Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins BLOW IT in Toronto! Do they have what it takes to respond?

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

The Penguins played a perfect 40 minutes, then a disastrous 20 minutes, on Monday night in Toronto. Hunter and Patrick begin the show by reacting to the Penguins completely blowing a 3-0 lead to the Maple Leafs in a matter of just about 10 minutes (1:20). They get into whether or not this was a one-off or the start of a bad trend, who is to blame, and what this means moving forward (6:26). However, it wasn’t all negative as rookie Ben Kindel continued his ascent by scoring two goals and commanding the best line on the Penguins (12:00). Lastly, it’s decision time for Harrison Brunicke. Should the Penguins keep him up after nine games, or should he be sent back to juniors? (25:10).Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!RugietVisit https://rugiet.com/LOCKEDONNHL to get 15% off your first order.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.MonarchTake control of your finances with Monarch. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at https://monarch.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.

The Penguins choked away Monday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs in epic fashion. And Pat and I are going to recap that game for you guys right after this. Your 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'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes.

You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host, Patrick David. follow him on all social media platforms at send him from wet you can also follow the show's twitter at l.O underscore penguins and you can follow the show's Instagram at locked on underscore penguins 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 finally today's episode is brought to you by game time down the game time app grain account and use code locked on nchl for $20 off your first purchase. Pat, everything was going beautifully for the penguins through two periods. This was the best 40 minutes they had played all year, which was saying something because they

have looked fairly good in a lot of periods to start the season, but I felt like they were ferocious in all three zones for checking their butts off. They were defending well. Tristan Jari was basically taking a nap in the crease because he only saw eight shots through two periods. Ben Kindle was having a performance for the ages, just absolutely. outstanding stuff from him. Crosby was playing great. Carlson gets his first goal of the year. Malkin was playing great. Even I thought the Brunich Pickering pairing pairing was okay through 40 minutes. And then all of that went away in completely awful fashion in the third period where, let's be honest here, people. Penguins just felt like the game was over after two periods,

and they stopped playing. That Leaves tied it seven minutes into the third period. All it took was a small little time to fall asleep and Austin Matthews made them pay. And then William Nealander scores to make it three, two on a goal that I think Tristan Jari has to have the tying goal from Nealander. I think Jari has to have that one as well. I don't think Jari was sharp at all in that third period. Definitely a couple of those goals you could really blame on him. But also the entire team has to own this.

They were not good defensively. They flat out, stop playing. I don't care how poorly the Maple Leafs are playing. when you have a team like that pinned down on the mat, you have to go for the kill shot, and they didn't do that. It's inexcusable. I don't care how good you are or how bad you are. When you have a 3-0 lead going into the third period, that should be two out of 10 times.

It is inexcusable and unacceptable to lose that game, especially in regulation. It's inexcusable to lose it regardless, but especially in regulation, Pat, when you are playing 40 perfect minutes of hockey. You have to finish the game and the penguins didn't want to do it. I'm sorry. That's just not good enough for me. I'm not going to disagree with you per se. I'm not going to say anything you said was wrong because it's not.

You play 40 perfect minutes and then play a terrible 20. This is the outcome you get, especially against the team with the amount of firepower that the Toronto Maple Leafs have. I still think the Toronto Maple Leafs are a very mid team right now. Like playing a good 20 minutes against Pittsburgh doesn't suddenly make you a contender. They were horrible to start that game. They had nothing going. No, they got completely boat raced and outclassed by the penguins for 40 of the 60 minutes.

But the fact of the matter is for the 20 minutes the Maple Leaf showed up, they outclassed the penguins pretty badly. But here's where I'm going to spin zone this. Now, before I do that, if you're up this Tuesday morning and you are in a bad mood, you are ready to rake the penguins over the coals like Hunter just did, you are well within your right to do that. It's not my job to tell you how to be a fan. In fact, I wouldn't even totally disagree with your mood because you don't want to lose games like that. But what have we been stressing all off season and into this season?

Process and progress. We're going to get both of these out of this game. Because first month of the season, vibes are high. Dan Muse has brought new life to this team. And they're surprisingly good. They're jumping to the top of the NHL standings. Everyone's wondering, oh, my God, are the Pittsburgh Penguins actually good? us as fans are like, hey, we're just happy to be here.

It's been a rough couple of years. Vibes are high. For the progress, Ben Kindle, just absolutely blowing through every single expectation any of us had. Harrison Brunich, yeah, he's got some struggles. We're going to talk about both of them later, but you can see the makings of a future top pair defensemen or at least top four defensemen in the coming years. And then you've got everything else going on. And here's the thing.

