Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - No lead is ever safe against the Penguins.

Episode Date: January 23, 2021

Hunter is back with another postgame episode of Locked On Penguins and it comes after the Penguins third straight win. They get to 3-2 on the season and Hunter has special guest and Rangers super and Nick Zararis on to talk about the game. What did he think about the Rangers performance in the game? Who stood out to him, despite the loss? Hunter also gets into some of the positives for the Penguins from this game, which include the play of Cody Ceci. The Malkin line was also absolutely dominant as the goals look to be coming soon for Jason Zucker. Bryan Rust also had his best game of the season and Hunter also dissects Tristan Jarry's performance. Of course, Nick had to get into David Quinn's decision to go to Tony DeAngelo in the shootout, plus they talk about why 3-on-3 OT needs to be 10 minutes. All that, plus much more in this latest episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome to this Friday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L-O-U-Square-Penguins. And the Penguins get their third straight win of the season.

and they get to three and two. Same recipe as the previous four games. They play like shit for the first 30 minutes. They kind of turn it on for the last 30. They come from behind in a multi-goal deficit. And they win the game in overtime or shootout. Tonight, it was a shootout against the Rangers. And joining me, he's been on this podcast before.

Rangers fan Nick Zararis. He does the Upper Bowl GM podcast. writes for various amount of websites about the Rangers. And just all a bunch of, you know, they probably does the Giants to you, even though the Giants are not doing so hot right now for football. But Nick, how are we doing? This is what I expected.

It was going to be a season of the young guys trying to find their place and a head coach who kind of seemed out of his depth for two years now, trying to manage all of those expectations that come with getting a talented team now. This is year three, David Quinn. They've given him a marginally better roster each of his three years. Last year they gave him Canary and they gave him Trouba. They gave him Adam Fox. This year they added Lafranieri to that mix.

They added Peandre Miller to that mix. And it's to be expected. They're going to be a very inconsistent team. They're a very high variance team. You really don't know what you're going to get because they're so young. Yeah, I think that's the best way to describe the Rangers going into this season. We're going to break down the whole game for this episode. Game got off to a good start for the Panthers.

Penguins, I would say. I mean, Cody Cici looked like he scored his first goal, but I think Brian Russ was able to get it through a tip. That was his first goal of the season. Nice to see Rust actually break out of the scoring funk. It was a 27 goal score for the team last year. Of course, that led the Penguins for all goal scores. He's kind of been silent, I would say, through the first four games, but he was one of their best players, I would say, tonight. I think had 10 shots on net as well with that goal. He was just everywhere. And honestly, I think that whole Malkin line was just abusing the Rangers every time they went on the ice. that was Malkins.

I know he scored last game. I think that was his best game of the season. And I do think Jason Zucker is going to start finding the net soon as well. He's getting a lot of chances. You know, it's a bit of a goal scoring funk. You know, this happens, I think, to almost every player in the league. They go through these stretches where they should be scoring a lot of goals. They're getting the chances, but the puck is just not going in.

I think you're going to see that, you know, start to change pretty soon. But yeah, Nick, it just, you know, it seemed like anytime, you know, David Quinn would put out someone else out there against the Malkins. in line. It would just, it would not be pretty. Yeah, I mean, we just went and looked. I looked at the line matchup, the line matchups on natural statics, which is a handy tool. If you're ever wondering who's up, who's played against someone in a particular game, if you look on the shift tracking chart they have, you can, it's really easy to read. It'll tell you who was matched up against two. And I went and looked just right now. And it was a lot of Johnson and

DeAngelo to start the game. Then they went to, Lingren Fox for a little while. They went to Lingren Truba, trying to find something to slow down that Malkin line because they were driving play so well. And it's a problem the Rangers have had over the years, especially what Under Quinn is when a line against them gets rolling, they have a really hard time stopping it because they don't really have a number one defensive pair. They don't have a Roman Yossi, Seth Jones, someone who can just play heavy minutes against the best opposition and dispossess the puck. They have decent defensemen. I mean, say what you will about DeAngelo.

