Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Kyle Dubas signals no big changes for the Penguins...yet

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Happy Tuesday! It's another game night for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they're set to play the Arizona Coyotes. Before Hunter and Pat preview that game, they discuss Kyle Dubas' comments from Monday and how he continues to be very patient as a GM. They look at how he's not in a rush to make changes right now and analyze whether that's a good or bad thing. They also analyze whether he's right to die on Mike Sullivan's hill since he easily could've brought in a new coach by now if he wanted to. After that, they dive into a preview for the game against the Arizona Coyotes and how the Penguins can snap their losing streak tonight. What must they do to slow down Arizona's top players? Will Logan Cooley have a big night in front of his family? What lineup changes will we see from the Penguins? Finally, the two hosts give their thoughts on the latest Bryan Rust news.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.

Kyle Dubus is not interested in making serious changes to the Pittsburgh Penguins right now. And on today's episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast, Pat and I are going to go over what we took away from Dubus's press conference. Plus get you all set for Penguins Coyotes on Tuesday night. You're Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Lockedon.

on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Join by my co-s, Patrick Dant. You can follow him on Twitter at Center for Wet, and you can follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O. Armstrongsville Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch for the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Sleeper, download the Sleeper app, and use promo code locked on NHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit, terms and condition supply, sleepers, terms of use for details. So Kyle Dubos spoke to the media on Monday for the first time in quite a while.

And the biggest thing I took away from that press conference is, man, is he patient? And probably more patient than Ron Hextall was. And it's funny, Ron Hextall might have been one of the most patient people I've ever seen be a GM. I think Dubis takes the cake on that one with how the Penguins have struggled this year. And let's put this out there. Obviously, Dubis is upset with how the season is gone. I think everyone in the Penguins organization is really upset with how this season is gone, especially the fans are upset as you all have a right to be because there are higher expectations heading into the season for the Penguins. That said, Dubis right now is not interested in making a change to the coaching staff,

whether that's Mike Sullivan or the assistants, and people can say what they want. I've for sure said my speech on Tar Reardon of why he should not have a job right now. You've kind of said the same thing, Pat. do this feels differently. I mean, we have to, I guess, understand at least a little bit right now. Again, I may disagree with it, but that's how he sees it. And in terms of other changes for the team, he's giving it, it sounds like, until the All-Star break, which is still a little bit of a ways away.

My only worry is that it might be a bit too late at that point if the Penguins continue to struggle. But he's willing to give this team as much time as it needs to get right before potentially thinking about, okay, making a coaching change, whether it's an assistant to Mike Sullivan, making some roster changes and all that stuff. That's my biggest takeaway from that press conference. And regarding Mike Sullivan, I know I said on my Monday show that I wouldn't be surprised if he got fired, but I've also been saying as well on the other side,

I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't just because of all that money, FSG owes him how his contract extension hasn't kinked in yet Pierre LeBrun on Tuesday, quote tweeted tweet and said that Sullivan's about to make $5.5 million on his next deal, which is he's going to be one of the highest paid coaches. the league again i know f s she has all the money in the world they could easily can and if they want to again it wouldn't be surprising considering how they play this year but on the other side of things i'm also not surprised because it definitely seems like dubus and f scege believe in solven and they also just don't want to maybe have to pay all that money right now right and it's it's regardless of how rich

your ownership organization is swallowing 15 million dollars is not easy because that's what they would have to do if they were to get rid of Sullivan this season. You would essentially be paying him 15 million not to coach. More than actually, but. Well, yeah, it's over 15 million. But, you know, nice payday if you can get it to get paid that much money to not do anything. But here's, like, I was thinking about this yesterday after Dubus's press conference. And if you have followed my work wherever it is, whether it was Penn's blog, whether it's

KDKA, whether it's here on this podcast, whether it's just my random musings on Twitter. I really think a lot of sports fandom, and I only, like obviously I'm most familiar with the Pittsburgh market. This could be a thing across all sports fandoms. It probably is, but I'm just most familiar with Pittsburgh. Firing a coach is not the silver bullet people want it to be because most of the time, and let's just go with the Penguins. history. And I've kind of talked about this already on this podcast. The times in, especially the times we're going to stick only with the Crosby-Malkanera, that the penguins have fired the coach, they have needed to fire the coach.

