Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Looking back on a curious season for Penguins defenseman Kris Letang

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

The rumors just won't stop when it comes to Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan going to the New Jersey Devils, so Hunter and Patrick address those rumors. Then, they look back on what was an up-and-down year for defenseman Kris Letang. Finally, could free agency be the way they find Letang a new full-time partner? All that, plus much more, is on this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monopoly GO!Get in the game and join your friends. Click HERE to Download MONOPOLY GO! now free on The App Store or Google Pay. The mobile hit twist on classic MONOPOLY.eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotos.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning GUARANTEED That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET!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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Mike Sullivan to the New Jersey Devils. Yeah, Pat and I really aren't buying that at all. You're Locked-on Penguin. 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 Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes.

You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Join him on my host, Patrick Damp. You can follow him on Twitter at Center for Wet. and you can follow these shows, Twitter at L.O. or Swear Penguins, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch today. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, this episode is brought to you by Monopoly Go.

This fast-paced game lets you team up with friends for tournaments to unlock awesome prizes like unique stickers or trading, cool playing pieces, and hilarious emojis for taunting your friends. So download Monopoly Go now free on Google Play or the App Store game on. So we've been kind of delaying this long enough, I feel like, for these weird Mike Sullivan to the New Jersey devil's rumors, I believe this started from Nick Kipriose a few days ago where he wrote something in one of his articles saying that he had been hearing stuff about Sullivan potentially going to New Jersey. Then you have Rob Rossi of the athletic put out a story saying that that's not true and that he heard from someone directly involved with the penguins, that they are committed to keeping Mike Sullivan and that no team has asked to interview him and all this other stuff. And then you have Elliott Freibin on the latest episode of 32 thoughts on Wednesday morning saying that the devils want to take a quote unquote big swing at a head coach he named Mike Sullivan and then he named John Cooper. But Friedman also did say that he had heard that Sullivan Dubus were on good terms heading into this next season.

And then there was also the report from Frank Saravali on Tuesday saying that there were some talk about what to do with the Penguins assistance. there's a lot of catnip hogwash out there. But at the end of the day, I really do think this Mike Sullivan to New Jersey stuff is a bunch of BS. I don't see it happening. They're not just going to trade him to the devils. And Pat, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't even think you're allowed to do that according to the new rules in the CBA.

And they also just can't negotiate a contract with a coach who is under contract and it's about to start a massive extension this July. So all that said, I just don't see a reality to Mike Sullivan going to New Jersey unless the penguins flat out fire him for some unknown reason. Right. In my limited research that I found before we hit record, it does not appear that in the NHL, at least not in the modern era, you're not allowed to trade a coach.

So at this point, there couldn't be some package where the penguins send Mike Sullivan to New Jersey for whatever they may ask for. It's just it doesn't appear to be something you're allowed to do. If I'm incorrect on that, feel free comments, tweets, whatever, let me know. But as far as I can tell, that is not a thing that can happen. Also, to what you were starting to say there, this wasn't just a source close to the penguins confirming this for our pal Rob Rossi. This was Kyle Dubis.

Dubis texted Rossi to say there have been no requests. and no permissions granted. So this has not been a thing that's been discussed within the penguins or the devils. And this did all originate from an article by Nick Kiprios of SportsNet Up in Canada, where he said, rumors of Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan leaving Pittsburgh to join close friend, Tom Fitzgerald in New Jersey, won't dissipate. Well, I don't know what he's hearing.

I don't pretend to have any sort of inside sources. I know Kiprios is well connected within the NHL community. and by all accounts, he is a great dude. So I don't know what he's hearing, obviously, but at this point, I mean, if Kyle Dubus is saying, we have not granted anyone permission to speak to Mike Sullivan, nor has anyone reached out to us for permission, this doesn't seem like a thing. And when you talk about New Jersey wanting to make big swings, and I know this is a Penguins podcast, we'll get back to the Penguins real quick, there's some talk that Rod Brindamore's extension in Carolina is not going very well.

