Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Can the Penguins turn it around against the league's best?

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

The Pittsburgh Penguins face their toughest test yet on Thursday night when the Colorado Avalanche come to town. Before Hunter and Pat preview that game, they discuss some of the latest on injuries, especially Alex Nedeljkovic. How big of a deal is this injury to the Penguins? How often will Magnus Hellberg play now that he's the backup? They look into that, plus what the Vinnie Hinostroza callup means before previewing the matchup against the Avs. They discuss how the Avs are lighting it up this season and how the Penguins can slow down their attack. Do they have to play more conservatively? What changes to the system should HCMS make? Finally, they get into some comments made by Kyle Dubas during the GM show.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Parkview AdvanceFor more than 25 years, Parkview Advance has helped businesses secure working capital. We Invite the many entrepreneurs who are Locked On NHL to learn more by calling us at 203-675-0071 or going to parkviewadvance.com. If your business needs working capital, call Parkview Advance today! Jase MedicalGet $20 off these lifesaving antibiotics with Jase Medical by using code LOCKEDON at checkout on jasemedical.com.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.eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime.Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Right now, NEW customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED in BONUS BETS - GUARANTEED. 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 ice cold Pittsburgh Penguins are set to welcome the red hot Colorado Avalanche to PPG Paints Arena tonight. Hunter and I are going to preview the game, talk about some roster decisions, and some thoughts on the general manager on this edition of the Locked On Penguins podcast 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. Good evening hockey fans and welcome to,

yet another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet. Join us always by the one and only. You know them, you love them. Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins.

Thank you for making this your first listen or watch of the day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and all the other places you get our our little discussions on this fun sport each and every day. And today's episode is brought to you by Fandall Sportsbook, the official sports book of Locked On, make every moment more. Right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed.

Visit fandul.com slash locked on to get started. So, Hunter, before we get into what could possibly be a very ugly game tonight when the Colorado Avalanche come to Pittsburgh, We do have to get some clarification on the injuries and everything that happened during the Dallas game earlier in the week. Alex Nadalkovich is going to be out for quite a bit with a lower body injury. Obviously, there's going to be no real timeline on young defenseman John Ludwig, because as we all know, concussions can last anywhere from a week to two years. So how big is this?

How much of a deterrent do you think this is going to be for this team that right now is, starting to dig itself a little bit of a hole. It's a massive injury. And I went back to try to find the injury. I couldn't find it. He seemed fine when the game was over. In my view, I'm just full speculating here. It might have been when he was diving out to try to get the puck away before the stars made it 3-1. Maybe he injured himself there. You know Mike Sullivan. He's not going to talk about what the exact injury is. He's never been like that for as long as he's been the head coach. He'll always say upper body, lower body, week to week, month to month. day to day, all that kind of gibberish.

But he's on LTIR, so he has to miss at least 10 games or 24 days, whichever comes first. The earliest he can come back is right after my 26th, November 19th. My birthday is four days before that. So they're going to be without him for quite a bit at this point. Magnus Hullberg was called up on Thursday. He'll be the backup for the foreseeable future. I'm excited to see what he can do at the angel level because he's had, you know, decent numbers at times.

I mean, last year wasn't the best. played 17 games with the Red Wings, we had an 85 percentage, 3.29 goals against average, kind of, in my opinion. But, you know, he's on a better team now. I think this year the Penguins are better defensively compared to where the Red Wings were last year. I still think he can at least give this team average goal to when he comes in.

You're probably not going to be playing him like you did with Nadelcovich, where, oh, you're going to start this guy against a really good team in the Dallas Stars. I think the Penguins are doing that to kind of help out Tristan Jari's workload. but now that Nadelcovich is hurt, and this could be for quite a few weeks, you're going to see Tristan Jari's workload, I think, start to go up pretty efficiently here. Yeah, you're definitely going to not see Hellberg unless you absolutely have to. Like a second half of the back-to-back or something. Yeah, and outside of the diving poke check, I do think Nadelcovich has been pretty good.

