Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Can this team get to contender status? Dejan Kovacevic joins to discuss...

Episode Date: March 13, 2021

After last night's win, Hunter's back for another episode of Locked On Penguins as the Penguins finally have their turn with the Buffalo Sabres. He touches on more Kapanen & Malkin magic, plus how Jarry rebounded after a shaky start. After that, Dejan Kovacevic joins the show for the first time and they talk about a potential third line revamp for the Penguins. Should the team go after a center like they did for Jordan Staal and Nick Bonino? They also talk about injury updates for John Marino & Jared McCann, plus why Tristan Jarry IS a top 10 goaltender in the league, etc.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.IndeedWant your QUALITY short-list FAST? You need Indeed. RIGHT NOW, our listeners get a FREE SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/LockedOn 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.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hi everyone, welcome to this Friday afternoon episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L-O-O-N-Square Penguins.

Pittsburgh gets their fourth win in a row on Thursday night, a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres. yes, the penguins finally have their fun with them. They get to 1-0 against them on the year. The penguins also get to 16 in 9-1 overall. They are third in the East Division, just three points behind the Washington Capitals and five points behind the New York Islanders, though. The Islanders are going to be without their second best player for a while,

as Anders Lee is out indefinitely with a lower body injury. So, I mean, it stinks for them, obviously. It stinks for their fans and the team, but, you know, the Penguins could potentially take advantage of that if the Islanders start to falter here. down the stretch, but I'm going to go over what my thoughts were on the game in this first segment, and then for the final two segments, we are going to have Dejohn Kovachievich from DK. Pittsburgh Sports on talk about the team and everything surrounding it.

But first off, you know, I thought the Penguins, they slept walked through those first 20 minutes just was not a good performance letting Buffalo hang around a little too long. I mean, that's a team you got to bury early on, but it looked like for a little with the penguins, they didn't have their legs. They were just, they were doing what they've done to a lot of these bottom feeder teams. playing down to their level of competition. You know, the Islanders did it briefly on Hockey Day in America. Last week, they allowed the Sabres to creep back into the game in the third period

to make it 3-2, but then the Islanders also buried them right after. But, you know, overall, outside of that first period, I thought it was an okay performance. It's obviously not their best performance. It's not even close to their worst performance, but it was somewhere in the middle. That first goal, that Pittsburgh score was awesome. You know, cappin and just, you know, gets behind the defense. Again, he's been getting behind every team. defense this year. It's actually crazy how he's been doing it. It almost seems like every game at this

point. And it was a mini 2-1-0. It basically does a drop pass to Evgeny Malkin. Yonis Johansson is so out of position. And Malkin buries that. Like I said, Malkin is all the way back. He's playing the best hockey of his season right now. He's been averaging a point per game, I think, in his last 10 or 11 games. This is the Hvgeny Malkin that we've been wanting to see all season. And they've definitely gotten it the last couple of weeks. I think ever since that almost that buzzer beater against the Islanders, which got them that two points, thanks to Sidney Crosby, and the shootout, his game has been elevated and it's just been so much more better to watching. Capman, you know, he has now as 18 points in 23 games. That's basically what, like a

60, almost a 70-point pace through a full 82 game season. He's not going to produce at that for the rest of the year. I mean, obviously I saw in Danny's article when he talked about Capon and his underlying numbers. The Penguins are shooting like 18% when Caponin is on the that is definitely going to regress. I mean, you're just, you're not going to shoot at like 18, 20% for a full season. I mean, you saw what happened with Mika's advantage at last year, shot at an insanely high clip, and then this year you saw what the regression has happened with him,

and he's hardly scoring it all back. That's just what happens. And then the NHL, the captain has really been great ever since he came into the lineup. Or honestly, you know, ever since he was demoted to the fourth line, I guess that conversation, excuse me, with Mike Sullivan worked. And, you know, that line is red-hot right now. It doesn't even matter that Evan Rodriguez is.

is on Malkin's left wing. I'm Kappan and Gino are just a great dynamic duo right now. And I keep saying it, everyone. This is so funny. They always try to get this winger for Sid, you know, that hashtag on Twitter going whenever, every time this team gets a top six winger. And every time they get that winger,

they go play with Malkin. You know, they sat with Phil Kessel, had it with James Neal, and now they've had it with Kspiro Kappi. I think the only time they got, went out and got a top six winger that played with Sid mainly was Chris Koonitz. You know, Kuhnitz really didn't play with Malkin that much. He played with him a bit,

but, you know, definitely wasn't new. nearly as much as he played with Cindy Crosby. But that goal was great. Obviously, they allowed the savers to get back in the game with that one-one goal. Doomlin got burned bad there. You don't really see him chase a player around the net like that. Sid also I thought could have done a bit better Anjari.

