Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Pat Brisson speaks out on Sidney Crosby and his future with the Penguins

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, spoke to The Athletic on Tuesday about all of the trade rumors and his future with the team. Hunter and Patrick begin the show discussing Brisson’s comments about the trade rumors surrounding Crosby and why he understands why they’re so loud. Does this mean that Crosby and Brisson are pushing the Penguins to speed up the rebuild, or are they laying the groundwork for an eventual trade? Then, they continue the summer catch-up series by taking a look back at the 13 picks the Penguins made at the NHL Draft. Which picks do they see being contributors in the future, and which are projects? Finally, the Penguins’ promotional schedule is here, and they go through some of their favorites.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.FanDuelDownload the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins.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.

Unfortunately, Pat Persan had to open his big mouth to the media on Tuesday, and Pat and I are going to discuss his comments about Cindy Crosby right after this. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host. Patrick Damp, you can follow him on all social media platforms at Send him for Wet.

You can follow the shows, Twitter, at LO underscore Penguins. And you can follow us on Instagram at Lockdown, underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this, your first listen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And Pat, I was really excited for today's episode. We were going to continue our summer catch-up series, and we will a bit later in the show, until Pat Brasson had to open his big mouth to Pierre LeBron on Tuesday morning in a wide wanging interview on the athletic. If you want to go check that out, go to the athletic.

You can see all of Pat Prasant's comments, all of Sydney Crosby's comments. And what do you know, people? Of course, it's about him potentially not retiring as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the speculation regarding the Montreal Canadians, the Colorado Avalanche, all that stuff. And look, this is the last thing that I want to talk about on the show today. I hate talking about this. I think basically it's a bunch of hogwash, but I don't think Pat and I would be doing our jobs if we didn't bring this up just because it's a really big story right now. I will say this. What is Pat Brousan trying to accomplish with these comments?

Because if he thinks he's going to change Kyle Dubas' plan, I think he is gravely mistaken. Kyle Dubus has a set plan that he wants to rebuild this team as quickly as possible and try to get the team back to contention as urgently as possible. That is not going to change no matter what Bersan says. And, you know, part of the comment here is he even says. let's put it this way. It's always a possibility, you know, on the chances of Crosby leaving Pittsburgh. I will forever say, it's not happening. I don't think Crosby wants to go. Do I think he is fed up with some of the losing over the last few years? Yes, I do. But at the same time,

I know that he signed up for this when he signed his contract extension last off season when you saw them make the moves that they did. They really weren't that aggressive. It was the same thing this year where they really weren't that aggressive, both free agency-wise and on the trade market. Like, yeah, they got the Archer She-Lovs trade. You trade for Matt Dumbull, you trade for Connor Clifton. They're not win-now moves, though. You saw it. A lot of the playing this off-season was the exact same as last off-season.

So he obviously wants to be in the playoffs. He wants to try to win on their Stanley Cup. I totally understand that. The guy is 38 years old. But at the same time, I also know that he signed up for this when he signed his contract extension. I don't think that this is going to lead to. anything big here. But it's really annoying that Paperson had to open his big mouth about this.

I was really hoping that he was just going to not really say much about this because he hadn't so far. And he did, which also at the same time, I can't help but be a little bit spooked by the comments, even though I don't think much is going to happen because I don't think he would have said anything without the approval of Sid. But again, we also know that Sid hates talking about this. And he didn't really squash it during this interview. Paperson definitely didn't squash it.

So Pat, I hate that we're talking about this, but what do you have to say about this interview? So I'm going to work through quite a bit in this segment because we're recording this like just before 1 p.m. Eastern in this article dropped around 11 a.m. Eastern. So I haven't had a ton of time to process it. I've read it over a couple of times. so I'm still kind of getting my thoughts together about it. But I do agree to an extent with you in the sense that I hate talking about this. I hate talking about it when it's baseless media speculation. When it's the summer and we saw how dead this summer was, not just for the penguins, for the entire NHL. Nothing happened. Nothing really big happened,

especially after like July 4th. So it was people who were boring. that wanted to talk about imagine Crosby playing somewhere else, despite there being zero evidence. This, however, it's his agent. It's Pat Brissan. And we may think he's a dummy. We may think he shouldn't have opened his big mouth,

but he's one of the biggest and most powerful agents in the sport. Even if we don't like what he has to say, what he says carries weight. And you hinted at it there a second ago. agents work for players. They don't work for themselves. He's not going to say this without some kind of blessing from Sidney Crosby. Now, before we all panic, before we all light our hair on fire and think that Crosby's not going to retire a penguin,

you really have to read his comments over multiple times because he does a lot of hedging. A lot of it's possible, it could happen, I understand why people are saying it. And I think at the end of the day, he's not so much answering LeBron's question as he is explaining LeBron's question. Because everybody is having the same conversation. Ah, the penguins are bad now. oh, the penguins, their time is over. They're going to rebuild and retool, and they're not the penguins of the 2010s anymore.