He's good in transition. He's a decent offensive player. Fox is awesome. Kay Andre Miller's been decent in his limited stints. Trouber, when he's not turning the puck over, is fine. They have five NHL defensemen. They should be able to contain a line like the Malkin line. Malkin is what he is for a reason.

He's hung around this long. He's not as explosive dynamic as he used to be. But when he still gets the puck on the back, and he's able to use his size to create space. There's few guys in the league who are able to knock him off the puck. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think he had that shift in overtime, too, where he was just walking around, like, all three of the Rangers players

that were on the ice. It looked like it was going to be a peak Malkin goal as he just backhanded it on Chesterkin. And, you know, I thought for a second that it went in, but, you know, he was just a menace all night long. And, you know, looking up on Natural Statrick, well, it was also posted on Twitter by Danny Shiree Irving, who writes for the Penn's blog,

21 shot attempts for, 10 shot attempts against Virginia, 73.5% expected goal share. Yeah, it's safe to say that number 71 showed up for Pittsburgh tonight. Then after that, you know, going into the second period, things went a bit south of Penguins. They gave up three goals in three minutes. You don't really see that too often under Mike Sullivan. I mean, I know it happened in the game against Philadelphia,

I think the second game, but, you know, besides that, I would say, going back through Mike Sullivan's tenure, it has not happened that much. Nick, I think most of those were just defensive breakdowns for the penguins. It's just the same thing each game. You know, like I said, it reminds me a lot of the Pittsburgh Steelers from this year. You know, you see what their issues are. They're not masking them, but they're just winning on talent alone, and they're coming back because they wake up late in the games.

But you just, you got to mask up these just deficiencies. And I thought Tristan Jari played pretty well for Pittsburgh tonight. I wanted him to get the start. Go to the three goals, he had no chance on. I think he was the tying goal even. I think it was almost like a mini 2-1-0 at the end of it. You know, take me through those three goals, Nick, if you want, and just, you know, how pretty they were, basically.

The Heidel goal, that's just a turnover in the defensive zone. I forget who he forced the turn, who, I think it was DeCepi in the corner, forces the turnover, and he got the puck to Heedle in front of the net. And Yari, one-on-one, there's nothing you can do as the goal either. You can live with that, that's fine. The second goal, power play goal, expected. And then the other one, that's a need. That needs to be a save.

Yeah. Poor rebound control, I think, you know, it reminds me a lot of the Kuznetsov goal from the fourth game for the Penguins. Spit out a really juicy rebound and then, you know, got players right there and just knocks it home. So, yeah, the first one, I think the turnover, I think it was a combination of Ryan Dumlin and Chad Ruiedel. Dumoulin has not been up to Pars. He usually is this season playing with Chris LaTang. And I also didn't even think LaTang played that well tonight. I mean, I think he had a turnover late in the third.

period too which almost you know went for a goal against um and overtime though was nice and then you know he did have the nice shootout move he's been doing that though for 15 years so that never gets tiring but still i don't really think it was that good nice of a game for letang and then and then the third period comes you know the penguins are kind of sleepwalking through that a little bit you know well i shouldn't say that because they did get the jared mccan goal um lingran kind of went full on jack johnson mode there nick you never go for jack johnson mode um but he did basically knocked the puck in his own net Shestrican, I feel bad for him there, made it 3-2

going into the third period. And then the penguins, they kind of slept-blocked through a bit of the third period. And the P.O. Joseph, who I thought had a magnificent debut at the NHL level. Basically did, like, a board's bank pass to Teddy Bluger, and there's a wide open net there, and they're able to tie the game

going into overtime. So, I mean, that's just what the penguins have done this year, man. Like, they just they find these new ways to come back in every single game. You get an own goal that helps out, and then you get a shot pass off the boards to an MP net goal. And it's just like, you know, you have that. And then you have the other game with a three on five goal.