And the coach that came in was the opposite of the coach they replaced. So you think about it. Michelle Tarian was a very conservative, very defense first kind of coach. and he had a team that was young, inexperienced, and needed to learn that. And once they did, they were now ineffective because they were itching to play offense again. They were itching to score goals, and the league was starting to trend toward scoring goals. So Dan Bilesma comes in and opens it up, and what do they do? They go win a Stanley Cup.

Then Bilesma's system gets matched, it gets whatever, and he doesn't want to change it. Who do they go get? They go get Mike Johnston, who is, again, defense first. be responsible in your own end. Don't play offense. Don't attack. Don't push the pace. And that was just a horrible fit.

Then they go get Mike Sullivan, who plays an aggressive, up-tempo type of system that wins them to Stanley Cups, keeps them as one of the better teams in the NHL. And, well, I don't think this is Kyle Dubus's M.O. If you were to fire Mike Sullivan,

chances are you're probably going to go get somebody who's the opposite of him. And, yeah, maybe this team does need to be a little bit less aggressive, needs to play a little bit differently. But at the same time, they're not an ineffective team. We have been talking about this for weeks now. It's dipped a little bit, but they're still a pretty good five-on-five team. They're a very good penalty-killing team.

Tristan Jari is looking like he might put up some career numbers this year. The issue is the power play. And until they can, if they can solve, they don't even have to solve the power play. It just has to be not terrible. So everybody who wants to fire a coach and thinks it's going to result in sunshine, rainbows and Stanley Cup championships, I've got news for you. This isn't totally a coaching issue. It's a coaching issue on the power play, to be sure.

And I'm with everybody. Todd Reardon should probably go or at the very least they should bring somebody in who's either only job is power play or is like an offensive coordinator type deal. but listen, this isn't a coaching problem. I'm with Dubus. He should be preaching patience because this is the best coach this franchise has ever had. And there's not many better out there. I will say sometimes the grass isn't greener on the other side.

They have, though, look like at times they've quit on Mike Sullivan. But then you have the game against Florida where for at least two periods, they look like they're playing for him again. But then you have the third period where it all went to. that. I just want to see the level of consistency that we've seen under Sullivan before this year, because even last year, I don't think that they ever truly quit on Mike Sullivan. This is the team that I feel like he had was more on Ron Hextall than him. It was just unfortunate what happened in the end of the season. And, you know, they probably should have still been in the Chicago

Blackhogs. They should have still been the Columbus Blue Jackets. I'm not disagreeing with that. But I do think overall with the roster construction for last year, that was more, I would say, on Hectsdal then Sullivan was. My other biggest thing when people, you know, you want to fire the coach. And again, I understand the cries. I hear you. I've seen people say, you know,

what if you bring in a more defensive-minded coach, you can play like some sort of trap? I'm not personally interested in that. I don't think also the Penguins will ever play that kind of system for as long as they have star players. It's not how this team is built. It's just, and I don't mean that in a historical sense.

I mean that in a very literal sense. You look at this team. Their top six is built to score. Their top two defensive pairings are built to score. They're not built for a one-three-one, like a Gibeuchet type system. They're not built to probably play Barry Trots hockey or anything like that or 90s Devils hockey. Now, you can still adjust the system to play more defensively.

And we've seen that from Mike Sullivan this year. Why the players have gone away from that when we've seen it worked, that's the biggest question, that I don't understand. Because we've seen it work against Vegas. We've seen it work against Colorado. We've even seen it work against Toronto. I can throw a couple other games in there. Washington, for example, earlier this year.

We've seen it work, but for some reason, it's not working on a consistent basis. And I don't know if it's the players that don't want to play like this on any given night, but you've shown an ability to both score and defend in the same game, and you're not willing to do it. Is that a coach problem?

Is that a player problem? That's what I'm trying to grasp right now, because we've seen him make adjustments and they've worked, but why haven't they adjusted, or why haven't they, excuse me, they worked for most of their games? You know what the answer is? And I think a lot of people aren't going to be satisfied with this answer. It's human nature. This team thinks they're supposed to be better because they should be better.