And all of that is correct and true. Here's where I want to go in a different direction. Let's travel ever so slightly south to the capital of the United States, to Washington, D.C. Alex Ovechkin has been a tremendous NHL talent. He's now the leading goal score of all. time, he has won exactly one Stanley Cup. He's been past the second round exactly once, and that was when they won the Stanley Cup. Now, I have not seen, nor do I remember,

a lot of discussion about the capitals need to move Alex Ovechkin to a contender because they're wasting him. On the other end of it, here's how I'm going to relate this back. I'm not trashing the capitals. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them and Alex Ovechkin. Sidney Crosby went to the playoffs, 16 straight years, 15 because he missed one of them do the concussions. He's been to the Stanley Cup final four times. He's won it three times. He has won multiple MVP awards, multiple scoring titles. He's got two Olympic goals, gold medals, a world championship, a World Cup of hockey, and a four nations face-off championship.

If he does want to leave, he has earned that right. We can be sad about it. We can hate that it's a thing. But if he wants to leave, he's earned the right to leave. He's earned the right to go somewhere else. However, as we talked with Josh Yohei about months ago, he has done everything there is to do in the National Hockey League, except for winning rookie of the year,

which is great as Sidney Crosby is, he can't invent time travel, go back to his rookie season, and win the Calder Trophy. That just doesn't happen. It is better for him, and maybe he disagrees, he's fully allowed to, it is better for him to see the next generation off into Penguins hockey and ride off into the sunset. If he had just one championship, didn't make the playoffs a bunch, never made it past the second round,

hell, I'd be here saying, you know what? Get the hell out of here, Sid. Go win. Go do what you've earned. But he won everything. I know he is the most competitive human being on the planet, but he's been to the top of the mountain multiple times. And again, I'll end it with this.

Real quick, to reiterate, I don't think Brisson was hinting at they're going to push the penguins to change their plans. I don't think they're going to push the penguins to make a Crosby trade. I think at the end of the day, he was just explaining why everybody is asking this question. And in the other end of it, I don't think Cid wants to leave. And if he does, it's going to suck. We're all going to be miserable. But he's earned that right.

I agree with all those points. I don't think that he wants to leave either. I've never believed that for as long as he's been here, especially these last a couple of seasons where it's been really rough around here since they've missed the playoffs three seasons in a row and it's probably going to be four in a row unless they can, you know, get some miracle going for this season.

He still has another year left on his contract. He's never kind of given off the vibe that he wants to be a ring chaser. He already has three here. And I don't think he wants to end his career, you know, going to another team, then maybe another team after that, just trying to ring chase to get a four to Stanley Cup. Obviously, he wants to get a four to stand a club.

Obviously, he wants to get a four to get. that cup here first. But with where the team is right now, timeline-wise, more likely than not, it's not going to be here. So if he did want to ring chase, for example, he'd have to go somewhere else. That would 100% suck. You're right. We'd be miserable.

Everyone would be, you know, crying for the next month, maybe even a year plus, something like that. But, you know, I don't think that's going to happen. I think he is still going to retire as a member of the Penguins. I think the big three are going to retire as a member of the penguins, unless something still drastically changes. So I'm going to leave it at that. That's the last thing I really want to say about this.

Again, I hate talking about it. A lot of the times it's a waste of time, but we wanted to at least discuss these comments because it came from his agent who is probably the most powerful agent in hockey, him and Alan Walsh, I would say, are the two big ones, in my opinion. So that'll do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to continue. continue our summer catch-up series with all of the players the Penguins selected in the 2025 NHL draft that's coming up right after this.

