Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - How to fix the Penguins' disastrous start...

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

The Pittsburgh Penguins had their woes continue on Tuesday night with a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars. Hunter and Pat are here to recap the game and oh yeah, they have some takes on it. They start with how the Penguins came out like a house on fire before it all turned to crap in the third period. They discuss how the process seems to be there in spurts but it's not holding up for 60 minutes. They discuss how that needs to change in a big way if this team wants to get points on a consistent basis. They also crush the bottom six since we're seeing the worst fears of this roster come to life with how the bottom two lines are not producing. After that, they consider if a coaching change may have to happen if this gets worse (or if it should happen sooner rather than later) before crushing the PP for its continued woes. All that, plus Warrior Helmet Wednesday, and a whole lot more is on this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast.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 that are Locked On NHL to learn more by calling us at 203-675-0071 or go 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.

make it three losses in a row for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they dropped Tuesday night's game to the Dallas Stars for today's episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. Pat and I are going to recap that game plus go into what changes need to be made going forward. You're Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes,

joined as always by my co-host, Patrick Damp. You can follow him on Twitter at Sinem for Wet. You can also follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O underscore Penguins, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Down the GameTime app, create an account,

and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. So, Stars 4, Penguins won. Penguins dropped their third. consecutive game, two and four and O start to the season at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division right now with the Washington Capitals. And it's really a shame because the Penguins came out playing really well in that first parade. I thought that was one of their best periods of the season. Maybe outside of that Washington game or that third period against Calgary, that first period is right up there. I thought the Penguins deserve to be up more than one goal heading into the first

intermission. Brian Russ gets his fifth goal of the season in that first period off of a really nice feed from Jake Gensel's able to wait out the Star's defenseman, slide that power. just past his gate, Brian Russ with an easy tap in there. And stay tuned a little bit later regarding Ryan Russ for Warrior Helmut Wednesday. I'll just say that. Second period comes.

I think the penguins are actually still playing well. Those first five to ten minutes, they're getting some quality chances on Jake Gottinger. But overall, in this game, Jake Gottinger was just that guy. Sources say he's a top five to seven goal in the league. And oh, yeah, he played like getting this one. A little bit more on that later on.

But those final five, 10 minutes of the second period, the Penguins started to give it away a little bit. Really fluky balance on that second goal from the Stars goes off Raquel's skate slash stick. Just really unfortunate there. Jason Robertson gets the tying one, but you really can't do anything about that just because that's just a beautiful play from him. Third period, though, that's where I think the thing started unravel a little bit. They took a really bad penalty at the start of the third period.

And, you know, the penalty was obviously a little soft, in my opinion. And Chris Littang, he was kind of barking at the official going to the box. But after that, the Penguins were really never able to get momentum. And especially after the Alex Andalkovich goal that he gave up the third one, that really sucked the life out of the building. Obviously what happened with John Ludwig, I think sucked the life out of the building. I'm really hoping that he's okay. It looked like he didn't even know where he was when he faced planted on the ice. Mike Sullivan today said he has a concussion, again, hoping for the best with him.

Overall, though, you look at this effort, the process is there. I'm seeing good things. They're not doing it for a full 60 minutes, which is why you're seeing. these results and you're also seeing the same problems persist. I think some of these problems are not going to go away overnight, namely some of the goaltending stuff, maybe some of the bottom six scoring, but I do see a process there. They just have to get it consistently 60 minutes. And right now, that's not there. Listen, last night's game can be a confluence of several events. First and foremost, Jake Ottinger played like a top five goalie in the National Hockey League.

And you can give me the whole, well, you know, they didn't get a ton of traffic and they didn't get a bunch of second chances. I disagree. Were they consistently in his cage? No. Were they consistently getting second chances? No. But when you put up nearly 25 shots in a period, that is what I refer to as sweat equity.

You paid a price. you made the goalie pay a price. You made them work for an entire 20 minutes. And that's something that most times will let the damn break. You can also believe that Alex Nadelkovich, that third goal against, that kind of killed any and all momentum the Penguins may have had. Yeah. Because with as good as Jake Ottinger was playing, a two-gold deficit seems a whole hell

of a lot harder to come back from than a one-gold deficit. You can also, like you said, the Ludwig event, that hit, that injury. It's really hard to come back from that, regardless of what side of the ice you're on. A guy gets knocked out on his feet that shakes everybody, both the guy who got hurt, his teammates, and the opposing team. It's jarring to see. And until you experience it as a player, you've never experienced it. I've seen guys get knocked out. I've been the one knocked out before.