Early returns have been solid. One bone head play does not a career make unless it's the guy who, whose name I can't remember. so that even kind of negates my point. The guy who on Edmond, or was it Edmonton or Dallas that missed the empty net when he was like right next to it. Then they went down and got scored on. But basically along with that, they also added in to other people. Obviously, everybody got thrown into a panic, including myself a little bit right away when they announced that Zahorna was going back to Wilkes Bear. But that was just a cap move as we came to find out.

And the Penguins have sent Corey. how do we say his name and Donvowski? I don't want to get that wrong. I believe it's that, yes. Well, either way, he was here for all of five minutes. He's back down to Wilkes Bear and up comes Vinnie Hinoistroza and Red Eames, the Hornet stays here. So it doesn't look like Hinnisroza will play tonight, but he will probably be ready to

play by Saturday. So I mean, I was a little annoyed because I thought they were sending a big Z down, but he keeps his spot. do all the cap shenanaganery they have to do do you think vini hinnishtroza when he comes into the lineup on saturday can make any kind of a difference to this bottom six hold that thought for just one second i do believe it is cori and donovsky is how you pronounce that last if i if i got it wrong everyone i apologize if that got wrong i'll also apologize on his i believe i believe that is right at this point i i just want our listeners to have some fun and if i screw up i would like them to

super cut it and, you know, make fun of me on TikTok or Instagram Reels or Twitter or wherever, just because a lot more fun when people can have fun with you rather than pretending like we're perfect because we're far from it. Hey, it's better than watching this team on a nightly basis right now. That's for sure. Hopefully tonight's game actually goes the Penguins way. It would be so Penguins for them to win this game. But we'll have more on that and a little bit, excuse me.

But Hino Shosa gets called up. He's been pretty decent for Wilkeshire this year. I believe last time I checked. yeah he's second he's tied for first with points two goals four points in five games only player that has as many points and goals as him as sam hoot he's having a really good year as well so in terms of another player coming up with zohorna i would say hina shroza is probably most deserving here okay i'll just get to this right now he's not going to play tonight at least that's what mike solven said he said he was going to take warm up probably not play yeah it's annoying that he's not going to come in for jeff carter

Jeff Carter stinks. We all know that at this point. He hasn't done anything this year. I do think Hinoistroza would be an upgrade over Carter. I don't know if he's an upgrade over anyone else in the bottom six right now, but I do think he's an upgrade over Jeff Carter. I just don't know if Mike Sullivan is going to see it that way. Is he just bringing Hinoistroza up to put him in the press box every night?

Or is he actually going to get a game in? And if he does get a game in or two, who is going to come out? Because no offense, I don't know. if Sullivan has the balls to scratch Jeff Carter. I really don't. I personally do not know if he has the balls to scratch someone who is making over $3 million per year. Now, if it's someone like Matt Nietto,

I could see that because he's also been a ghost. But at this point, if it's up to me, I would scratch Carter and put Hino Shrosse in, even tonight, even if he gets there in time for the game. You and I were talking about this off there because I'm sure he's probably on his way to Pittsburgh right now, and we're recording this at about 3.30 in the afternoon. I would still play him because even though he'll be gassed and a little bit tired,

that's still an upgrade over Jeff Carter who doesn't do anything on the ice at this point. Yeah, the two things, there are a couple things here. One, and this is a bigger discussion we can have maybe when there's a break or something like that later in the year. It's why the triple hard salary cap in the NHL is the dumbest thing to ever exist because they had the wait until today to call him up, even though they knew they were going to need to call him up. I also think it doesn't really matter at this point who on the fourth line you swap

Hinoistroza out for. They have been so bad that, yeah, I agree. The leading candidate is Jeff Carter, but the other two, Matt Nietto, Nolichari, what have you done? Nothing. And we talked about that yesterday. So I agree that Jeff Carter is probably candidate number one to come out of the lineup for Hinnastroza, but I mean, it's six one way, half dozen the other with this fourth line

because they've all been equally pretty bad. And it's been the sore thumb of this roster. They just have done nothing of value since the season began. So you have to hope in a similar way that redeems the Hornah going on to the third line, gave that line a shot to the arm and a little bit of a better identity. Getting a Vinnie Hinnastroza on that fourth line on Saturday night will do the same. But that's looking a little too far ahead. and we're going to talk about tonight's game.