So maybe that's who they have their eye on. But regardless, I know a lot of people don't want to hear this right now because of the way the last two seasons have gone and the way a myriad of other things have gone. And within those two seasons, Mike Sullivan will be the head coach on opening night of the Pittsburgh Penguins. I will preface it with this, though. Doesn't mean he is going to be the head coach for all three seasons of his extension. If things go poorly next year, there's a very real world where in season he is let go. Yeah, barring something unforeseen, I would say, throughout this offseason, I would be pretty surprised if Mike Sullivan was not the head coach of this team to start the year. And I did hint at what Saravali was saying during, I think, DFO Live on Tuesday.

Again, I do think a lot of this is hogwash, but I want to bring it up on the show just because I want full transparency for everyone listening to slash watching this. He said on the show that there's a bit of a power struggle with Kyle Dubus and Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh. Dubus wants to make changes to the coaching staff, but Sullivan has been resistant to that. Okay, I'm going to push back on that a little bit. There is no power struggle when one person is the president of hockey operations slash general manager and another person is the head coach. I don't care how long Mike Sullivan has been here.

You do not have enough power over someone who is the GM slash president of hockey operations that answers directly to Fenway Sports Group, Dave Beeston, Tom Warner, and everyone else. That's just not a thing. So if Kyle Dubus wants to make changes to the coaching staff, he should be allowed to do that because he is the, he has the one that has that power. So that's that part of the report that I really don't buy. I think if they're going to make changes to the staff,

it's going to be a mutual decision from everyone. Yeah, I did see part of the Oracle or Rossi, you know, we were saying that I think Sullivan would maybe prefer to have his assistance come back. But honestly, sorry. really shouldn't be how it works, considering how these last two years have won. So I just want to push back on that power struggle apart. I really don't think that's the case. Well, and two things on that. One, and I'm guilty of this, you're guilty of this. Everybody in hockey media is guilty of this.

Sometimes you just use flowery language to dress up things that may not be that exciting. I'm willing to bet there is a power struggle going on between Sullivan and Dubis about the coaching staff at this point. but it's probably more just them discussing what to do. It's probably not Mike Sullivan walking into Kyle Dubus's office and saying, I'm keeping my coaches and that's that. And Kyle Dubus saying, no, Mike, I am your boss. I'm not allowing you to bring your coaching staff back. They're probably talking about what to do.

And that's a lot less exciting than power struggle. And there's going to be changes. I mean, we have been saying it on this show relentlessly. He was noncommittal to. everybody but Mike Sullivan. And you look at Kyle Dubus's history. He's not a guy who mince his words. He's not a guy who comes out. He does use GM speak because they all do, just like all coaches use coach speak and all players use players speak. But he pretty much said Mike Sullivan's going to be back. I don't know about the rest of the coaching staff. So that pretty much indicates to me that changes

are going to be on the way. Again, we could be old takes exposed on this. Hell, we could be old takes exposed on Mike Sullivan showing up because we know how sports go. Last summer, before I joined the show, there was a whole long list of people who were going to come in to replace Ron Hextall and Brian Burke, and then all of a sudden, oh, Kyle Dewis is available. So maybe we should go get him. Who knows how the summer is going to play out. But right now, I don't see this being some big dramatic thing.

It's going to be some coaching changes on the bench because at this point, we'd probably have heard that the contracts of the assistant coaches have been renewed and they have not been. Right. I agree. I think it's hopefully I don't get all it takes exposed to this either, but I think, I feel like it's only a matter of time before they release information about potentially needing new coaches behind the bench to help Mike Sullivan. And we discussed it earlier this week.

Wilkesbury is going to need a brand new coaching staff down there and a chaos that they just emerged into my brain. say the Leafs do not pull this off. Is Caledupas going to hire Sheldon Keith to coach Wilkesbury? I mean, I could see it. And at this point, as much as I don't like Sheldon Keefe's coaching ability at the NHL, the same exact things with a lot more time in between were said about Mike Sullivan when he left Boston.

