Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - If Tristan Jarry is back, this changes EVERYTHING

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

There's a whole lot to cover when it comes to the Pittsburgh Penguins these days, isn't there? Hunter starts the show off by talking about Sidney Crosby's 1,000th game and how much he's meant to him and so many fans in this fanbase thus far, and how he's exceeded all expectations. He also gets into his favorite moment from Sid so far (it's a decade ago), before getting to the game against the Islanders. In the recap, Hunter offers a ton of praise for Kris Letang, who had his best game of the season. If that continues, it would change the outlook of this team tremendously. He also touches on Tristan Jarry's performance and how he's getting back to last season's form. What is he doing differently? Finally, the third segment has the always outstanding listener takeaways!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. Well, welcome to this Monday 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.

A reminder that today's episode is brought to you by Billbar. Go to Billpar.com and use promote it with Lockdown. and you'll get 20% off your next order. So welcome back to a fresh week of episodes for this podcast, a lot to get into today. Cindy Crosby's 1,000th game. The Penguins getting their fourth win in five games. There's so many great stuff that happened on Saturday night.

Chris Letang as well, Cody, C, C, C, C, Mike Matheson. We're going to touch on all that. Plus, as listener takeaways in this episode. But first up, you know, let's talk about the ceremony with Cindy Crosby's 1,000th game. It's hard to put into words how much Sidney Crosby means to this team and just all the fans that have grown up watching him, including myself. He is this generation's version of Mario Lemieux. I think that's the best way that I could say it.

For so many people my age, we didn't get to watch Mario in his prime just because, well, we weren't born yet. I mean, I was told stories by my mom and my family about how dominant Mario was. I've gone back and watched old games. I've watched old highlights to see how amazing he was. But yeah, just for people that are around my age, I've grown up with Sidney Crosby the last 16 years, he is this generation's Mario Lemieux. And I saw a great take from Adam Grets on Penguins' Twitter

during the game on Saturday. You know, Sydney Crosby is probably going to go down as the most accomplished player in the franchise's history, but Mario Lemieux will always be the best player that's ever played for the franchise. I mean, he basically is the best player. Penguins franchise, you know, save the team multiple times. But in terms of most accomplished player in the franchise's history, I mean, you'd have to go to Cindy Crosby. You can definitely

argue for Mario for that. But for me, I think I would say Cindy Crosby is the most accomplished player in the franchise's history with everything he's done. Three Stanley Cups, two Olympic gold medals, two Hart Trophies, two Hart Rosses, also World Cup of Hockey MVP, two Con Smyth. It's just basically won everything at the NHL level. And what a ceremony. That was, I wish we were not in a pandemic because the ovation that he would have gotten would have probably been one of the five loudest times we've ever heard, PBG Paints Arena, obviously when they got to the Stanley Cup final 2017 with Chris Cunitz's goal, Nick Benino's goal that's up there.

Mark Andre Fleury's return when he got that humongous ovation. But this one, that would have been a lot higher than Florey's one. And I think it would have rivaled Chris Cunin's and Nick Benino just because of how much he's meant to the city and this franchise. I mean, you saw that beautiful video from his family, his sister, his mom and dad. You even got an appearance from Kathy Lutner. I saw so many people not realizing that Cindy Crosby has a girlfriend. Yes, I believe he's been dating her since 2008.

Don't ask me how I know that. I just remember that from somewhere. And I think the last public appearance that we saw from her with the team was on the ice in Nashville in 2017. So that just goes to show how reserved Cindy Crosby is. You also saw Steve Eism and deliver a nice message. Of course, that's Crosby's childhood hero, one of the best players ever do it. You saw Lavec can give a nice message. Crosby's biggest rival.

You know, fan favorites, Carl Haglin, Nick Menino, Phil Kessel, Mark Andre Fleury. They all gave some speeches. Mike Sullivan, you saw. Maryo Lemieux, I wish we could have gotten one from Yarmir Yager. That would have been hilarious to see. But, you know, he's also out playing in the Czech Republic. We saw Maxine Talbot have one. Ruslan Fedatanko made appearance.

We haven't seen Fetanco do anything with the penguins in probably a few years. No, he still has that awesome. flow going by the way in that video. We also saw Tyler Kennedy from the 2009 run make an appearance with a video. Just Rick Tocke. So many people reached out and it was just a great ceremony. Well done by the Penguins. And we get to do all this again next year, guys.

