Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Can we figure out what a clean hit is please?

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

The Pittsburgh Penguins winning streak has come to an end but there's no reason to be super upset about it. Hunter recaps the Penguins latest 2-1 setback to the Boston Bruins as they were playing with 10 forwards for most of the evening. He talks about how the Penguins had the better high-danger chances and the better scoring-chances at all situations, despite losing the game. He also goes into Geno's injury and how you'll probably never see the likes of Sam Lafferty on the ice for a 6-on-5 in the final minute ever again. Of course, the elephant in the room is also mentioned as Hunter has a strong message for NHL officiating and how inconsistent it is. Finally, the episode ends with some listener trade proposals as the trade deadline is under a month away!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 “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% 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/LockedOnJoin our Bracket Challengehttps://fantasy.espn.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2021/en/group?groupID=3624947 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. This Tuesday evening 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 underscore Penguins.

The Penguins' sixth game winning streak has officially come to an end. They lose 2-1 to the Boston Rooms, a disappointing result. But overall, I was pretty happy with the effort level tonight from the Penguins, especially with Hedgeny Malkin, getting hurt in the first period, and did not return in the game. Well, returned for one shift and then didn't return after that. There's still no injury update for Mike Sullivan. As of right now, I'm sure as I'm recording this as I'm scrolling Twitter,

I'll give you all an update on that. And then, of course, you know, Brandon Tanna being thrown out of the game for... I'll get into that. Just Brandon Tana being thrown out of the game for something really stupid. You know, they play with 10 forwards for basically the last 30 minutes of the game, almost and that's hard to do especially with Jared McCann still being out Jason Zucker and John Marino and of course Teddy Bluger was also out tonight due to undisclosed injury I think he skated that the morning he skate this morning was

perfectly fine in the last game hopefully it's nothing major it looked like that marino and McCam were potentially going to be coming back tonight then of course before the game we see Marino be placed on injured reserve retroactive to March night so he's probably going to be a little while and hopefully well maybe Jared McCann will be back sooner rather than later. The Penguins will also have the Devils coming up for three straight games, and then they will have the Buffalo Sabres coming up for two straight games who just are now lost 12 in a row, believe it or not,

the Devils actually beat them tonight. And the Devils had lost, I think, 11 straight games at home versus the Sabres who had lost 11 games in a row coming into the show. One of those two streaks had to break. Anyways, going back to the game, like I said, I thought it was a good effort from the Penguins. Casey DeSmith did all he could. I'm not going to fault him for either one of the goals.

The first one was a great move by Posternak to beat him a five hole. Don't only know what the penalty kill was doing there. Brian Doolin was basically just caught sleeping, drinking a beer on the beach it looked like, and just let Posternak slip right past him in the defensive zone. Marshon had a beautiful pass to him. And the P.K. It was about to expire. I think there was only like five, six seconds left.

They were killing off the penalty pretty good before that, and then it just went to crap. And, you know, I'm going to keep saying it. I know I gave the Penguin special teams a B-plus for last night, and they were good. I'll say that. But then they revert back to what you see tonight with the PK just being really weird at times. I will give them credit, though, that five-minute major, I'm from Brandon Tanev. That was the penalty kill of the year. So it wasn't all bad.

Maybe I'll give it like a C plus, C-minus, somewhere in the C range for the penalty kill. But they need to be a lot better on that first goal. It's been a big problem all season, and it hasn't fully fixed itself at all. I mean, you know, I saw someone tweet during the game. forget trading for a center. How will we trade back for Schaqmar 10? Because the Penguins penalty kill under him was basically like a top five, top 10 unit for all the years that he was in Pittsburgh. I think he, of course, he got there to start of the 2014-15 season.

And all the way through last season, the Penguins had always been one of the best penalty killing teams in the league. And whatever Mike Volucci has done, it has just not been good enough. But like I said, I will give kudos to the penalty kill at that five-minute major. The Bruins really had nothing going on with that. And Jankowski actually almost had. a shorthanded goal would hit the left post as he was coming in on a breakaway. So chance for Jan Kelsey get his first goal in basically 25 games was not to be. Overall, I did think he played an okay game.

