Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins-Blackhawks season opening recap!

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Pittsburgh Penguins dropped their season opener 4 to 2 against the Chicago Blackhawks. And for today's episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast, Pat and I are going to go over that game, what went right, what went wrong, and of course debut Warrior Helmet Wednesday. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:43 I am one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes, joined as always by my co-o's Patrick Gamp. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow Pat on Twitter at Cynum for Wet. And you can follow these shows Twitter at L.O. Onester Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. Today's episodes brought to you by Sleeper.

Starting point is 00:01:05 Download the Sleeper app and use promo code Lockdown on NHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See sleepers. Terms of use for details. So, Blackcox 4, Penguins 2 in a game that felt very similar to what we saw at the end of last season. Penguins get off to a solid start. I thought they played a really nice first period.

Starting point is 00:01:28 And then they kind of went off the rails. Get that 2-0 in the second lead in the second period. It's all looking good to 1.2-2. You lose the game with less than 5 minutes. left. The defensive zone coverage, those issues really popped up. And actually, Pat, let's just start there. The defensive zone miscues in this game really piss poor. I thought, especially on the first goal, I love Marcus Pedersen. I think he is the best defensive defenseman this team has. You cannot get bullied like that in front of your net by Ryan Donato. And I think

Starting point is 00:02:00 Ryan Donato is a pretty solid player. But Pedersen looks like he is a foot taller and he got out muscled in front of the net like it was nothing. I know it's game one. I try not to make drastic overreactions to any one game during the season, but I'm sorry, man, that's unacceptable. He has to be better in front of his net there. And then on the third goal, the Jason Dickinson won, Ryan Graves was out to lunch. Got to put your stick in the passing lane, my guy?

Starting point is 00:02:25 Like, that's just piss poor defensive zone coverage. And we saw the issues a lot last season. They're still here right now. Yeah. Let's start here. okay. It's one of 82. Yes. And let's all look back on last season, too, since we're talking about some issues that have carried over. Do you remember last season? They started the season against Arizona, a bad team, and they wiped the floor with them six to two.

Starting point is 00:02:52 And everyone went, eh, it's Arizona. Don't make too much of it. Two days later, they go out and play Tampa Bay, the defending Stanley Cup champions at the time, and wipe the floor with them six to two. And we saw how that season went. So I don't think it's going to be indicative of anything just yet. Now, does that mean there weren't issues last night? Oh, boy, there were a lot of them. But I think you're right. One of the biggest carryovers to this season from last was the lack of accountability in the defensive zone. It was as close to unstructured as I can imagine because guys were missing assignments.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Pedersen's not clear in the front of the net. Braves isn't in position. Here's the other thing that I will say, too, about it being one of 82. We're all very excited for all the changes that happened this summer, and I still am. I didn't really put a number to it. When I thought of it, I just thought, hey, change, yay, this team needed that. Good to go. Sitting in the arena pregame before all the festivities start before the team intro and all that.

Starting point is 00:03:58 And Josh Getsoff is doing his giant video board report where he gives you, kind of the game notes going into it. Eight players on the roster last night that played were not with the Pittsburgh Penguins last year. That's almost half your line is new to this team. And I know they're older, they're professionals, and everybody's going to say, oh, there's no excuse to that, blah, blah, blah, blah. Listen, we saw this again, we saw this before.

Starting point is 00:04:26 And again, I'm not penciling the Penguins in for a Stanley Cup here, but we saw this in 15, 16. They brought in a lot of new pieces. And they came out of the gate very slowly. Now, a lot of that was coaching and some roster deficiencies. But what I saw last night, what we saw last night was not encouraging. That is not a good start. It's against a team that, while I don't think they're as bad as everybody wants to make them out to be, they are still a bad team. This is a roster that was built to score, and they only scored twice.

Starting point is 00:04:59 And going off that, we can get back to the defensive zone misuse in a second. I like the point that you made there. Two goals against this Chicago Blackhawks team. And I think they will be a bit better this year compared to last year. I'm sorry, that's not acceptable. It's not. I get it. Peter Morazic had a pretty strong game.

Starting point is 00:05:18 He robbed Riley Smith a couple of times. Those were some nice saves. I'll give him that. He robs Sidney Crosby also on a breakaway, but they didn't get nearly enough offense. They didn't get the cycle going in the offensive zone. When you look at the Chicago's defense, it's not good and you can't really get anything going against that.