Ifgeny Malkin is on track to play his 1000th game for the organization. That's going to be an emotional night for sure. And I'm hoping at that point we can have 100% capacity at PBJ Paints Arena because he's going to get one hell of an ovation as well. But, you know, this was all about Sidney Crosby, had the two assists in that game. And here's to another thousand games. He's already accomplished so much for this franchise. He's exceeded expectations.

Anything else he does moving forward is a complete bonus for the organization and the fans. And he's going to be with this franchise, I think, long after he retires. I mean, would not surprise me at all if he works in the front office for Pittsburgh after taking some time away from the game for probably a couple years. And to those people that think he's ever going to get traded or something, like that. I mean, you guys are absolutely nuts. I mean, Cindy Crosby will not get traded. That is just a bunch of Canadian media bullshit from Darren Dregor and a couple of others. I really don't know why they're thinking that he could go to the Colorado avalanche or go play

up for a team in Canada. It's not going to happen. Cindy Crosby is the Penguins franchise right now and he will retire a member of the Penguins franchise. One more thing about the ceremony, though, before we touch on other stuff, you can see how much it meant to him that Malkin and Letang shared those videos of Latang, obviously saying that, you know, you have a friend and me forever. That almost brought him to tears. And then Gino basically saying, you know, I wish everything the best for you. More wins.

More points. And of course, more cups. And you can see, you know, when Sid smiled and you can see the water in his eyes, I'm surprised he didn't cry from that. But he was on the verge of tears. And it was great to see, you know, we always think of some of these hockey players as just robots. You know, they give these robotic answers in the press conference.

is post-gated media scrums like yeah we did this yeah we did that you never really see sydney crosbie had this human side shown a lot for his career obviously i think the big one i remember was from 2012 when i think sean cuturee was picking up his glove and sid just said the hell of it and basically just whacked it away with his stick it's like that's the kind of sidney crossy moment that you know we all love and see but you know this night you really got to see the human side of sit come out as he was just basically brought to tears almost and you can just see how much let's hang and gino mean to him because they all three basically came in at the same time and hopefully they go out at the same time too. And then just one more thing. I know I've been rambling along too long

about Cindy Crosby, but I did this Twitter thread earlier on the day on Saturday just recapping a lot of my favorite Sydney Crosby moments over the years. One of my biggest ones was the one of the goal, the goal against the Outer's in 2013 when he came back from the broken jaw, split through their defense looking like the statue outside, the Mario Lemuel when he split two defensemen, which led that highlight real goal that every penguin fan knows. You know, this one against the Islanders in the playoffs, Game 5 series was tied. I'm just a vintage at Sidney Crosby moment. My all-time favorite moment that Sid has done, though, was 2010 playoffs, Game 2,

Ottawa Senators, they're trailing 1-0 in the series. It is, I believe, the score is 1 to 1 late in the third period, and he just makes Jason Spetsa, his personal biotch behind the net, basically zigzagging back and forth, Spets is doing everything he could before finally Sid gets to his knees. gets it to a tang and he fires in the game winning goal and the Penguins go on to win that game plus the series in six games.

It was just a vintage... Like I said, that's not a vintage Sydney Crosby moment. That is my favorite Sidney Crosby moment of all time. I mean, yeah, you have all the baseball bat goals that he's done. Yeah, the goal gets Edmonting where he just destroyed Ryan Schroam in the process. You have the diving one, I think, from the Bruins rookie year. That was one hell of...

I think that was actually from one of their opening games of the season or something like that. You have the one, the Derring. and Hatcher game when the city of Philadelphia really started to hate City of Crosby, inject that one into my veins. Also one of my favorite ones in 2009 in game four

against the Red Wings would show that that year was going to be different. I call it the goal with Malkin and Crosby. Malkin tries to pass the puck over once, denied, and then gets it to Crosby, and then you should just see LaTang standing over him just screaming in his face and it was just, the igloo was just

on fire for that moment. And honestly, it was on fire during that whole playoff run. I mean, the roof was blown off that building. So those are just a few of my favorite Cindy Crosby moments over the years. Let me know what your favorite Cindy Crosby moments are. Tweet me at L.O. underscore Penguins or my personal Twitter account at Hunter Hodes. But what a moment it was for Cindy Crosby, and he also had to assist, of course, in that game. We'll touch on the actual game, though, coming up in the next segment right after this.