I said, man, it's just new creative ways for the penguins. I don't know how they're doing it with how they keep sleepwalking to the first 30 minutes. But it also helps, as you said earlier on in this episode, that, you know, the Rangers, they have a knack for blowing leads, I would say. Yeah, they're a young team. They allow themselves to get too high and too low in their moments where they've found, They felt three to one in the third period. All right, we got this.

All we got to do is run off the clock. They obviously were a little too confident, a little too conservative, not really trying to push, trying to get a fourth goal, that kind of thing. And to your point about the Penguins managing the fine ways, it's the difference between a veteran team and a young team, the difference between a coach like Sullivan and a coach like Quinn. Sullivan has been in these moments. He knows his guys.

He knows what they need. He knew the Gino line was feeling it tonight. He kept rolling them out there. and then because penguins had last change, he was able to get them out there against a favorable defensive pair where, okay, they've got Johnson and DeAngelo out there, all right, let's send Malkins line out there.

They're really homing tonight. Those little things, the deployment, the choices of who you want to match up, using last change to your advantage. And when the penguins are chasing a goal, you guys have the luxury of having a guy like Gino, a guy like Sid out there, or a guy like Littang, if it's not Gino or Sid,

that can just kind of, you know, even if it's just something small skating the puck out of danger getting to the neutral zone getting to the offensive zone just those little things they add up and it's the difference between a veteran team and a young team

the Rangers I assume it's not going to look this ugly all season because these guys are going to get better with more experience they get more reps they get it'll help but yeah not great from them tonight yeah I think not great is probably the best word for it and you know you like you said they are a young team

It's not going to happen every night, but, you know, as compared to a veteran team, you know, those kind of teams just find new ways to come back, just virtual all the time, just because, like, you know, they have more experience. And, you know, we have a lot more to get to in this game, including the shootout and the overtime, which, you know, I have my take on overtime for three on three coming up in the next segment. I think it needs to be basically just extended for another five minutes or even more. But before we do get to that, it's time to talk about bet online. there's only one place that has you covered in one place we trust. That is betonline.ag. You can sign up today for a free account and use that promo code locked on for your 50% off welcome bonus. I mean, you can bet the games this week for the NFL.

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All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, all this shows, Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. So, I mean, Nick, that overtime was something else. I mean, chances each way. You love three-on-three hockey. I'm of the belief it needs to go to 10 minutes.

One of my friends think that you should just play till you win. I'm not at that point. You're just at three-on-three till you play till you win, you know. You're not going to have games good at midnight or anything like that, like the playoffs do. But, I mean, I think a 10-minute overtime will basically solve all of the shootout issues. I honestly don't think you'll have five shootouts for a whole season if you extend free and three overtime to 10 minutes.

But that was just a ton of fun to watch. He had chances each way. I mean, Jari, he had a post help him out. I think it was, remind me who it was to hit the post again. It was. It was. He'dle. Yeah, that's right.

I thought he had a great game, by the way. He was the Rangers best skater tonight. Him and Adam Fox had great games. He was really good on the forecheck tonight. He's a relatively big guy, but I wouldn't say I think of him as a forechecker, but he did a nice job today along the boards.

Yeah, I really liked watching him, too. I mean, Adam Fox, man, I mean, I don't know what else to say about him. He's great. He's going to be a top 10 defenseman in this league, probably before you know it. He may have a Norris trophy-level season coming. I think he probably will have a Norris trophy.

level season coming. Also, didn't mind Cockto tonight. He had a goal, which was good. You know, he was struggling. I think it was below a placement level last year. Good to see him get on the board. But, you know, in the overtime, you also had Gensel, hit a post after hit Chesterkin's pad.