Starting point is 00:05:38 And we also saw on display a big concern that we had going into the season. Again, it's only one game. I'm not trying to overreact here. I'm not like that. But the bottom six hat, where was the offense? Like, it just seemed like there was a lot of one and duns when the bottom six came into the offensive zone. I honestly felt like there was a lot of one and duns overall from this game. I saw Brian Ross, who actually did score a goal, try to go one on three.

Starting point is 00:06:03 multiple times when he was coming into the offensive zone. Buddy, sometimes less is more, dump the puck in, let the other skaters come in, start the cycle, low to high, and then let's get a forecheck going here. But I just didn't see enough of that. And that was a little bit concerning to me going up against a team that's going to be pretty bad this year.

Starting point is 00:06:24 Yeah, and a lot of those eight of the new faces on the roster are in the bottom six. Right. So again, that's going to take some time. And as for the Morazic thing, everybody this morning is going to point to what we talked about yesterday about how this guy's boom or bust. And last night he puts up a 950.50. But I don't think you can look at the number and say he had a great game. Now, yes, no matter which way you cut it, you put up a 950 save percentage in a game in the national hockey league.

Starting point is 00:06:51 You deserve your flowers. But the Penguins did not make life difficult for him. Wasn't a lot of traffic. Weren't a lot of shots or opportunities from high danger areas. a lot of one and duns, not a lot of crash in the net. And when they got their opportunities, like I said, they weren't grade A chances. And if you are a replacement level national hockey league goalie, standard chances are most likely going to end up in a save. That's the bar for being a mostly competent national hockey league goaltender.

Starting point is 00:07:24 And if you don't get in his face, if you don't create traffic, if you don't move the puck left to low to high and make him move, he's going to make the save. And that's not me just saying Peter Morazic. That's me saying any competent NHL goal. So, you know, and that gets into what we'll talk about here later on in the show. It's the same thing with the power play. Way too simple, way too stagnant, nothing that is going to make life difficult on the opposing team or the opposing goaltender. I like that you brought up the power play.

Starting point is 00:07:55 We can actually just get into that now, to be honest. They only had a couple of chances last night, but they were kept to the perimeter I thought too often, they weren't getting to the prime scoring areas. I know, credit to the Chicago Blackhawks, Penalty Hill. I thought they did a solid job. But the Penguins, I thought, were kind of bullied to the perimeter. And that shouldn't happen when you're going up against a team like the Blackhawks who are going to be bad this year.

Starting point is 00:08:18 And I know this was Jake Gensel's first game on the power play. They had a different unit out there. They did not have Chris Littang in the castle spot. They had Carlson running the show from the point. But I just didn't really see a lot that I liked there. the drop pass was back in an annoying form. It was way too often. Please stop going backwards to go forwards.

Starting point is 00:08:36 I absolutely hate it. And just overall, I thought the movement was very stagnant, just weren't getting a lot of chances to the net. And as you said about Marazza, just a few minutes ago, there was no traffic. I could count the number of times they had a screen, or that he was screened, excuse me, on one hand. It was easy pickings for him.

Starting point is 00:08:57 When we look back on the preseason, that last game against Buffalo, where the power play started to show, power play one unit started to show some life. It wasn't because they did anything stupendous. They moved. There was constant movement. Guys were filling in. Guys were going to different places. They were moving the puck with great regularity, but guys were moving and weaving and going to different places and causing confusion for the opposing penalty kill.

Starting point is 00:09:28 So last night, both opportunities when Power Play 1 was on the ice, guys got to their spots and stayed there. They didn't stray too far away. They didn't move around. And listen, you can have all the talent in the world on your PowerPlay. But if you're going to stand stagnant, you're not going to make life difficult on the opposing penalty kill. The Blackhawks penalty killers didn't have to move around a lot. They just closed the lanes, kept the middle shut down, and the Penguins had no options because they wouldn't move. And if this power play wants to be truly elite, and again, one of 82, we could be coming back here on Monday and talking about how they blew the doors off of the capitals and the flames on Monday.