And when you struggle, and you hear coaches in all sports talk about this, when you struggle like the penguins are struggling right now, a team that is pretty talented has some really good pieces on it and it's not working, you're going to try to do more. You're going to try to overcompensate. You're going to try to push past it by doing more than you should rather than sticking to a system that works and seeing it out. And while I don't always agree with the flowery talk and the, oh, we just got to keep

pushing. We've got to keep doing what we're doing. We got to stick the process kind of stuff. If the penguins were to do that and eventually, a goal or two goes in on the power play, a coin flip game goes their way. All of a sudden, this team starts feeling themselves. And what do you know, they're suddenly on a roll? Because you look at their five game win streak earlier this year.

That's pretty much what happened. Yeah, right. No, I agree with you. And again, I'll keep saying, and I know you'll keep saying, if this team had an average power play, I don't even think we're talking about a lot of these issues right now with the coaching staff. It would be pretty high up in the standings.

For God's sake, the New York Islanders are second in the metropolitan division right now. And they've honestly been bad for a lot of this season. and they've been talking about firing Lane Lambert on Long Island. So it's, this is, I think this is still going to be a hot talking point throughout the season if they continue to get meddling results. At the end of the day, Kyle Dubus has made his bet with this head coach. He easily could have just walked away because he had no loyalty to him coming into Pittsburgh, but he said, you know what, I'm not going to do that.

I believe in Mike Sullivan. I believe in the coaching staff, which, again, that's bold. I disagree with some of those. but we'll have to see how this goes the rest of the season. Overall, I don't expect at this time, Sullivan, to be fired this year. Now, if they miss the playoffs after this year, I do think Dubis is going to have to have a serious discussion about this because I think missing the playoffs two years in a row with Cindy Krazi playing at this level,

with Afghani Malkin, mostly playing pretty well. Chris is saying even Eric Carlson, that's not acceptable in this town. Agreed. And I would potentially be in that. boat for sure if they missed playoffs, but we're still got a long season ahead. But coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to do a full preview for Tuesday night's game against the Arizona Coyotes and how the penguins can snap their four game losing streak. But before we get to that, we've got to tell you all about Sleeper, which is the official daily fantasy app of the locked on NHL network. Sleeper is our number one choice for daily fantasy sports and especially daily fantasy hockey because of Sleeper, you can win 100 times your cash in daily fantasy hockey contest.

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All right, we're back here on this episode, of the locked on penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host, Patrick Damp, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch of the day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. So Penguins Coyotes tonight, as the Penguins try to snap their four-game losing streak and just a couple of lineup notes for everyone listening. Tristan Jari was the first goalie off, so it looks like he's going to be your starter.

That means Alex Ndolkevich will probably go on Wednesday against the Montreal Canadians, because this is the first half of the back-to-back. It also looks like P.O. Joseph is going to be making his referral. turn into the lineup. He is off the ice ahead of Ryan Shea. He's been in the lineup for quite some time. That comes courtesy of Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. So very good news. I would say on both fronts there, Trist and Jari has played mostly really well this year. And we'll just get to P.O. Joseph here, Pat, what are you expecting from him tonight? Because he's been out of lineup for quite some time in dealing with a nagging injury.

I think this is his big opportunity to take back this roster spot because he's been obviously banged up, but even before that, he was being replaced by Shea, being replaced by Ludwig. You know, if he's not able to take charge here and really win this spot, this could potentially be the end of his time here in Pittsburgh. He's got a string together some consistent play. Yeah, as much as I said in the last segment, you know, I still have a very serious belief in Mike Sullivan. And I think he's one of the best coaches, not just in Penguin's history, but in the National Hockey League. I don't like the way he kind of short-leashed P.O. Joseph, just because of the role he played in his age. I think you give him some time to work it out.

And if the struggles continue, then yes, you pull him. But I think he went way too quick to bench him. But you kind of have already said what my take is going to be. He has to seize this job because let's not get it twisted. It wasn't like when he was in the lineup he was doing well with some warts. he was bordering on bad. And that's not a good sign. So, you know, he got some,

he got a rehab stint in Wilkes-Barre to get some confidence back, get himself back in the groove of playing games, rather than throwing him right back in the deep end of the NHL. And listen, the Penguins are very good. And I know a lot of people are going to want to hear this right now. Todd Reardon's very good at sheltering defensemen. And he's probably going to do that. with P.O. Joseph tonight. He's probably going to put him in advantageous situations should the

penguins play the way they should. And he has to look good in those minutes. He's probably going to get 15, 20-ish around that minutes maybe. He'll be with John Ludwig. I would say, right? Right. Riegel's ready to go just yet. And I'm intrigued about that kind of pairing with him and Ludwig because Ludwig brings that physical element to the pairing can also move the puck. But Joseph, he brings more of an offensive identity. to his game over Ludwig, I would say, while Ludwig is, I think, a little bit better defensively. It's kind of almost like a mini version of the Joseph Roodle pairing, but I think Ludwig, I mean, I've been optimistic about him throughout the year. I think he's been playing really well for the