I do think it was going to provide a spark. I don't think it's a long-term answer. No. I'll say that. I'll make a point that I made on the show on Wednesday. What Zohorna did, he provided a spark. You said it's a shot in the arm. It's about a game, game and a half of better third-line play.

I think if Hinoosso comes in at some point, whether it's for Achari, whether it's for Nietto, whether it's for Kart. You can make a really good case for any of them to come out. I won't bat an eye at all. And if Hinozaa comes in provides a spree, Spark, it's just going to be the same thing that you saw with a third line. But if it doesn't lead to scoring, which is what we want the bottom six to start doing,

again, what I said yesterday, you're going to have to go outside the organization and start getting some help because I don't know if anyone from Wilkesbury, including Vinnie Hinochoza, is a long-term answer for those bottom six. That's the point I just want to make. Yeah, nobody that big. You're not going to have a Brian Rust, a Jake Gensel. a Connor Sherry walking through that door coming through I-80. It's just not going to happen.

So you have to eventually you're going to have to make a move. But we'll talk about that. We'll talk about more. And we will preview the game tonight against the Colorado Avalanche coming up right after this. But before we keep the conversation going, we have to talk to you about Fandul. Snap into action this NFL season with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers can get. $200 in bonus bets

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and much, much more. So visit Fandual.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. Fandul, official partner of the national football. week. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the locked on penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp, joined as always by the illustrious Hunter Hodes. Thank you all so much for making this your first listen or watch of the day. And Hunter, it's going to be, this one, it could be forever or it could go down in flames because one of the hottest teams in the NHL is coming to Pittsburgh

to take on probably not the coldest, but definitely one of the ones. ones that's struggling the most in the Pittsburgh Penguins. So you've been texting me all day, saying that you are just ready to cook, you've been waiting to cook, you're ready to go. So my friend, the kitchen is yours. You have all the ingredients and utensils in front of you. Cook away, my friend. First things first, I love the Colorado Avalanche. They are such a great team. They are one of the hottest teams start of the year. Six, oh, and O. They have come out like a house on fire trying to prove to everyone last year that, oh yeah, we're back. after that first run exit to the Seattle Cracken.

And so far, they have been unreal. In just six games, Miko Ransan has five goals and 12 points. Kail Makar, who I think is the best defenseman on the planet right now. Three goals, nine points in those six games. Nathan McKinnon, four goals, seven points. Arturi Lekinen, six points in six games. There are a Natchewski point per game. Ryan Johansson, about there as well.

Logan O'Connor, Devon tapes. I can keep going down the list here. this team is disgustingly good. And I actually really like that Johansson train they made over the offseason, by the way. They're getting him of $4 million, not the $8 million that Nashville is giving him, that's for sure. And he's been really good to start the year. But it all starts with their top six. Nathan McKinnon is a one-man wrecking crew.

He torched the penguins in both games last year. Penguins are going to have to find a way to slow him down. Miko Ranson, and obviously great goal score. They're doing all of this without Gabriel Landa. So again, I'm not even sure if he's going to play if this team makes the playoffs, if he plays next year. I don't know at this point, but it looks like he's going to miss most, if not this entire season, and there's still this freaking good. Devon Taves, you know, I just want to thank Lou Amarillo for giving him away for two second

round picks. Very clueless GM there, by the way. Kail McCar has been incredible. This Colorado team is just so men. But I will say this, Penguins played two of their best games last year against that team. the first one in Pittsburgh was a little worse than the one in Colorado. I thought the penguins were a bit outplayed during large stretches of that game, but the penguins found a way to win,

especially late in the third when they tied it and then when they won in overtime. Then they go to Denver during that major stretch. They had that back-to-back against Colorado in Dallas last year. They play, I think, one of their three best games in Denver. They really limit Colorado offensively, and they got plenty of production from the top six and the bottom six. tech Jeff Carter scored and that game for the Penguins. Overall, it was a really nice game from Pittsburgh.

And then they followed that up with a loss of Dallas, but I still thought I played pretty well. If they can follow that formula for how they played in those two games against Colorado, especially the one in Denver, they can win this game. I said earlier, this is almost a game where it's like no one's expecting the Penguins to win, but yet they find a way to claw it out and give Colorado their first loss of the season. Now, this could go in the complete opposite direction where the penguins get blown out four or five nothing.