Starting point is 00:10:09 But if this power play wants to be good, it can't just be fluid puck movement. It has to be fluid movement all around. Players filling in, guys going to different spots, pulling penalty killers out of position to open up mismatches. and they didn't get any of that last night. All they did was pass the puck around the perimeter and hope for a chance. And that's not a good power play strategy. Right. And I think the only chance they had on the power play was when Carlson dusted this one guy at the point,

Starting point is 00:10:41 cuts to the middle. Might say by Marazik, but there's no traffling converter that he saw it all the way. And listen, that's not a bad strategy to have Carlson pull a guy out of position. But like you said, there either needs to be a guy. in front offering a screen or there has to be outlet options where the goalie keys in on Carlson and says, okay, he's coming right down Broadway. He's going to shoot. I got to overcommit to him and you slide it to a guy who finds that mismatch and he's got a wide open cage. Kind of like what happened on Crosby's goal.

Starting point is 00:11:16 Yep, I know. I agree with that. I think at times also I saw Guinea Malkin quarterbacking it from the point. I don't really want to see that too often. That's just not using his skill set to his advantage of me. But that's an example of what I'm talking about. He wasn't quarterbacking the power play. Guys were moving around and it ends up with him at the point. And that kind of can break down the penalty kill. But it only happened maybe twice.

Starting point is 00:11:41 Yeah, I see what you're saying there. I think overall you don't want to see that for two minutes. But to your point, changing something up at least for maybe a few seconds, I think could throw off some penalty killer. So I definitely didn't see what you're saying there. I think that'll do it though for this. first segment. We're going to get to a couple issues I had with the penalty kill last night, plus some pauses that we can take away from this performance. But before we do get

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Starting point is 00:13:17 We're back here on this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host on Codys, joined by my co-coast, Paltredamp, 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. So I want to get into the penalty kill here. I know they went four for four on Tuesday night, but I didn't really like the way it looked. I kind of think, in my opinion, they got more lucky than anything that they went for,

Starting point is 00:13:45 for four. Tristan Jari bailed out that unit. And we'll get to him when we get to the positives because he was tremendous last night. If anyone is blaming Tristan Jari for that loss, you can come see me in the comments. You can send me a DM. I'll say that. He was fantastic.

Starting point is 00:13:58 I thought last night, he was probably one of his best games. He's played in quite a while, I would say. But the PK, way too passive. I thought when the Blackhawks were on the power play, especially in the third period, when the Penguins took those really ill-advised back-to-back penalties that gave the Hawks at least some momentum in that period

Starting point is 00:14:15 before they tied the game and took the lead. They were letting them come in basically at a free will. They weren't being challenged at the blue line, which was very weird. And then when they got in, they weren't being challenged at all. They were letting the Blackhawks just shoot from wherever. They were letting them move the puck whenever.

Starting point is 00:14:32 They were having trouble clearing the puck, I thought, all night. It was very weird. They were just basically relying on Tris and Jari to stop the puck. And you can't have a penalty kill like that for an 82 game season. Yes, you went four for four. That is good. I'm not taking that away. But I just don't like the passiveness that I saw on.

Starting point is 00:14:53 the PK. That needs to be better going forward. The clearing attempt issue, I will give you, there were a lot of moments I recall where when they were on the PK, they struggled to get the puck out of the zone. What I will say is that it does feel like they took a strategic risk last night on the PK. They pretty much understood the biggest threat on the Black Hawk's power play was going to be Connor Bedard. So they essentially just blanketed him. It was kind of like I talked about yesterday when I made the Detroit Pistons, L.A. Lakers, NBA, final comparison. They were basically like, don't let this guy beat you.

Starting point is 00:15:30 We'll take the chances on all these other guys on their PK because it's not a very power play. It's not a very impressive roster. So we're just not going to let this guy beat us. There was always somebody in his face. There was always somebody there to pressure him. And they kind of let the other four players on the Blackhawks power play do whatever they had to do and keep him from being the trigger man.

Starting point is 00:15:53 I do agree, though, that it needs to be a little bit more overall aggressive in pressuring at the point of attack and getting the puck out of the zone because they did struggle with that a lot. I think it was the first power play that Chicago got last night. They had three or four attempts to clear the puck and just didn't. Right. So I think it's an improvement, though, because I said it to you via text. For a unit that was sub 80% last year, going 100% in your opening game is a sign of improvement.

Starting point is 00:16:27 Now it just has to continue. If they clean up the clearing attempt issue and if they get a little bit more aggressive in meeting teams at the point of attack, I think we're going to be okay when it comes to penalty killing. But I don't totally agree that they had a rough night. I think they, like I said, made a strategic calculation on the PK. And that's fine if they did. Obviously, Boudard is Chicago's best player. And I thought he was tremendous last night.