All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show. Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins. So what a win it was for the Penguins on Saturday against the Islanders, a comeback win, even though they were up 1-0-0 to start, but they've trailed 2 to 1 in a third period. The Penguins sweep the couplet series. They've now taken 3 out of 4 against the Islanders this year.

And this is huge for the Penguins, guys. We could be looking at these four points at the end of the season being a difference between the Penguins making the playoffs or then missing the playoffs. They just can't afford to give away points against the. this team and the Capitals and the Flyers and whoever else they go up against that's in the playoff one. They just can't. There's no time. There are 16 games into the season. There's 40 games left. You still have four more games against the Islanders. They play them twice coming up this week, actually. And to their credit, they swept that couple of series. But I will say, though,

I did not think the Penguins played a relatively good game on Saturday. They got outplayed for that entire 60 minutes. And they won the game because Trish and Jari stole it. We're going to get to Chris Tang and how he played a wonderful game as well. But the big storyline from this game is that Tristan Jari stole it and his play is only continuing to get better. That's four straight starts where he has given the Penguins a great chance to win. And if I recall correctly, the Islanders had about 13 high danger chances in this game. I think he stopped 12 of them.

Obviously, the one that he allowed in was the Jordan Eberley goal because he always scores against the Penguins. Everly had his 11th goal in 24 games against the Penguins. he is a penguin killer. I think that's the best way to describe it. But he was standing tall to shooters. His movement was great. Making all the saves that we saw him make from last year. And that's just, I think, been the big difference to these last four games.

Obviously, it's a very small sample size. Who knows what's going to happen moving forward. But if he's going to continue to give this team 920, 930 goal tending, I mean, he's 933, I think, in his last four starts. If he continues to play like that for the next 10 to 15 starts, or God forbid the rest of the season, if that's possible. This is a completely different Penguins team,

and it just changes their season outlook completely. He was that good, and he was the main reason they won that game. The Islanders were surging in that first period. Outshot Pittsburgh 16 to 4. They were on pace to outshoot the Penguins 48 to 12 during that game. Is that bad, folks? Yeah, it's pretty bad.

To the Penguins credit, though, they started playing a little bit better in the second and third periods, but Jari was still facing a lot of high danger chances. I mean, there were a lot of Ottoman rushes that I remember seeing, that Jari just shut the door on, plenty of chances in front, one-on-one that Jari said no to. And he's going to continue to get starts, and that's the big thing that needs to happen for this team to have a chance.

He needs to continue to give this team this kind of goaltending, and they'll have a chance to win every single night. I mean, this is a lot better than the league average goaltending that they'll need. This is well above average goaltending. So I'm really excited for Tristan Jari right now. It seems like the regression from that really bad start to the season is coming back, and we're seeing a level from Jari that he displayed last year when he was an all-star, and of course when he played in game four,

and gave the Penguins a great shot to win that game. Okay, moving on from the goaltending talk, let's get to Chris Lattang. This was easily, and I mean easily, his best game yet in a Penguins uniform this year. I know I have been critical of him the last couple weeks, because, you know, I'm going to be honest. I'm not just going to shell for a player, a franchise great even. That's not playing, but I've been critical of Gennie Malkin. I'm going to be critical of Chris Lentang,

but for this game, he was their second best player. He was not turning the puck over like we've seen in the offensive zone. He was firing a lot more puck to the net on his first two goals of the season. That first goal, you know, it's like, wow, shooting on the power play works. They were not passing the puck that much. They were shooting almost every opportunity they got. And on that Latang goal, he just fired a one-timer from the left side. And Varlamov, he should have probably had to save, but you know what?

Latang fired him past him. gets his first goal of the season in game number 16. I don't really say often that it takes Chris LaTang to score his first goal of the season in the 16th game of the year. I don't really think that's ever happened. I have to double check on that. But then he gets his second goal of the season in the third period. Just the way he was able to be so patient, wait out Varlamma and fire that wrist or past him. I think he kind of used an Islander's defender as a screen there.

Penguins take the three to two league. And that's all she wrote for that game. He was, that is the level. of Chris LaTang that the penguins need to see for the rest of the season. And again, if he's now back to playing at the level that we usually see from Crystal Tang and Tristan Jari is back at the level that we're used to seeing from him that got him to be an all-star, again, this changes the team's elbow completely, especially if if Gennie Malkin gets back a little bit to what we're usually seeing.

