Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Is Sidney Crosby's greatness this season for the Penguins going under the radar?

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Happy Thursday! There's a lot to discuss for this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast and Hunter and Pat jump right into it by recapping Thursday night's win over the Montreal Canadiens. They discuss how Jansen Harkins of all people became the hero that nobody expected to be in the shootout before getting to how Alex Nedeljkovic turned in another solid start after a shaky first period. After that, they analyze Erik Karlsson's performance and why he's gotta be a bit better in his zone, but don't worry, they're NOT concerned. They also analyze how the PP has continued to stay hot over the last two games before going into how Sidney Crosby is having an unbelievable 2023 campaign. They look at how he should be getting more love for the Hart Trophy and wonder where this team would be if he wasn't playing at this level. Finally, they congratulate Brayden Yager for making Canada's World Junior team and how it's one heck of an accomplishment.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!AG1If a comprehensive solution is what you need from your supplement routine, then try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to drinkAG1.com/NHLNETWORK.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.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.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.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! 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.

It was a 12 round knockout for the Pittsburgh Penguins in Montreal last night. Hunter and I are going to break down the shootout victory, as well as why we think Sidney Crosby might not be getting enough attention nationally on this edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. Your Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day.

Welcome back hockey fans to another edition. of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet. Joined, as always, by the illustrious Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow the show's Twitter at L-O- underscore Penguins. We thank you for making this your first edition slash watch of the day.

We are free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as YouTube. And today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150. in bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's a $150 if your team wins. Visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started. So Hunter, what a night for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

A historic night, really, because it was the longest shootout in Penguins history as they go 12 rounds with the Montreal Canadians. And I got to tell you, I went from at the start of it and watching that overtime that I thought was pretty solid. Like, I was a solid overtime with the penalty kill, both teams traded chances when there was even strength play. And I went from thinking, I don't like the fact that we end in overtime with a shootout to about like the sixth or seventh round. I was like, you know what? Let's see how long we can take this one. Let's see if we go around the whole lineup here. So overall, though, a solid victory for the penguins last night because first period, not their best

Sidney Crosby really dragged them into the fight, and we're going to get into that a little bit later. Alex Nadelkovich really struggled early in the first period, even though the penguins weren't playing their best in the first period. He was certainly not helping, and it looked like it might not be the worst idea to replace him with Jari in the second period, but he bounces back. And then the penguins are able to force overtime, get an extra point. and then of all people, Jansson Harkins, when's it in the shootout? So your thoughts on last night's game and what you saw and what we need to talk about moving forward.

Yeah, we can just honestly start with the shootout. At the start of it, I mean, I was texting, I'm like, well, it's a shootout. The Penguins are probably going to lose just because of their recent track record in shootouts. And you get Nick Suzuki scores, but then the Penguins answer right back with Chris saying. I'm like, okay, so now they're actually starting Deakin's shootouts.

And then you have another goal score. And then Cindy Crosby finally puts a deke out there. It's like, finally, Sid, you go back to what you were doing earlier in your career and not just coming down and firing this low percentage, wrist shot, 5-4, or whatever else he does at this day and age in a shootout. And then it gets fun. You get stop after stop after stop. And Sean Monaghan scores.

And then Lars Eller, of all people, ties the game, saves the game for the Penguins. And then you get all the saves. And it's like, okay, are we going to get Marcus Pedersen up here? to shoot, are we going to get P.O. Joseph up here to shoot? And eventually, I know, Jansen Harkins, who really hadn't done anything, basically in either of his two call-ups for the Penguins to see her. He gets the game winner, the extra point for the Penguins. And that's a massive extra point considering how they played in this game. And you said at the first period, they were blitzed off the ice. Alex Nadelkovich was not good, I thought, in two of those three

goals, but he was able to bounce back in a major way, give the team a chance, and especially Cindy Crosby gave the team a chance with his effort. We'll get to that a little bit later. I thought in the second period, the final half of that period, they played fairly solid. But in the third, their level kind of dipped down a little bit. The Canadians were getting a lot of the chances. I was surprised that the Canadians honestly didn't win that game in regulation.

