Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins defensive play must improve to get back to the playoffs

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

The Penguins dropped consecutive games to the Carolina Hurricanes and Winnipeg Jets and there's a similar theme between those losses. Patrick and Hunter begin the episode talking about the slog that was the loss to the Hurricanes and how a combination of poor defensive play and a lack of patience led to an uninspired loss. Then, they began the Western Canada swing in Winnipeg where the team played extremely well in the offensive zone but was a disaster in the defensive zone. They discuss what has to change in their system and how without competent defensive play, this team won't go very far. Finally, the vaunted swing through Western Canada continues this week with matchups against the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app or go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNHL to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. 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.FanDuelPlace your first FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - guaranteed ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started.HimsVisit Hims.com/LOCKEDON to start your free online visit. 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' Western Canada swing is not off to an encouraging start, and Hunter and I are going to talk about the two games from this past weekend and more on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. 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 edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4 Wet, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes.

You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's account a follow at L0 underscore Penguins. And of course, we thank you for making this your first listener watch of the day because we're your team every day. And don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as YouTube. And before we jump into the Penguins talk today, today's episode is brought to you by fan. Dwell. Place your first $5 bet, and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit fandul.com to get started. Well, for the first time this season, the Penguins have lost consecutive games,

dropping a game against the Carolina Hurricanes 4 to 1, and then losing to the Winnipeg Jets in Winnipeg 6 to 3. We will start with the first game that they lost this weekend against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. and this one, there's a lot to unpack from this one because for it only being a four to one loss, there was, despite it being what one would consider a low event game, there's a lot that went into that low event game. And I'll start with this. You can kind of understand there being a bit of a lull following that Sabres victory with

Sidney Crosby getting point number 1,600 of Gennie Malkin getting goal number 500. That was such an emotional game top to bottom, both in the sense that you had your two franchise cornerstones reach historic milestones. And it was just a back and forth battle that had several lead changes, goes to overtime, and was no matter how good or bad your team is, a game like that is draining because it takes every ounce of you when it happens. So I think all of us were prepared for a little bit of a letdown against the Carolina Hurricanes, but this was more than just a letdown. This is something that I really hate saying because it's professional athletes. They are the 1% of the 1%. They're all great at

what they do. But when it comes to sports, when it comes to games like that, You can't control what your opponent does. You can't control the way your opponent's roster is built. But what you can control is your effort. And if there's one thing I saw in that Carolina game, there was not a lot of effort from the Pittsburgh Penguins. They looked basically disinterested in even being there, let alone playing the game.

It was a flat performance. It was almost difficult to watch, but for other reasons. but at the end of the day, the main takeaway I had from that game, Hunter, was that the penguins just did not seem interested in being there. They were flat-footed. Even after the Drew O'Connor goal to open the scoring,

they weren't playing well. I mean, they gave the goal right back back in basically a minute or two, and then the rest of that game, they were chasing. And honestly, they were chasing from the opening drop of the puck. Yowell Blumquist had to come up with quite a few timely saves in the first five to seven minutes, especially one on Kokomew in front of the net. He was, again, one of the biggest reasons why the penguins had a chance to start that game

and why they at least had a shot at coming back in the third period. It was three to one, even though this team was playing awful defensively. And that's going to be a pretty big theme throughout this episode, people, the way the penguins have defended. Not even just in that game, but just the entire season is absolutely atrocious. Pat, you still play beer league. I play in an elementary school. I played in middle school, high school.

The teams that I played on had better defensive awareness than what you're seeing from the penguins right now. It is that bad. I'm sure the Bitter League team that you play on has better defensive awareness than the penguins have right now. And I'll get into some numbers in a little bit.

But yeah, they were just flat-footed all night. And I understand that it doesn't help that Carolina plays a very boring style of hockey. Danny Shirey, a really good friend of the show, called it Despicable Hockey on Twitter. and I responded to him with something that I said on the show during the preview. They're the more fun version of the Islanders, but it's not by much. They clog up the neutral zone.

They don't give you anything. They play every shift like it's game seven in the Stanley Cup final because that's how their head coach played. Rod Rendemore, when he was a player, played every single shift like it was game seven in the final like he's trying to win the cup every single game. That is how his players play for him. That's how it's been ever since he got the job as Carolina's head coach. coach. But it definitely is a bit boy. The Penguins only had seven high danger chances.