I didn't really think he played that well of the game on Saturday, but still, hopefully over these next 40 games, we do see a level of Gennie Malkin that we saw last year, the year before that in all the years prior to that when he's been in a league. player in this game. But to have at least two out of the three going right now, that's great news for the Penguins. And obviously, I think Latang's game will be elevated even more when Brian Dumlin comes back. I saw today he's been skating.

But for right now, it looks like P.O. Joseph is still going to remain on the top pairing. And I'm going to say this now, too, about P.O. Joseph. He's struggling quite a bit, I would say. I was... What's the word? It's not often I get roasted by Jesse Marshall on Twitter. I was wrong, I think, on that play of the second Islander. goal, actually, excuse me, the opening goal by the Islanders. I thought

that was mainly on P.O. Joseph at first glance because he kind of went out of position and then Everley had a free break to the net and scored on Jari. But it looked like on second thought that Matheson was more to blame there, but just because he wasn't really doing anything and didn't take Eberley away there at all. But, you know, in any case,

talking about P.O. Joseph, I do think he needs a break. I know last week in the week before that, I was saying there's no way you can take him out of the lineup if he's going to keep playing like this. Well, his players regressed, his position. Possession has gone down, I think, below 50%. The pairing with the Tang is just not working as it used to be. He just, it's too many minutes for him, I think.

I was just, you can't ask a player who's never played in the NHL before of that caliber to play almost 30 minutes in night when he, when all his experience before that was A. H.L. Games and even Junior League. It's just, it's going to be a bad time after a while. He's played a lot of hockey. When Brian Gleman comes back, I do think he is going to get a rass in rightfully so. he's just played way too much hockey as of the play. It's not to say I don't think P.O. Joseph's ceiling is high because I know it is,

and I know he's going to be in this Penguins' top six for years to come, because I think they're going to make a trade at some point. But for right now, there are six defensemen when Dumlin comes back. I think you're playing in a higher level than him, and I think he will deserve to sit for at least a little bit until the next injury comes for the Penguins. So now that brings us to Mike Matheson, you know what we're going to get from him at this point. The bad is going to be pretty bad, as you saw on that Eberley goal. but the good is going to be really good

and he got his first goal of his penguin's career. It was a tying goal that made it two to two in third period. You saw just how well he skated the puck out of the zone when an Islander was foreshacking him, made a couple passes and then got the puck back, fired a shot Blockerside on Barlamov and

that's just stuff you can't teach with that release and the shot that he had. Another great game from Matheson I think he deserves to stay in the lineup unless he starts to suck again. But the early returns ever since coming back for that injury are very positive right now. I really like what we've seen from Matheson.

Cody C.C., again, spectacular. I don't know what's going on here, but he's so good, guys. Cody C.C. is on one right now, and his third pairing play with Marcus Pederset. That's got to be one of the better third pairings, I think, in the league. They just continue to own their matchups each time the opposition rolls onto the ice. And we already touched on Cindy Crosby, great game from him to assist. Before we do get to a commercial break, though,

I do have to touch on the Kasperi Kappan situation. I don't really know why Mike Sullivan decided to put him down to the fourth line. I know he said he wasn't giving the effort or something like that, but when I went back and watched, I didn't really think Kappan and did anything bad for him to be demoted down to the fourth line. I looked like he was skating hard. He was contributing in both offensive zone and the defensive zone, so I really don't know what Mike Sullivan saw,

but he was back on the top line at practice today, so I'd expect to see against him. Crosby Capitin for the Penguins next game in Washington, and then you'll see Zulker Malk and Rust on the second line. Ashton Reese Line continues to be awesome. And then the fourth line, Marge Ancalsky actually had his best game of the season since those opening two games in Philadelphia. I know everyone, it's a low bar to cross, but you know, baby steps with Jankelski. Lafferty, I think, hit a couple posts that I thought was his best game of the season two. Drew O'Connor was okay. We'll have to see if he comes out of the lineup. I thought of practice today they might be saying

that Colton Severe may be coming in. So they're just kind of doing musical chairs at this point until Ron Hextall and Brian Burke make a trade to get a fourth-line winger in there. Jared McCann is also making the trip to Washington, so we'll see if he'll get in the lineup for one of those two games. But humongous win by the Penguins, everyone.

They are tied for third right now. I think in the East Division, the Capitals are two points clear of them. And the Penguins, they'll continue to play these two teams this week. They have two games against the Capitals tomorrow and Thursday, and then they will travel to Long Island to play the Islanders yet again on Saturday and Monday before the Philadelphia Flyers come to town. But these next couple weeks are just huge for the team.