Starting point is 00:16:54 That shot off his stick is a thing of beauty. It can fool, it can fool, I think, any goalie in this league. It was really hard to watching him. He did everything but score last night. He was maybe the best player on the ice, if not top three. But he was involved offensively. He was solid in his defensive zone. And he, I think he had, I don't know if it was 11.

Starting point is 00:17:19 shots on goal or if it was 11 shot attempts. It's one of the two, but he had a tremendous game. And I know everybody's going to look at the stat line and just see one assist and think it was kind of an okay night. But he was one of the better players on the ice. And every time he came over the boards, you noticed him. His line pinned the penguins in their own zone every time it was on the ice, especially in the second and third periods. The penguins really had no answer for it, no matter what line Mike Sullivan was putting out there. And he had put it. He had plenty of good scoring chances. The one that really stood out to me was how he tried to come in on the right side, try to roof it right past Tristan Jari's shoulder, and Tristan had

Starting point is 00:17:57 to go like this. I think you can remember the motion that he made to save it. It was a very, it's a goal that you see a lot of NHLers scored each year. It's nice to see Tris and Jari save that, but it was a pretty sneaky shot. I thought. He had just had a really good game. I do understand what you're saying, though, when it comes to keying in on him, you want to take away the team's best player, but they still have Taylor Hall who can really rip the puck. Seth Jones, even though he's overpaid, he can bomb it from the point. They do have a couple other players that can put out there as well. Still, want to see the passiveness go away a bit.

Starting point is 00:18:30 Want to see them, as you said, clear the puck a bit better because I remember what you're talking about in that first period. Three to four times they're trying to clear the puck, and the Blackhawks are like, oh, we'll take it. It was just right to them. And it was easily able to keep it in. And I will say, better power plays. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:46 And I will say a couple of them were just bad bounces. Like they played the right angle off the boards and somehow it bounces right to a Blackhawk stick. But overall, it's not a good, good way to run a PK overall. But the other thing that bothered me last night that needs cleaned up, and you kind of alluded to it earlier in the last segment with Brian Rust a couple times trying to go one on three. Listen, this team is built on offense. And part of that is getting into the offensive zone. establishing possession.

Starting point is 00:19:18 I understand there is an absurd amount of skill on this roster, but it's an old hockey cliche when it comes to the game. You can beat the first guy. Sometimes you're going to beat the second guy. Rarely are you going to beat the third guy. The third guy is eventually going to take the puck from you or at the very least knock it off your stick. So when they find themselves in these situations, I get it.

Starting point is 00:19:44 You want a clean zone entry. You want to enter the zone with possession rather than put it up to a 50-50 puck in the corner. But you eventually have to realize you have more speed than some of these teams. Put the puck in the corner, go get it, establish possession down low, pull the defense low, work it up top, and get those mismatches. So going forward, there is nothing wrong with simplifying in hockey. because in pro sports, there is no such thing as style points. They don't care if you win four to two,

Starting point is 00:20:20 but you dumped it in 50 times and scored on three rebounds. Doesn't matter. It's two points in the standings. It gets you closer to the playoffs, and it builds that momentum that you need. So, yes, we would love to see Globetrotter hockey where they dish it around and get a slick two-on-one mismatch and go roof with a one-timer.

Starting point is 00:20:39 But if you got a score from five feet in front of the net, Who cares? Go score goals, get possession, and do it however you have to. And overall, I just want to see more puck support if someone is trying to come in on a one-on-three. Have your two other forwards come in and try to help you there. Dump the puck in, go to work, low to high, get those mismatches like you said. I just want to see more puck support overall is what I'm trying to say. And that's the same thing with, I know that we're all, all of us Twitter users are angry at the drop pass on the power play. but that's also a puck support problem.

Starting point is 00:21:15 There's nothing wrong with a drop pass in the neutral zone, but you have to have one or two guys coming with you with speed to make that work. Rarely do they have that. It's somebody coasting along through the neutral zone. If you've got Carlson ass on fire coming through the neutral zone behind you and you drop it for them, that's great. That's good puck support. But nine times out of 10, they're dropping it to a guy who's not at top speed.

Starting point is 00:21:40 every time they do that drop pass on the power play and some guy behind who is just gliding like oh I'm going to take the fuck in I'm just going to dump it in but then you give the defenseman on the PK a head start and then they go behind the net and they clear the fuck I saw that happen countless times

Starting point is 00:21:59 on the power play last night they got to get that play out of there just take the puck into the zone that's what you got to do you got to stop with the drop pass because it gives the PKR's time, especially the defensemen who are back behind the forwards, time to go behind the net. If goalie stops it, gets a due defenseman, boom, it goes around the boards, goes down.

