Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins at the midpoint: A Locked On Penguins take fest!

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins are off for a few days but the Locked On Penguins podcast is not. Hunter and Pat start the show with the news surrounding Radim Zohorna and how he was sent down to WBS after be...ing placed on waivers. They look at why they're not surprised by this news and how he hasn't done enough after the first 10 games of the year. After that, they dive into some of their mid-season takes and what they're noticing heading into the second half of the season. They analyze Sidney Crosby's play, the goaltending, the power play (again!), and so much more. Finally, they give their picks for Warrior Helmet Wednesday since it's Wednesday!Jase MedicalEmpower yourself when you purchase a Jase Case, providing you with a personal supply of 5 antibiotics that treat 50+ infections. Get yours today at jasemedical.com and use code LOCKEDON to get $20 off your order.SleeperDownload the Sleeper App and use promo code LOCKEDONNHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelRight now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY in BONUS BETS – GUARANTEED when you place a 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) 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.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 We've got a little bit of a break in the Penguins schedule. So today, Hunter and I are going to do some midseason takeaways and more on this edition of the locked on penguins podcast. 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 Penguins fans to another edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet.
Starting point is 00:00:42 joined as always by the illustrious Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow the show's Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins. Today's episode is brought to you by Sleeper. Download the Sleeper app and use promo code locked on NHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper's terms of use for details.
Starting point is 00:01:03 So as you probably are well aware, word about the midpoint of the season. There's a long break here in the schedule as the team is preparing to head to Las Vegas on Saturday night. Lucky them, am I right? And so for this episode today, before we get into our mid-season takeaways and kind of what this team has done through about 41 games, what they have to do the rest of the way out in order to get themselves back into the playoffs
Starting point is 00:01:32 and maybe make themselves a contender, we did get some news today that yesterday the team placed forward Redim Zahorna, the guy who was everybody's darling and bell of the ball coming into the season after preseason and training camp he was placed on waivers he has officially cleared he is being sent down to wokesbury scranton and the team has recalled defenseman ryan shay for this upcoming little road trip here and this one's tough man because we talked about him as a lot of people did extremely glowingly going into this season we were really expecting him to take him to take him to take him the next step to really become an effective middle six, maybe even fill in top six forward
Starting point is 00:02:17 this season. And he started off the season fairly well. In the first 10 or so games, he actually looked a lot like the guy who we saw in preseason and training camp. And then since then, he has been in and out of the lineup. He has not been producing. When he's been in the lineup, he has not exactly been an effective forward. He has been demoted plenty of times.
Starting point is 00:02:40 healthy scratched even more. And this is tough because he's not so young anymore that you can just go, okay, this is a growing pain, a little bit of a bump in the road. Maybe we're going to see some more from him in the next few weeks, years, months, however long you want to categorize it. He's in his late 20s. So this is a guy who we pretty much know who he is at this point. So Hunter, what do you think about this news?
Starting point is 00:03:06 I'm not surprised by. I know there are a lot of sickos out there that when there's news came out there like oh what's cow duba's cooking up is he making a trade right now just like no he's he's putting someone on waivers that has not been good the last several weeks to last couple of months to be honest and you said it best we both were really high on zohorna coming out of training camp and coming out of the preseason because he looked really good in both camp in the preseason he looked like someone who was potentially going to stick around for the entire 2023 2024 season He was basically the best player in the preseason and training camp.