If they can take most of these points against the Islanders, against the Capitals, against the Flyers, they're going to be in really good shape as March starts because over 50% in their games from March till the end of the season come against the Sabres, the Devils, and the Rangers. And those are the three bottom teams in the league. So the Penguins will have to clean up with those teams after. these next couple weeks. Hopefully they can get a lot of points against the better teams before they go and play bad teams. I will say no, there's no free win in the NHL. I mean, there's not a team that's like the Jacksonville Jaguars here or something like that. But now against

the cap rules, Islanders and Rangers, the Penguins are 9 and 3 against those teams while they are 0 and 1-1-1 against the Bruins and 0-2 against the Flyers still have not played the other teams in the division. But so next segment, we are going to do the listener takeaways for this game. I absolutely love doing this segment. But before we do get to that, it is time to talk about Bill Bar. There's 18 amazing flavors, six new flavors, caramel, brownie, cookies, and cream, lemon, almond, cheesecake, are a few of the new ones, 12 originals, German chocolate, peanut butter, banana bread, mint, brownie, salted caramel. The bars are covered in 100% chocolate. They are soft and easy to chew.

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Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow this show's Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins. So let's get into the listener reactions for that 3-2 Penguins win of the New York Islanders. Mr. No-it-all says, Congrats to Crosby. Trari was a difference maker, kept them in the game during their first period. can't wait for McHan to come back and run the fourth line. Lafferty was having his best game of the year,

was hoping he would get a couple of shifts with Crosby when Malkin got hurt. The Hextall Kool-Aid is working. Yeah, the Hextall Kool-Aid is definitely working, Mr. New at all. And I think that's what? Three and one, four-and-one now in the run Hextall-Bry-Bry era. He's got to be happy with what he's seeing right now. Again, I agree Tristan Jari was the reason they won this game.

I'm also really excited for McHan to come back as well, and he can run his own line. I'm really hoping that Hextall makes a trade for someone like Kyle Palmeri from New Jersey. that's a team that is probably going to sell. You have old friend Tom Fitzgerald out in New Jersey as general manager. He knows the Penguin system pretty well. So I'd be down for that. He's a UFA after the year.

You don't have to worry about salary and all that after the season. And I agree, man. Yeah, Lafferty was having his best game, hit a couple posts. And even Mark Jankowski. I said earlier in the podcast, it's a low bar for him. But I think he also hit a poster too during that game, and he was flying all over the ice as well. Gilbert, the goat says Jari is looking amazing as well as the tank tonight.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but is Matheson good? Yes, Gilbert. Matheson is playing at a very high level right now, and he's deserved to stay in the lineup once Brian Dumlin gets healthy. Captain didn't have a great game, which led to him playing very little minutes, unfortunately. I'm not going to lie, I did get a little emotional during Sid's ceremony.

Honestly, man, I think everyone did. I almost had a tear run down my cheek as I was watching it just because of how much he means to this organization. I'm sure a lot of people my age and even people older than me were pretty emotional as that was happening. He's brought us Penn's fan so much story. the years and it's a fantastic skill over the years. It'll be a very sad day when he decides to hang up the skates.

Absolutely agree, man. It's going to be really sad when he eventually leaves, but he'll get a raucous ovation once that jersey is retired up into the rafters. Getting some other comments, Alan Teyodor, this was maybe not the best game played, but man, now is entertaining back and forth hockey. Jari looks awesome again. I did not expect Latang and Matheson to be the only goal scores,

but a win is a win. Both of Latang goals are absolutely beautiful. I'm just so excited for this team. Yeah, I mean, the two Latang goals, it's vintage-close-Latang. He doesn't shoot the puck enough on the power play, I don't think, but he finally did in this game. And the power play is starting to work a lot better, guys. Ever since they had that big practice, and although they struggled a little bit after that game after that, it's just been smooth sailing the power play looks so much more crisp.

They're not making stupid passes. They're firing a lot more pucks on net. It looks like whatever Todd Reardon said to them is working, and they're just, they're shooting a lot more, which obviously is going to lead to more goals. So I loved what Crystal Tang brought. And yeah, man, Matheson getting his first goal this season. I didn't expect him to score in that game either. Getting some other comments, Friday time says, great comeback and Dutzy Win.