But credit to Nadelcovich, he made the saves that he needed to make to get the team at least a point. And when you get that loser point at least pat in a back-to-back situation, the second game on the road, that's usually good enough. That's what you want to see. even if it's against a team that's not that good. But then you go out there, you get that extra point and you build more confidence.

That is massive for this team that's continuing to try and find its footing this year. Big time win for the Penguins. And again, just go back to the shootout, my overall point. I was honestly laughing when we got to the six and seventh eight rounds. I'm like, okay, who is going to win it at this point? And honestly, why don't we just go all 18 skaters and then restart?

Because that would have been also hilarious. But overall, man, yeah, just a massive second point for the penguins. And now continue to build off that consistency over these last goal games, especially on the Power Play. The Power Play, four for the last eight. That's another big topic of discussion coming out of this game, which I'm sure we'll get to in just a second. Yeah, the biggest thing for me, though, is Alex Nadalcovic's play

because that was the type of game for him in the first period where, you know, Montreal comes out. they score three goals in the first period. And I would say two of the three really were on him. And the Carlson turnover one, which that's another discussion we got to have. That might have been Eric Carlson's worst game as a penguin. It was his worst game as a penguin pack. I don't really know what he was doing in the defensive zone throughout that game.

And no, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, the trade stinks. Carlson's overpaid and he's a bad player. He doesn't fit the penguins now. I'm not going to say weird hot takes like that. He had a bad game. That's what happens with star players sometimes. I didn't like that turnover on the first goal. In my opinion, just slap that thing around the boards.

That's what you got to do there. Or at least put Drew O'Connor in a better position to make a play with his stick when you're sending the puck toward him. Carlson didn't do that, and he just gave the puck to Savard, who had an easy lane down the offensive zone. Dendalkovich should have had it. But Carlson, yeah, that play. He had a play later on the third period.

other really bad turnover just didn't have that good of the game even though you may look at the statute like oh two assists that's pretty solid and it is but overall just his work in the defensive zone wasn't there definitely his worst game as a penguin but am i concerned no and i don't think anyone that is listening to this show should be concerned no and at the end of the day nadelcovich makes 39 saves overall which is fantastic but then you know back to that first period you know the savard goal yeah bad turnover bad coverage by o'connor but walking in point blank you need to get a save there the strubal goal i can't blame him that was blown defensive coverage is left and right but then the mona hand goal on the power play he's got to be

able to squeeze that and hold on to it that that's that's and that was you know that that that third goal showed me oh man he might not have it tonight and because they're not playing again until saturday i said it to you if you know if it wouldn't have been the worst idea to go to jari in the second period but mike sullough Sullivan stuck to his guns, kept Nadelcovic in there. And he bounced back in a huge way. And just overall, then, you know, the power play going, what was it, two for four last night or two for three?

Yeah, two for three last night, which was huge. And I mean, again, it's the guys you need to produce. As much as we goofed and had fun yesterday about the Jeff Carter goal and the second unit scoring, look at the two goals from last night. Jake Gensel assisted by Crosby and Carlson. Crosby assisted by Carlson and Malkin. These are the guys who have to run this power play. They have to be the ones to get this thing back on track.

And through two games, they have done so. I agree. And it looked like for part of those power plays, the same issues were coming up. They weren't able to game the zone. They were doing the drop pass. I continue to see them dump the puck in to give the Canadians a head start. And the puck was just coming right back down in about a millisecond.

But then eventually, they dumped the puck into a drop. side where the penguins actually had puck support. They won a good board battle. And then Cindy Crosby was able to work his magic to get it to Jake Gensel. Boom, you get a power play goal. Then later on, the time goal, Cindy Crosby and Eric Carlson are able to work some magic. Crosby gets a fortunate bounce.

Puck is in the back of the net. It's plays like this that, again, sometimes that bounce is really all you need to get the power play going a little bit more. And now you're four for your last eight on the power play. That's 50%. Keep that momentum going. heading into Saturday against Toronto. It's so funny, man.