Penguins, but I'm intrigued about that pairing to say at least they haven't really had, basically any time. So that's what I think you're going to see tonight, probably, what, 12, 14, 15 minutes, and then you'll be giving the rest of the game to the top two bearings. Yeah, for some reason, my brain went forward and not backward. I meant like 50, 15 to 12, not 15 to 20. But yeah, they're not going to get a ton of ice time and they have to seize that opportunity. And I think this is actually a good mix of player here. Like Ludwig has really played above expectation and look good.

And he does strike me as a get right type of defensive defenseman where you put your struggling guy like a P.O. Joseph with him and it stabilizes his game. So I'm really curious to see that pairing. Same here. Away away from any sort of. of X's and O's in stats. I just, I want to get this out because it's so cool. I am so excited to see Logan Coley tonight because if you know me and most people who are listened to this do, you know how much Pittsburgh hockey means to me and not just the penguins. Like I grew up

playing hockey here. Like I went to all the rinks. I played for the Badgers for 13 or 12 years. And I played college hockey in mostly Western Pennsylvania. So like seeing this sport grow from Mary O'Lamue days to the Sydney Crosby days to present. And now seeing a kid who was drafted third overall, who didn't come from the wealthy suburbs of Pittsburgh, who didn't come from a bunch of money. He started playing hockey because of Sydney Crosby's little penguins. He got the free stuff because his parents, I don't know if his parents couldn't afford it or if they took advantage of it, but this isn't your traditional kid who grew up in a

rich part of town because West Mifflin's not the most wealthy part of Pittsburgh and now he's in the NHL and he's a legitimate contributor and he's coming home to play his first national hockey league game in Pittsburgh. And as someone who grew up playing in the Pittsburgh amateur hockey league, I am just like bursting with pride about this. And it would obviously be very penguins to allow him to score a goal in his hometown tonight. So they have to. You got to let them.

Definitely put that down on Fanduil wherever you bet. Three goals, 15 points. for Logan Cooley this year. I mean, there were people saying that he was going to win the Calder over Connor Boudard. I thought that was a little bit of a hot take at the time. But he'll be, I think, at least a finalist for this award, in my opinion. I mean, he should be really good this year for the coyotes. I love watching this kid play.

I think he's going to be a very good player for a very long time. His skating jumps out at you right away. The way he plays with a puck on his stick is absolutely gorgeous. I hope that he doesn't dust. too many of the Penguins players too much tonight, but I feel like it could just because of how skilled he is with the puck. But it's about time that the coyotes have another really good and potential franchise player on their team because that's where I think

Logan Cooley can be for them. Because of how the coyotes have been over the years, this has the makings of a potential franchise superstar. And that makes me happy for our Coyotes fans out there because they haven't really had too many of those over the last several years. Right. And to what I said yesterday when we did our kind of quick week ahead preview, this rebuild for the coyotes is going really well because in Logan Cooley is evidence of that, not just because of how good he's playing. If you remember prior to this season, prior to this past off season that is, Logan Cooley straight up said, I'm not going pro. I'm going back to the University of Minnesota. I am not going to go to the NHL yet. and whatever the coyotes are doing, whatever Bill Armstrong is doing, is working because he decommitted and said,

you know what? I changed my mind. I'm going to sign my entry level deal and I'm going to go play for the coyotes. And while they're not a great team yet, they're competitive this year. And they're doing a lot of the right things. And it's really exciting to see that a local kid is going to be one of the cornerstones of this franchise going forward. It makes me super happy as well. It's honestly kind of similar to, you know,

John Gibson with the Ducks when he was in his prime and how, you know, he became a cornerstone for that franchise too. And actually, you know what, John Gibson has been playing a lot better this year. So I'll give kudos to him. It looks like he's found his game a bit more of this season compared to last year. The Ducks haven't been that good season, but they also did have a really good start. But I was just making the comparison because Gibson was a cornerstone for the ducks

toward the end of the days with Getslaw and Perry. And, you know, he's still there to this day. It's great that the coyotes have both Cooley and Clayton Keller, Keller, who has been electric this year. Nine goals, 25 points and 27 games. I think Keller is going to be a franchise player for them as well. Nick Schmaltz, I already talked about him on the Monday episode, nine goals, 20 points. Nick Bukes said, old friend has 17 points. Lawson Krause has 12 goals.