And I honestly thought the fourth line was not bad tonight. I guess we'll just start there as well. You know, I thought Anthony Angelo was okay. Colton Severe, you know, I've been kind of dogging on him a lot in recent leagues. But, you know, this game in last night's game, he's had a couple really good, high, danger scoring chances tonight, especially. He was robbed point blank by Darth Vader. Yes, I am going to call the Bruins goalie, Darth Vader, because that basically is his

name. That was a hell of a stick save. He even elevated that puck to it. It wasn't just, you know, on the ice or something. He put a good amount of elevation on that puck, and he still made the save. That would have been Severe's first goal, I think, since the one he scored against the Capitals about six weeks ago. I have to double check on that, but he has not scoring quite a while.

But honestly, I think he's kind of been a different player since he was probably. on waivers. I'm liking what I'm seeing from him, especially the last couple of games. If he can give them that level on the fourth line moving forward, you know, that that's one less roster spot that the Penguins will have to worry about going into the trade deadline. But I still will say, I think management owes it to the team with how well that they're playing right now and that they're in third place in the division to go out and get a couple forwards. Later on in this episode, I will be breaking down some of your trade proposals that I asked earlier on in the day on the Block Time Penguins to our account to just send me a proposal for some players.

that you want to go after, and I'll break them down and see if it's a good trade for the Penguins and also a good trade for the other team as well. But like I said, so decent night from the fourth line. Obviously, Sam Lafferty was inserted into the lineup. He was terrible once again. The play that really struck out, well, there was two plays that struck out to me with him. Number one, late in the third period, two plays late in third period, actually, gets a centering pass from behind the net. He's basically five feet away from the net and misses it like three feet wide. It's like, buddy, like, you are not going to get playing time if you continue to miss these good scoring chances. And then with five seconds left in the third period, the goalie's

pulled, Penguins are trying to get that time, go to Lisa and into overtime to get a point. Lafferty's passing the puck back to the point to Mike Matheson when he's well inside the dot and he basically 10 feet, 10, 15 feet from the net. It's like, why are you not firing that on that? I even tweeted it basically made me lose brain cells watching that. I mean, he is just not an NHL player right now. The sooner everyone realizes this, the better it will be. Mike Sullivan obviously has been scratching him a lot

in recent games, especially with the team, being more healthy, at least coming into tonight, but he is just, he's not an NHL player, like I said, the sooner everyone realizes that the better off this will be. He's shown Flash as a little bit last season that he could potentially be about 12th 4 that the team was needing,

but so far this season, he's just, he's done nothing, and he does not deserve to be playing right now. I honestly call up Frederick Goodrow or something from the taxi squad and put him in there. I mean, he couldn't be any worse at this point. But let's also get to some of the good. Brandon Tannab gets another Goldson. I think that was his seventh goal on the season.

Love to see him crash the net like that and get the puck past Lord Vader. The goal with that was really special, honestly. Caput had that nice shot from the left far side boards. And then Rodriguez had that outstanding tip, which went off his pad. and then Tana was able to crash in on the garbage right in front of the net. That tip, though, when Rodriguez, very underrated. You know, if that tip doesn't happen, Tana probably doesn't score that goal. We could potentially be looking at a very different game.

So I really liked Brandon Tana's game before he was tossed out. We're going to get to that coming up, of course. In the next segment for the top line, I thought Gensel looked good. He had a couple good looks. Brian Russ was fine. Sid, I thought, was a little bit of a down game from him. But, you know, he's also having to carry the load, especially with Malkin being out there.

They're basically running like one line when Malkin is out of the lineup right now, especially with Teddy Bluey route and Jared McCann and Jason Zucker and so much more. They are literally running one good, competent line out there. I mean, that's the reality of the situation, especially with Gino being out. Hopefully it's nothing serious, though. And I like Sid's quote, after the game to Mike DeFeyabo, we competed hard. Usually an effort like that, you're rewarded. It wasn't the case tonight, but we battled.