Where would the penguins be? I'll keep asking this on the show if they had gotten games like this on the power play. These last two games earlier in the season. It's just so unfortunate that now you're starting to see the results as opposed to the last 27 to 28 days before these last two games. But it's still great seeing it. What I said that this week was sometimes it takes just a simple,

almost fluky goal to get some confidence. And Gensel's goal the other night to get to break the drought. It was it was a good play. Let's not get that twisted. But that's a goal that usually doesn't go in. No. And once that damn breaks, we're looking in good shape. And then the last thing I want to add,

last two things I want to add before we go to break here and talk about Crosby's incredible season so far. regards to the power play, we're all looking at it with a microscope right now. So we are definitely noticing when, like, they miss a pass or the breakout doesn't look crisp or things like don't go well in the offensive zone. But if you watch most NHL games, most nights, this happens to just about every team. They have a couple flubs on the power play. But because of how bad the Penguins power play has been this year, we are noticing a lot more. It's almost that negative polarization.

Lastly, and this is going to kind of be the polar opposite of what we're going to talk about here in the next segment. I don't know where Evgeny Malkin has been lately. I have not been impressed with his game. And in no world do I think he's been bad. I also think the penalty he took in overtime, a little bit of a bell center call. You have to call it because his stick did go to the guy's feet, but he did turn back in the Malkin.

And then you mix that with a bell center crowd that booze anytime a Canadian is touched and bad mix. But overall, I have not liked of Gennie Malkin's game the last couple of months or a couple of weeks it was a blatant penalty i will say that and you know gino's just going to try to bark to the ref about it that's just how he is but even earlier on when the penguins had their first power play goal when the penguins are engaging in that board battle with the canadians before gensel's goal malcon is kind of whacking at david savard and honestly he could have been called there but the ref just let it go stuff like that he hasn't looked as engaged

as he did earlier in the season and that's the best way to put it really part of it i think is because his old age. I will say that. He's obviously not a young buck that he used to be, but you're going to see stretches like this from him as he continues to get a bit older. He is still obviously a very good player. And I think he's going to find his game again. But this is, I think, part of some of the pains that I think some fans will have to go through as he gets older is that he's not going to be his dominant self game after game after game. He's going to go through a rut a little bit. That said, I agree with you. He does need to be better. last night was not a good performance.

I don't think he's banged up or anything like that. He just didn't play well. And hopefully you see him at a higher level on Saturday in Toronto because that was the Sydney Crosby game last night. And there have been flashes here and there the last couple weeks. It just needs to be a little more consistent. But like Hunter said, we are going to talk about what Sydney Crosby has done so far this year on the opposite end of the spectrum.

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Welcome back into another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Patrick Damp, joined us always by the incredible co-host, Hunter Hodies. And we thank you, as always, for making this one of your first listens or watches of the day. As you know, we're free and available on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And speaking of someone being everywhere, Sydney Crosby, what an effort last night. And I talked about it to start off the show. The first period is one of the reasons why Sidney Crosby is among the all-time greats.

And it's simply because they looked like they were about to get absolutely run out of Montreal in the first period. And even if you go to natural stat trick or Money Puck or wherever and you look at the stats for the first period, you look at the analytics for the first period, it's a fairly even game according to the analytics. but this is a moment where the analytics and the eye test do not match one another. The penguins were very sloppy. They did not bring their best effort.

As I said earlier, Alex Nadokovic, not on his game early. And Sidney Crosby did what the all-time greats always do. They put the team on their back. And while in hockey, it is rare that one player can win a game for a team. one player can keep a team alive until the rest of the team join him. And that's what he did last night. And it was just, it doesn't even get into the stats he's put up yet this year. And we're going to do that here in a sec.