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That's Fandwell.com to place your first $5 bet. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-co's Patchdam. So Pat, outside of Pat Brasson, just trying to rage bait people, because I also feel like, I get a little bit of that vibe as well, where he's just kind of going for some rage bait, which, hey, he's succeeded for me. He's succeeded for a lot of other people out there. We got to continue our summer catch-up series as well, looking at all the players the Penguins selected in the 2025 NHL draft. And in case you missed it, there were a ton of them three in the first round, Ben Kindle, Bill Zonan, and Will Horkoff, excited for all three, especially Ben Kendall, bills on. And I said it during our

live stream during the draft. I even said it after. And we broke down the whole class in late June, early July. I think Ben Kendall was one of the most underrated prospects of the draft. And I think right now, even though he's not NH already, I think he is the top prospect in the Penguins prospect class, in my opinion. Overall, like when you compare, you know, players from other classes that they have in their system, he is the top prospect in the system, I think, right now, in my opinion. And I think if he hits his ceiling, he can become a really, really, really

good player for this team. Go ahead. I was going to, I just want to step in and talk about Kindle for a second because I agree that I think he's the best prospect that they have right now. I mean, does that mean he's the closest? No, not at all. But I think you, you look at his projections, you look at the way he plays the game. I think his ceiling is a lot higher than pretty much anybody else in the organization.

I don't think that he is going to be franchise altering. but to be a top line player for the foreseeable future once he develops and arrives, that's very much on the table for me. You look at his WHL numbers last year. I get it's the WHL, but 99 points is 99 points no matter which way you cut it. And being able to do that in your draft year to fall to a team like the Penguins, especially in a draft that we have said, wasn't really that deep.

Getting a 99 point guy where they did, that's tidy work. He was one of the best players in the entire CHL last season for the Canadian Hockey League across all the leagues there. So I'm really excited about him going into this next season and then just in the future season as well. Bill's on in. This will be his fourth season in the QMJHL last season,

28 goals, 83 points, and 64 games. He is very ratty around the net front, really good release plays like a pest also really good playmaker i like his skating as well good east west player i think he can be a really solid n hl contributor down the line too will holtough more of a project i want to see how he does with a full season at michigan i think he was better in the half season in michigan last year than he was with a u.s a national development program but i'm willing to see how he does this year at michigan because i think that's a really good spot for him development wise and after that you know he got players like peyton kettles in the second round

I like that pick quite a bit as well. Charlie Treff of the way in the third round. You also got Quinn Bouchain a bit later in the draft. Honestly, when I look at those defensemen, just those three, Pat, kind of like Bouchain the most out of those three. In my opinion, I think he might have the highest ceiling out of the defenseman that they took. I really like his plays with the puck, the way that he's able to walk, the blue line, the way that he plays in his own zone.

He really stood out during development camp, also utilizing his skating to his advantage. So I'm really, I'm a little bit higher. on him right now than Trethaway and Kettles, but I'm not saying that those are back picks or anything. I think they were both perfectly fine, but I just really like the Bouchain pick a little bit more. I liked Bouchain's game in camp. Obviously, we said it over and over again during that week of development camp that you can't really glean too much from it because it's quite literally the name. It is a glorified summer hockey camp. It's not any sort of actual evaluation. it's not any sort of actual hockey, but the way he, like you said, the thing that stood out was the

skating. I want to go back to Horkoff for a second because I know you and I offline have spoken to Jesse Marshall about Horkoff and he's got some big concerns about him. The thing that keeps me from being really concerned about Horkoff as a prospect is that he went to two wildly different programs last year. The U.S. development program, they're putting you on the track to potentially be on the world junior team to potentially even one day be on the Olympic team. And then you go to Michigan, which is quite literally just developed to be one of the best teams in the NCAA. It's going to be very different types of gameplay when you're with those two teams. And there are definitely concerns about the way he plays the game.

He isn't really all that keen on puck possession. at least not for now. But at the end of the day, I look at the way he played at Michigan, and I didn't want to take anything big away from it simply because he was only there for a cup of coffee. And when you're a late addition and you're not there for long, you are going to oversimplify to the point of madness in that instance because you're relatively new. you're just not trying to make mistakes. I want to see what he does next season with Michigan

when he's there for training camp with them. He's there for a full season. He's at every practice. He gets put in different significant roles, hopefully. I like a lot of the raw talent. I like the size. And obviously he comes from an NHL family. So there's a world where he could blossom into a productive

NHL player. And the thing I'll say, though, is it's on him to figure that all out. Obviously, the penguins are pretty dedicated to development. Michigan is a damn good program to be in when it comes to college hockey. But now that he's going to be put in a position to succeed, he has to pick up that ball and run with it. Right. I agree.