It is a very scary, very harrowing moment, even for the toughest athletes among us. And you can also say this. The bottom six is terrible, and they have not put together a consistent 60-minute effort as a team. I was saying this to Jesse Marshall, and we'll talk about it a little bit in the second second. The changes so much don't have to be to the roster, and this isn't me questioning him and saying he should be on the hot seat yet. The questioning has to be with the system. That's where the change has to come. because this team is not capable of playing the system

that Mike Sullivan wants to play anymore, at least not for 64 minutes. And a great coach should be able to adapt that to whatever team he is coaching. We haven't seen that yet from Mike Sullivan, and it's definitely a bit concerning. As for the bottom six, let's just get right into this now.

I said this last night on Twitter. There are no easy fixes to this unit. Sure, redeems O'Hourna provided a spark to the third line. And honestly, I thought the third one, was mostly fine against the stars. Lars Eller hit the crossbar in the second period when the game was one nothing. Drew O'Connor had a really nice chance. Andridge had a better save. I'm seeing at least a little bit of progress there. Fourth line, though, it's bad to say the least. The fourth line's a ghost town. The fourth line is a ghost town. It is. The third line is getting better. Up until the

last two games, Drew O'Connor was a no show, which sucks because he had a great camp. But up until the last two games, no show. Lars Eller's been fine enough and now redeems the Hornet gives you that spark that you need that puts this all together. But the fourth line, Nollichari, Matt Nietto, Jeff Carter, it's been frankly useless. I think we're going to get some Amber alerts being issued for all three of those players at this point. It's that bad. Like they're just not there when they're out on the ice. And as a whole, this bottom six, you're not going to see a dramatic improvement if we're just going to bus guys in and out of I-80 in the Pennsylvania and churn pipe from Wilkesbury. You're just not going to see it.

If you want actual improvement to this bottom six, you're going to have to go trade for someone. You had all of the summer to go get a legitimate score. You didn't do that. While I understood the plan to a degree that you didn't want the puck in your own end so that the top six can go cook, right now, you're seeing why me, you, other people, either fan, or media members were a bit skeptical of this heading into the season. You can't just rely on two lines to drive your offense. You can't.

And the third line, sure, it's been a bit better these last two games, but it hasn't been enough. We're six games into the season. Only one player has scored a bottom-s his goal, and he didn't even make the team out of training camp in pre-season. That is a major problem, and it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. We also how the bottom six was last year. It was a tire fire.

This year, kind of the same stuff. And I think the world of Kyle Dubus, he's not Ron Hextall. He's not going to sit on his hands like Ron Wood. I do think he's going to make a change at some point. But you're seeing why, at least right now, people, especially me, I said this on the show, even before you came on as co-host, I was skeptical of this during the offseason. And it's not like these players that he brought in, Dubus, that is,

are a bunch of nobodies. Noot Chari has scored double-digit goals as an NHLer. Matt Niotto just last year scored double-digit goals. Lars Eller has been that player throughout his career. Maybe not as much lately because he's gotten a bit older, but he has been that player. Jeff Carter has obviously scored more than just double-digit goals throughout his career, but he's obviously not the same player anymore.

But it just goes back to the lack of, I guess, having a full vision for this bottom six. and until that changes, until this bottom six start producing, I don't know, I'm afraid these results are kind of just going to be the same. In theory, what Kyle Dubus wanted to do with this bottom six was very smart. I understand it. I understood it. There's nothing wrong with leaning on this top six, because let's not get this twisted.

And we'll get into a little bit more of it next second. This top six is still elite. This is a very, very good group of six forwards. Making sure that your bottom six is not an active liability as a smart call. You're not going to get the HBK line every single year. You just aren't. It's not realistic. But they have to be better than this.