Starting point is 00:22:21 That wastes 25, 30, 35, 40 seconds. That has to stop. But I think that I'll actually do it for this second segment coming up to end the show. We're going to get into the positives for this performance and, of course, our debut of Warrior Helmet Wednesday. But before we get to that, we got to discuss the J. case. Everyone should be empowered to care for themselves and their loved ones during the unexpected. That's why Jace Medical offers the Jace case. The Jace case provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use and gives you a peace of mind so that you are not just hoping that you have access

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Starting point is 00:23:36 I think we are both in an agreement, I should say, on this one. Tristan Jari gets the Warrior Helmet for this one. He was tremendous in this game. The goals that he allowed were not his fault, more than anything, bad defensive zone coverage, and a really bad balance, I should say, on the Jason Dickinson goal. I know people are going at him, but it was a bad balance that went past him. Overall, though, he kept the team in it throughout, made some great saves. The one that I really wanted to highlight, the one on Corey Perry in the second period where he was all alone.

Starting point is 00:24:10 in front of the net about 10 feet away. Squares up big, saves it. Really nice stuff from Jari there. His movement, I thought, looked really good. He looked healthy in net. Overall, I think we are in agreement versus Jari for this one. Yeah, Jari gets my first warrior helmet of the season. 32 for 35, 914 save percentage.

Starting point is 00:24:32 Perfect on the power play. Perfect with one shorthanded chance against 26 for 29 at even strength. just he had a solid game and if there's one thing I want to say that has nothing to do with the stats or the game itself man if this town is out on Tristan Jari nobody told them because you were there with me last night he got introduced and it was one of the louder pops outside of Carlson and the big three great and I was like wait I thought people weren't happy with this guy so the fact that this town is rallying behind him add in the fact that I've been saying it all summer, new contract.

Starting point is 00:25:12 I think he's poised to have a bounce back year. And really, without Tristan Jari in the second and third period, this game actually probably could have gotten out of hand because for maybe the first five minutes of the second period, it was an evenly played game. And I thought the penguins were really good in the first. But from about the five minute mark to the end of the game, the penguins were a passive, sleepy team. And if it wasn't for Tristan Jari, this could have been a.

Starting point is 00:25:39 much worse loss. He was doing everything in his power to win that game for the Penguins. And I bought even in the first period when the Blackhawks were pressuring at times, he also made some really good saves. I really was impressed with him. Well, and it's funny because the game itself kind of flop. Like in the first period, he made a few good saves. But like we were saying with the Penguins, when the Blackhawks were getting shots on goal, they were low percentage, they were one and duns. He made the saves he needed to make. Then the game flipped on its head and the penguins were going one and done, not getting good chances. They weren't high danger. And then the Blackhawks,

Starting point is 00:26:18 on the other hand, were getting sustained pressure, getting good looks. And Tristan Jari was there to make the save. So this is a very well-deserving first Warrior Helmet Wednesday for Tristan Jari. Agreed. And hey, he made me look good for my bold prediction that I had earlier this week. Keep that up, Tristan. I want to make sure no one ratios me at the end of the year. other positives take away. I thought Eric Carlson was fine. I thought he had a beautiful pass in the first period. Tape to tape through three or four Blackhawks players,

Starting point is 00:26:47 I was like, I even tweeted about this. I think there's only one defenseman in the league that can make that pass. It was a disgusting pass. The way the play he also made on the power play where he does to one of the Blackhawks players and got a good look, that was really nice. Defensively, you know, you're going to have some chances against That's just the Eric Carlson experience at this point. If you look at hockey stack cards, he was the worst penguin skater.

Starting point is 00:27:13 It's funny. I saw that, and then I remember what I watched, didn't match up to the eye test, which I thought was interesting. I thought he was fine. I was still ranking more of a positive. He just got to get used to everything here, I think. And I would also put Brian Rust in there as a positive. He did struggle a little bit later on in the game, but he gets that first goal of the season.

Starting point is 00:27:31 Everyone that predicted Russ to score the first goal of the year. You all are wizards, but really nice to see. Rust kind of start getting that monkey off his back. He struggled a bit last season with his shooting percentage and all that stuff. If he can have a good year here, that's going to be really fun. But I would put him as a positive as well. Yeah. And shout out Sidney Crosby for predicting Rust would score the first goal of the year and being right.