Starting point is 00:03:42 But that goes to show the difference between preseason hockey, right, and regular season hockey. I think. The thing I will say, though, is I do feel there is a bit of a difference in hockey especially because at least in the Penguins case, we kind of knew who was going to be on the team. There were not a ton of spots up for grabs. and most of the teams that they played in the preseason were younger teams with younger talent who were playing to get spots in the National Hockey, to stay in the NHL. So the fact that you had a pretty well-established Penguins team who you knew was going to,
Starting point is 00:04:24 this was going to be their roster for the most part going into the season, going up against hungry young teams, and he was one of the better players. I think that gives us a little better of a feeling than say, not to twist the knife because it's only been a couple of days, not say like the Steelers who had their starters playing backups and got us all excited about, oh, how good is this offense going to be when they were playing guys who aren't taking snaps in the NFL,
Starting point is 00:04:50 whereas guys who they played in Detroit and Columbus in Ottawa, all were fighting for spots and were young and hungry players. And he was doing things in the preseason that really haven't translated over to most. the season. At least it did at the start when he got called up after he was originally sent down. He had five points in his first 10 games. But after that, Pat, only two points in his next 21 games in season. One of those points wasn't goal. And that was in that blowout win against the Islanders. That's not good enough. Yes, he provided a spark to the third line for a little bit,
Starting point is 00:05:25 but this is now the second time where you've seen him come up, play well in a short period or short sample size, I should say, and then kind of fizzle out. I think we know what Zos, So Horna is at this point. He's just a fringe. NHL player, you can get away with him being like a 13th forward on your team or something like that. Maybe on some nights he's a 12th forward, but he's not going to be making a big impact in your bottom six on an every night basis. I think that's where we are with him because, you know, even during the preseason,
Starting point is 00:05:55 he was using his long reach to his advantage. He showed off his playmaking ability. He showed off his shot. He was playing well on the PK. But the biggest question always was, okay, how was this? going to translate over to a full 82 games. He's because he deserved to be on that team. And at the start of the season, it translated over for those first 10 games.
Starting point is 00:06:14 But after that, it went away again like it did the first time he was up here just a couple of years ago. So again, we kind of know what he is at this point. And I'm not surprised that he was put on waivers and then sent down to Wilkesbury. Ryan Shea was called up for an extra defenseman. Chabrewoodle, it looks like is fine. He said to the media after practice on Wednesday that he actually. could have come back into the game if there were more time, but they wanted to be cautious a little bit,
Starting point is 00:06:39 but they just have Shay there as an extra defenseman in case something happens on the road trip. Yeah, and that's smart because we don't know what Ruita left with, but it does seem like you have knock on wood, a fairly healthy forward group, so you don't have to worry too much for this little road trip about getting caught, but you also, you know, it's also 2024, getting guys out to the West Coast is not exactly going to be the most difficult. cult thing. But yeah. With the forwards because they don't have an extra one going out to Vegas and Arizona. So they're going to have to hope that no one gets hurt.
Starting point is 00:07:15 They didn't place Riley Smith on IR or LTIR today. He's actually going on the trip. So it seems like good news. Hopefully the injury is not too, too long term. But I think in a little bit of a way, they are taking a small risk to hopefully not have any other forwards get hurt during that two-game swing out in Vegas in Arizona. Yeah. And one other thing we should get to here real quick.
Starting point is 00:07:35 quick before we move on to the next segment here and talk about kind of the mid-season takeaways of this team. It's been five games since Jesse Pooley-RV was assigned to Wilkesbury Scranton on the PTO. If my memory serves me correctly, you get 25 games of a PTO in the HL before it expires. And because this league is an unsurious league and their CBA is an on serious CBA. When it expires, they literally could sign him just to another 25 game PTO. So regardless, he so far in five games has all of one goal. And I will say the one goal that he did have,
Starting point is 00:08:16 he looked like the best player on the ice because all he literally had to do was skate around a defenseman to an open puck to get an open look through the neutral zone. And that was a nice release. Yeah, I think that we might be seeing him sooner rather than later. as the deadline approaches. And I also think it's going to depend a lot on what happens with Smith. If this injury is something and they have to put him on LTIR, they may use that space just to give him a contract.
Starting point is 00:08:46 But by the looks of it and by the sound of it, he has been a fairly effective forward down in Wilkes-Bair. I will say one thing to keep in mind about the minor leagues. Obviously, we want him to look like one of the best players out there. We also know he's been on a pretty long layoff due to the, the surgery, but it's a less structured type of hockey down there than the NHL. There are a lot of guys running around playing a much different style. So he may not look like the best player, but if he is looking like an effective player,
Starting point is 00:09:17 that is a good sign about his recovery and ability to make it back to the National Hockey League. Yeah, he's just got to keep getting his legs under him a little bit more. He's only played a few games in Wilkesbury, as I didn't mean to interrupt you while you were talking to him. He did have that really nice finish over the weekend for Wilkesbury. looking like the player that we saw when he was healthy last year, year before, and then the year before that, at least when he was actually on the ice and playing.