I mean, yeah, the Penguins got some good looks tonight on that Bruins goal. he was just making a lot of really good saves. And sometimes a goalie outplays you. I mean, that happened last night with Tristan Jari. Sometimes the goalie is better, even in a good effort. And yes, I know it is peak penguins to have a career A shell goalie up to this point, basically Stonewall them in his first game playing in the National Hockey League. It's been like that since non with the penguins and going up against random, make-name,

goaltenders. So I really wasn't surprised to see him play out of his mind. But overall, you know, a split was most likely coming into. these games. I mean, it was very unlikely that the Penguins were going to win both of these games of regulation. Would it have been awesome? Oh, absolutely. Well, that would have been a seven-point cushion on the ruins. But right now, the Penguins

are still three points up on them. I know the Bruins have two games in hand. But, you know, the Islanders lost night. That's good news for the Penguins. Also, Washington was able to go five points ahead of Pittsburgh now. But, like I said, the Penguins also have three games against New Jersey. The first one will be on Thursday. And then

before coming home to play the Buffalo Sabers next week for two games. So no one should really be mad about this performance. The Penguins probably played one of their better games of the season, especially considering the circumstances. I think I've been more upset, or I'm sure you guys have been more upset with some of the performances that they put up in some wins this season. So, you know, this is a fine loss. You know, they've made up enough ground in the standings these last couple weeks where this loss is not going to kill them. They still have, like I said, eight games against the Devils to go, six more against the savers, two more against

the ranger. That's over half of the remaining schedule with 27 games left. So the team is fine. They're still likely going to make the playoffs. Hopefully they can get some bodies back here in the near future. And I especially hope, like I said, I know I keep saying that again, Malkin is not seriously hurt because he was playing the best hockey of his season so far. But before we get to more thoughts about this game and other stuff for this episode, it is time to talk about rockado.com. It's a family business serving auto park customers online for 20 years. You can go to rockado.com for shop for auto and body parts of hundreds of manufacturers. They have everything from engine control modules and brake parts,

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so that no he sends you amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. That is rock auto.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. In order to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes follow the show's Twitter at L-O-R-Square Penguins.

So let's get my thoughts on the brand new tanniff situation. I'm sure if you guys were following me during the game on both Twitter accounts, I was very visibly upset by those. I'm pretty sure everyone in the Penguins fan base was. If anyone that knows me, I'm a big proponent of player safety in this league. I will always go after anyone that takes an illegal check, regardless of if it's anyone on the penguins or anyone on the Capitals or anyone even on the Calgary Flames or something like that, because player safety needs to be so much better around the league. But that was not one of these instances.

This was a clean check. You're basically talking about milliseconds after Tannity releases the buck. Tannath hits him perfectly clean. Obviously, he slammed into the boards. It's a dangerous situation. but that is not worthy of a five-minute major. I'm sorry. That is a disgrace of a call.

And you saw Brandon Tanov say to the refs as he was being escorted off the ice, you know, basically called it a fucking joke, in quotes. I know, excuse my language for that. But this is just another case of the NHL and they're officiating being so inconsistent with their calls.

I mean, we saw, I think there was a hit tonight. I'm just trying to find it right now. Jordan Greenway assessed a minor penalty for an illegal check to the head for coming up, on Oliver Ekman-Larsson, basically just his arm and shoulder goes right to the head and he only gets a minor penalty. So how are you going to give that play a minor penalty but give Brandon Tannib a major and a

misconduct for a clean hockey hit? I just don't get it. The officiating has been so bad for so many years now. And I mean, if that Tannoldi hit on Malkin was not worthy of a penalty, then this one by TANF on Tannoy is not worthy of a penalty either. I just, I really don't understand it. the officiating continues to confuse me game after game after game. I think NHL officiating of the four major sports in North America, it is by far the worst.

And that's saying something because I think the NFL's officiating is pretty garbage too. And MLB umpires are obviously pretty bad as well. But they just have no idea what they're doing. They're doing this backwards. I understand Tenority got hit, but that shouldn't understand Tenority got hurt, excuse me. But that should not be the reason why you're giving Brandon Tanniv a five-minute major. Was the play dangerous with him going into the boards? It absolutely was. But I'm sorry, that is a clean hit. It was probably a two-minute minor for boarding at most. I just, you know,

you know it's a cold day in hell when Penguins and Bruins fans are agreeing that a hit was not major worthy, especially, you know, with that wheel of excuses mean that's been going on for eight years now. But the league's officiating needs to be so much better in those situations. And honestly, overall, I saw so many instances in this game where they were letting a lot of stuff. go. I think at the end of the third period, Kisbury Kappen was blatantly interfered with him about a minute to go. Rust has the puck on his stick. It's like a good three seconds past