Starting point is 00:27:54 But I agree with those. I would also add in Chris Latang. I think he was the guy assigned to Connor Bedard. And limiting him to Justin Assist is a very good night. And I mean, it was a good night for the Penguins top two defensemen in Chris LaTang and Eric Carlson because you watch the way they move that they were covering every inch of the ice with the way they skate. They were involved when they needed to be involved. Like I said for Chris LaTang, I thought he did an admirable job of sticking with a guy who is fast, skilled, has a very sneaky shot and limiting him to just a few shots on going and assist. And yeah, I mean, overall, the thing I take away from this is if Tristan Jari can play the way he played last night,

Starting point is 00:28:47 just with a little less context of he's not there to keep you in the game, he's just there doing his job, everything else that happened last night is extremely fixable. Nothing we looked at last night is a fatal flaw. These are all things that can be cleaned up and fixed by Friday, maybe. but I don't think they're in as bad a position this morning as a lot of people want to light their hair on fire and think because we know how reactionary this fan base can be. Did you see Twitter last night, dude? Heck, we saw it. We heard a fire Canada chant at the game last night.

Starting point is 00:29:23 And I was going to rant about that, but I'm just not going to now. Just guys, you don't have the power you think you do. You chanted fire hexal and it took two and a half months for him to be fired. so your chance don't do it. Anyway, I think there's a, the things that went wrong last night and the things that we're critiquing today are extremely fixable

Starting point is 00:29:46 and they can be fixed by the next game. And I don't have any doubts that they will because this is way too good of a roster with way too good of a coaching staff for this to be a consistent issue. I will agree with you on that, except for maybe one small thing. The issue of the bottom six,

Starting point is 00:30:01 not producing offense, could be a season long thing. I don't know if that's fixable by just Friday. Again, only one game, but the bottom six I saw last night, not good enough. I do think that though is more of a team chemistry thing. That's a very new unit for the most part outside of, I think, two guys. So they're going to take some time to get used to one of it because we know how good this top six is. And they've been together for a couple of seasons plus now. So those guys know where each other are going to be. They have experience playing together.

Starting point is 00:30:40 It's what, Jeff Carter and Drew O'Connor in the bottom six who have been here longer than a season. So it's going to take some time. But I didn't love what they did. Let's not get that twisted. I'm not sitting here saying that. No, well, actually, they played well. But I think in due time, we'll find something there.

Starting point is 00:31:00 Let's know, because I didn't really see a lot that I liked from Laura Zeller. last night. I thought he was men defensively, took that bad penalty early on. Jansen Harkins, first game. I mean, I'm not really going to go at him too much. You know, Nietto, Achari. I actually thought Achari played well. He sat Connor Bader down a couple of times with a couple big hits. He, I'm telling you all, he's going to be a fan favorite really quickly. No O'Hari can really play. And one more positive I got for you. I've got the third pairing, despite only playing 11, 11.1.1.5 minutes, P.O. Joseph and Chabarweedle were really solid. I thought They moved up efficiently.

Starting point is 00:31:34 I thought they were responsible in their own end. They're not going to get a lot of ice time this year because of the top two pairings. Heck, we saw Carlson actually have two more minutes of total ice time last night than LaTang. But if the third pairing can keep going about their business quietly, I'm going to keep taking that as a positive because I really thought they played well on Tuesday night. Yeah, Pio Joseph had a, and I don't mean this in a negative way, quiet night. Yeah. But he went about his business, did what he had to do.

Starting point is 00:32:02 and was very solid along with Chad Rueedle. And as for the Lars Eller penalty, that that was weak. That goaltender interference call was weak. Marazek kind of sold it a little bit. Kind of pulled a little Igor Sisturkin there. Oh, I yelled it from my seat. I was like, hey, Marazic, the Summer Olympics are in June. You're a little early.

Starting point is 00:32:23 I said to myself, when I saw the replay, I was like, yeah, that's definitely, I think, something the guy in New York would do because we've seen him do that to the Penguins before. but I think that'll do it though for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for listening to slash watching this one. We will be back with another episode for you all on Thursday. We'll preview the game against the Capitals on Friday. And then on Friday, we will have a late-night recap episode.

Starting point is 00:32:47 We'll recap that game plus preview Saturday's game against the flames. So again, thank you all so much for listening. Really appreciate it. We'll be back on Thursday.

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