Starting point is 00:09:41 So that was encouraging for him. And hopefully he can build off of that performance, Pat, going forward with Wilkesbury, and potentially he can earn a contract with the Penguins. I still remain intrigued or fascinated by him, but I still want to see more from him down there before I potentially would want to give him a contract to come up to the big squad. Yeah, and if you haven't seen that goal, head to Wilkesbury's Twitter account and watch it. If for nothing else, I got to give a shout out to the Wilkesbury Scranton Penguins broadcaster, Nick Hart, who did an incredible job of pronouncing his name with the accent, with all of the sound. You need to pronounce that name.
Starting point is 00:10:20 It was an awesome goal call. And Nick Hart has always been awesome to me because he was with Wokespaer when I was with Wheeling. So he is a really cool dude who does a real. really good job of calling games. So if you haven't seen that, you definitely need to go to their Twitter account and watch it because it's so worth it. But I agree with you on the whole, though. I do think we need to see just a little bit more from him,
Starting point is 00:10:45 a couple more goals, couple more assists. You know, even if we see some highlights and reports out of Wokes Bear that, you know, he's been kind of a menace on the forecheck and working really hard and being an effective top six forward there, then I think we're ready to have the discussion about
Starting point is 00:11:00 turning this PTO into a contract and seeing what he can do in Pittsburgh. When we come back, we are going to talk about our midseason takeaways, what we've seen so far from this team and what we're expecting to see from them in the second half of the season. But first, we have to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Sleeper. We are at the halfway point of the season, like I said, Penguins fans. And as we know, the Penguins are right here in the mix as we expected fighting for a playoff spot in a crowded Eastern conference. but regardless of where they sit in the standings,
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Starting point is 00:11:49 we are going to talk about our Warrior Helmet. One guy I would certainly be taken right now and Sleeper is Sidney Crosby because he is having a renaissance of a season at age 36. I also love this app because there's the group and team chat functionality so I can sit there and trash talk my buddies while we're having our one-on-one battles here on sleeper. Entries can be made in under a minute and all you have to do is pick weather studs like McDavid, Ovechkin, Ovechkin, the whole lot of them will record more or less than their
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Starting point is 00:12:55 I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. And here we are, who would have thought? We finally made it. We're at the midpoint of the season. So one half of the season down, one half to go. We're sitting here on the playoff bubble as Penguins fans and as the Penguins franchise. After a season where their record playoff streak was broken last year under just the absolute nightmare. That was the Hextall Burke era.
Starting point is 00:13:22 Thank goodness we are finally out of that. But this segment is going to be a lot of basically, a mid-season recap for all of our listeners, because it's just going to be packaging pretty much everything we have said already this season into a quickly packed segment here, because for the first time in a long time, we kind of know who this penguin's team is at mid-season. We aren't sitting here pondering, can they get in, how far can they go,
Starting point is 00:13:52 what are they missing, all that. We kind of know what this team is. And we got to start with the obvious, the biggest highlight of the, this season so far at midseason. Sydney freaking Crosby, man. 36 years old. He's on pace to score the most goals he's scored in his career when he hit 50 in 2010 and won the Rocket Richard along with Stephen Stamcoast that year.
Starting point is 00:14:15 And it has just been, it's been everything this year. It's not just, because if you look back at Crosby's career, right, he's always been one of the most complete, most dominant players. But it seems like every year, every couple of years, he would just be really good at one thing. Like early in his career when he won the Rocket, Richard, a bunch of people were like, ah, you know, great player, great playmaker,
Starting point is 00:14:39 not a big time goal score, goes out, wins the Rocket. And a couple years after that, ah, you know, he's good, he's good, a 200-foot player, all this, but can't win face-offs, becomes one of the best face-off players in the league. You know, he's losing the wheels.
Starting point is 00:14:51 He's not, he's not as fast he wants, goes out, it gets faster. And then this year, he's doing everything well. I've set it on the pot a bunch. he's dragging his team into the fight. He is keeping this team afloat when it looks like they're dead. And it's been an incredible performance to watch top to bottom.