A bit of a shaky start, that's not a goal you can give up. You know, especially, you know, at that point in the game, you just score. You're not playing your best hockey. You know, the game honestly could have gotten out of hand a little quick there. But, you know, I'm glad it didn't. And they were able to respond the right way going into the second period. and that Buffalo goal was scored by Tage Thompson. I think that was his first goal of the year.

He was one of the players that came over in that awful Ryan O'Reilly trade. I mean, that was just, I still can't believe Jason Botryl made that deal. I mean, it's one thing to trade Ryan O'Reilly, but to get basically nothing in return from him is just pretty much a joke to me. So that trade is going to haunt Sabres fans, I think, forever. And, you know, speaking of Buffalo again, just what a chore they are to watch. I feel so bad for the, well, I don't feel bad for the owners. I mainly just feel bad for the fans because that fan base is awesome.

They're loyal. I mean, I think they've been selling out games for the last decade, and they've been bad almost every single year since 2011. That is one of the most loyal fan bases in hockey. And this team has talent, too. You know, Taylor Hall, Sam Reinhard, Victor Olofson, Ross Miss Donlein, Jack Eichel, when he's in the line. I know Mr. Linen is not that good. Colin Miller, Eric Stahl. I mean, this team has players that other teams will want at the trade deadline.

And just to see them struggle like this, it's pathetic. And I don't blame the fans for not even wanting to purchase tickets to the games. I think I saw something from this morning that tickets have now gone on sale after basically none of the season ticket holders wanting to go to games. I mean, can you blame them with how bad they are, the worst team in hockey right now? You look at their effort level And after that Anthony Angelo goal last night, they had nothing. They were honestly, didn't look like they were skating. They didn't look like they were trying.

It's got to be a really tough time to be a Sabres fan right now. And that's just such a storied franchise, too. Dominic Hatt LaFontaine, I'm pretty sure Villalino played there. Thomas Vanek, Jason Pommonville, you know, when both of those players were in their primes, of course. I mean, Miroslav Chetan was great there. Alex Mogulny, who's one of the best Russian players to ever play in the NHL. And it has just gotten so bad there in Buffalo in the last recent years. I mean, they honestly just need a rebuild from the rebuild at this point.

I just, like I said, I feel bad for them. And almost all these games can't be pleasant watches for that fan base, that's for sure. But, you know, going back to the Penguins, Brandon Tanev scored last night. Great move to cut to the net there. I think that was his fifth goal on the year. That hit him and his line are playing great right now. Like I said, if they can just get it. a bottom six four to play with the McCann line or once Zucker comes back to, you know,

someone like Bobby Ryan, Eric Stahl would be a great fit on that other line. They can move that Astin Rees Blue Retainal line to their fourth line, and that's one of the five best fourth lines in hockey. It just makes the team so much deeper. You know it's a bad time when the fourth line scores against you. Anthony Angelo gets us for a school of the season in his hometown, no, less he grew up in Buffalo. I'm sure his family was watching, so congratulations to Angelo with that goal.

And there's also a hell of a snipe. basically came down the right-hand wall, snapped it right past Johansen, to make it forward to. I think it was, what, two and a half minutes into the third period? Jake Gensel gets a power play goal. The power play movement last night, I thought was great, penalty kill was great,

and I love how Jake is able to just find those soft little holes right around the net, just where not a lot of other players can find them. He's just so elite at doing that. I love watching Jake just pick apart goalies like that. And I believe his goal tied the team, is now tied for the team lead, excuse me, with Sidney Crosby with Aide,

and then Brian Russ is able to put it away at the end for a 5-2 win. So like I said, overall, great win for the Penguins. You got two points when you needed to get two points against a bad team. They'll have that opportunity again on Saturday night when they play the Buffalo Sabres again in Buffalo.