I'm not, there's a pretty decent chance that that does happen tonight. Let's be real with how Colorado has played. But for the Penguins to win this, they got to really limit Colorado's chances in the high danger areas and the slot areas, push them to the outside, played matchups on Nathan McKinnon. I would put Cindy Crosby out there against him every single chef.

Sid's been quiet these last couple of games, it's time to start getting him to cook all the more and what better than for Nathan McKinnon to come into Pittsburgh to maybe, I don't know, just motivate the better word for that there, but just to get him really going just because he's been off

for the last couple of games. And please, we keep saying this, be nice of the bottom six wants to contribute tonight. This will be a perfect game to get it going against one of, if not the best team in hockey. Listen, I talked about this yesterday, and this would be the perfect game.

to do it. Just take the aggression of the system down 10 to 15%. That's fair. Because here's the deal. And this isn't an insult. This isn't a critique. This isn't me saying that the penguins are old and washed and we need to hit the reset button. Colorado is probably faster and more aggressive than either of the back-to-back Stanley

Cup winning teams in 16 and 17. This team operates at a million miles an hour From the drop of the puck To the end to the final buzzer So don't try to get in a track meet with this team It will turn into a 5-6-0-0-laffer What you want to do here is in this does kind of contradict What I said the other day

Because this is a game where I'm not saying again Go play the neutral zone trap But this is a rope a dope game This is a game where you have to sit back a little bit. Keep the lanes in the defensive zone clogged up. Keep these guys to the outside. Don't let them get high danger chances when they come through the neutral zone. Make sure that their only lane in is down the wall and into the corner and out of the high danger areas. And just let them punch themselves out. Let them play at a million miles an hour. If they,

you know, since we're about 20 minutes into the show, I can make a little bit of an color joke here. I had a coach when I played hockey who as much as he liked puck possession in cycling, he always said, boys, cycling is like foreplay. It eventually has to lead to scoring in one way or another. You can let them. That's just hilarious. It was always one of my favorites. It's always one of my favorites. But you can let them possess the puck and do all this stuff on the perimeter and tire themselves out and then capitalize on mistakes because we saw it against Dallas a couple times even in even in moments where they didn't score and the goal they did score what they did was they were in the right position they let Dallas make a risky play

and they countered it that is how you beat a Colorado that's how you beat a Dallas you don't try to go shot for shot with them because if you do you're going to lose and again not an indictment of the Pittsburgh Penguins it's just how good call Colorado bids. Right. And I don't want them to play the 131 that Kibusha used to do when he was the head coach in Ottawa and Tampa Bay. I don't need to watch that kind of hockey on the penguins. And the penguins also, I don't think have the personnel to play that. But if they go into that one two two neutral zone trap that they do, usually in the third period when they're trying to defend a lead, we saw that in the game against Washington earlier this year. If you want to do that

for a good chunk, if not most of this game and then feast on the mistakes that Colorado makes, I would be fine with that. I think that's a fair strategy for this game, because you're right. You do not want to get into a track meet with the Colorado I-Welage. They will make you pay tenfold. But if you lowered the aggression down a little bit, maybe you lower the aggression of some of the pinches along the walls from the defenseman because I know Mike Sullivan loves that in his system.

I think there are plays to be made here where you can punish the avalanche. You saw that happen a little bit in the game against Denver last year where the Penguins capitalize on some mistakes. Obviously, Sidney Crosby had one of the goals of the year where he had that beautiful backhand past Giorgia. That was just unreal of a goal from Sid just shows off why his backhand is so good. If you're going to have a goal like that in this game, obviously that would help. But I saw other plays in that game where they just made Colorado play, just get off their game,

I should say. And they feasted on it. They were a bit more patient with the puck. And I want to see that continue into this game. Use that blueprint on how you beat Colorado last year into this one. And I know Colorado's roster has changed a little bit. They're definitely improved, but still have the same coach. They still have the same star players.

Penguins, I know they have quite a few new players as well. But if you can just take the lessons from that game, I do think they have a chance of winning this. Now, is it a high chance? No, I think the penguins will probably lose tonight, but there's still a chance. Yeah. And before we talk about what GM and president and assistant to the regional manager, Kyle Dubas said yesterday, that's one of my all-time favorite cliches. All you can ask for in life and in sports is a chance.