And when he left Boston, he pretty much connected himself to John Tortorella and was an assistant with him at multiple stops. then he was a player personnel development coordinator. I believe that was the title with Chicago. And then he gets hired as Wilkesbury's head coach and then comes in and takes over the penguins. I think there's a good coach within Sheldon Keefe, but he's pretty unproven. He had some time at the HL level. He was mostly known for his work in juniors after he left being an NHL player.

And a lot of guys like that, as much as I don't like how the NHL and most sports like really love to do retreads when it comes to coaching and management. A lot of guys in and around the same age group as guys like Sheldon Keefe and Mike Sullivan at the time, there is a good coach there, but they're just not ready for the big job. They need seasoning, whether it's as an assistant coach, whether it's in the H.L, whether it's somewhere else. And there's a lot of good in Sheldon Keefe's coaching ability. But right now, I think you look at his body of work, he's a great regular season coach,

just like the Toronto Maple Leafs are a great regular season team, but then he constantly gets circles coached around him in the postseason. Yeah, and I think in terms of coaching at the NHL level, I think coaches who get a second stint with a team just do a lot better than their first stint, just because I feel like that's when you find out, okay, was his struggles just him being kind of like a rookie coach, or was there something else there? Because I really do feel like for some coaches in this league, including Mike Sullivan, a second stint is when you truly find out what a coach is made of.

In a Mike Sullivan's case, he has usually been one of the better head coaches in the league. I know the last couple of years have been really poor for him. I've been on the show numerous times saying that I would move on from him if other penguins doesn't look like they have any interest in doing that, obviously. But I think a second stint in the NHL really shows to me what a coach is actually made up. So that situation, there's some odd-tron just because there's some history there between Dubas and Keith. And I do think Keith will be on his way out of Toronto if the Leafs do not come back and win the series against the Boston Ruins.

But I think that I'll do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, the season reviews continue with today's episode. We are doing Chris Lattang's season and review, how he got off to one hell of the start at the first half of the season, but then how he cooled off, especially in the final four to six weeks of the season. but before we get to that, we got to tell you all about a couple of our sponsors, namely eBay Motors. Passion Drive and Patience, the formula for winning championships is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and leveled up to peak performance.

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host, Hunter Hodes. Join by my co-host, Patrick Dam. So finishing up the big three for the season reviews, they will do Eric Carlson probably a little later on this week if you want to call it the big four for season reviews. But for the main cast of the big three, we're doing Chris LaTang today. I thought he was tremendous to start the season. He was kind of taking a little bit of a backseat to Eric Carlson, which I thought was fine. If you want to have Carlson cook a little bit more offensively at five on five and have Letang focus a little bit more in his own zone, I think that's totally good. And that's exactly what you saw to a degree. I mean, LeTang was still cooking in the offensive zone, but he was still taking a little bit of a backseat doing more work on the penalty

kill, which is something that he's not been fully used to at times. He got way more work this year, it feels like, on the PK than he has in previous years. And he was just much better in his own zone about the first half of the season. I mean, he was having a marvelous first 42, 43 games. I think that carried over into January and in a little bit into February. But those final six weeks of the season, you could tell that he was playing hurt. He was making boneheaded decision after boneheaded decision on the ice,

whether it was no look passes, dumb plays in the offensive zone, getting cooked in his own zone one-on-one when son was coming in on him. He just didn't look himself. and we'll have to see what gets announced when it comes to him potentially getting surgery or if more details are released after what he was doing with. But again, it was clear to me that he was dealing with what it looked like, excuse me, multiple ailments throughout the final month, month and a half of the season.

And I just really hope it's not too serious because he was awesome throughout the first half and they're going to need that level from let's hang throughout the entirety of the 2024, 2025 season if this team wants to get back to the playoffs. Sure. I mean, I think I said it. I can't remember if I said it here on the show or if I just said it to you when we got done recording. But you look at the way he played the last few weeks of the season. And you could tell that he was trying to overcompensate for whatever injury he had. And you could tell just the way he was moving the puck, the way he was skating, some of his decision making. whatever was ailing him, he was working against it and trying to compensate for it. And it became very obvious because we have seen Chris LaTang go through peaks and valleys in his entire career.