That's a 7 p.m. start before they get a humongous matchup with the Boston Ruins next week. We, of course, are only, I think it's like a point or two behind the Penguins now. But yeah, not their best performance, but still much needed to win. That's now four in a row. Five out of six,

and tomorrow they'll go for five in a row and six out of seven. If I'm not mistaken, they've now won eight of their last 11 games. So this team is really starting to turn around. 16 and 9 and 1 now, ever since Hextall and Burke have taken over this team. They've just been at another level

that we hadn't seen from them before when Jim Rutherford was there. There's still probably a move or two to be made here before the trade deadline. I think it's four weeks away now. So we'll see what they have up their sleeve, but I'm really optimistic about this. this team right now. I'm getting closer to saying that they're a playoff locked. I mean,

they should be. I mean, if Philadelphia is not playing all right now, the Penguins are four points clear of them. I know the Flyers have two games in hand, but, you know, if the Flyers lose one of those two games, the Penguins would be in the playoffs, and the Flyers would be out. But as each passing day goes, I get more and more confident that this team will make the playoffs and I'm getting a little more confident that they may go on a playoff run, as well, especially if they make a move or two, and if Chris Letang, Sid, and Gino, and the goaltending, and more depth players continue to contribute at the level they are contributing right now. So a lot of positive vibes coming from this Penguins team right now.

Really happy to see it, especially because after that disastrous start to open the season where they were just kind of looking like that meddling team. But it's been much better as of late. But before we do get to the next segment where we bring DK on, it is time to talk about bet online. It's the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your sports action. Football might be over, but the NBA, college basketball, and the NHL in full swing. Ben Online even covers the award.

shows from reality TV. You can get real-time, updated odds and props on almost anything you can imagine. Bet Online has you covered for all the news, scores and odds. It's the best way to place your bets, and it's free to sign up for. You can head to the website or use mobile device to sign up today and receive 50% off. Welcome to bonus on your first deposit. That's BetOnline, your online, your online sportsbook experts with the promo code Locked On at beton.org.org. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L.O. Onesware Penguins. And today we have a very special guest. I teased it in the first segment.

Deion Kovachevich from D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. D.K., how are you doing today, man? I have no complaints. It's a gorgeous day in Pittsburgh, PA. And we're starting to get back to normal, you know? It's happening in sports, but it's also happening in the rest of the, in the rest of the society and civilization and all that other stuff. And, you know, we're just what, a day past the one-year anniversary of, actually, you know, this is one year ago today that I was, Taylor Haas and I were driving back from Columbus wondering what the heck just happened out there because that was when everything got shut down and the penguins were supposed to play the blue jackets that night.

And we thought, eh, this is going to be over. in a couple weeks, you know, it'll all be figured out soon enough. And here we are a year later. It has been one hell of a year. I'll say that. You know, I saw it today. I mean, we are getting closer back to normal. I saw today, I think over 100 million doses of the vaccines have been administered. So that's awesome. We're getting ever so closer. You know, I think they say they want to be more back to normal by July. So we'll take it day by day. But, you know, also going day by day with the penguins. What a difference these last couple weeks. It's been, D.K., four and row five of the last six this team is one you know I listened to your daily shot this morning

you know you said like there's something that seems missing with the team do you think that could be like more help on the way from Hex-Stol and Burke in a trade or do you just like think maybe the effort level still isn't there yet with some of the players well I know I know this and I know this from people on the inside hunter and that's that the there's an effort being made to squeeze every last drop of blood slash sweat from what's already here. And if you think about it, what we're talking about here, so we don't have to speak in code, isn't the top six, it isn't the defense core, and it isn't the starting goaltender. And as long as we're narrowing it down, it's also not the Teddy Bluger line.

The fourth line that the penguins have is garbage. Yeah. And I say that within the context of Anthony Angelo's starting to look like he's coming around. But you're going to have to take my word for it when I tell you that it hasn't been easy getting what they've gotten from Angelo either. And generally speaking, in sports, if you need someone to light a match under your rear end on a regular basis and remind you that you're on a fourth line. that means you're as close to not being in the national hockey league as possible while being in the national hockey league and B, you're going to be out some serious money. Whatever it is that motivates you in life, whether it's the pride and the sweater, the team,

and all the syrupy stuff or the cash or the longevity of the career, these guys aren't achieving any of it. And if I'm Ron Hextall and Brian Burke and I'm looking at this team right now, which is still winning. It's usually not decisive or pretty or anything like that, but they're still winning almost every game that they play, including through the roughest part of their schedule. What do you have to do to change this team, the look and feel of this team, is it's got to become, here comes the Sullyism, harder to play against. He's not Canadian. I threw that in anyway. but he's