I said the vibes are high. I still think the vibes are pretty high. I know a lot of people are frustrated, but our job on this show is not to be reactionaries. It's not our job to live and die with every single game. It's our job to see the forest through the trees. It's our job to give the perspective of what does this mean for the greater, bigger picture.

Vives are high with Dan News. Everybody early on, we're in a great honeymoon phase with this guy. we think he's doing a damn good job. Well, guess what? You just had a loss against Winnipeg where you didn't play poorly. You just didn't get the bounces. That happens in an 82 game season. Then you have this loss against the Pittsburgh,

or against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Well, because they did kind of beat themselves because they decided not show up for the final 20. But to the Toronto Maple Leafs, where you play damn near perfect hockey for 40 minutes, and then you just fall asleep at the wheel for the last 20 and you pay for it. How does Dan Mews? guide his team out of this? What does Dan Muse do to get this team back on track?

That's going to be part of the process and the progress. The other thing is, how does the team itself respond? Because they have had it pretty good to start the year. They have done pretty well, all things considered. Do they bounce back after this? What is this team's level of mental toughness going into this next pretty tough stretch of games against Washington, New Jersey and L.A. So as frustrated and as angry as I am at that loss, because like you said, it is inexcusable. I'm not making excuses for them.

That is a terrible effort, the final 20. But it presents an opportunity for the new head coach, who we've had a pretty good honeymoon phase with, and I don't think we're totally out of yet. And it shows us some of these new guys, some of these young guys, and absolutely the veterans who have been here. for a while. How do you respond to a loss like this?

I do get where you're coming from. I did want a response from that game against Winnipeg, even though I felt like the process for that game was mostly fine. They were just dug in by bad goaltending and they weren't able to finish. You fast forward to this game against Toronto. They're getting the goaltending through two periods, even though Tristan Jari wasn't really tested that much. They're getting the finishing from their players. Again, Ben Kindle was sensational. One of the goals was a little bit of a lucky bounce, but the other goal that he scored was gorgeous. The Carlson shot after that amazing feed from Crosby was awesome. And there are legit positives to take from this game on an individual performance basis, not the team performance

basis. And we'll get into one of them, of course, in the second segment where we discuss more about Ben Kendall and how his line continues to dominate teams on an every game basis. But from a team perspective, you know, I wanted to see a response and I was getting it, but you've got to finish the fight. The thing is, Pat, this hasn't been an issue in the third period yet this season up until this point when they would have leads in the third period it didn't matter if it was a one goal lead or a two goal lead or even a three goal lead they were taking the fight to the other team they weren't sitting back playing passive taking the period off but that completely changed in this one against serrano where they did all those things it felt like they were

playing pre-event defense it felt like they were not paying attention to the details they weren't taking the fight to the other team and you can't do that against the team that obviously didn't happen for 40 minutes, but their top line was humming. They got Willie Nealander back. He was great in that period. Austin Matthews really got them going, and he was also great defensively in that period, by the way. He was matched up a lot against the Crosby line.

He took his lunch for a lot of that third period. Matthews was great defensively, and he got the goal that really got them back into the game. But after that, the Penguins just couldn't find their game again. They couldn't settle down. And to your point, like this, that could be a potential learning experience, as to how, excuse me, Dam Euse is able to get them to respond in their next game against Washington.

So, and I wrote about this for the hockey news, we're going to find out what this team is really made of here going forward. You have two days to lick your wounds here, get back home, play a Capitals team that going into their game on Wednesday against the Blues, they have lost four in a row. They are also going to be playing on the second half of a back-to-back. How do you respond against one of your biggest rivals

before going to Newark, which has been a house of horrors for the penguins over the last several years, and then you have LA the next day, and then you go to Sweden. I'm really curious to see the response because, Pat, I just get nervous. I don't want this to, you know, tailspin, like where you start losing a bunch of games in a row and all that. I just really don't want that to happen after this one.

But I think that'll do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat, we got to touch on at least one positive from this game, and that is Ben Kindle and the entire third line continuing to kick a lot of butt. We're going to discuss that coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is game time. Hockey season is officially here, and nothing beats being in the arena for those opening games,

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and we found ourselves a really good deal for the Sunday's game against the Kings. Take the guesswork out of buying NHL tickets with game time down the game time map. Grant account and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. Turns a fly, that's code locked on NHL for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. All right, we're back here. this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host, Pat Stampe and Pat, we got to discuss this third line, man. I put out a tweet before Ben Kindle

got his first goal of the night on Monday that it's only a matter of time before you start seeing the goals happen because this line is pinning teams in their own zone for not just seconds at a time, for a minute plus at a time. And they're getting the scoring chances. It just hasn't translated into the results yet, aka the goals. And it was funny. Someone tweeted me during the first period. When are we going to see the goals? I haven't really seen a lot of scoring chances.