Starting point is 00:15:08 And I don't see it slowing down anytime soon, Hunter. It's not going to slow down. I mean, I think he has a very good shot of hitting 50 this year. And I can't believe we're even saying that when he's 36 years old. And he also has a great shot of breaking his point total from last year. He finished last year with 93 points. He's already at 46 through, 42 games this year, I think he can definitely hit 93 plus points this year, especially if he continues
Starting point is 00:15:35 to go on heaters like he has been this year. He has five points in his last three games. He has brought them back in so many games where it looks like the Penguins really don't deserve to be in these games. But SIDS, like, you know what? I'm a great player. I'm going to bring them back, and I'm going to try to get at least a point, if not two, for my team out of this one. and that's one of the main reasons why I think he should be a contender for the Hart Trophy. I know I've seen takes out there from people saying he should be a contender for the Selke. I'm not fully there just yet because I think this should be Sasha Barkov's year's reward. If you look at his defensive impacts, he is, I think, by far the best two-way forward in the league right now.
Starting point is 00:16:15 I think people have sit up there just because of maybe this would be a, what's the word I'm looking for? People want him to get it for the lifetime achievement. That's what I'm looking for. Thank you. Because they don't think he's quite a heart contender this year. So you know what? Let's just give him the Selke instead. That's exactly the word I was looking for.
Starting point is 00:16:37 The Lifetime Achievement Selke Award because he's come close to winning it before. He's finished top 10 a few times. And then now the voters are like, okay, what he's doing with the penguins, let's give him the Selkie, especially now that Patrice Burjrod is not in the league anymore. But I get that. That should be the name of the first. And that should be the name of the trophy now. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:55 Like they should have named it that yesterday. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, he's been the best defensive forward in the league for a long time. I know he's not in the league anymore, but when he was in the league, he was by far the best defensive. Just like we need to rename the Norris trophy, the Nick Lidstrom trophy. But it's different discussion. Yeah, different discussion.
Starting point is 00:17:11 But yeah, man, but the level that he's playing at this year, I knew he was going to be great. But if anyone saw this level from Sid coming, I think you may have been lying to yourself, just a little bit because again, I know how great of a player he is, but I did not expect him to have 26 goals at the 42 game mark and beyond pace to score over 50 goals for the first time since the 2009 10 season. I don't think anyone saw that coming to be honest. No, you knew he was going to fight back father time just because that's how he is. He had 33 goals all of last year. Yeah. You knew he was going to fight back father time just because that's what he does. That's the kind of player in person he is.
Starting point is 00:17:52 So that was never in question. But I didn't, none of us saw this coming. So this is, this has been a sight to behold. And if you have your eyes fixated on Sydney Crosby every game as well, you should, you're probably covering them in horror when the top power play unit is out there. So that's going to be our other takeaway from this season so far is that it's not just that this power play has been ineffective. It's that it's been both bad.
Starting point is 00:18:20 They have not done a lot of changes. And it's holding them back. We're not going to talk too much about it because we already ranted about it, I think earlier this week. So, but when it's straight up losing them games and you have nearly, I think it's something like over 3,000 points combined on your top power play, this just shouldn't be happening.
Starting point is 00:18:44 They have not scored a power play goal in over half of their games this season. that's not acceptable at all. And you can't have a unit with this much talent, be in the bottom third of the league. Heck, they were practicing this during Wednesday's practice. They had the top unit out there at times, and I had the second unit out there. And the second unit was actually practicing a five on three.
Starting point is 00:19:07 And for those that did not see this on social media, Chanceson Harkins scored a shorthanded goal on a breakaway because Chris, let's hang, turn the puck over at the blue line. When I saw that tweet go out, I legitimately laughed very hard. hard because it's just that sums up the penguins power play in general this season. And no, my friends, they're not just doing this during games. They're doing it during practice too.
Starting point is 00:19:30 It is a completely broken unit through and through. They seem to have absolutely no answers to it. I have lost faith in them to even find even one answer to the problems on this unit for the rest of the season. And if this doesn't get fixed and I've seen no indication that it will, it very well might cost them a playoff spot because you said it so many times, I've said it so many times, I'll say it one more time here on this show. If they had had a average power play for this season, they'd be comfortably in a playoff spot and top three in the Metro right now.