he's saying these things for a reason because even in a game like the one Thursday night in Buffalo they're just kind of there you know and then they get some opportunities and then they make the most of them and you go yay they won but it's never that

that feeling that you get where you go wow this team's really coming man it's really getting there and I hate to pin all of that on a fourth line because that sounds like Joe fan like getting mad at the at the the lowest person on the periphery of the roster which is what we tend to do as observers anyway but that's really what it feels like to me either come up with a fourth line a whole new fourth line or you know what go nuts and build a third line and

move teddy to the fourth yeah and i think there are going to be a lot of trade part well trade well tradable players out there excuse me that can build that line i mean a fourth line Sure. Yeah, those guys are, you don't even need to, you don't need to make trades. Yeah. Those are waiver pickups. Yeah, exactly. Dominic Simone was on waivers a few days ago.

He would have been an upgrade over any of these three guys. Oh, 100%. Yeah. These three guys, I mean, Jayankowski has probably been the worst of the worst ever since that game in Philadelphia. I noticed him a little bit against the Flyers a couple games ago, but not really since then. And, you know, I think that game against the Flyers, that four, three come back in the third. That was the game.

I was like, okay, you know, circle. I think you even tweet that one too. Circle this one if they make it at the end. And just because of the effort, the effort looked there. And, you know, as far as building the third line, I agree, because if you move that Tenev-Bluger-Aston-Rees line as your fourth line, I've been saying it's forever, there probably aren't five better fourth lines in the league better than them.

If you want to go out and get someone like Eric Stahl, I saw, like he'd be a nice candidate to play there on that line with McCann. Bobby Ryan from Detroit There's some others I'm sure out there You know getting Dadov up in Ottawa If you want to trade with them If you want to go full nuclear You can go trade for Ricard Raquel out of Anaheim

Just because they're going to have a fire So I think too But you know I am glad to hear that it sounds like They're willing to add this year A lot of teams I've been reading Have not been wanting to add No I don't know actually I don't know that

I don't know that yeah I mean until until Ron Hextall makes a move and there's a one-on-one interview with him that just went up on our site that Dave Molinari did with Hextall that

shed some light on his thinking right now about the current state of the team and so forth but he can say I believe in this team and Burke can say I believe in this team whatever until they make a move and I'm not suggesting they should make it tomorrow. I'm just saying until they make a move, we don't know. We don't know what their

stance is until they act on it. My own thought process here on what Hextall is likely to do is he could find ways to make perimeter moves without forfeiting draft picks. And I could crack a joke here and say, you know, he doesn't want to give up any prospects. Doesn't have any give up. You know, what you have, if you're the penguins, so this is the kind of trade that almost has to be made, is it has to be a left-handed defenseman going out. And the reason for that is these guys that you mentioned,

the fantasy names you just threw out there, they come with cap hits. And they come in a couple of cases that you mentioned there with really significant cap hits. And you can't get cap in without cap out right now in managing this roster. And they know that. So it would have to be someone who's making some cash, the way Brian Dumlin is, the way Marcus Pedersen is.

You also don't want to trade guys at their lowest possible value, which also runs counterintuitive to a lot of public perception. They see somebody stinks and they go, get him out of here, trade him. Well, that's the worst time to trade him. Okay. So you would not be moving Marcus Pedersen right now because he's probably at a low point in his NHL career at the moment. Dumlin, Dumlin's a different case.

He's been around. He's won rings. You know, he's the real deal. You don't have to wonder what Brian Dumlin is or what he'll bring to your team. He's a known commodity. Even if he were slumping, you could move him. Marcus, not so much. Marcus, you got to be patient with you got to let him play through it.

And then, of course, you've got P.O. Joseph ready to come up and take the place of either one, although P.O. himself obviously stumbled somewhat before he was sent back to Wilkesbury. So I'm not saying that they're not going to do anything. I'm saying that I don't know that they are. And if they are, the decision I think that you have to make is the one that I just made, that made mention of. And that is, are you building a third line? Or are you just rounding up a pile of waiver guys and building a fourth line that knocks Jankowski out. Because here's the other thing, Hunter. If you factor in, talk about fantasy, that everybody is healthy. Okay, and Jason Zucker comes back.