Jari was fantastic, and they really leaned on him. Great to see them close it out. I did forgot to mention this Friday time earlier on in the podcast, but I'm going to say it. Now, that last minute of that game, with the way the Penguins were defending that one-goal lead, it was a clinical performance by Pittsburgh. That's the best I've seen them defend a one-goal lead in the final minute of a game since 2017 against the Predators in the Stanley Cup final. It's been that long.

The Islanders were not threatening at all after they pulled the goalie. It was just everyone was 100% committed to team defense. You saw what Cindy Crosby did at the end of the game on Jordan Eberley just with his defensive effort there. I mean, you didn't really see him make that play when he was 23, 24 years old. But now that he's older, you know, 33 years old, he's going to make, he's going to do whatever it takes to him and help the Penguins secure a win. I mean, I know he's done that in the past, but you just haven't seen that defensive.

effort from him before and just the way he was able to get the puck from every way and clear it out. It was absolutely textbook. So I really loved the Penguins effort there in the final minute. King Clark, he says, with every game that passes, I'm more and more assured that Mike Matheson is a forward. Yes, Clark is never going to stop with the Mike Matheson is a forward talk. You even plays like it on ice. You just, you saw the defensive effort that he had on Everleigh's goal. I mean, that's that's how a forward plays it, basically. But then he has that awesome rush up the ice evading an Islander's foretacker and then has that quick release with that goal.

You know, it's just that stuff you can't teach, and it's almost like a forward shot. So Clark's not going to give that up anytime soon. True North Penn's fam says Jari is back. He was incredible tonight on this milestone game. He's stepping up for these important games as well as for Sid, the legend. Latang stepping up for his buddy as well. We are so lucky to watch these guys play. Let's string some more wins together.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree, man. That's four out of the last five. They're starting to hit their stride a bit. If Jari continues to play like this, they're going to win a lot more hockey games down the stretch. Yeah, man, I love seeing Crystal Tang play well and silence his haters because I was kind of getting annoyed by some people

feeling that they were like, oh yeah, I was right about Crystal Tang all along just because he struggled for two weeks. And that, I guess, can just take away all the good times that he's brought this franchise. So, yeah, 100% agree with you on that. Penn 67 says Jari was on point tonight, but hard to accept him to play out of his mind every night. The defenseman was soft around the net, too, about P.O. at a tough night, at least the third was a saw period, and a win is a win. Yeah, I mean, I think P.O. has been having tough periods for

the last few games now. I said it early on in the podcast, I'll say it again. He's playing too many minutes right now. I'm not really sure what the solution is until Brian Dumlin comes back. I think you're just going to have to ride it out. Or if you want to put Joseph with Sisi on the bottom pairing, move Pedersen up to the top pairing with the tang. It wouldn't hurt.

I mean, I can see Mike Sullivan doing that, but I think they may just wait for Doomwin to come back. He is skating. But yeah, 100% of view with Jari. You can't obviously try and play like that every night, but that's four games in a row. he's given this team of elite level goal-tending, so we'll see if that's able to

stay. Just a couple more before we called an episode Felipe says, emotional game in a show by Latang, Matheson-Ijari. It couldn't be better. Yep, 100% agree. It seems like everyone is agreeing that Latang Matheson-Jari had great games. I'm glad that everyone is seeing what I'm seeing what I'm seeing, and I'm sure what a lot of other people in the

fan base are seeing as well. And then finally, from Ryan King 702. This game could be a conference booster for Latang is two goals, Rabbs, the Lasers. Yeah, I really agree with that, man. I think this could be the big swing for Lattang season as it goes for him playing well and especially when Brian Jumlin comes back. I know I sound like a broken record for that, but that's going to make a huge difference as well. But that'll do it for this episode of the Lockdownyman Hingland's podcast.

I also really hope you guys saw me do the Pittsburgh Post Game Live for Pittsburgh Hockey Now with Mac Geica. We did kind of like a home and home thing for each other's show. Yes, my hair is absolutely nuts. I need to get it trimmed. My Drew Fro is just out of control. I think one of my buddies actually has it as his profile picture for one of his social media accounts. Letang Colt on Twitter, Jeff. Love you, buddy, even though I knew you had to make that by your Twitter account just because my hair looks absolutely crazy. But that would do it for this episode of the Lockdown on Penguins podcast.

The next episode will be up after the Penguins game tomorrow against the Washington Capitals. That will be on 18T Sports Network at 7 o'clock. And for those not living in Pittsburgh, it will be on NBC Sports Network. So I will talk to you all tomorrow evening.