I think this one is going to be a big year for him in terms of can he take that next step forward in his development to the point where? maybe we can see a path to him being, you know, a solid NHL player in the future. So I'm going to be really keeping my eyes on how he does in Michigan this year. You also have goaltender Gabriel de Agal. He was picked during the draft for the Penguins. You have Travis Hayes, the brother of Avery Hayes, who has picked. Cale Dogg, he was a late round pick in the seventh round.

A player in the BCHL who dominated that league last year, 22 goals, 87 points, and 54 games. He's playing with the Calgary Hitman this year in the WHL. I want to see how he transitions to that league. And then he's also committed to Penn State for the following season. If he lights up the W.HL, but Penguins, they might have something here as he goes to Penn State for that following season as well. So, you know, again, I really like a lot of this class.

You also have Ryan Miller in there as well. Jordan Sharon, who I also thought had a couple of good days at development camp during the summer. Carter Sanderson also got picked. So, again, a lot of these, I feel like, are dark throws. you're adding quantity to your prospect system, seeing if some of these darts will fully hit, you're still missing the quote-unquote quality. That's still the big thing right now.

You don't have that superstar game-changing prospect. There's a chance that changes this next summer. But in terms of what they did at the draft, I was fine with that strategy. You went for quantity. You're trying to hit on as many dart throws as you can. And I like that they're taking the chance on some of these high school players,

even though skating is a common issue with some of these players, I like that they think, okay, we can work on that aspect, but we're taking a chance on players who are skilled with the puck, good hockey IQ, good defensive IQ men, but we can work on the skating.

You nailed it. You can teach skating. You can improve skating. It's not, I don't want to say it's easy because it isn't, but it's easier to teach than to reinvent someone's game from the ground up. You don't want to take a player who is good at skating,

but they don't have offensive instincts. They're good at skating, but they're not very good defensively and so on and so forth. If they've got the tools to be a productive player, you just got to put skating on them. You have the ability to teach that. You have the ability to train that. And with the way the game is taught, with the way the game is trained these days, there is so much more of an emphasis on being a good skater than anything and being a skilled player more than anything.

I know that upsets a lot of old school hockey people, but that's the direction that the game is going these days. You have to be a good skater. You have to be fast. You have to have wheels or you're not going to keep up in the modern NHL. As for the way they did in the draft, I mean, I'll keep beating this drum. They went for the Bill Belichick. I know that he's not doing so great at UNC, but we're talking Patriots Bill Belichick, where rather than putting all your eggs in one basket of a first round pick and a second round pick,

get two first round picks, get two or three third round picks, get three or four fourth round picks. And not only do you have more, you have more of a chance for some of these guys to turn into NHL contributors, when if you only have seven of them, and six of them turn into busts,

it's going to be a hard road to get back. Yep, I agree. And I'm excited to track a lot of the progress of these prospects this year, just because I want to see if any of them have a big, big breakout this upcoming season. But that would do it for the second segment. Coming up in the final segment, Penguins released their theme nights this year since the season is a little under a month away. And Pat and I are going to discuss our favorite ones,

right after this. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-s, Patchdamp, and Pat. A lot of pretty cool theme nights this upcoming season for the Penguins. You have a Hall of Fame game on October 25th. You're going to see the Hall of Fame class of 2025 inducted. They haven't announced who the 2025 class is going to be. Like, we have the names for the next three classes,

but we don't know which name is being inducted this year, the next year or the following year. I think that's going to be announced at some point. here before the season. So pretty excited for that. You also have the annual Pucks and Paws night. You have the Star Wars night. I might be there for that one.

I get to see if maybe if anyone wants to dress up as Darth Vader. That'd be kind of fun. You have the Grateful Dead Night, which they did last year. The 2016 Stanley Cup reunion night is going to be a lot of fun. I can't believe, by the way, that it's almost been a decade. Time just absolutely flies at this rate. You have, of course, the fan appreciation game on April 11th, you know, country night on March 28th.