And they aren't. The third line's been getting better. I think that line would be better suited as a fourth line. Yes. But they don't have that option right now. And like we just got done saying, the fourth line has been invisible and useless. They are still an active liability,

and it's a huge, huge problem. It is. I mean, I feel like the fourth line, whenever that line is on the ice, it's never in the offensive zone. And when it has the puck, the puck is just dumped in. They try to go down to retrieve it,

and the opposing team is just clearing the puck within milliseconds, to be honest. It's not good enough, and it needs to change. And just off that again, I don't think you're going to solve that problem by bringing guys in from Wilkesbury like Alex Nealander, or Danny Hinder shows of Colin White. You're basically just going to get the same results.

I know some people will say, well, Hunter, you don't know that until they've played a few games. Okay, I get that point. But what makes you think looking at a lot of these players' histories that they're going to produce, especially when you're looking at the players right now who, oh, yeah, they're not producing. I honestly am kind of the opinion that this is, I think it's a minors. of a roster issue and a performance issue because a lot of these guys are just not performing at all. And before we head to break, one last thing. Alex Andalkovich, I thought he was playing a really solid game last night.

I don't know what he was doing on that third goal. I had PTSD of Tristan Jari coming out of his net to just play the puck to Josh Bailey in the Islander series. I also had PTSD of Mark Andre Fleury coming out of his net, though. He wouldn't come out of his net that far. He would usually lose the puck behind the net and it would. come back to bite him, stay in your net there. You also, you saw the Steve Dangl tweet on Twitter saying to stay in the net. Everyone else was saying it.

Just can't do that in that situation because I feel like had Nadelkovich say in his net there, he probably would have made the save. It was a smart idea in theory again because where everything was happening, it wasn't the worst study to come out and be aggressive and try to poke it away. The problem was that he failed to realize that there were reinforced. enforcement's coming. Yeah. So that poke check either had to get out of the zone or have nobody behind him, at least not in that close of a proximity, and that just blew the entire thing up. Right. I agree with that. And there was just, at that point, there was really no coming back in this game.

But I think that I would do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat and are you going to get into the lack of finishing from the penguins as a whole and why this is not just a problem this year. It's been a problem for a while. Plus what other changes the penguins need to make going forward. But before we get into that, we got to discuss eBay Motors. Passion, drive, and patience with Bring Home the winning trophy is also it keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors is everything you need to maintain your vehicle and leveled up to peak performance from superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more,

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Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts on our hodies, joined as always by McCos, Patrick Damp. So, Pat, one of the Penguins ever going to start finishing their chances? I have been saying the same thing for the past three years now. When is this going to regress to me? Because the penguins are so good at generating chances. They're usually a top five, top 10 team and expected goals for. I always like looking at Money Puck at the deserved a wind meter with the 500 other simulations and all that stuff.

Through two periods last night, the penguins, their deserved a wind meter was about 63 to 65%. At the end of the game, it was up to 75%. The main reason why they lost this one. is because Jake Ottinger, his expected goals against last night, 4.43. He only gave up one goal. He got goalied by one of the best goalies in the league. That happens.

That said, the Penguins had a lot of quality chances in this one. Drew Connor had a really nice chance. You had Lars Eller hit the crossbar. Eric Carlson had a really nice chance in the third period. I could keep going if you want me to. But the puck is just not. finding the back of the net. And it hasn't been a problem for just this season. It was a problem last year and it was a problem the season before that. And I am just waiting for this to regress

to the mean because it's crazy that this keeps happening every single year with how good they are at generating chances and expected goals. And it's not translating over to their actual goals rate. I want to reference something I talked about earlier in the show, right? I said about the system needing to change, right? Think about a lot of the goals this team has scored over the past couple of years, right? And this is this season so far, last season, maybe the year before that as well. A lot of the goals and big scoring chances they've had have come either in transition or on the rush. And that basically tells me that there is a sliver of a change this team. needs to make in their system. Rather than being constantly aggressive at the point of attack

and trying to establish zone time consistently and trying to pressure in all three zones, I'm not saying they need to go and become a team that plays the neutral zone track. I'm not saying they got to go Ghibushie hockey, play a one-three-one and shut everything down. But instead, use the old coaching adage. Let the game come to you. Instead of trying to disrupt everything with a neutral zone forecheck and interrupting it when it happens, let them get the red. Let them make mistakes. Meet them in between that red and blue line, in between your defensive blue line and the red line. Make them make that mistake there and jump on them from there. You look at the goal they scored last night with Brian Rust. Everybody was in the right position. They waited for

the stars to make a mistake at the blue line, and then they went the other way. If they turn the aggressiveness down 10 to 15%, stay in the right positions and let the other team screw up, and then you add in the fact that you have Eric Carlson and Chris LaTang, who can freewheel it off of those mistakes, and you're going to catch a lot of teams napping. Instead of constantly trying to do what they did in 16 and 17, we get ever so slightly and play with the talent that you have, they're going to see more success. Because rather than tired, because look at the way the game last night went. Look at the way a couple of the games have gone later.