and they're just not calling a penalty. I think there was a play with Jankowski late in the third period where he basically got full one blatantly tripped. No penalty. It was just like, I guess they want to swallow their whistles. And I hate that part of officiating. I've wanted changes to officiating

for so long. Honestly, I think Jeff from Penn's Twitter had a great idea and I agree with him. Shout out to Jeff throw this take. Refs should be graded by an independent panel or the NHLPA. The best AHL refs should get promoted. The worst NHL refs should get demoted. There's your accountability. I 1,000% agree with that. If the NHL refs right now are not going to do their jobs right,

either fire them or demote them to the AHL. I can't keep watching the same old garbage of all them letting blatant penalties go or the casual saying of reffing to the score. I hate that notion. Just because the team is up to nothing doesn't mean you can't keep giving them power plates. If the other team is taking penalties and being stupid, you call the penalties. It's just, this league has had an officiating problem for so many years,

and it's continued to skyrocket into the season because the refs just will not do their jobs, right? And the funniest part about that TANF hit going back to it, they had a review for it. Like, they had a review, and they still couldn't get the call right. That is how bad they are at their jobs. It is inexcusable to have a review, see that that is not a five-minute major. but still call it as one. I really don't understand it, and I probably never will.

And again, Jeff from Penn's Twitter killed it with this other tweet too. Tanniv did not, leave his feet, make principal contact with the head, lead with the elbow, hit him in a defenseless area, hit later anything else that would want a penalty, and the revs review this and gave him five and a misconduct.

He had a great line after that. Why can't hockey gain popularity in quotation marks? Again, he hits the nail on the head there. There is a reason why this sport is the last ranked sport for most watched in the United States behind the MLB, NFL, and the NBA. It's because of shit like this, and it's just

really annoying that this stuff keeps happening. So hopefully sooner rather than later, there will be changes made to it. Before we do get to our next commercial break, though, we'll get some trade proposals in here. It is time to do our listener takeaways. A few here to get to. Gilbert the Go, starting us off, I mean, what can you expect with that many

players out? Yeah, I mean, they're basically without four to five regulars. He says, I thought the boys put up a good fight without Tana Van Gino and oh my god that major on Tanna was probably the worst call of the year. Hopefully Gino is okay. McCann & Marino are back for the game on Thursday. Yeah, 100% agree with you go. That's probably one of the worst calls I've seen this season.

And yes, we are hoping that McCannan and Marino continue to skate. Hopefully there was no setback with Marino because Sullivan said that they were game-time decisions this morning for tonight's game, but then held both of them out and then, of course, Marino went on IR. But at least they'll get back Brandon Tana for next game, so that'll be good. But yeah, I'm also hoping for Gino to be back as well. Nevit says turning point of the game was that call. However, I can't see the penguins had a particularly strong game up to that point. Not much more I can say without blowing a gasket.

Yeah, honestly, Thomas, I think the penguins were playing a fine game up until that point anyway. I thought the Bruins had the better of the play in the second period up until that point, but I thought in the first period, after those first five to ten minutes, the penguins were carrying the play pretty well for a team that played on the night before. I know Boston did as well, but I didn't expect the penguins to have their legs that well in that first period. I honestly just don't have a lot of complaints for the Penguins with this game, especially considering the circumstances.

You win some, you lose some. This was a very close game. I was hoping throughout that third period that they were going to get it at least to overtime to get a point out of it, because you never know what can happen in three-on-three with how well the Penguins have played in overtime and the shit out this year.

But, you know, Frederick was able to basically score on a seeing-eye shot. To Smith had no chance with that. I mean, Chris Letang was not really getting David Posternock out of the way. I guess I didn't really get to that in this episode. Letang needs to do a better job. with that play. Again, I've been saying this on the podcast for the last couple of weeks. The Penguins are just letting opposing players stand in front of the net with no consequences and no repercussions. Get them out of the way. Smith has no chance there. He can't even put the

glove out to see it. And Frederick just scores an easy shot with, what, 12-50 remaining in the third period. It's been a theme all season with how bad the Penguins have been in front of their net. You look at the heat maps and everything. They're doing a great job limiting teams to, like, above the dots, except in front of the net. That's just been their Achilles heel all season. needs to be better, and you saw there with Latang not doing a good job on Posternack to box him out and get him out of the way so DeSmith can see it. Mr. Noidal says lots of bad buck tonight, down Mall content. We ran out of gas.