Then you get to the shootout. There's just, the penguins have these shooters that do the same moves. Cindy Crosby has two moves. He goes five hole or he goes forehand back in. This time, he kind of changed it up, tried to go, go, uh, go. glove side almost worked i think shesterkin got a piece of it he had chris latang i said earlier in the podcast man he's been doing that forehand backhand thing ever since he came into the league and then gensels um last week against the capitals was samsonoff he went uh five whole this time he decided to go top

shelf that was a gorgeous shot then for the rangers um seeing artemmy paneran come in it's almost like seeing patrick king coming in a shootout you just know you almost have no shot to stop him that was a hell of a hell of a save, hell of a goal, excuse me, late-night shenanigans here. But, you know, just what were your thoughts on the overtime and just the shootout in general? Overtime favors the way the Rangers and Penguins like to play. They like to play transition hockey, use their speed to create those odd man rushes. The Rangers had golden opportunities, but as is a common theme with the team the last few years, they overpass quite a bit, where even if there's no one to their left or right and it's an

odd man rush. They're still forcing it to the net mouth, even though there's no one there, instead of trying to maintain possession and looking back towards the point, something along those lines where maybe it's a better play to, you know, keep control the puck as opposed to, because usually when you shoot in the three-on-three, if you shoot, you usually don't get to recover the puck and you have to get back on defense. So it might be worse considering maybe changing the way you approach over time. You want to maintain control the puck as much as possible. If you have the puck, the other team can't score. I know it's, rocket science to some people, but you want to have the puck as much as possible.

Shootout wise, Zabinajad, he's been pretty good in his career in the shootout. Panarin basically does the cane move now where he just comes to basically a complete stop and waits for the goalie to bite. And then DiAngelo had a decent year in the shootout last year. He shot third of number of times for them. He's career, I think, high 20s for percentage. So I know for some people it was a weird decision, but historically, I don't. understand it.

I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. David, when putting Tony DeAngelo out there, you know, that got, I think, Dom of the Athletic,

he basically said, good God, I can't believe he did that. And of course, you know, you know, I'm happy because you know what happened with Tony

Gangelas Twitter. I'm not going to get into that on this podcast, by the way. I felt like it was just, it was, I just thought it was just weird that, you know,

you have Adam Fox back there. You have Keetel, Keel, who was really good tonight, I thought. And then, I mean, you can put Lafran Gera out there, too. Caco, Crider. There's a number of guys.

Crider out there. Pavel Bucenevich, even. I thought he had a strong game. He's really come into his own, I think, the last couple of seasons. But, I mean, you go with Tony DeAngelo with the game on the line. It's just like, really, David Quinn? Like, that's just kind of like a, you know, you see those memes, the galaxy brain thing?

Yeah. It's just, but yeah, man, I mean, it was a fun game. I think for some positives for the penguins. There's not a lot of positives. Cody Cici, you know, some Juns are going to... He hasn't been bad. He has not been bad in the limited action he's played for the penguins. I can say that authoritatively.

In the limited action he's gotten, he's been fine. Yes. He hasn't been noticeable, which is what you want from a bad defenseman. Yes. If you're not saying his name, that's good. Exactly. Yeah. And like, you know, he's been better in two games than Jack Johnson ever was in one game

for the penguins over a two-year stretch. You know, he had a couple defensive plays on the game tonight where I was just like, is that really what I just saw from Cody C. I think it was late in the third period. He had a beautiful block pass and then was able to escape a puck out of the zone with authority. It was like, wow, where was that Cody Cici been throughout his career? You know, even Jesse Marshall said, you know, from the athletic, some of the injures are going to throw tomatoes at me or something,

but Cody Cici has not been bad. I don't even think he deserved to be benched after that game against Philadelphia, but, you know, Chad Ruehdle has just made the most of his opportunity. He's going to continue to get minutes. P.O. Joseph, I talked about it a little bit earlier on. He needs to stay in the lineup. I thought he had a great debut. He skates the puck out of the zone beautifully.

He was contributing to the offensive's rush. I feel like virtually every shift. He looked NHL ready as I've ever seen it. He was the main assist on the Belugur goal with that beautiful bank pass off the boards and then Bluger has the wide open net. I thought it was a really strong game from him. And like I said, touched on the Malkin line. They were great.