They come out, hair on fire, first period, dominate the territorial possession, play really well and start to trail off. Maybe this team is old. Maybe this team doesn't have the legs they once did. Maybe this changes in a month and it's all for not. But right now, this team clearly can't hang for 60 minutes. anymore. So instead of trying to teach your cat to bark, remember that it's a cat and just let it meow. That's good. I actually liked that analogy there by you. But I do think one of the main-

Got out the Jesse Marshall. I stole that one from them. I'll text them for you. But I think one of the main problems overall is that they are losing the battle in the neutral zone. They're not doing enough to get the puck back. And once the opposing team gets through the neutral zone with control, it feels like the penguins have no answer for whatever line is out there, whatever defensive pairing is out there. And you're seeing these teams start cycling on them and pinning them deep for not even 30 seconds, 45 seconds a minute, minute 15, minute 30. And it's not good enough. And that needs to change really badly. Yeah, it does. And then the biggest thing right now, and you alluded to it early. And I hate saying it breaks every single

inch of my heart. Sidney Crosby's got to show up. Yeah, he's asleep right now. I don't know what's going on. The last time I saw him look like this, dare I say this. Do I say it? I know what you're going to say because I've seen this hinted at already today. I feel like the last time I've seen this, I was going to tweet this last night, a few other people beat me to it. Last time I saw him like this was right before Mike Johnson got fired. Now, I'll say this. I'll say this. I'm don't think Mike Sullivan is going to get fired. I understand why people have him on the hot seat. I understand people saying, you know, maybe he's at his expiration date, all that stuff. I get it. It's a frustrating time. He's been here for a while, but haven't gotten some

playoff results since 2018. Totally understand those complaints. My biggest thing is, I don't know what a new coach is going to come in here and do, especially with that bottom six. Is the new coach going to say, oh, hey, go score. Those players can be like, what do you think we've been trying to do under all the head coach, you know? If I were the coach, I simply would tell them to score. Yeah, right. I just don't know what a new head coach is going to do in this situation, I think.

Maybe, and again, maybe you'll get a little bit of a spark. Sometimes when a new coach does come in, you get that spark for, you know, 15, 20, 25 games. Heck, maybe the rest of the season at times. I mean, we saw it for half a season with Mike Sullivan when he came in 15, 16, and the Penguins were out of buzz saw on the way to the Stanley Cup. but also aside from the bottom six stuff top of the goaltending a couple other things and we'll get to the power play also

in a second pad because that was awful this team is not going to go anywhere if the captain plays like this I know captain obvious but he has not shown up at all these last two games he's been really upset it looks like on the bench making some weird passes on the ice his skating hasn't been there it's a problem now I'm not going to sit here and say Cindy Crosby's washed or anything like that he's still at a point

for game this year he's still one of the best players in hockey But the level we've seen from him these past two games, it's time to start showing up and helping out the team a bit more. Right. And here's the thing with Sullivan. Everybody knows I'm a disciple and I love the guy. And he's probably my favorite coach to ever stand behind the Penguins bench. But I'm not putting him on the hot seat yet.

However, if we are still having these same discussions come, say, December, maybe it's time to look elsewhere. And I know a lot of people are going to come back with, oh, they don't want to pay a coach not to coach. It's Fenway Sports Group, guys. They own one of the most successful baseball teams to ever exist. They own an extremely, extremely successful Premier League team. They own one of the most successful NHL franchises now.

They've got more money than they know what to do with. It's basically when SpongeBob and Patrick made pretty patties, and they told the news they didn't know what to do with all the money. So they just started giving it away. and that's what Fenway Sports Group has. So there will be absolutely no recalcitrations about not having to pay someone to stay home. So if it gets to December and we're having this same discussion, it might be time to look for a new coach. Right.