And that's what the penguins have tonight. They have a chance. That's the thing that's great about a team that's built like the Pittsburgh Penguins. They can go out and throw out an absolute stinker. they did against the St. Louis Blues. And they can come back the next night against Dallas, play pretty well in the first and well enough throughout the rest of the game. And you think, man, this team, it might be it. And then they come out and play a team like Colorado, and they look like world beaters again. Right. So welcome to the experience, ladies and gentlemen,

if you're new here to being a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. This team is never boring. I'm telling you, It would be so penguins for them to come out tonight, have a convincing win, and then get the fan base back to saying, oh, we're back, just like all the memes that you see on social media and all that stuff. I'm excited,

you know, I've, I've always loved the ablunch, back to when I was a kid. Peter Forsberg is my favorite player of all time. So, yeah, go Sackick,

Peter Forsberg, Raymond Bork, the Patrick Waugh. Yeah. Those teams, just so much fun. Like, just at the absolute best.

But like I said, there a little bit ago, there is one guy who does still have a pretty big belief in this team, and that's Kyle Dubus. We're going to talk about what he had to say last night on his show right after this. But first, we have to tell you about Jace Medical. The Jace case is a personalized emergency medication kit that contains five essential antibiotics that treat the most common in deadly bacterial infections. You can also customize your case and add additional life-saving medications based on your unique needs. Jace now offers customizable for your Jace case with dozens of add-on medications.

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That's code locked on NHL. See sleepers terms of use for details and locational availability. Welcome back to this edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host Patrick Damp. Join us always by the one and only like I've said before. him you love them hunter hoodies and i gotta say man Kyle dubis last night it was like he was a locked on penguin's co-host for a minute there because he was

cooking he was absolutely cooking and he had a lot to say on the GM show and i know that most of the time the team sponsored weekly GM show is just a bunch of marble mouth oh we know we got to get better we got to play 60 minutes uh we get good good team blah and the thing I like about Kyle Dubus is that while he did kind of say all of that, if you actually listened to it like you did, he didn't say it like he was bored and just wanted to get it over with. It's a little bit of a tone in our boy's voice, a little bit of a tone. He seemed a little fired up. I don't think he saw this start coming from the team just based on how I was reading him while I was listening to it on my phone. One statement really called my eye, wow.

listening to it. He said he would rather see his team fight out of a structure like this than actually see his team start out, you know, four and two, five and one with the same issues. Because he wants to see some of that adversity, I guess. And I was like, you know what? I thought about it. I'm like, you know, that actually does make sense because the penguins usually under Sydney Crosby, have been Malcon and Crystal Tang, they don't start out seasons this bad, losing four of their first six games. This is usually a team that starts out pretty quick. Heck, remember last year, Pat, they started out, what was it? 3-0-1, 4-0-1, 4-0-1, somewhere along those lines.

4-1-1, I think, through their first six. It was something like that. They had a really nice start, and we all saw what happened. Now, the opposite happens this year. Start out 2 and 4, you've lost 3 straight. Usually an older team starts out fast, and then they get tired towards the end. Now, what if this team starts out a little slow, even though they're bit old, then wakes up a little bit as this next.

month goes on next two months, halfway through the season, and then all after that. That could be a factor here. And I just, I thought that was a really interesting comment from Kyle because he wants to see how the team responds to this losing shriek before, you know, maybe he decides to do something drastic like, you know, fire assistant head coach, make a trade or anything like that. But that was, I think the main takeaway I had was that, yes, he seemed a bit upset, but he seems to really want to, I guess, challenge the players in a way to get this back on track. Yeah, and I do want to read his whole quote here because I have it pulled up, because it was the same takeaway I had. And obviously, I'm not going to put the kind of tone he had

under it because that's just a personalized thing and I don't want to do any crappy impressions. But he said, we just need to continue to build on our foundation of how we want to play. Eradicate some of the stuff that has hindered us early and use it as a lesson for how we can't do things moving ahead. Every game provides us a chance to really build out the way that we one to play and exert ourselves in tomorrow night against Colorado, it's going to be an extraordinarily difficult test. I'm excited to see how our guys react to it. That last part is the money part to me, because you want to see how these guys react, because that can tell you a lot about your roster. We know what Crosby, Malkin-Latang, even Eric Carlson to an extent, Jake

Gensel, Brian Rust, we know what those guys are made of. They've bounced back. They've won championships. They've done just about everything you can do in this league. So now, how are some of these new guys, some of these younger guys, how are they going to react to this? Are they going to do the, the woes me thing? Are they going to do the pouting and not playing their best? Are they going to become petulant? How are they going to react to adversity like this?