Other than that, though, I mean, well, I already said Tristan John. too. I mean, other than that, I really don't know to find a lot of positives out of this game for the Penguins. They just, they need to start playing a full 60 minutes. I am a huge Mike Sullivan fan. I think he's a top five coach in hockey. I understand why people have been a little bit hard on him this year. I thought this would be the perfect time to take the training wheels off, Cisbury Capronin. Don't really know why you're giving him Colton Severe and Teddy Blugher's linemates. And I think Teddy Blugher is a great player. He's been pretty good for the Penguins this year. but, you know, it's time to take Evan Rodriguez off the top line.

He's not fit for that. And put Casperi Capon up there because, you know, he wasn't as noticeable as he was against the Capitals tonight, but I still think he had a strong game. I just think the training wheels need to come off for that. I've always liked Caponin's game. I think on a Stanley Cup contender team, he's a fringe top six guy who can occasionally chip in that kind of role.

I think if you play him with someone like Sid or Jesus, you know, he'll be fine. Skills-wise, he plays with energy. He's a pretty fast skater. Kind of the basic toolbox of what a modern NHL player has to be able to do. I agree with you that Rodriguez should probably be lower in the lineup. I've always thought Rodriguez had a lot of potential as the key bottom six energy guy who can play.

He won't get you pinned in your own zone, but he's decent. The penguins are pretty close. They just need tweaks. They need to find the right mixes for their lines, their deployments. They need a little more consistent goaltending. But so far, I've watched pretty much every Penguins game. This is about what I expected. They're a veteran team.

A team like them are well suited for this kind of season where it's going to be weird. There's going to be intermittent pauses because they're going to be COVID problems. There's not as much practice. There's not as many meetings, that kind of thing. The Penguins are well-seated for this kind of season. Yeah, I would agree with that. And just with the way they're able to come back and just they're playing their division teams that they know very well. Just they can work out the kinks early on in the season, though.

I think they do need to actually like stop giving up all these defensive breakdowns. You know, I just want to find a game with the Penguins where they give up one goal. I think Jesse Marshall had a great tweet from the athletic tonight. I basically said, you know, it would be a miracle if the Penguins did give up one goal in a game this season just because of how they've been playing defensively. I mean, and I understand the penguins are battling some defensive issues. It wouldn't surprise me, honestly, if they're only going on a defenseman. Patterson's week to week.

Riegel is longer term. Matheson is longer term. You're playing a couple people a little too far up in the lineup. Well, it shouldn't say a couple. Cody C.C. should not be getting top four minutes, though I still thought that he was fine with John Marino tonight. I mean, it wasn't like John Marino was carrying around a corpse all game. But, you know, P.O. Joseph, I would like for him to stay in the lineup. Chabarweedle, steady as always.

And like I said earlier, Crystal Tang needs to be a lot better. You know, I'm not going to, you know, hate on him like some other people do in this fan base for reasons that I'll never understand. But, you know, there's a lot of stuff to work on for the Penguins. They'll get these guys again on Sunday.

But, you know, coming up in the next segment, I always like to do this on the Locked on Penguins account, just, you know, some takeaways from the listeners from the third straight win. We're going to get to that. And also, well, before we do get to that, There is a huge Pure Loke Dubois rumor that Elliot Friedman just touched on where we're going to touch on before we get to what the listener's thoughts. So stay tuned for that in the next segment.

All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodey. So, Neck, Elliot just dropped a pretty, it's a little short, about four paragraphs on Sportsnet. According to multiple sources, Winnipeg's package to get Pure Loke-Dubois includes Patrick Lainay and Jack Roslovich. Lainey's going to retire after the first Tortorella meeting I know I'm not the first person to make that joke

but he's just going to go be a Fortnite streamer My question My question is How in the hell are the jackets Getting Patrick Lone back For Dubois Especially after the effort

That Dubois showed last night And I think John Tortorella is a giant dick anyway I've never really liked him as a coach But I understand why he actually benched him last night He did not. The effort was not there.

I would have benched him too. But I just like that package, it includes Roscolevich and Lone. Apparently also the ducks have increased their offer. Calgary and Montreal are interested. Of course, the habs are interested. Mark Bergerna's interested in everything. Apparently, he says the Canadians are not willing to include Nick Suzuki. That's to be expected.