Starting point is 00:20:05 This might be a little bit of copium from my perspective, but at least it was the second unit that did that in practice and not the top unit. And still bad, still, but also another take another quick takeaway from the season penalty kill's been legitimately great all season long and now on the other side of that you would hope going up against a great unit and practice would help the power play but i digress lastly and certainly not leastly for this takeaway at the midseason another thing like i said at the top it's stuff that we're just basically regurgitating from this podcast's season so far. Goaltending. It's been a strength. And there looks like there might be a little bit of a cooling off with Alex Nadalcovic. But overall, Tristan Jari and Alex Nadalcovic have been
Starting point is 00:21:00 more than as advertised. And again, you know, it's like we were just saying about the power play. Between this team having a really good penalty kill, extremely strong five on five numbers, and very good goal tending, this should be a team that's making a run at the Metropolitan Division, not fighting to get into the playoffs. I agree. And if you look at the stats right now,
Starting point is 00:21:23 the Penguins have the fourth best, all situations, say percentage in the NHL at 916. They're only behind Vancouver, Boston, and Winnipeg. If you saw that coming at the halfway point of this season, I would like to know what your lottery luck is, to be honest, because they've been tremendous all year. Tristan has, really found his game again over the last week,
Starting point is 00:21:45 week and a half. Alex Ndilkevich has had a couple of men starts this season, but 95% of his other games have been awesome. I mean, I didn't see this coming at all. Well, and to your point, the teams that you named about their all situation save percentage, it's all Vesna candidates. It's Connor Hellebuck. It's both the Bruins goalies. It's Thatcher Demko in Vancouver.
Starting point is 00:22:08 All guys who are going to be in the conversation for the Vesna trophy this year. and then you have Jari and Nadelcovich right there with him. So maybe we start having that discussion. I don't think so just because there's two. And it's not even a shot at Jari. There's just so many guys above him right now that are just better. And that's not an insult to Jari. That's just the fact that right now there are a amount of probably six or seven,
Starting point is 00:22:35 maybe eight goalies in the league that are just that good. So a good year for goaltending. overall, I do see this team for my final takeaway. I see them getting back into the postseason. They're really starting to figure it out this last month or so. Once this power play finally, hopefully figures something out, the five-on-five play, the ingredients are there for this to keep up. Penalty kill has continued to be good.
Starting point is 00:23:03 And with Crosby playing the way he's playing, and same for guys like Latang, Gensel, Rust, even Malkin, this is a team that's going to make the playoffs. I agree. I do think they're going to find a way to sneak in, whether it's for a wild card spot or whether it's top three in the metro, if they can maybe get Philadelphia out of there to get top three of the metro, that would be big. Or if they can sneak past Detroit, who has really found its game over the last week,
Starting point is 00:23:28 week and a half. I do see this team getting back in the playoffs. Just a couple more small ones before we wrap up. I will say I think the depth has been as we expected it to be this season. Lars Eller has been better than I thought he would be. I've really been impressed with his work in the offensive zone and the defensive zone. Drew O'Connor, while he had a slow start to the season, he has really picked it up over the last three weeks. He's been one of their best players in the bottom six this season.
Starting point is 00:23:52 That's been great to see. And then for, I guess, a disappointment, Ryan Graves, for the most far, has been pretty disappointing this season in the first year of his long-term deal. Though, I will say the last week and a half of two weeks, he has played a little bit better. getting some third pairing minutes with Chad Roodle has definitely helped his game a little bit. It got him a promotion back up to playing with Eric Carlson. And I will say since he got that promotion, he has played a little bit better. It's baby steps. Let's see if he can continue to play at that level.
Starting point is 00:24:19 But last week and a half two weeks, it's been better. But outside of that, still pretty big disappointment considering how big of a signing that was over the summer. For sure. That has definitely been a disappointment. And here's the hope and he turns it around because some positive signs have shown up in the past week or so. But we'll see if that's just a small sample size or if the trend continues. But we got one last thing to do, and that's give out our warrior helmets because it is Wednesday.
Starting point is 00:24:46 We're going to name our MVP's of the week. And we're going to do that right after this. So we have to tell you about our next sponsor, which is eBay Motors. Passion, drive, and patience. What brings home the winning trophy is also what keeps your ride or die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance. from superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more, whether you're into speed, power, or style, eBay Motors has got you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one ride or die, you'll always find exactly what you're looking for.
Starting point is 00:25:18 And with eBay's guaranteed fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back, because with eBay Motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride or die alive at eBay motors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay guaranteed fit only available to U.S. customers. Welcome back, Penguins fans, to this final segment of the Wednesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp, joined as always by Hunter Hodes.