But just what did you see from him last night? Because I could sit here for the next 20 minutes and just gush over it if I had to. Right after that first goal that made it to one, I said to myself, okay, we could see something special here tonight. And you know the Montreal fans, they love when Sydney Crosby comes down. There's not many buildings that will cheer when Sydney Crosby gets announced. The Bell Center is one of them. They absolutely love it. Did you notice in the shootout, every penguin that went up, the booing was like, you could,

you could hear it like clearly. Like to the point it was almost drowning out the commentators. Crosby came up and it was like, They weren't doing. They absolutely loved him up there. But just getting back to it. Yeah, man, I mean, it was a Vinge's performance. That's what this was.

And the fact that the national media continues to overlook what he's doing is honestly insane to me. He has 31 points in 28 games this season. He also has 17 goals, which right now, if you look at the top goal scores in the league, Brock Bester and Austin Matthews have 21. Nita Kutrov has 19. Cindy Crosby is tied with Sam Reinhart for 17. That's it. Those are the only players who are above or tied with Crosby this year in goals.

He's on a 50 goal pace and almost a 100 point pace this season. And no one in the national media is talking about it. What are we doing here, people? It's just crazy. To make the goal stat even better, not only is he up there, in all goals scored this year. He is tied for first in the national hockey league for even strength goals with Austin Matthews, ever heard of them, and Kyle Connor, who's having himself a nice little

season up in Winnipeg. But like, you're right. You know, I don't want to do the, the annoying Twitter thing of like, I'm going to share a link to a news outlet and ask the question, why is nobody talking about this? but you're right. He's not getting nearly the props and flowers that he should right now because the penguins, they're struggling this year.

And if we look at the standings right now, we go to the wild card. The penguins are still fighting and clawing to get into the first wild card spot. But ask yourself this question. And yeah, I'm going to start this early because you see it there on the rundown on the side of the show here. if you're watching on YouTube. Without Sidney Crosby, is this team really two points out of a playoff spot?

And if we're going to talk about the Hart Trophy, which every nerd like me that is a writer says, it's most valuable to his team, not best player in the league. And without Sidney Crosby right now, this team is probably in the basement. Oh, 100%. He willed them back into that game. Alex Dendulkovich obviously did his thing in the final 45 plus minutes in overtime. and then in the shootout. But Sidney Crony was the one that got them at least a point also last night.

The way he scored that first goal, the way he set up the second goal, and the way he scored the third goal. That was a masterclass performance from number 87. I hope everyone that's listening or watching this, listening to slash watching this, excuse me, cherishes these types of performances from 87. The fact that he is doing this at 36 years of age is honestly, insane to me. He is one of a kind. It's obvious why he is going to go down as one of the five greatest players to ever play this sport. And to not make the playoffs again this year while Crosby

is playing at this level would be such a total farce, I feel like, to be honest. You have to help him out and help the core out when they are playing at this level, especially in this case, Sidney Crosby. He continues to almost defy logic at this point. If he is not a strong contender for the heart at this point, that I don't think people are paying enough attention. And I know there's been a lot of great performances this year. You have Austin Matthews playing great.

Artemi Panarin. Nikita Kutrov should be in the conversation. I can keep going on with. Sasha Barkov has been awesome on both ends of the rank. But Sidney Crosby should be in that conversation with how he continues to play on a nightly. basis. And this gets talked about, because you know how I always say this, especially about the show, if you're listening to a hockey podcast, you are in the 1% of hockey fans because you sought this out.

You didn't trip, fall, and find yourself listening to a hockey podcast. So you're a big time hockey nerd. And that means you understand that in this era of hockey, there is so much access to statistics, to analytics, to analysis and all that. One of the underrated parts of Crosby's game, and this is where I'm going with this, is his face-off percentage. He's at 60%. And in an era of hockey where everybody is worried about possession, zone time, things like that,

the fact that Crosby is winning 60% of his face-offs only adds to that because when he's on the ice and he takes a draw, his team more likely than not is coming out with possession of the puck, and that can lead to kickstarting a breakout and getting out of the defensive zone. It can lead to getting into the offensive zone if there's a neutral zone faceoff. It can lead to set plays in the offensive zone should he win a face off. And we need to see that. That needs to be appreciated more.