Alexander Kerrfoot, former Toronto Maple Leaf. He's been playing well, but the coyotes, they're a bit banged up right now. They have some injuries, just like the Penguins, Barrett Hayton's on IR, Jack Vic Baines hurt. Travis Boyd is out, and also Sean Dersy's day-to-day, he might not be playing in this one. I really like that move

that the coyotes made over the all season to get him from Los Angeles Kings. But this is a coyotes team that's lost three in a row. They lost the Sabres on Monday night. I think the Penguins are gaining them at a pretty good time. So even though they're a bit banged up as well,

the coyotes after that five-game winning streak, they're struggling. You want to keep those struggles going, and especially on a team that played on Monday night, and they're traveling to Pittsburgh from Buffalo for this game. I know that's not that long of a road trip, but still, that's a team that played last night. You've been off for several days at this point.

You have to take advantage and win this game and start getting your season back on track. Agreed. And the funny thing is it's hilarious because it's like these teams are the opposites of one another, right? Like, Arizona is currently in a playoff position, and they're hanging on to the second wild card in the west. And, but then you go to natural stature.

They are 29th in shot attempts. So they're pretty low down the totem pole. Then you go to expected goals, and they're 25th. It's like the opposite of the penguins who are top 10 in both and can't win. This is a team that's bottom, bottom tier in both of those, and yet is still pulling off wins. So it's kind of funny to compare the two franchises. But yeah, like Buffalo to Pittsburgh, not a long, not a long trip.

But you played a surging team that's starting to look pretty good again in Buffalo. They're losing three straight. The Penguins have been off for four days. This is, you don't want to say must win, but it's a very much good win. Honestly, I would say these next two games are should win slash almost must wins because you're playing two teams who, you know, one is strongly, and then the Canadians, they're just flat out bad this year. So if you can get a couple wins in a row here heading into that game against Serrano over the weekend,

that could be a big confidence boost for the Penguins. And well, the full preview of the Canadians game on Wednesday, but first things first with the coyotes. And then, you know, you said for 29th and shot attempts for the coyotes, I mean, this year, they're 26 and effective goals, 47%. They have a 51.8% actual goals rate. So their underlines aren't that good, but they do have a difference maker in net. Danelka played on Monday, so the Penguins will probably be getting Connor Ingram tonight,

who is ninth in the league and goals saved above expected, 9.4 overall, just a little bit above Tristan Jari. And overall, 920, say a percentage. This came out of absolutely nowhere. No one, and I mean no one, saw this coming from Connor Ingram. This is going to be, I will say, a very tough goalie for the Penguins to beat tonight. Agreed. I don't know much to add.

Didn't expect it out of him. Nope. I definitely did not either. That's for sure. But hey, goaltending is voodoo, my friends. But that would do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show,

Penguins did not get some good injury news regarding Brian Rust on Monday. Pat and I are going to get into what that means, moving forward for the team. But before he gets that, we've got to tell you all about eBay Motors. Passion Drive and Patience, brings home the winning trophy is also what keeps your ride or die alive.

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with eBay Motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need of the prices you want, it's easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride or die live at eBaymotors.com eligible items, only exclusions apply. All right, we're back here. this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hodes, join by my co-s, Patrick Dam. So as I teased heading into this final segment, Penguins really didn't get any good news on Brian Russ. I mean, maybe it's better news considering what I heard about the injury that it wasn't good, but he's still week to week, which that's so vague. I mean, this could mean, two weeks, this could mean three weeks, this could mean a month. We don't know truly how long

he's going to be out for just because Mike Sullivan is always so vague with injuries. But But how do you see the penguins filling that hole for the foreseeable future? I mean, it looks like Rickel is getting closer. He was taking the morning skate with the team a little bit today. Hopefully he'll get some practices in soon. But with him out, that's a good chunk of their offense in the top six gone. And that means I think other players, especially in the bottom six, a lot of these HL guys, these players are going to have to start really stepping up in a big way.