Why would they trade Nick Suzuki? But, I mean, I just, how are they getting that good? would they get that good of a package back for someone who I thought his trade value would go down over the last 24 hours? I think it's because of the value. Dubois is still under team control for more years. That's ultimately what all of these decisions come down to when you're talking about guys who are not eligible for UFA for a number of years. You trade line A for Dubois. You're just getting an extra two years of team control of the top six forward who has first line ceiling.

I've always been high on Dubois game. He's really showed you a lot in that first round series against Tampa Bay last year where Columbus was obviously punching above their weight class, but he was giving it his all. I mean, his reputation as a dominant two-way players a little overstated. I forget whose column I read. I read so many columns about Dubois in the last day and a half, two days, but I was talking about his underlying defensive numbers aren't as good

as what the eye test would give you because he's so big and physical. a lot of people just associate with that that he's good at defense. He's not bad at defense, but he's not this dominant two-way player. But back to your question, yeah, it's the extra years of team control that make him valuable. The Jets have wanted to get rid of YNAe, I feel like, for at least two years now. And this is a good opportunity to do it. There's a willing partner to take him. They feel like, hey, if we can get anything for him, that's good.

And I like that Jets team, man. I know their defense leaves a lot to be desired, but Hellebuck is awesome. Their top six is still as talented. And if you throw Dubra in there, you have him, you have Ehlers, you got Kyle Connor. Shaife is still good. It's a nice top six. It's a nice top six. I just, I feel like after that, they have like some depth concerns.

I mean, Neil Pank was kind of a revelation for them last year after being traded from the Rangers. I thought they think Domain is their previews said his underlying numbers were actually pretty strong that worked out for them. But I also just felt like Connor Hullabuk kind of carried their entire corpses there. I feel he's going to have to do that again this year just because, I mean, we don't know how good he's going to be again, but he was awesome. But yeah, so interesting that we could potentially see Patrick Lone go to the blue jackets. I know that they're not in the Penguins Division this year, but I think that could pose a little

bit of a problem. But we'll see. The jackets have not also been that good to start the season. But moving forward, some listener takeaways from this. win. From Darren, P.O. Joseph is a legit NHL talent. Rust has bounced back and Tony DeAngelo is a circus clown. Yep, the last one, of course, that's always funny. P.O. Joseph, I do agree. He looks NHL ready. He's probably going to stay in the lineup until one of Pedersen, Eurekla comes back. I think Pedersen's going to be the first to come back since they said he's week to week,

early than the week. And, yeah, Ross, this was his best game of the season. He was dominant at 5E5. The underlying numbers support that, too. Tyler said the same thing. Brian Russ was saucy. Alan says, who the heck are the penguins? I'm glad we won, but that was rough. I thought the first period was better after that. It went down the toilet.

Penalty Kill looked okay. Jari looked okay, but other than that three-minute stretch in the second period, stopped going to overtime and shootouts. Yeah, that last point, I'm kind of sick and tired of this team, giving points away in this division. You need to make sure that these teams do not get points in that you're winning means of regulation, especially during a 56 game season where the standings are going to be really, cluttered now. You think they're cluttered during a two game season and tough divisions.

Just wait to you think what they're, just wait to you see how cluttered they're going to be for this year. But yeah, the penalty kill, I don't know if the penalty kill looked good. I think it looked okay, Alan. There were a couple times where it was like, I think they gave up two power play goals tonight anyway, basically. So they've improved in some areas, but in other areas, it's like they got to let Jari see the puck and they got to stop with some of these breakdowns on it. But yeah, you said best was as well. They got to stop. with, you know, playing 25, 30 minutes. A couple others here to fire off on.

Tyler says, another Tyler Campo says, can't keep starting off slow, but you got to love the team's resilience. Yeah, I mean, you said it too, Nick, earlier on, you know, the resilience from the Penguins and just these veteran teams is just big early on in the season, especially as you're trying to bang points. I think you're seeing that from other teams like Vegas as well.