And you usually see with his valleys, he gets out of it pretty quickly. It doesn't last more than, say, a week. And the fact that this persisted showed that there was something wrong because he rarely ever has that long of a stretch of poor, play. Everything else, though, you look at the counting stats, played all 82 games once, played all 82 games for the first time in his, since 2010, 2011, excuse me. And not too bad of the top line numbers, 10 goals, 41 assists, 51 points. He took a little too many penalties, 62 penalty minutes this year. Don't like that from him. And then you go look at his natural statric numbers. Kind of a funny year for him. I think you saw that his,

defensive work got better this year overall because you look at things like expected goals, you look at things like scoring chances and high danger chances. He pretty much hovers right around 50% for all of them. So you could tell that he was defending just as much as he was attacking, which is kind of what we wanted to see from him with the acquisition of Eric Carlson, because you were going to put him in less advantageous situations where he was going to have to play more defense rather than play offense. And last thing I'll say about the injury thing here is we talked about it yesterday with

Sidney Crosby. How long can he do this? And we might see an area of where Will comes up against reality. Because this guy has been put through the ringer in his career. He's had two different strokes. He's had a myriad of injuries. And while his fitness and his exercise regimen are the stuff of legends, this, depending on how bad this injury was and what it is going to require for recovery. I don't know how much longer Chris Latang is going to be able to keep this up. And that's just me worrying about Chris Latang, the person and not Chris Latang, the defense.

Oh, 100%. I'm glad that you brought that up because your long-term health is way more important. And we can say that also for T.J. Oshy, he's dealing with a lot of back problems. And I saw the tweet about that with the capitals. I'm like, buddy, you've done everything for that organization. You can just write off into the sunset. So I am glad that you brought this up because it's a very real thing when it comes to how much obviously he's been through everything this year.

I just hope that whatever he does to get this taken care of, that it doesn't pop up again as he gets closer to being 40. You brought up the data for Letang a little bit. His shot attempts per 60 rate did go down a little bit compared to last year this year. It was about 50.9% last year, 51.7. And his actual goals for at 5-on-5 went up this year, compared to last year. Yeah, last year, 52 goals for, 54 goals against this year, 78 goals for, 71 goals against.

But it was the high-danger goals for that got worse. Last year, it was 32-32, so it even split this year. 36-4-46 against his scoring chances for rate went down. And also, you know, his high-danger chances rate went down a little bit, as well I think, again, good chunk of that was probably due to how he played down the stretch. but if you do want him to get back to that elite level, they got to figure out who he's going to play with on an every night basis.

The Graves-Latang pairing was an absolute disaster throughout the season. I know they may try to go back to that, especially if they keep graves. I wouldn't even bother. We all saw how bad it was this year. We have all the data in front of us for it. We discussed that ad nauseum on the show.

I wouldn't go back to that. P.O. Joseph, the data at times was good. At other times it wasn't. I think he's a nice stopgap option to have for some games on the top pairing. But as I said last week in a couple weeks before that, I don't think Joseph is ready for top pairing minutes for all 82 games. I still think a dream scenario for me is to go out on the free agent market or the trade market and get someone to actually play with this player for the next few years.

Yeah, you absolutely have to find him a consistent partner. I'm I'm bullish on P.O. Joseph because, again, it's both the data backed it up that they looked pretty good together to end the season. The I test confirmed it for the most part that they were okay together. But I do have, like you said, my worries about that working for an entire 82 game season. And then you just look at the fact that you really can't depend on Ryan Graves. I'm hoping. that he bounces back next year because last year felt like a rock bottom kind of season where it all just kind of spiraled. Eric Carlson talked about that in regards to the power play near the end of the season, where he basically said we caught ourselves, and I'm paraphrasing here, in a doom loop where just every little thing continued to pile on top of it and they just

could not get themselves out of it. And I think there was a case of that with Ryan Graves. But again, similar to P.O. Joseph, as hopeful as I am that P.O. Joseph in Latang can work as a pairing. And as hopeful as I am that Ryan Graves is going to bounce back. You really can't make hope a strategy. You have to have something there in, you have to have something solid there to make it work. And speaking of that, we do have a sort of dream scenario for the Penguins go after a potential defenseman in free agency. And we're going to discuss that in the final segment. We're going to look at a couple of targets that Kyle Dubus could go after.