Starting point is 00:25:53 And like I said, it's the Wednesday edition. So that means it's time for us to do what we do every single Wednesday. And that's hand out our MVP, the Warrior Helmet, Hunter, the Florida, is yours. Who gets the warrior helmet from you this week? So I know who you are going to give it to and I was probably going to give it to that person, but I'm going to be maybe a smidge different and give it to Tristan Jari for this week. I think the last week he has played at a very high level. He came in for relief of Alex Dahlkevich during the Canucks game, had a 950 save percentage. It was one of the biggest reasons why the Penguins got a point out of that game outside of
Starting point is 00:26:30 Cindy Crosby. He made some tremendous saves in a second period where the Canucks or continuing to push before the Penguins really took it to them in the second half of that period and in the third period. I thought he was great. Even in the Carolina game, he was 9-14. He gave them a chance to win that game. Yeah, the overtime goal from Peschi was a little weak, but I still thought overall he had a pretty solid game. And then, again, Seattle gets a shout-out his fifth of the season.
Starting point is 00:26:54 While he didn't have to do that much when he did have to make a couple of timely saves, he made them. and he's continued to play at a high level this season looking like a 1A goalie. Tristanjari gets my warrior helmet for this week. But if I had a 1B, if I had maybe a very mini helmet, I would give it to Cindy Crosby. And I'm fairly sure that's who you are going to give it to as I hand us over to you. Yeah, spoiler alert, that is it. But here's how I'm going to approach this one this week.
Starting point is 00:27:25 Because I don't want to be difficult or different. you know, I don't want to do the heart trophy voting thing where it's like, well, he's the obvious one, so let's do the not obvious guy. If I'm going to take out my imaginary saw and I'm going to cut my warrior helmet in half, one half is going to go to, as you said, Sidney Crosby, five points in three games, another great week. He has kept this team afloat and been an absolute terror at age 36. My other half, I'm going to go with Drew O'Connor. I think we talked about him in the middle.
Starting point is 00:27:57 season takeaways. Only a goal in the last week, but his overall play in the last week, week and a half has been really solid. He has earned and continued to keep a promotion into the top six. We have seen it so many times with, you know, we all know the act in a fool of me, Mark Donk and Buzz Flipit. We have seen a number of those guys get promoted up to the top six. they look good for a game or two, and then it's right back to cratering. And similar to what I said about the Penguins 5 on 5 play, where all the ingredients are there for it to continue, all the ingredients are there for Drew O'Connor to keep playing the way he's been playing.
Starting point is 00:28:44 He's finally starting to find a finishing touch. He's going to the front of the net. He's great on the forecheck. And he's not deferring to guys like Malkin. He's not just going, oh, I'm going to get him okay. It's lying. I get him going to muck in the puck. He's not afraid to carry the puck.
Starting point is 00:28:59 He's not afraid to shoot the puck. And he's not afraid to hold on to it when he needs to hold on to it, which is the sign of a guy who's really starting to come into his own as a younger NHLer who could fit in a top six role for more than just a cup of coffee. So Crosby for the obvious because he has been absolutely incredible. Drew O'Connor, just because I have really, really liked his game in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, he's been. awesome. I mean, he's been knifing through guys at times during games. He's making small little
Starting point is 00:29:28 plays with the puck on his stick that he really wasn't making earlier this season or even last season when he was up with the Penguins. He looks like a bona fide NHL player right now. And I think that's going to continue for the rest of his career. I don't think he's going to hopefully go through some of these big slums like he was earlier this season or even last season. I think he has established himself as a true depth, good third-line player on this. team and obviously he's playing with Havgeny Malker right now, so that's big. And he hasn't looked out of playsteader, which is massive as well. But even worst case, if he's not up there for at times the season, having him on your
Starting point is 00:30:07 third line is a luxury because he's been great for these last several weeks. And I think that's going to continue for the season. So that's two really good choices for you. But yeah, if I had to cut mine in half, I would give my first one to Jari, considering the week he had and then the obvious Sydney Crosby with five points in the last three games and continuing this ridiculous season that he's had. Yeah, a lot of good points, top to bottom, can disagree. And the Penguins, maybe on a little bit of a mini break,
Starting point is 00:30:34 but the Lockdown Penguins podcast is not. We will keep this train rolling tomorrow with another episode. And then on Friday, we will be back to get you ready for some late night penguins on Saturday when they travel to Las Vegas. But that is going to do it for the Wednesday edition for Hunter Hodes. I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Locked-on Penguins podcast, and we will talk to you tomorrow.

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