And, you know, the only thing I guess that's holding me back a little bit is that he is under contract for, what is it in the next half decade at this point. That's four to five years just because he signed that contract extension pretty recently. But you're right. I also don't think in a way that Fenway Sports Group, would care if they had to pay him all that money considering how rich that ownership group is. Hopefully it doesn't have to come to that. But you're right.

I think if, you know, by maybe, I don't know, game 25, game 30, if we're still having these conversations, it might be time to potentially pull the plug there. Because, I mean, he doesn't come without faults. He's been too loyal to some players. The consistency hasn't been there with some other scratches. The system needs some tweaks. He's not doing it. Overall, though, I still think he's a very good coach.

and my hope is that he can turn this around. We've seen him tweak the system before. He's done it in the past. And it's just the fact that maybe we're just, he's just looking at this as it's been five, six games. This is, he's seeing something in practice. He's seeing something on film. And maybe it changes.

But if it doesn't, then yeah, discussion has to be happy. I think what's more likely that could happen before Sullivan goes, because I know it's obvious that Kyle Davis thinks the world of him, is that one of the assistant coaches gets canned, whether it's Tar Reardon or Mike Riedon. Speaking of Tar Reardon, I don't know what you're doing on that power play unit

or coaching up that unit, but it's not good enough, man. It's really not good enough. Eric Carlson had probably one of the best zone entries of the year so far last night that really set up quite a few chances. The Penguins had a glorious opportunity to score the first goal on the Dallas penalty killers all year coming into this game.

The Dallas penalty killers is not giving up a goal. That's still the case, heading into later this week. They had that four on three, no dice. They have the five on four. No days. They have a couple other power play opportunities later in the game. No dice. The power play is not good enough right now. It's barely hovering over 10%. I'm sorry. With all that talent, you have to find a way to make it work. And if you can't, you can be shown the door. I will give last night a bit of a pass because it did look pretty good. They got chances. They moved the puck well. The four on three, I will say, was solid.

Outside of that, though, I really wasn't too high on the power play outside the four on three. But on the whole, yes, this unit has been unacceptable. And it came out this morning. I can't remember which reporter it was that tweeted it out. But when they did some power play work at practice, Sullivan was getting ready to take him back to the board to draw some stuff up. And instead of doing it, he just screamed shoot the puck. And at this point, listen, and it may be the cheap seats.

I almost said Consul Energy Center at PPG Paints Arena, or at this point, Civic Arena, yelling shoot, but for once they're right. Shoot the damn puck. I mean, obviously, you want to get the quality chance first. But yeah, I think at this point, you just got to get back to basics,

is what I'm trying to say on the power play. But I think that'll do it for this second segment. And we've discussed this game, I think, long enough at this point. Coming up to end the show, Pat and I are going to get into Warrior Helmet Wednesday. Even though the Penguins have lost three games in a row, there's at least one player that's released out to me over the past week that's played his tail off. I teased it earlier in the show. I'm sure you all are going to guess who I'm going to give it to. But before we get to that, we got to discuss game time.

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And you can buy these tickets in seconds with just two taps. All you got to do, down the GameTime app, Crane account, and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, coin account and routine code locked on NHL for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute ticket's lowest price guaranteed. All right on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast, I'm Hunter Hodes, joined by McCos Patrick Dam.

So I know who I'm taking for Warrior Helmet Wednesday. You might have the same pick as me. Ryan Ross, five goals in his first six games. A lot of people were down on him heading into the year. But I don't think all these people realized he had a very little. shooting percentage last year, well below his career average. He was getting chances last year. The puck was just not finding the back of the net. And yes, he's always been a bit of a streaky score throughout his career. He'll kind of have stretches where he'll score like right now.

You know, five goals and six games, he'll either stretch where he goes goalless in five to six or seven games, and then he'll kind of rebound a little bit and then he'll finish the season with around 20, 25 goals. Last year, a bit of a down year. But so far, that shooting percentage is regressing to the mean five goals and six games. He is looking at. like he has something to prove this season, and he has been awesome. That goal that he scored last night was a really nice play from Jake Gensel, as we discussed earlier in the show, easily my pick for Warrior Hummet Wednesday over this last week. Yep, that's who I got.