Because as much as, and I said this about the Steelers, not to steal any thunder from our buddy Chris Carter, as much as players in professional sports say, oh, no, you know, we're focused on ourselves. We're focused on this. We're focused on what we can control. We're focused on ourselves. Just like the Steelers coming out of the preseason, that offense was feeling themselves a little bit. Don't you think?

Everybody was talking them up. These guys are going to, you know, they're looking good in the preseason. They're going to come out. They're going to light some things up all off season in preseason and training camp. All we hear is, oh, man, Eric Carlson's back. This team's going to score a million goals. They're going to be a juggernaut. they're going to be so good.

And all of a sudden, two and four, struggling to score a little bit, power plays struggling, special teams aren't that great, goaltending is hurting a little bit. How do you respond to this? How do you grow? How do you take these hard times and dig yourselves out of them? And just like Dubis said, this is one hell of a test. Colorado Avalanche, it's not easy sledding, especially when you're hurting a little bit. it doesn't get any bigger than this in terms of one of the best teams in the league coming.

I mean, the only one I would say that's better right now is Vegas, and there's 7-0-0 to start the year. They're just lighting up every team they face at this point. I know Boston's 6-0 as well. But Colorado, I think, is, in my opinion, I think they're better than both of those teams. I think this is the best team in the league. I mean, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, just absolute wagons right now. Yeah, I mean, and obviously, like I just said, I'll throw Boston in there too, because it's crazy that they're doing this without Burzron and Craigsha.

This team just doesn't die. Even after I picked them in the midst of playoffs, and I'm probably going to look like a moron. But I think you may a great point over there. I think these younger players, they're going to have to maybe rely on that leadership group to be like, hey, it's go time here. We got the best team of the league coming to town.

Maybe they'll see this as a trap game, even though I'm kind of starting to get to the point where I have the opinion that I don't know if trap games will exist in the NHL and just a few other sports. or unless a team is fully tanking, like the sharks, for example, they're 0 and 5 and 1 to start at the year. I don't even know if that team's going to win 30 games this year. Overall, with the avalanche, you're right.

He said it best during that GM show. Let's see how this team responds to this adversity. You saw them, put the pieces in place a little bit against Dallas. The process is there. They had 20 to 25 really good minutes against one of the best teams in the Lee. Went down a little bit in the second period. third period, though, they play it like crap. It's all about getting those 20, 25 minutes that you saw in Dallas.

Get it to a full game now. And what better time to do it than right now against what I think is the best team in hockey. Georgiev, I think he's a fine goalie, but he's not Jake Gottinger. He's not Igor Shusirkin. He's not Ilya Sarkin. Get some traveling in front of him, make him move. They should be able to beat him a few times. And they were able to play pretty well against him last year. So having the Penguins, I'm not going to go as far to say that they have the

goaltending advantage of because Justin Jari, he's been fine. You can make your argument for either one, but they're not going up against a world beater in net. And that's why I think the Penguins, they definitely do have a chance of winning this game. At least that's one of the reasons why I think that. Huge opportunity tonight at PPG Paints Arena, get this train back on the tracks. 7 o'clock p.m. For those of us with YouTube TV, we're not going to be able to watch it because it is on

Sportsnet, Pittsburgh, as well. as ESPN Plus. So if you're in the city of Pittsburgh, they're blacking it out for you. You can always listen to it on 105.9 the X or head to your local watering hole and find if the game is on TV. But that is going to do it for us on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. We will be back tomorrow to recap whatever happens in this game tonight, preview the weekend, and whatever else the penguins decide to do over the next 18, 20 hours or so.

So thank you, as always, for tuning in. to the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. We appreciate you guys listening and we will talk to you tomorrow.