Wish Lafferty would have been on the third line brings more energy than 14. Honestly, Mr. No-it-all, just with what I was seeing from Lafferty tonight, I honestly wish he wasn't even playing just because of how bad he was. Genkowski, I thought, had one of his better games, to be honest. I was surprised that he didn't score there on that breakway. Well, honestly, I'm not surprised that he didn't score there. What the hell am I talking about? He hasn't scored in 25 games.

He also says the power play is out of sync without 71. Yep, 100%. And just when 71 is hitting his stride. Now this, hope he's back soon. We did have our chances tonight. Yeah, the Penguins did have a lot of good chances. If you look at 5E5 from Natural Stactor, the Penguins actually led in high danger chances.

10, 4, and 6 against scoring chances was pretty even 18 scoring chances for the Bruins. 17 for the Penguins. The Penguins possession was not that good, though. 40.9%. For course, the Bruins had 59%. But if you go to all the Penguins, all situations. The penguins also let in high danger chances.

13 to 9. Scoring chances for the penguins led in that, 23 to 22. It looked better, though, with the possession, 44.3% for the penguins, 55.6% for the Bruins. So, like I said, the penguins, they played fine tonight.

It's just sometimes the puck is not going to go in, especially with a depleted lineup. Alan Codor says, hopefully Gino's okay. Would have been nice to have him in TANV out there. Speaking of TANF, I'm pretty sure Tom Wilson, others haven't been penalized for a lot worse

than that BS. Yeah, you're no kidding on that, Alan. I've seen so many Tom Wilson hits over the years going penalized that are far worse than that, though. You know, he is suspended for seven games right now, so I can't comment on that too much. Alan also says, of course, we would lose to a goalie making his initial debut as well. Yes, that is peak penguins.

It's happened so many times throughout the Sydney, Crosby, getting mocked in error. They turn all these goalies into God. He finished not saying that sucks, but I'd rather lose now than to New Jersey, but hey, six straight wins is still impressive. Yes, this team is still won six of the last seven games, and I think seven of the last nine, and they have three straight coming up against the devils

and two more against the sabers. Penn stat says, put up a good fight towards the end. We missed Hannah's energy, and who knows if that Jankelski break where Lafferty's late chance falls to someone else that could have been ended differently. Poor call affected us, but we were an amazing fair play to Vlada in the Bruins net.

He looked very good. Yeah, 100% agree with all your points there. I was very happy with that effort level, very happy with a fight at the end. It just, it stunk, though, the day the Penguins were putting out Mark Giankelski on the 6 on 5 Evan Rodriguez on the 6 on 5

Sam Lafferty on the 6 on 5 You know it's bad when the penguins are putting out their fourth line For a 6 on 5 opportunity within a minute left That just goes to show how banged up they were For this game Because usually those guys are stapled to the fence I'm sorry I'm laughing about it But it just it was funny to see that

I was always just laughing about it I was watching it Because it's honestly the only time that you're going to see it all season I'm sorry, I'm going to stop laughing now, but it was still funny to see. But, okay, thank you all so much for sending those listeners. Takeaways in for the next segment. We will be getting in some trade proposals for the deadline as we are now 27 days away.

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and check back to see who won today's matchup and who will become the best tasting protein bar. With that, we get to our final segment, but before I do get into this a trade stuff, we are finally getting some quotes from Mike Sullivan after the game. Evgeny Malkin is being evaluated for a lower body injury, no update there. Marino remains day to day, he's going to escape tomorrow.

But the bad news is, Teddy Bluger is out longer term with an upper body injury. I have no idea that he was even hurt going into this game. So that is flat out not good. You know, not great bob.gift. I've been saying the management owes it to this team with how well they've been playing to go out and make some trades. I know Ron Hextall is not big on getting rentals because he doesn't want to trade. some prospects and picks. There's some good options out there.