Are you hinting that a 26.3 shooting percentage might not be sustainable throughout the season? Sources say that's not sustainable, but also his shooting percentage last year, Pat, is, or was, I should say, not sustainable. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. thing is everybody was down on him going into this year just because he had a down year last year. I mean, for a down year, 20 goals, 26 assists, 46 points, 81 games. For what he is supposed to do in being a top six winger that hovers between the top two lines, that's not bad production. You would like it to be 25 or 30, but 20's wholly acceptable because his high watermark and

goals in his career is 27. But at the same time, 9.5 shooting. percentage last year. He got his chances. He got his shots. He just, he had a year where he had horrific puck luck. And this year, it's the exact opposite so far. Everything he touches turns to goals. So looking, I had him pegged it for a big bounce back year and he's well on his way of doing it. And listen, it's guys like Brian Rust. They're going to pull this team out of the Doltrance. It's guys like Brian Rust. It's guys like Jake Gensel. It's guys like like Marcus Pedersen, it's guys like Ryan Graves who are going to just play this kind of straightforward, fast kind of no-nonsense game.

They're not going to try to dangle through five guys. They're not going to try to make it onto a highlight reel. I mean, he looked at Russ's goal last night. He put the puck and Jake Ottinger into the net. Yeah. So it's the stuff like that, you know, like I said the other day, the risk of turning into Bob Airy, who always said they got to throw some hits. It's that kind of simple stuff that's going to turn this around.

It's not going to be Eric Carlson beating five guys and scoring a highlight real goal, though that would be nice. It's not going to be of Gennie Malkin doing the thing he did against Tampa in 2012. It's going to be just going out there, beating a team, winning in the trenches, scoring some dirty goals and building that confidence. And you look at a guy like Brian Rust, perfect guy to do that. And going off that point,

I like that you bring that point up of, you know, a player like Brian Russ bringing the Penguins out of this because I was having a conversation with one of my best friends, Jeff, he's come on the show before he's part of Penguin's Twitter. And he was telling me last night, he really felt this team is really missing a Brandon Tannaver or Patrick Hornquist. And when I thought about it, I'm like, you know what?

that kind of player would also really help bring the penguins out of this. In Tannab's case, someone who could bring a lot of energy, he had that goal scoring ability on the fourth line. We all know what prime Patrick Hornquist look like, and you're not going to ever get a clone of Patrick Hornquist on this team. But if the penguins did have a player like one of those guys along with Brian Rust here, that could also be someone that would really, I think, bring the penguins out of this. And I think that's something that's seriously lacking on this team right now. It would be nice for one of either Nolichari or Matt Nietto to start doing that. Do I think they'll be one of those two guys? No.

Do I think they're going to be a Hornquist or a Tanev? No, because those guys are just Tasmanian devils in human form. And it's really hard to match what they bring. But just a guy who goes out and says, if they're wearing a jersey that's not a penguin's jersey, I'm putting them into the third row. I'm going to stay in the goalie's kitchen all night. I'm going to scream and yell. And from the time my foot crosses the threshold at whatever arena we're playing in until the final buzzer, pure energy start to finish.

Right. And I hope Noel Charier or Matt Niotto can do that. Early indications are they won't. But hey, it's only been six games. We'll see. But it will be nice if two and that entire fourth line wanted to show up. but until that happens, we're just going to have to keep banging home that drum about the bottom six at this point. But I think that I'll do it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

Thank you all so much for listening to slash watching this one. Pat and I will be back for another episode on Thursday to preview the red hot Colorado avalanche coming to town, a team that has been dynamite on the road as of late. The staff that I saw this morning, they have won, what is it, 14, 15 straight games on the road dating back to last. season. So the Penguins have that team coming to town on Thursday night to try to break this three-game losing streak. It honestly would be very penguins for them to win this game, especially after going 2-0 against Colorado last year, and the game in Denver was, I think, one of their best games. We'll get you all set for it on Thursday. We'll recap it on Friday,

get you all set for that game against Ottawa. We said it to start this week. They haven't listened, at least maybe not yet. Got to start getting some results. You know, the bottom of the Metro, there are a few other teams that are down there, too. The Islanders haven't looked that good yet. are also struggling, but it's time for the penguins to really get going here, to say the least. But again, thank you all so much for listening slash watching. Really appreciate it. We'll be back with another episode for you all on Thursday.