pain in the ass to play against. They play like rats on a nightly basis. And that's a compliment, Armando. Trust me.

Like, I am giving them the biggest compliment in the world for that because I compare it to, like, someone you play a video game against and they play a very ratty style and it really makes you mad. That is how the floor. of Panthers play to a T. The Penguins did that a little bit during their 16 and 17 runs where they had a guy like Patrick Hornquist, just making everyone so mad when he was on the ice that now you have double that with Cachuk, with Sam Bennett, with a couple of these other guys. And the penguins are going to have to be ready for that all game long. It was like that in the three meetings last year, especially the one in Pittsburgh where it went to a shootout. And it was a amazing game to watch. But you could tell the penguins were definitely getting a bit frustrated by some of the stuff the Panthers were doing. But again, They have to be ready for that because that is a big part of Florida's game. Yeah, and over the weekend, the Carolina Hurricanes really saw how much of a mental edge the Panthers had when it came to in between the whistles and everything in between that. And just equaling up in the penalties where Sam Bennett interferes Jalen Chapfield and then they equal it up on a ruffing call.

I believe it was, if I remember correctly, it was Spesnikov that went to the box with Sam Bennett. So they know how to draw retaliatory penalties for them to equal it up. And also momentum swings with you kill one penalty and going back and scoring on the power play yourself. So it's just really about swings. The Panthers are really great when it comes to just swings in their game when it comes to that. So it's just for the Panthers and their ability to just be physical and outpaced, that's really what it comes down to. And it really once again starts at training camp when it comes to the bag skates and just the board battles in the corner,

which you see in game six of the Rangers series where they're battling at the end of the, in the corner, at the end and even in game in game seven of the, of the Stanley Cup final for them. And that puck wasn't going anywhere outside of that corner for them. So it really comes down to just the program and the conditioning and the, and what Paul Marisa preaches day in and day out for this Panthers team. But we're going to transition over to segment number three, where we are going to discuss more of What are the biggest lessons and adaptations that the Panthers could learn from the Pittsburgh Penguins as they hopefully are on their way to win another Stanley Cup? We're going to discuss that more next here on the lockdown Florida Panthers podcast and locked on penguins.

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So the Panthers looking to win back-to-back championships for the first time since the Tampa Bay Lightning did it. but even previously, the Pittsburgh Penguins doing it in 2016, 2017. And for the Panthers, and I want to ask you guys, as two guys who witnessed this team win back to back, what do you think the biggest lesson is that the Panthers could take from the Pittsburgh Penguins as far as readjusting and their ability to get to even come back even stronger the very next season? What did the Pittsburgh penguins do so well that the Panthers can learn from? And I have actually something that I want to say after you guys give your answer.

So I want to give you guys the floor there. Well, if there's one thing I can say when I compare what the Florida Panthers are doing to what the penguins are doing, it's not so much a lesson as it is understanding where the league is going. Hunter and our listeners will they're going to smirk and laugh at this because and again, excuse my language on this one. But I have been advocating for the penguins to get more bastards on their team, guys who will make you pay a price. And we can kind of see, especially with your guys Stanley Cup win in the way some of the top teams in the league right now operate. Yeah, they still put an emphasis on speed and skill and all the things you need to be a successful team. but they make it extremely hard for you to play against them.

In the Florida Panthers, you guys are at the forefront of this right now. And like Hunter said, I mean that in the most complimentary way. When you look back at the Penguins wins in 1617, Jim Rutherford at the time, Mike Sullivan, his head coach, understood that there was a bit of a vacuum in the NHL, that if you could be one of the fastest teams in the league, you could play the game at a million miles an hour for 60-ish minutes, you were probably going to be successful.

And the penguins exploited that vacuum for those two years. They made teams chase them all night long. And that's really what led to their success, especially when you watched their 2016 run. They just skated circles around everybody. Now you look at the Panthers, and they have, as evidenced by the players we talked about on this show, They have all the skill in the world, but they are going to make you earn every inch of the ice all night long.

And while you may tire from that strategy, both as your own team or your opponent, you can kind of see this is where the league is headed. And the Panthers have set that standard. And if they can have a bunch of teams trying to imitate them and it's not quite the original, that could lead to success for them moving forward. Right. I think my biggest two things, and this is going to sound so cliche, so I apologize. Really just consistency and just sticking to your identity. Jim Rutherford did a really good job of sticking to his identity

for what he wanted this team to look like in 2017. He made some mistakes after that, of course, by trying to chase Tom Wilson all over the ice every time the Penguins played the Capitals. But before that, he kept to his identity with speed and skill. Teams tried copying them that year, but it still didn't work because the Penguins still had the personnel to run Mike Sullivan's system to a team.

and they did it beautifully. They were still the fastest team in the league during that year in 2017, and no one had really adjusted to it. I mean, you saw teams trying to adjust to it, but they weren't able to. And you know, you obviously need a little bit of luck to go your way. That's always, I think, a big thing when it comes to back-to-back cups.