And sure enough, Ben Kindle gets a goal to make it 2-0 a bit later on in that game. And I even said, well, there you go. It's going to start happening. And you look at the underlines for this game. Novak, Kendall, and Coyvenin together, 78% of the shot attempts, 100% of the goals, 93.5% of the expected goals, 88.8% of the scoring chances, 100% of the high danger chances.

Pat, this line is kicking team's butts, night in and night out, and a lot of it is because of first round pick, Ben Kendall. The other goal that he scored came on the power play. I loved that feed from Evagany Malkin, just standing on the half wall, just zips it over. Ben Kendall unleashes an absolute bomb.

just an outstanding game from him, but that third line man, they are cooking. And I think it's also only a matter of time before Ville Coyden finds his first NHL goal. He is very snake bitten right now. You're right. Let's start right with that.

I know that a lot of people, including myself early on, were a little bit down on Vile Coyvenin for the way he had started this NHL season. And I think it was deserved. He was not exactly playing all that well. But this line of Novak, Kindel Coivanin, they found something. They have absolutely found something with this line.

I don't care if they are about to turn in a five-game losing streak with this team. Do not break that lineup. You can throw everything else together in Go Full Mad Scientist, head coach Dan Mews, but don't break this lineup. They are really starting to find something. here's the thing that I want to really emphasize with this third line. It's not just offense. It's not just they're getting scoring chances. They're getting good pressure because they are. You watch that game last night,

even in the third period when the penguins fell asleep, they were still getting pressure and some chances in the third. Nobody else on the team was. But you watch their overall game. They are really good defensively. Oh, yeah. They are in the right positions. They are making the right reads.

They are supporting the puck in the defensive zone, leading to breakouts, leading to chances, leading to pressure. And the fact that it's two rookies in Kindle and Coyvenin, in a younger guy in Novak, there is something to be said for players, especially young players, having confidence. and the three of these guys suddenly have all the confidence in the world with the way that they're playing, especially Ben Kindle. And I have to give a lot of credit to Dan Muse because it would be really easy to look at Ben Kindle, an 18-year-old who is surprising everybody and playing a lot better than anybody expected in going, listen. We're excited too.

We're very happy with what he's. doing, but we got to be cautious. He's thrown every challenge imaginable at Ben Kindle, and Ben Kindle has passed. He's on the first power play. He's running his own line, and he's rewarding his head coach for it. The kid, I, in a million years, would not have guessed he would be this ready for the NHL, but he is ready. Oh, a million percent, man. And you talked about the defense from that line. It's led by Kendall with how defensively responsible he, is how great his hockey IQ is. I mean, he's getting back, back checking his butt off, preventing scoring chances in his own zone. And then he's going the other way and pinning teams

in their own zone with the help of Tommy Novak and Dillac-Kloven. Novak and Kindle, I think, have some really strong chemistry so far. You're seeing Clovin have better efforts. It's only a matter of time before he is going to get his first NHL goal. He had a couple of really good chances last night, one of which I still can't believe he didn't score on. I felt like that was going to be it didn't happen and hey maybe at some point we get rucker mcgrorty if he's up here back healthy and maybe he gets some time with kendall and we get to see a full kids line they'll have to figure out what they want to do for example with no back if they want to you know move him down or something like that even though again i like the chemistry that he has with kendall but i could see them at least

experimenting a little bit more being a little bit of a mad scientist putting margorety on that line with covenin and kendall potentially having an all kids line but again we'll have to see on that i felt like that was a really big positive from last night. Another positive for me, individual performance wise, Pat, Eric Carlson was sensational once again. This was another great game. He gets his first goal of the year. What a pass, by the way, from Sidney Crosby.