Well, does Zucker go immediately onto the second line when he comes back? Not if Jared McCann comes back and keeps playing the way he was. Okay. So does Zucker go to your fourth line? well, he was a terrible fourth liner in Minnesota, which is part of what got him out of there. He's a guy that's either in your top sick or he's really nothing. But if Zucker is on your third line and you commit to a scoring third line and you say, listen, we believe in Evan Rodriguez as well.

We think he's a two-way center. That's the reason we keep bumping him up to replace guys in the top six, which has now happened twice, including currently. And then you say, all right, what are we? missing? What are we missing? Who's a who's a fourth line? I'm sorry, third line in this case, right winger, or center, depending on where you stack Rodriguez, that we can add to have three legit scoring lines. You see what I'm saying now? So instead of thinking rebuild the fourth line necessarily or just blow up the fourth line, maybe Anthony Angelo is that guy if the fire stays lit. Who knows? Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that because, you know,

each of their three cup runs that we've seen in the Sidgino era. They've had those three scoring lines, whether it was HBK, or there was Cook, Stahl, Kennedy. They had that bona fide third line center, and they just haven't also replaced Nick Minino ever since he left, which is just, it's been a killer. I mean, it looked like Jared McCann was going to be that player for a bit, but he's also just bounced around the lineup so much,

so it's just it's hard to get a read on it. But you're right, he was playing well when he came back, and it stunked that he got on again. They were really high. happy with him. Not a little bit. They were, they were ecstatic with what he was showing. So, I mean, I think they might,

you know, we'll see how this plays out, but I think they might have given him the weekend off against the Sabres without sending some kind of public message to, you know, that, of stating the obvious, which is that you should beat the Sabres without even your top five or six guys. And then have him back, ideally, we'll see about this, but have him back ideally for Monday and the two really big games against Boston.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. We're going to get to that in the next segment because those two matchups are just outside of playing Buffalo and New Jersey for half the schedule coming up. Those are huge. But before we do get to that, it is time to talk about Bilt Bar. We've been telling you about Bilt Bar. It's the best tasting protein bar on the market for a while now. But now it's time to find out which Bilt Bar is the best.

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Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L-O-R. underscore penguins. D.K., it honestly looked like, you know, maybe the Marino injury. They said it was a maintenance day for him, and then all of a sudden he's just not with the team anymore. Do you think that's also they're giving him the weekend off against the savers just because I think that came out of nowhere, too,

because he finished the game. Well, not only did he finish the game, but he also was a pool participant in the morning skate before the game. So, no, I don't think this is anything serious. I think he came, again, I'm going off of, stuff that I hear. So don't, you know, I always caution listeners and readers to take something that I say like this and go, ah, ha, reporting as such. Okay. I mean, when we report it, we report it based on a lot of confirmation. But what I'm hearing to this stage is that something happened to

his hand and he was having a hard time grabbing his stick and escape. We'll see if that that ends up being what it is. And if so, again, that's where you just cut him a break. And just say, look, you know, get back to full health here. We've got other guys that we'll figure it out. Yeah. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised to see Marino and McCann both back Monday. Gotcha. Yeah. And I mean, Chabar-Reedle came in last night, played admirable as usual. He's always that steady presence that is like a number seven defenseman. You can count on them. Yep. Total probe. Yep. Yeah. I like when he comes in and plays. You know, you mentioned those two matchups against the Bruins. Um, there, there aren't, there's been some pivotal games

this season. Obviously those three games against the flyers, but, you know, those two Bruins games, I think, are at that level as well. Just the standings are so tight right now. It's a five-team race four are going to get in. One's going to miss. I'm thinking right now that Philadelphia might be that team that misses. When you look at the schedule, it favors them, Pittsburgh, that is, down the stretch, just because of how many games they have against the bottom two teams and how they have to bank those points night in and night out. But, you know, when you look at the division and you look at those two games against the Bruins, is that the team that, you know, matches up the least well for the Penguins, or do you think it's some other team, maybe like

the Islanders or something like that? Well, the Bruins are the best team in the division. I mean, that's what I'll say as opposed to who they match up well with. They're the best team in the division, and they're principally that not only because they have the best line in hockey, but also because they have depth. They have enough youth to make sure that they're fast and can overcome the things. fact that the best line in hockey is built on a couple of older guys. And even the second line that they have now that he's back and playing pretty well from

what I saw Thursday night is David Creachie, really grossly underappreciated player in the National Hockey League. Creachie will make for a more balanced attack, but they're still missing guys. The Bruins are missing. Obviously, Brandon Carlo from the Tom Wilson hit. they're without Tuka Rask, but they have Yaroslav Halak, who is, I don't even want to call him 1A, because that's insulting. And he's just an outstanding National Hockey League goaltender and has been for more than a decade. This team, this Boston team should win the East Division.