And here's one of the wildest things to me. Last thing I'll add, and then you can add whatever you need to add about Crosby here. you know what his average time on ice is so far this year it's 19 minutes and 46 seconds wow so he's not playing a ton you know you look at a lot of the guys above him like Nathan mckinan he's playing 22 uh Austin matthews is playing around 21 and yeah you look at that kutrov's also at 21 you look at that and you're like that's not that big of a difference but really when you think about it think about how long two minutes is in a national

hockey league game. Obviously, that's a penalty. But it's also last night, because I had to, as we on hockey Twitter say, sail the high seas to watch the Penguins game last night. I had to watch the Sportsnet feed. And one of the things they talked about a couple different times, especially in the second period, when the Penguins were dominating, was one of the Canadians had like a nearly two-minute shift. And they were talking about like, he is gassed. He cannot move. Like, he is struggling. right now. Two minute shift. So that's a lot of, that's not that much ice time for Crosby to have been as dominant as he has been so far this year. Agreed. No, I totally 100% agree with you on that. And going back to a point you made earlier about the face off percentage, I wanted to discuss a little bit

how when he's usually on the ice, the penguins are in the attacking zone. It is very rare when the Crosby line is hemmed in their own zone. And part of that is because some of the penguins line up right now, it's obviously banged up. You're not getting a lot of offensive zone shifts from, you know, the Carter line from the fourth line. Even the Evgeny Malkin line has been struggling a bit as of late. But the Crosby line, no, their underlines are awesome. The eye test shows that.

And they are almost always the most threatening line on the ice on any given night for the penguins. And that's one of the biggest reasons why they are staying afloat in the playoff race right now. Agreed. And if there was ever a season where we could give him a lifetime achievement award to win the Heart Trophy, I think if he keeps this up, this is it. Because let's be honest here. Like, I want to end it on this. Austin Matthews, or not Austin Matthews, but he's a good candidate. Connor McDavid is the best player in the National Hockey League and probably the world.

Yeah. Let's not dispute that. You can Hem and Haw about it all you want. He is the best of the best right now. and it's an obvious heart vote. And we know as hockey fans how much the writers love to Galaxy brain it and think like, well, I don't want to vote for the best guy. I got to vote for the sexy pick.

And with the way Crosby's playing right now, that can be kind of the, hey, you know what? Hell of a career. Here's one more heart trophy for that resume before we send you into the Hall of Fame. And by the way, Pat, who did he tie last night on the, NHL's all-time scoring list. The reckon ball. Mark Recky, one of my all-time favorites.

13th all-time, 1,5333 points. Passed Paul Coffey for 14th. And he's going to be passing another legend probably by the end of the month. Joe Thorne only has six more points on the NHL's all-time scoring list. So Sid just needs seven to pass him for 12. And then there is a small chance that he could crack the top 10 by the end of the year. He only needs right now 46 points to tie Ray Bork. at 1,579 points, and then 57 to tie Phil Esposito for 1,590 points.

With how he's going this year, he actually might crack the top 10 heading into next season. I can see it. I can see it. But that is going to do it for this segment. Like I said, we could be talking about Crosby's greatness for the next 20 minutes if we had to. But when we come back, Penguins fans, we're going to start watching the World Juniors again because a prospect of ours is heading to the tournament. But first, we have to tell you about our next partner, which is AG1, the daily foundational

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Check it out. All right, we're back here on the Locked-on Penguins podcast. One last time, I'm one of your co-host, Patrick Damp, joined as always by the Incredible Hunter Hodes. And hope you're ready to get up early or stay up late. I haven't checked on the tournament schedule yet. Not sure where it is this year. Pardon me, but I'll look into that later because I'm too excited.