You know, you maybe need a favorable draw, for example, you need a bounce to go your way. That's, I think, one thing that people gloss over is that you need luck to factor in when you want to win back-to-back Stanley Cups. But again, you know, just staying consistent, you know, throughout that 2017 season, the Penguins, did they have a couple of losing streaks? Yeah, you know, that went three to four games, sure. But they were still mainly very consistent throughout that season.

And they virtually had a playoff spot locked up by the time we went into the new year. I mean, you look at that season that year, you know, heading into January of that year, the Penguins were 25 and 8 and 5. They basically had a playoff spot locked up by that point. So, again, it's just remaining consistent. again, really sticking to your identity. And the Panthers, they really have had no trouble doing any of that stuff so far this year, considering that they're top two in the Atlantic.

They are pain in the butt to play against. So you combine all that with the forward depth that they have, the way they play defensively, the way Bob has turned it on in the playoffs. I still think right now that they're the team to beat in this conference until someone takes them out in a seven game series. They can obviously still happen. But, I mean, I picked them to go back to the final before this season started. So, yeah, those are my biggest things I would say, though, in terms of what they can learn

from the penguins in 2017. Yeah, I'm going to Patrick's point about skating back and forth and being able to. It really helps that they got, they signed that Bill Zito signed two guys specifically that I can think of on the top of my head with term to keep that, keep that a continuity for the Panthers. I mean, Evan Rodriguez, former penguin who can definitely go up and down like a little bit of a Swiss army knife for him for the team. And also Nico Mikola, a consistent part of that second pair for the Panthers who,

they're also really, even though they take risk offensively with pinches and being up in the neutral zone before the puck gets deep, their long strides and their active sticks could really help them get back and also help with hopefully denying the high quality chances, even though it hasn't really been the best of it in the beginning of the season. But that's why you play this 82 game grind in order to get your game right. I mean, hey, the Panthers were out nine points out of a playoff spot just in January of 2023 right before it came down to the last few games in the season. But also, just the ability to get to have younger guys on cheap talent get into the mix. I mean, Jake Gensel, 2017, Jake Gensel was exploded onto the scene for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And maybe that could be Mackie Semoskevich for the Florida Panthers.

Although we mentioned earlier, he won't be playing tonight due to the cap. cap reasons for for Bob and his kid. But I think that maybe this could be a similar situation for the Florida Panthers in him for Rector McCordy's former college teammates. So that's another thing that I think of. Yeah. I mean, it's in it kind of gets to my point of that the penguins kind of kicked off this. I guess you can say modern era of speed skill and playing that uptempo style. and Florida's put their own flavor on it with making you earn every win.

So it's really like Hunter said, you need a lot of luck. You need those young guys to contribute. But you're playing a style that your franchise has perfected up to this point. And you put that all together. And I'm right there with Hunter. This is a team in my estimation that until someone knocks them off the perch, I am not going to declare them dead whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll see as time goes on as the Florida Panthers are hoping to add to their winning streak right now at 4.

Pittsburgh is hoping to add to theirs as well. It's still there's the Pittsburgh Penguins, although chances are low, not dead, not dead yet and still have a chance for them, even if it's small. But guys, I want to thank you guys so much for doing this crossover edition with me here on the Lockdown Florida Panthers podcast and tell everybody where they can follow you guys and your show online. Our show is available everywhere. You get your podcast just like Locked on Panthers. I'm at pretty much every social media site you can think of at synonym for wet. I'll let everybody figure out what that fun name means. And Hunter, let everybody know where else we can be. Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, all the other social.

media platforms as well, excuse me, at Hunter Hodes. And then the show's Twitter is at L.O. underscore Penguins, you can find the show wherever you get your podcast. Again, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, music, Sirius X,m, et cetera. And the penguins followers can follow me at Monomans 12 on X. They can follow the show account at LO underscore FLA Panthers on X and Instagram and LO FLA Panthers on Blue Sky and also Lockman Panthers anywhere you listen to podcast and on YouTube.

So, guys, thank you. much. And this was a lot of fun. Yeah, absolute blast. Yes, thank you. Thanks for tuning into this special crossover edition of Locked-on Penguins and Locked-on Panthers. For Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. We will be back in your podcast feeds on Wednesday to recap this game and get you set for the rest of the week. Thanks as always for tuning in and we will be back on Wednesday.