Oh, yeah. The veteran teams, the teams that may have the guys. I know it's obvious. You want to have more good players than bad players. But when you're a team like Vegas, your team like Colorado, your team like Pittsburgh, team like Edmonton, when you have, you know, two elite elite, like top 10 players in the whole sport on your team. And if you're chasing a goal, you can throw them out there. In a 56 game season, they're going to burn these guys down faster.

A shorter season, these guys are going to get closer to 24, 25 minutes a night as some of these centers. Because these coaches realize it's a very big. very short window of opportunity. You lose three, four games in a row at six points you could have had that you don't have extra time to make up. I know, I forget, I think it's LeBron who has the stat about teams in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving where if you're not in a playoff spot, if you are in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving, like 75% of those teams end up making the playoffs.

It's a good barometer. You want to get about 15, 20 games in. And this kind of season, you're only going to get like a 10-game window that would be comparable to an 82 game season for our 56 game season. So we're going to know within a week and a half from now who's got a really good chance of making the playoffs. Yeah, I completely agree. And just like there's no time to waste for basically every team.

You know, it's 26 games shorter. You have to bang points when you can, especially as you're playing these divisional teams. Just like I said, with the standings and everything. A couple more to fire off on. Iris A.J. He said, Ruudel has been great. 100% agree with that. He does not need to come out of the lineup when the defense is healthy.

This win should help Jari's confidence. Yep, I agree with that. I think he'll get the start on Sunday as well. Joseph was solid, and then hopefully the last game with Caput on the fourth line. Yeah, I sure hope so. I hope Mike Sullivan kind of wakes up in that little comma that he's in there and puts Captain up on the top line with Sid. And then finally from Gilbert, P.O. Joseph, have a night.

He looked great. Capitin look great once again, hopes he gets put on the first time with Sid. Yep, I know. A lot of people are loving Caputin' Nick. That's as expected because he looked really good for the first couple of games. Great bounce back from Jari. Only negative that he has, his Zucker didn't look great and started slow once again. I kind of disagree with that a little bit, Gilbert.

I thought he looked a bit slow at first, but I think as the game went on, he started to get some chances. It's only a matter of time until he starts selling the back of the net. The same goes for Rust as well. He got number one tonight. I think it's going to start coming in the same, I think, with Gino as well, which is that entire line. I think that basically would do it from this game.

Though, Nick, I did want to ask before I do let you go. There are some big news with the NHL TV stuff today. NBC Sports Network is going to be leaving. It looks like the television by the end of this year. Yeah. What do you think that means for the next TV deal? Do you think we see ESPN and Fox maybe coming in with a big merge package? Okay.

So as a hockey fan, I think getting to ESPN would be important just because of the ease of access that pretty much everybody has access to ESPN. ESPN is on the TVs and hotel rooms and restaurants, that kind of thing, which helps. But if I were the NHL, I've written about this more than once, you want to have a TV deal comparable to what the NBA has in the United States where you have a national TV game on a different network. a number of nights a week. The NBA has their own network. They have NBA TV. They have games on their two nights a week. The NHL has NHL network. They could do two games a week on their nationally. Then the NBA has Wednesdays on ESPN, Thursdays on TNT, Fridays on ESPN, and then either a Saturday or a Sunday primetime game on ESPN. I know in the United States, they've been reluctant to schedule hockey on Saturday night because it's going to go against the hockey night in Canada game,

which, you know, is usually a better game just by default. And it sucks for a hockey fan who wants to see the game grow. If in an ideal universe, you'd want to do a hybrid model like the NBA does. You'd want some games on ESPN, some games on Fox. I will say, I would look for NBC to probably try and get in on this because there's a rumor floating around that they're going to lose the Sunday night football package because Amazon is going to offer more money for it. So NBC, CBS, even Amazon, look for the networks or the companies that are losing rights.