That's the way they're set up. They might not, depending on health and other. variables. These things aren't set in stone when you make, you know, preseason predictions or expectations. But if Boston were to fall down as they have of late in this, and you mentioned, it's really, really tight in the division, but all it takes is one or two losses and all of a sudden you're, you know, you're going down the ladder. The penguins have a chance, Monday and Tuesday to put some daylight between themselves and a really key team in one form or other. Whether I'm not going to pretend that Boston is going to be the fifth place team in the east.

That to me is nuts. Okay. I don't see that happening. So that's not what I mean. I mean that Boston, if you end up or you stay having this division be as tight as it is and the penguins are now second and Boston is third, well, okay. now you're talking about home ice. You're talking about home ice in a situation between two teams,

the Penguins and Bruins, who almost always win the home game. The Penguins can't win in Boston to save their lives, and the Bruins can't win in Pittsburgh. So this really matters. If there's anybody that's going to fall out, and I think you reference this, it's going to be the Flyers,

because they're trying to make the playoffs without a goaltender. And that's a really, really tall task, man. You know, they can't stop a puck right now. Carter Hart can't stop one. And Brian Elliott can never stop one. I'm not sure what they're trying to do out there by pretending that they're just going to be able to keep running

these two guys out there and make the playoffs. And the funny thing is Brian Elliott has been a lot better than Carter Hart this season. Way better, yeah. But that says more about heart than it says about Elliot. Although Elliot's had an above Elliott season. Yeah, I think his Sabrescent is like 915, 920. It's really high.

Yeah, he's having definitely an above Elliott season, but he's also still Brian Elliott. Yeah, and speaking of goaltending, you know, the Penguins goaltending, I've been talking about this on the podcast a lot lately, DK. Tristan Jari has been on one hell of a heater. His last 11, 12 games, just to a game. just a complete 180 from the first couple of weeks where he was just costing them games and out of position and not saving pucks like we saw him do last season.

Can he keep this up for the rest of the season or is this going to come down, you think, a little bit. Well, I would ask it the other way around. Here's why. At the beginning of this season, the way he was playing then, I think it's a fairer question to ask if that, was sustainable. Because if you think about the bulk of Jari's career in the NHL, it obviously is long, and you go back to the totality of the 2019-20 season,

up to and even including the one game in the playoffs against Montreal, dude was exactly that. He was exactly what we're seeing now. This isn't necessarily a level above for him. I think this is his level. I think he is a top 10 goal tender in the NHL. The numbers would bear that out last year, both the advanced numbers and the, you know, the basic ones. His goals against his safe percentage and shutouts were all in the top 10 in the NHL.

That's a really nice thing for a team to have. Do they have the depth that they need? I don't know. I mean, would you trust Casey DeSmith to take over in the playoffs? No. Okay. do you go out and do you make a move for that reason? No, I don't see that either with the cap crunch.

So Jari is, he knows he's the guy, and he stepped up. And when I say that, I mean it literally, he stepped up in the crease. He got more aggressive. He started attacking shooters. He started using his stick more actively. Heck, he almost scored a cold Thursday night in Buffalo. He's just adding, I think, as opposed to breaking out. he's adding on top of what he's already done.

Yeah, and it's just, you know, they need this level of consistent goal taining to continue, you know, if they are to truly make a big run here. I guess I can just end with that. Do you see them making a run this season as a contender and, you know, just getting out of the divisional playoffs and getting into the Stanley Cup semifinals? I mean, I think from the last few weeks, from what I've watched, they have it in them if they played those full 60 minutes and everyone buys in, as Mike Sullivan likes to say. You said earlier they play the right way, and if maybe they want to make that third line and roll four lines and get players like Severe and Lafferty and Jankowski out of the lineup, they could have something really cooking here and they can beat almost every team in this division, I think, four out of seven times.