It can't just be the Sydney Crosby and Jake Gensel and Gennel and Gennelke and Riley sent the show every night. Well, it's not good news that he's week to week. The one thing I will say that is good news is that that's the designation. Because the fact that we heard for like three days, he's being evaluated. We're going to know more. They're still looking at it. So like that to me, like that worried me very much because you don't, you don't evaluate a guy multiple days in a row for an injury that's just, oh, he's a little bump bang to bruise.

Right. So hearing week to week and not like, hey, he's done for the season or he needs some kind of surgery or procedure that's going to keep him out a couple months. That's a sigh of relief. But you're right. With Yesy Pooey-RV maybe waiting in the wings, depending on how this tryout goes with some of the AHL guys still sitting here and Ricard Raquel looking like he's close to coming back, these AHA guys got to make a move. They have to prove they belong at the NHL level. This isn't any more, no longer are you here to patch a hole. Pretty soon, you're going to have to prove to Kyle Dubis to Mike Sullivan coaching

in the coaching staff that you belong as an NHL player or you're hitting the turnpike and going back to Wokes Bear. And I mean, hey, we saw at least a glimpse of more of Altarie Pustin on Friday night against the Panthers. And speaking to that, he has two points in two NHL games right now. So he can make it three for three tonight against the coyotes. and maybe even four for four against the Canadians, but hey, let's not get too ahead of ourselves right now. But I thought of the players that were called up from Wilkesburg for that game on Friday, he was by far the best.

I thought he was good with a puck on his stick. He was responsible defensively. I didn't really see too much from John Stone or Gruden, but I honestly didn't expect to see that much from them considering. Also, they don't have that much in initial experience, but I also don't think they're as good offensively as Puston is. I'm curious to see how Pustin continues to get more of a chance with Malkin and Smith. You know, continue to show me something.

In two games, he's been solid. Let's see if he can get that first goal tonight or see if he can get another point or just continue to be consistent at the NHL level. With Rosto, man, with how he was finishing, it's such a tough loss because he was looking like he was potentially going to have career best numbers this year if he were able to stay healthy,

but it sucks that an injury is derailing that, especially at a time where the penguins really need him because they've been middling for a good while now, and now that they're going to be playing without him, just absolutely stinks. And again, that's just more pressure on the top guys to perform on a nightly basis. And hopefully the depth is able to step up in his absence. Hopefully they're also able to get some of these other guys back while he's gone.

So this team can start looking more like the team that we thought it would look like at the start of the season. But it's definitely really tough overall, man. I want to see Ricard Raquel get back. I think, I think in obviously. Get back to that level we saw. last year, please. Like, if that, if he can even get him come close to that, it's going to fix a good chunk of the problems at five on five.

And it's only going to make Russ return that much larger when he eventually comes back. And this is obviously pure speculation. I don't have any sort of inside knowledge on this. But I think he was dealing with something before he went out because he just did not look like Ricard Raquel. And I think eventually the coaching staff and medical staff. was like, just go get this fixed. Because if you're in that age range that Ricard Raquel is and many NHLers are,

you're dealing with something forever because you have played hard hockey and had hard miles on your body. You're not 100% healthy no matter what. So I think he was dealing with something. I think he's going to come back and be good. And that it's going to make the return of Rust even better. And I think this team is going to figure something out. Like they're too good, not.

too. The law of averages tell us eventually this is going to turn. I just hope that we're both right about this because I know we're definitely more optimistic compared to a lot of the fan base out there, but we've watched every game like you all have. We've seen the numbers. We've watched with our own eyes. We're hoping that this is going to turn a corner. Please, for the love God, hey, how about a power play goal tonight? Let's start with that too. If they can somehow get that monkey off their backs. maybe that also gets them going in the right direction as well. Even if they get a bounce off someone's button in the net for the power play,

a skate, whatever it takes, get that monkey off their backs, and then maybe the goals start really coming forward that unit and honestly overall for this team. But I think that will do it for this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with a recap of this game on Wednesday, plus a preview of Wednesday night's game against the Montreal Canadians.

Remember, this is a back-to-back for the Penguins, so we'll have that episode for you all on Wednesday. We'll then recap the Canaanians game on Thursday this week, and get you all set for the Kyle Dubas Bowl in Toronto this weekend. But again, thank you all so much for tuning in. We'll talk with you all on Wednesday.