Yes, including a defenseman that is very much a dream scenario, but we would welcome it very much. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about Monopoly Go. All right, game off. We got to pause here to talk more about Monopoly Go. I know what you're saying. Flag on the play, you already talked about that. But there is so much good stuff in this game. In Monopoly Go, you can team up with friends for time tournaments where you can work together to build up each other's boards.

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So let's get into the free agent that I kind of teased before we had went to break. And that was defenseman Sean Walker of the Colorado Ave Lynch. Yes, people, again, this is very much a dream scenario for the Penguins because I think he is going to get quite a bit of money in a free agency. He's only making $2.65 million for this season. He's 29 years old. He is going to be looking for quite the payday. But he was also really good in Philadelphia before he got traded to Colorado. And since he got there, he has been awesome.

I'm just looking at the playoff sample size right now. It's only been five games, so I guess it's small. But he has been one of the Avalanche's best defenseman in the playoffs. When he's on the ice, 78 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time, the avalanche have 56% of the shot attempts, four goals for, three goals against, 45 scoring chances for, 27-scoring chances against, 23 high-danger chances for 15 high-danger chances against. He has been on another level in the playoffs, and that's coming from a regular season where, again, he was really good for the abs.

52% of the scoring chances in 18 games during the regular season, 16 goals for, 14 goals against. You had 71 high danger chances for versus 64 high danger chances against. Heck, his numbers in Philadelphia were a little bit higher than his numbers in Colorado, at least during the regular season. That goes to show how good he's played this year, especially on a flyer scene that was really stumbling down the stretch. And honestly, at the time that he got dealt, that's when the flyers were starting to go into their tailspin a little bit. But if he is available this offseason, I would try and create more cap space to get him because this is a player that I know he's about to turn 30,

but he is one heck of a defenseman in this league, very underrated. He's a very, he's very good undrafted. He has been solid everywhere he's been, which is L.A. Philly and now Colorado. He, the top line numbers this season for the type of defenseman that he is are very solid 10 goals in the regular season, 19 assists, 29 points overall. I mean, when you have Chris LaTang and you have Eric Carlson, and getting 25, 30 points from another defenseman is very solid depth that you get on the blue line. And as you were starting to say, great defender too.

He is very solid in his own zone. He's very good with the breakout. He makes a tremendous first pass. And if you can have three guys, including a couple others, who can make a good breakout pass on your back end, that's only going to transition your offense a lot better, which is something that the penguins really like to do under Mike Sullivan. So if there's a world in which they can get Walker on the free agency market, if he makes it too there with Colorado not resigning him, that would be a

tremendous get for Kyle Dubas. He's someone that can allow Chris Latang to be Chris Latang all over the ice. LaTang can go back to doing more in the offensive zone. Sure, he can still play well in his own zone, but Walker, I think, at this point, is a better defender than Latang is. He's not going to bring as much offense, I think, as Latang will. But I think that marriage would be kind of similar to how Latang played with Paul Martin, at least a little bit, and especially Brian Dumlin. I mean, I think Walker brings more offense than Dumlin does. But Dumont was obviously well-known in his prime for being a really great shutdown defender. So that's what that type of pairing would remind me of a little bit. And Walker has shown an ability. He can play on the left side.