That was beautiful stuff. And Carlson made no mistake. Coming in this game, he had 10 points, all assists. Now he gets his first goal. Hey, my bold prediction of him getting 70 plus points, Pat, looking pretty pretty good right now it sure is and up into and he's still not saved but now i got to give a reference to the what chaos podcast with dj bean and pete blackburn eric carlson still on the designated for assignment list with that stat line unlike a couple people who have only scored

goals and are going for the sye young but that was a masterful performance on that goal by everybody involved, including the breakout in the defensive zone play to get up, get up the ice and get themselves into that position to score the goal. And just an absolute snipe from Eric Carlson. He continues his strong play this season. And we'll see what it leads to. I do think part of it is him looking at team Sweden and going, hey, don't forget about me with the Olympics coming up.

I'm still here. And I know that we're all excited with the way this season has started and with the potential of where they could go this year. But if you're Kyle Dubus, you're picking up that phone a little bit every now and then and going, this Eric Carlson guy, it's pretty good, don't you think? If you're looking for him, that first round pick you got over there is looking pretty good. Buddy, they get a first round picking something back for him. If they decided trade him, I mean, I'd be going over the moon if they can get another first. that would be pretty nuts, but hey, he's playing great hockey right now.

I'm loving it. As for another negative from this game, though, Pat, we got to discuss Tristan Jari in that third period did not play well. I think that period was by far the worst he has looked all season. You need a timely save in that situation when your team is down. Matthews just made it 3-1. On that first Nealander goal, you've got to make a save there. There wasn't much room.

you've got to get over there, hug your post. It went right by him. That's not good enough. And then the tie angle, it came from way too far out. It felt like there wasn't a lot of traffic in front of them. And don't get me wrong. The Penguins could have played it better in their own zone, but you still would like to see a timely save.

He had been giving them timely saves all season up until that period. And then even I would say the Bobby McMahon goal pack, I didn't really like his effort there either. So just not very good. we do have to see. Was this just a bad period for him? Or is this a sign of things to come, especially after what we saw last year? I'm giving him for now the benefit of the doubt because he's been on a really strong start. And the third period was just a full team total meltdown. It wasn't because I always referenced there was a game around this time last year. It was either

mid-November, early December where they played the blue jackets. And they were on the comeback trail and Jari let let in a backbreaker. That's right. And you could see the body language of the team that was like, what do we do here? Like we're playing well. We're getting our effort. We're right on there. We're hot on their trail.

And then he lets this goal in. You could see the body language of the team was we can't win with this guy in net. Last night, pick your poison, whether it was bad offensive zone pressure, whether it was bad defensive zone. coverage, whether it was poor back checks, whether it was Tristan Jari, everybody has to wear that third period. So I will give him the benefit of the doubt for now, but I do think you are spot on in saying our old favorite phrase, you are allowed to make a save. You are allowed to bail your team out. But given the way the entire team just decided the third period was optional,

I can give him the slightest of passes for last night. At least for the way he played in the third period, I'm not going to give him that much of the past. Just three of those goals, I feel like he could have saved. That's just me. We got warning signs, a little bit of warning signs for him.

It's up to him now to see if he can send those away, going into the rest of the games this week. And that gets back into what I said in the first segment. Not only does this upcoming schedule, tell us what this team is truly made of. The response in general to last night will tell us what this team is made of. Because every team, all of them, all 32 in an 82 game season, are going to have clunkers. You are going to have games where you step on every rake imaginable and you either just get boat raced for 60 minutes or you piss away a really good lead.

the bad teams turn it into a spiral. The good teams, they figure it out. The great teams, they put it completely in the rear view and completely move on. We will see what this Penguins team is made of with their response to this loss. I brought it up before, you know, that Michael Irvin speech, nobody believes in you. What are you prepared to do about it? And we're going to find out the rest of this week and then heading into the rest of this month as well. But that'll do it for this second segment.

Coming up to end the show, Pat, Harrison Roonick, I felt like was mostly fine through two periods. And then, of course, the third period happened where he was completely out to lunch. He's played nine games. What are the penguins going to do with him? Pat and I are going to discuss that coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about one of our sponsors, and that is Fandle.

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All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. That's my co-host, Pat Stamp, and Pat. I was so excited heading in these last couple of games to finally see Pickering Grunick. I liked what I saw during the preseason. I liked what I saw during training camp, even though a lot of that is just glorified practice. And then you see the regular season form and I was like,

might have jumped the gun a little bit. I've had people coming into my mentions being like, you're sure you want to see more of this? Can we get an update? It's like, hey, those tweets are totally fair. You can dog on me for them. I just was excited because I liked the chemistry that they had going into the regular season. And even for 40 minutes last night, I thought at least Brunick was totally fine. He seemed calm, composed. He was simplifying things. I thought pickering was a little bit rough. and then it got especially worse for him in the third. And then for Brunich in the third, Pat, he did not look good at all, was constantly out of position.