But Braden Yeager made the cut and he will be going to the World Junior Championships with Hockey Canada. And man, if it is not deserved this year so far because he has been dominating the WHL with Moose Jaw this year. In 28 games, he's got 17 goals, 24 assists, 41 points. and this is what we wanted to see from him when he got sent back to junior. He was fairly impressive in training camp and a couple of looks he got in preseason. Started tail off as expected as a kid that age, probably would, getting his first real taste of the grind of a national hockey league training camp and playing with players at that level.

But what we wanted to see was him to go back to the WHL and dominate. And he has done that so far. he's gotten back to basics. That's the biggest thing for me. I was a big concern when his goal total went down last year, but he's gotten back to doing what he does best, scoring goals. He has a beautiful releases.

I thought it was one of the best in the draft for this year, and he's showing that in the WHL. He's projected to score this year in 64 games, 39 goals and 94 points in 64 games. That is his current projection right now per elite prospects. That is crazy. crazy good and with how he did during the team Canada training camp for the world juniors it was obvious that he deserved to make this team he was showing off his goal scoring ability he was showing

off his playmaking ability he was doing a bit better it sounded like in his own zone as well from what i read from a lot of the scouts and the prospect writers who were there to watch he was playing really well and he was getting a shot in Canada's top six that's a pretty big deal and as a trivia question for you. Who is the last Penguins prospect to play on Team Canada's world junior team? See if you can get it. It's not going to be Jake Gensel because he's American. No. It was a few years ago before he got traded.

That's your hint. No, it wasn't cap. It wasn't cap in it, right? No, no. Team Canada's team, not. Do you want the answer? Yeah, I'm blanking. Oh, that's right.

It was Caitlin Addison. First Pennard's prospect to play on Team Canada's World Junior team. since Kail and Addison. And that's a pretty big deal because Addison played really well at that term before he got dealt in the Jason Zooker trade. But it's just awesome having a really good prospect getting to play in this awesome tournament because I'm really stoked to see what he can do with Canada's best

and going up against some countries who also have quite a bit of talent this year. And I just looked it up. Your first chance to catch a glimpse of Braden Yeager with Team Canada will be the day after Christmas, Tuesday, December 26th at 8.30 a.m. when Canada takes on Finland in Sweden. And then after that, they will play again on Wednesday, December 27th at 1.30 p.m. These are all Eastern Standard Time against Latvia. And then finally, they will play Sweden at 1.30 p.m. on Friday, December 29.

So a couple chances to catch Braden Yeager with Team Canada. and I don't know, man. I think we're going to have to root for him and team Canada. I'll obviously still support my home country. I know you will too, but I will definitely not be mad if Canada wins just because of Brane Yeager. I just want to see him play well at this event because if he does, I think more and more people are going to be talking about him going forward.

Again, I don't expect him on the Penguins at any point this season. I think it's also a little bit of a stretch to say that he's going to be an impact player on this team next year at this time. But the year after that, I think he's, he could definitely be on this team if all continues to go well because his development so far has been exquisite. Yeah, this is going to be huge for him just because he's going to go play some very significant hockey. He's going to have to be a leader for Team Canada. And you know how it how it is in the world juniors. They are one of three teams that are always in the mix to win

it. So you know he's going to play meaningful significant hockey. And he's going to play a major role in it, which just gigantic for his development. and we'll see. I mean, he made a good impression this past summer in training camp. You know, I'm with you. I don't think he's going to make any immediate impact. I don't think we're going to see him at the end of the season unless things go catastrophically bad over the next couple of months.

I think he might get an extended look next year after camp, maybe play a game or two and then they send them back. But this is very good news. It's good news to see another prospect in the Penguins organization. actually have some promise. Agreed. I'm just, again, super excited to see what he can do at this tournament, and I'm really excited to watch it.

So that is going to do it for us on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. We're going to be back tomorrow so we can preview the Saturday night what Hunter has dubbed the Dubus Bowl when the Penguins head to Toronto and finish up this road trip. And then we will talk about whatever else we want to talk. about tomorrow because who knows, may the Penguins do something fun. But that is going to do it for this one.

For Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you for listening to the Lockdown Penguins podcast, and we will talk to you tomorrow.