Like CBS lost the SEC rights. And I think that starts in 2023 to ESPN. CBS needs to buy stuff. They don't have the SEC anymore. I know I was reading something today. I forget who wrote it that they could possibly CBS could be looking at picking up the NASCAR package from NBC. NBC is going to lose that because they're going to lose NBCSN. And it sucks because you feel like hockey has been slowly trying to build momentum back

since the last lockout 2013, but you're not making any concrete progress. You're not gaining more traction. You're still losing ground to the NBA. You're still never going to be, you're still behind baseball in this country, to be frank. And you'll never, you'll never take the NFL either. No one's taking football. Yeah. No one's taking football.

Football is a different story because of gambling. And that's another story for another day. Just putting a bow on this point, ideally you want to be on two networks. You want to do an ESPN and a USA network. You want to have two or three national games a week. And you got to, got to, got to get Canadian teams on American television. You have to have Austin Matthews on American TV. You have to have Connor McDavid.

You have to have Elias Pedersen. You have to have the marquee guys on American TV. No one wants to watch the Blackhawks against the Red Wing. No one wants to watch the blue jackets against the Bruins. You need to have the marquee players in this league on national television two or three times a week. Yeah, I 100% agree with that last point. I just don't think NBC, they didn't give it their all, I don't think, in this TV deal. Like this Sunday, man, I think the NBC game is actually Blackhawks Red Wings.

I saw a tweet from Pete Blackburn about it. And it was like, I mean, are you kidding me right now? like why are you putting those two teams on there when one you know they stink and two I don't think anyone wants to watch them outside their two fan bases so I agree man they got to get more of Matthews and Nick David on there Pedersen I mean Quinn Hughes too I mean he's a revelation I mean even Calgary people would want to watch Johnny Goodrow play I mean people probably still want to watch the Canadians are not bad now I mean no one really wants to watch Ottawa play because they're in the basement team but still I don't know was played a few fun games

I will say they don't play good hockey, but they play fun hockey because they create scoring chances and give up scoring chances. So Matt Murray, your friend Matt Murray, is having an adventure thus far as he. You know, and I'm happy for him. I actually am happy that he's doing semi-okay up there. And also who's also played a decently interesting hockey, the Red Wings. You know, they're actually looking to compete a little bit this year. I think Stevie Eisenman can be a little happy about that.

But, Nick, I think this will do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Where can they follow you on Twitter? and where can they find your work? Okay, so the Twitter handle is just my name, at Nick Z-A-R-R-I-S. I write for Gotham Sports Network. The Twitter for that is Gotham S-N. Try and put out two blogs a week on there,

three if there's a particularly juicy sports story. I write about everything under the sun, football, basketball, soccer, baseball, hockey, UFC, whatever motor racing. Anything I write about, I do a daily pod. I've been doing daily upper, Upper Bull GM podcast, Hunter was on on Wednesday, kind of gave a big picture view of where the state of the penguins are. The vibe for the podcast varies from day to day.

Sometimes it's people like Hunter trying to get into sports media, trying to broaden their horizons, get out, talk a little bit about their team. Sometimes it's just people who are really dedicated fans of their team. I've been slowly but surely working on getting a little bit more of the expertise, people who are working professionals in the business, whether they cover teams or they work for. organizations got an episode coming next week with one of my professors from college who is written for every publication under the sun about the state of the sports news media which is going to drop on Tuesday which will be a lot of it's a really good episode i've recorded it today it's about two hours it's pretty long but it's a pretty engaging topic and thanks for having me yeah of course that might be actually your longest episode yeah after the discussions that we've had

so i can't wait to listen to that guys um please go check out his work like i said and you know Nick, maybe when these two teams play again in the future, I'll probably have you on. Maybe we'll take a look in the next three or four weeks and see if the Rangers are still blowing leads or maybe playing some better hockey. But thank you so much for coming on, man. I'd really do appreciate it. We'll have another episode coming up on Monday to break down the Sunday game between the Penguins and the Rangers. And then I think after that they have Boston, if I'm not mistaken up next.

Boston, Buffalo, I got to look at the schedule. You know, I don't look every day like some other people do. But I think it's Boston. But thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. And I'll catch you on the flip side.