He was getting hemmed in his own zone, wasn't bringing the offense, wasn't skating as well as he did in the first 40 minutes, just did not look comfortable during that period. And it begs the question, nine game trial over. What do you do with Harrison Brunich? Pat, I'm kind of wondering if they're going to send him back to work on some things and have them, just do the world junior route and still play at Cam Loops and then maybe come up to Wilkesbury. What say you?

This is the downside of the agreement between the Canadian Junior League in the NHL. Because I think we're all in agreement. Brunick is too good to go back to juniors. He's done everything he needs to do there, but they can't send them to Wilkeshire. and he right now looks like a prime get right in Wilkeshire kind of candidate, but they can't do that. And I talk about this a lot on the podcast. I worry about defensemen development because a crisis of confidence for a young defenseman can derail that development pretty quickly.

And if you look at Brunex game, you hit on it beautifully, Hunter. He just does not look confident. He looks completely unsure of himself. He is second guessing and slow to get to where he needs to get to. And it's not for a lack of skill. It's not for a lack of will. He is just second guessing himself at every turn. And at this point, I think you have to send him back.

And I hate to do that because I don't think he needs to do anymore at Junior and Camloops. While they're not as bad as they were last year, they're still not that good. But at this point, you want Harrison Brunich to be one of your best defensemen two to three years from now. You don't need them to be one of your best defensemen right now. And if you are playing the long game, this is probably what's best for Harrison Brunich. Right. And Cam Wob's is a little bit better.

So if you do send him back, I guess the thinking for them would be, hey, you can go down there, dominate on that team be the bona fide number one defenseman, and then you can go to the world juniors, try to play well there, go back to Cam Loops, finish off the season, no matter what, and then you can go to Wilkesbury, help them in the playoffs because the Wilkesbury Penguins are looking like an absolute wagon to start the year, and I felt like he was getting more comfortable in the HL at the end of last season. And again, if they do make that decision, they could also be like, hey, there's probably going to be a full-time spot for you on this team next season, especially because the defensive core, we all know is going to look at least a little bit different

for next year. But they have a big decision to make over these next couple of days to see if they want to send him back, get him top pair of minutes on Camloos, get him to the world juniors, or if they want to keep him on this development plan and start the ELC, but also maybe not playing as much. We all know that Kendall's not going to play every game. We're going to see him scratched at times, but you've seen for him, Pat, he's getting better. He's getting more comfortable in every game. I haven't seen that from Brunich. It was at the start, but the last three, he just isn't getting better.

I feel like honestly, he's getting a little bit worse. That's kind of the difference right now is with each passing game, Benjamin Kindle plays, he gets a little bit better. He gets a little bit more confident. And now, part of that is I'm not saying it's easy, but, developing as a forward is a little bit easier because you can hide a forward a little bit better than you can hide a defenseman when you're trying to develop them. But they are on two separate tracks right now. Kindle's getting better. Kindle is starting to become more confident. He's starting

to look more like a full-time NHL player. Harrison Brunick, on the other hand, I said it on yesterday's show and it reared its ugly head in the third period last night. The one area, he is really struggling his net front. And if it was anything else in his game, you could excuse it and say, listen, he's 19, he's developing. There's going to be hiccups. But if you can't cover the house,

it is in the NHL, it's going to lead to a lot of pain, not just for you as a young defenseman, but for your team. And everything else, though, I like his skating. I like his puck skills. Yeah.

I like his vision. but the inability to cover the front of the, I don't want to say inability, that's mean, but the struggles he is having with the net front is a real problem right now. And again, we know this team isn't trying to win. We don't expect them to be a contender, but you want them to play at least good, somewhat meaningful hockey. And what he is bringing right now is kind of antithetical to that. I do think that's fair. We do have to remember that he is still only 19.

He's not even close to a finished product. And I guess, again, if they send him back, their line of thinking was, hey, you can work on some of these things on your junior team playing top pair of minutes. And then, again, Wilkes-Berry situation, the role juniors. And then there'll probably be a spot for him full-time next year. But that's if, of course, they decide to send him back to Camloops. We will have to see over the next couple of days, I would guess what they, decide to do with him. But I think that's going to do it for today's episode of the Locked-on

Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much to take the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Wednesday, catching you all up on Penguins News. Plus, of course, it's Warrior Helmet Wednesday giving our weekly MVP to the best Penguins player. But again, that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We both appreciate it. Pat and I will be back on Wednesday.