What do you think about that? They can beat a team in the playoffs. But it's a completely different point of order to discuss winning for. consecutive playoff series and the sort of, it's an astronomical feat winning a Stanley Cup every single time it happens. I remember being on the ice in 2017 in Nashville with Ian Cole's mom and dad.

And they, of course, had just done this a year earlier in San Jose. So I actually was face-to-face familiar with them. And we were talking about how, if you'll recall like Hornedfist played with a broken hand Ian himself played with two different

he had a hand issue he couldn't close his hand on the stick and he had multiple multiple cracked grips you're remembering this now and I'm looking at these guys who didn't have Crystal Tang at all remember that too

yeah Justin Schultz was your number one defense me yep and I'm looking at this and thinking this is unbelievable that they did this. I mean, they did it through some spectacular goaltending first from Mark Andre Fleury and then from Matt Murray when he took over in the Ottawa series. But it's a giant task. So I am never one to lightly say, oh, sure, they can win a Stanley Cup. If I'm being completely candid with you here, this roster has no chance of winning a Stanley Cup.

not the way it's currently constituted, and not the way the two scoring superstars, both of them, are performing at, even now, when Gino's come to life and everything else here, they're performing well, in some cases, very well. let's be real here. They're not what they were two, three, four years ago where you would see just these spurts of dominance. Again, not just being good and not point a game or point in a half a game.

I'm talking about dominance, silly math, the stuff that they would put forward. This team is still built around those two guys. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. And it's built around the premise that those two guys are those two guys and the peak version of that. And until you see that, until you see that come into play, to me, I'm sorry, it's tough to say, oh, yeah, they're it. I mean, you can get out of the east.

Anything can happen. You could beat Washington. You could beat Boston. We were just talking about it. They could beat Boston Monday and Tuesday, okay? but now you're looking at Tampa or or the other possible best team in the East which is also in that bracket and that's Florida but nobody ever talks about yeah Florida has surprised a lot of people this year I'm not me not me I was way I'll be the first to admit that I'll eat a lot

of crow on that I don't think they can beat Tampa in seven games but they they could give I think of all the teams in that division they could give them a fight um before The Panthers are doing a lot of things right. And coming out of the Eastern Conference, I'd be looking, not to, the East Division is better than that division, okay, than the Central Division. It just is overall.

But overall doesn't mean a thing once you're in a playoffs. It's just about individual teams. And I'll take either Tampa or Florida to make it to the final over anybody in the East right now. And remember one thing about Tampa and Florida, they both have something that no one else in the conference does, and that's elite goal-tending. And I know Bob is the guy in Florida and everything else,

but Bob doesn't have to face the penguins, so Bob doesn't have to have his demons attacking him in net from the moment the puck drops after the regular season. It's going to be interesting, but that's not to say the penguins can't change the roster. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Like you said, that third line if that's what they want to do and run those three scoring lines and then move

the Aston Reese line to the fourth, they'll have something cooking there. And yeah, if Sivan Gino can get back to that 2016, 2017 level, it just, it takes the team back to that height, which they have not been, as you said. No, they have not. Yeah. Obviously, they're a bit older now. That's what happens. You know, time is undefeated, as they say. But, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic, I guess, about them right now. I think they should make the playoffs. I think they will make the playoffs. And I think... Yeah, they'll make the playoffs.

They'll make it. Yeah, but, you know, what happens in there, you know, can they... I think they can be Washington, but Boston is the one that always scares me just because they haven't beaten them in the playoffs and said in Gino's career. That's the last rival team that they haven't gotten through yet, and you've got to figure they would. But, D.K., thank you so much for coming on this episode today. I really appreciate it.

I wish you the best of luck with this podcast and everything you do. And I want people to know that we appreciate it. we appreciate every subscriber that we have to the K Pittsburgh Sports and I know that you've been one of them for a very long time and it's it's not something

that we ever take for granted. We don't lose sight. No matter how many people we end up adding and how big the company has gotten and how big the site has gotten, we don't lose sight of the fact that it was built on individuals giving us a try

first of all, you know, putting their faith in us and then sticking by us. Yeah, I always love being part of it. I'm glad you guys just keep chugging along. You guys do outstanding work for there. But Penguins will be back in action tomorrow night in Buffalo. Seven more games against these guys. So if they can keep winning against those, banking those points, that'd be obviously pretty beneficial for the rest of their season.

But we'll be back with another episode on Monday, and I will talk to you all then.