Granlin, Eric Stahl. I know they're Reynolds, but they have no choice but to trade for one of those two players. Even though Ron Hextall doesn't want to trade the prospects and picks because he's always been seen as a builder as a general manager, but he can also adapt as well. There's Anthony Manta's out there so much more. Let's get some trade proposals that I saw from the Locktime Penguins Twitter account. Gilbert started off. Pedersen, a second round pick for Granlin and a fourth round pick.

I would do that. Would Nashville do it? I'm not sure. I know they're also looking. They have some other irons in the fire, as they say, with Matthias Ekholm. But I would do that. It makes a lot of sense. I know Granlin is a rental.

And I know that Hextall is not big on trading picks, but I think that one would make a lot of Spencer, especially because this team needs center depth pretty badly right now. Penn stat says, Cavier and Oricholo for Eric Stahl may be a pick as well. Granlin is a UFA next year, so he could be a good pick up in the off season. Yeah. Eric Stahl is going to be a big theme for this little segment. I would be all over him.

I know he's a bit older, but this guy's a former 30 goal score one of the past couple of years. He's still a good player. I know he's been on a bad Buffalo team that's lost 12 in row, but he is not the reason why they have lost 12 in row. I would do that deal in a heartbeat. Danielle also says, I haven't had time to look over myself, but I did some people say Eric Stahl and a trade in this article,

which leads me to King Clarkie's proposal. He actually DM'd me it on Twitter. If I can just go to this right now. Okay, so here are the two trades that he has proposed to me. Bobby Ryan from Detroit for a 22 fourth round pick and Casper Biorquist. I think that makes a lot of sense for the Penguins. Bjorquist has been in their system for a while, has not made the leap to the pros yet. I don't think he's going to be anything special in a fourth round pick.

It basically doesn't have a big high likelihood of becoming an NHL player. I know Ryan is a rental, but this makes a lot of sense, especially in a bottom six role. And then his other one, Eric Stahl for Yuselika, a 2020. 21 7th round pick and a 2023 4th round pick. I think that one makes a lot of sense too. I don't know if Buffalo would want more than that. I would imagine they would want a little bit more. But I think those two trades would be awesome for the Penguins,

and it really solidifies them as a true cup contender because the lineup that he said me, you could run Gensel-Crosby Rust, Zulker Malkin, Kappan, McCann, Stahl, Bobby Ryan, and then Astonry's Blue Gertan of when the team is fully healthy. Then the team can fully run four lines. have Anthony Angelo out there, Mark Jenkowski, Colton Severe, Sam Lafferty, any of other those players. And that is a formidable lineup. And I think that team can beat almost anyone in a 70 game series.

I truly believe that. For me personally, I would love if they could get their hands on Anthony Manta. He signed, I think, for a few more years. It fits the mold of Hextal, not giving up assets to go and get Reynolds. Kyle Pomerri also makes sense. But, yeah, it seems like a lot of you want Eric Stahl. It makes a ton of sense, especially for center-depth. tonight the penguins were rolling out.

Mark Jankeowski is the second line center for a lot of the game. I mean, the other center I think was like Sam Lafferty or something like that. It's just pretty bad to watch when those two players are centering lines for this team. But overall, yeah, center depth is a big need for the team right now. Hopefully Malkin will be

okay though. I'm sure they'll have an update tomorrow if the team practices. Before we do close out this episode though, I do want to get to this quote from Cindy Crosby. He says, I hope as players we can get some clarity on what's a good hit and what's not. Bingo Sid, thank you for saying that hitting is still a part of hockey and there is nothing wrong with a clean body check or just a clean hit in general. Yes, I am a

big proponent of player safety. I want these headshots out of the game. I want dirty hits out of the game and all these other bad hits out of the game. But with Brandon Tentive in that situation, that is a perfectly legal check and that is the kind of hit that deserves to stay in the National Hockey League. So I will end you all with that. But thank you all. so much for listening to this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I always, always appreciate it. Tomorrow we will have Josh Yoey from The Athletic on Wednesday evening to talk

all about the team, including some trade targets, and that article he wrote about Jim Rutherford earlier on Tuesday because he's making the rounds again in the fan base. He's not happy and rightfully so. He did say some stuff in that article. That was pretty embarrassing still. But like I said, thank you all so much for listening, and I will talk to you all on Wednesday evening.