Where's the rock night, by the way? Like I know country music, a lot of country music fans out there. I'm not that big on that music, but that's okay. Let's have the rock and roll night, man. Come on. That would be a fun just to hear all the 80s hits and all the 70s hits and all that. So there's some good ones here. You have the ugly holiday sweater night on December 14th.

You get to see these gross Christmas sweaters that everyone gets to come up with here, which is going to be funny. But I figured we'd have some fun and talk about some of these theme nights. Pat, which one is stand out to you? March 5th, 2026, Hawaii. shirt night that has become on the here in pittsburgh that has become a summer tradition for me my girlfriend her sister and her family they always come to town for luau weekend in the summer for the pirates and we always get the pirates hawaiian shirt and the bucket hats and all that stuff so it's cool to

see the penguins are doing that they've got the the bobblehead series coming back this year which ah man i hate to speak ill of the big three because i love them with all my heart and they've brought me the best hockey of my life but the crosbie malkin and latang bobbleheads are okay like they i understand that it's just a giveaway in there you know you're not you're getting a essentially a free bobblehead with your ticket but not a lot of great like likeness in those they don't look a ton like the big three, but I digress. That'll be fun. I was going to give you crap for the Star Wars Night and ask if you're going to that one,

but I know the answer. And how can you not get excited about January 31st, 2026? Did you see that giveaway, Hunter? Yes, the Red Book of the Championship ring. How many are those are they going to give out? Well, as far, it says all fans. So it looks like that one, unlike a lot of them where they say it's the first 7,500 through the door, that one, if you're going on that night, there ain't going to be anybody battling for that because everybody's getting one.

Oh, I agree. I remember, Pat, when I got the Yager bubblehead back here, there were people coming up to other people in the arena being like, hey, can I buy this off you? Hey, can I buy this off you? Because they couldn't get a chance to get one. And it was like, yeah, thank God I was able to, you know, put mine in a bag. and just kind of hide it because, A, I didn't want anyone stealing it. And B, I don't want anyone coming up to me just asking to buy it because there was no

freaking way I was going to be selling that. It's one of my prize possessions over here in my office. So, you know, those are good. The team calendar, I know a lot of people like going to that. That's on October 11th. You have, you know, again, Pat, March 5th, Hawaiian shirt. It's going to be so funny seeing that at the arena. One that is always very entertaining to me.

just because they, they, I get what they're going for and you're never going to go broke, getting Pittsburghers to celebrate Pittsburgh. But calling it Pittsburgh night is so funny to me because, yeah, we know, it's Pittsburgh. It's PPG paints arena. It's the Pittsburgh Penguins. I'll give the pirates this for everything that they get wrong. They do call it yinzer paluza so you can kind of put. a little bit more umph behind it to be like yeah we're celebrating all things

Pittsburgh the penguins were just like yeah it's Pittsburgh night like of course it's Pittsburgh night we know where we are well you know how donnie Iris perform again on that night I mean probably not what did you say I said how could you not yeah 100% like that's gonna donnie I was Clarks that's a good one too there's another one that also stood out to me one of the theme nights peanuts day April 5th but what Charlie Brown, man. Charlie Brown. Okay.

I don't think I've seen them. I say you do that. I say you should do that one around Christmas because I have my favorite Christmas movie, which is Charlie Brown Christmas. So I think that would work better. But I'm not in the marketing department. One last one I wanted to mention. It'll be really fun on March 1st, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Day.

No, no, not Aaron Rogers, not Aaron Rogers. But they do have the giveaway of the Penguins themed. Mr. Rogers neighborhood cardigan. I think that's really cool. Again, you will never go broke getting Pittsburghers to celebrate Pittsburgh. 100%. And I think with that, that will do it for this final segment. Let us know which team nights you're interested in going to and all that down in the comments.

You can send us a DM and all of that as well. And let's know what you think about Paperson's comments, what you think about the 2025 draft and the Penguins prospect class. Let's know about everything down on the comments on YouTube or you can send us a DM. and all that good stuff as well. But that'll do it for this episode of the Locked on 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 another episode for you all on Wednesday and then we'll be back on Thursday and then we'll have another edition of Fan Take Friday on Friday. And then next week people, it looks like training camp is probably going to start. So we're going to be really ramping this up here. Think about it. Two weeks until the first preseason game, Pat.

It's going to be here before you know it. And then the regular season, a little over a month away, we are really excited. So again, that will do it for this one, and we will talk to you guys again on Wednesday.