or the right side, which I know Mike Sullivan very much values when you look at some of the defensemen on this team. But there's one other player that we do want to discuss, Pat, I'm going to hand this over to you because we were going back and forth on this player before recording. And we've kind of had this in our minds the last couple of weeks as to a player, a forward, I should say, that they can target and free agency. Yeah, there is definitely one that's interesting to me. I'm very curious to see what happens with this player this offseason because he's only on

right now a one-year deal worth $4 million, and he is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent at age 27, and that's Jake DeBrusk. I don't know that the Bruins are going to let him walk because I do think last off season for them was a bit of a weird one with guys like Creachie and Bergeron retiring, and they kind of didn't know where they wanted to go just yet. But you look at the way this guy has played throughout his career. I mean, the last three years, 25 goals, 27 goals, 19 this year, a bit of a down year. But even in the playoffs right now in their series against the Toronto Maple Leafs,

he's already got five points in five games, three goals, two assists. And this is a guy who consistently puts up anywhere between 40, 50 points. And we know how much the penguins need some depth on the wing. And Jake DeBrusk would be a great guy to bring in for the top six. to not just sit there and fill in a top six role, but push a couple guys down to give you more depth in that bottom six. But the thing that worries me about it is, yes, he makes $4 million a year.

He's probably looking for some kind of a raise on that. Just because his overall, like I said, 42 points two years ago, 50 points two years ago, 25 goals two years ago, 27 goals, two a year ago and that's a guy who has proven he can produce at the NHL level and there's going to be teams with deeper pockets than the penguins but again similar to Walker a guy who if you get the opportunity to take a shot to get them you take that shot all day yeah I would look at maybe a short-term deal for someone like debrezka I don't want to be given him five six

years on the open market for 4.2 4.5 million per I think that's a little too much of an overpay for me but I agree. I think he's a great middle six player for this team, someone that can also play in the top six. He's shown a really good ability to do that during his time with Boston. I think if you maybe want to swap, just throwing this out there, Drew O'Connor down to the second or third line,

probably the third line just because I love what Bunting's doing with Malkinen and Raquel. But if you want to swap O'Connor down to the third line and move DeBruska up to the Crosby line with Brian Rust, I think that makes a lot of sense. And he's putting up good counting stats in the playoffs. Despite having some pretty poor underlines, I mean, in those five games, the Bruins only have 41% of the shot attempts. They only have 28% of the scoring chances, 31% of the high danger chances. He's really taking advantage of the opportunities that he's gotten, even though his underlines are not that good in the playoffs.

His underlines, though, were a bit better, at least during the regular season. He was right around 50% for shot attempts per 60 minutes. Goals for, though, 40 goals against 31. also 52% of the high danger chances for DeBrus when he was on the ice and then 26 high danger goals for 11 high danger goals again. So he was living in the offensive zone throughout the regular season. And he can also finish chances, man. That's a big thing that I'm looking for in free agency. They need to go out there and get pure finishers because they haven't had a lot of those without these last few years.

And that's kind of been the story of the Boston-Toronto series overall, though, hasn't it? I mean, at five on five, Toronto is basic. caving in the Boston Bruins. And that series is being won both on special teams and because the Bruins are being opportunistic throughout the entirety of the series. You know, we're talking about one of the most high scoring teams in the regular season, and they're averaging 1.75 goals per game in this series against the Bruins. So this is the type of series and the type of players on the Bruins to where you're going

to look at their underlying numbers, especially at even strength, and think, Oh, God, they're getting killed. They're barely even in this series. But that's not the case at all. They're winning on special teams, and they're taking advantage of the opportunities they get when they come. Right. And Samsonoff honestly wasn't even playing that well through the first four games.

But Joseph will put a stop to that in game five. And if he doesn't start game six, I don't really know what Toronto is doing here. But that should be a fun end of the series overall. But yeah, DeBrus, definitely a player that I would be in favor in as well, especially on a two to three-year contract again not really too interested in term for that type of player but as everyone knows free agency really drives the price up for players and especially term as well i mean i don't think jim rutherford for example wanted to give brand an tann of all that

his contract but that's the price he had to pay because he really wanted that player but i think that would do it for this episode of the locks on penguins podcast thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this episode. Pat and I will be back with another show for you all on Thursday, probably doing another season review with Eric Carlson, at least to end the big four for this week. And who knows, maybe we'll do some free agency stuff for you all. Look at maybe who could be available for trade this off season. We have a long time until July 1, but we're going to continue to tease some of our top free Asian targets, our top trade targets throughout these next couple of months on the show.

But for Patrick Damp, I am Hunsor Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We will talk with you all on Thursday.