They did not create enough offense. I mean, you look at their expected goals for for that game. It was only 1.15. You're not going to win games against teams like that and make the playoffs if you, again, put performances together like that. And you look at the games overall this season. They're three and four. They've beaten three teams that you expect them to beat, but they've gotten kind of embarrassed in the other four games because they've played. played for bona fide playoff teams to bona fide stemly cup contenders and even though i don't think the hurricanes are a bona fide contender they're still a very good team that's i think going to make the playoffs and you can see the penguins were very much outclassed in that game not enough offense

especially from the top line which we'll get to more during this episode the top line continues to be a little bit of a problem this year and again defensively they were out to lunch all game and I understand now that Tristan Jari was a healthy scratch on Sunday. We'll get to that a little bit later as well. But if the defensive awareness does not change, they are not going to go anywhere this season. And you'll continue to see similar, excuse me, results against playoff teams.

Right. And I said to Danny, like, I think we both replied at the exact same time. I said it reminded me of the trap era devils, but instead of it being like the trap era devils, it's on 1.5 speed. They're not a completely slow, clog it up, slow it down team. They still have some speed.

They still put up a great effort when they play. Like you said, they play every game like it's game seven. But the system in which they play is more shut it down, lock it down, don't give your opponent anything. And for my wrestling fans out there, it's a Gunther sleeper hole. They're just choking the life out of you all game long until you pass out. And that's what we saw. against the penguins on Friday. The other thing from that game that really worries me is what you said.

And it kind of coincides with what I said as well. You know when you play the Carolina Hurricanes, this isn't a new thing. This isn't something that just cropped up in the last couple of years. This is who the Carolina Hurricanes are. You know that you're going to be in for a slog. You know that this is going to be just a slug fest. It's going to be difficult to watch. it's not going to be a lot of high event hockey.

You have to be prepared for that. You have to understand that you're not going to get 45 shots. You're not going to get double-digit high danger chances. You're only going to get a handful of chances. And you have to make the most out of them. And you have to play patient against that team. This really felt like a throwback game to the 2010s with the Penguins, where they would get into these games against teams that were more defensive.

teams that slowed it down and they would play really frustrated hockey. They would want to open it up. They would want to turn it into a track meet and their opponent would just say, okay, you go ahead and do that. We're going to cut your attack off before it even gets a chance to start. And we're going to smother you. And they would play frustrated. They would play disorganized hockey.

And you saw that on Friday night. And then you couple that with the effort not, really being there and it's just overall an unacceptable loss. And finally, the last thing that bothers me on this is, and listeners of our show, no, we are ride or die with the big three. This past weekend and especially starting on Friday, they got to show up, man. The rest of the team is picking them up a little bit right now. And they're not playing poorly, obviously, of Gennie Malkin has been off to a great

start. Sydney Crosby, slower start, but he's doing Sidney Crosby things. Eventually, the pucks are going to start to fall, hopefully. And then there's Chris LaTang who has struggled early. And in a game like Fridays, those three

have to be the catalyst, and they just weren't. I'm not going to pick on Evgeny Malkin too much. He's been fantastic. No, obviously he's got a long rope right now with the way he started the season, but it was not his best effort on Friday, but that goes for the entire team. No, and I think that's fair.

He didn't really play that well. And I think even in Winnipeg, it wasn't, I guess, his best game. But he has such a big cushion right now, especially with the way he has started this season. So I'm not really too worried on him. I'm more worried about, you know, someone like Crystal Tang, who I think has had more bad games to start the year than good games, someone like Sidney Crosby, who I think he's turned it on at times this season.

But it's still been more of a struggle for him overall. compared to last season, for example. And, I mean, you look at some of the underlying numbers from that game against Carolina, Pat. I mean, the Bavillier-Crosby-Rust line, five shot attempts for, 17 shot attempts against. I mean, Crosby was awful in that game, and Jacob Slavin was kind of taking his lunch money overall. And you look at some of these other lines, for example, Pat, the O'Connor-Eller-Pul-Yarly line, one shot at 10-8-4-7 against, bunting with Elear and Plyarvey, 1-4, 11 against. even when they tried to combine Crosby and Malkin, which I am more of a fan of than some other people,

it still didn't go well. No shot attempts for, three shot attempts against. No matter what they did to try and generate offense, creating a quote-unquote super line or whatever, it just didn't work because Carolina was clogging everything up. They weren't giving them anything in the offensive zone. And you're right. You've got to be patient when you play a team like that. You also have to, again, convert on your chances when you get them,

even though they're going to be few and far between. It's kind of the same thing with Winnipeg, even though the Penguins did a lot better of a job against Winnipeg than they did against Carolina. But you always have to be prepared for a game like that against Carolina because it's boring hockey, it's not fun. I don't know how their fans do it for a full season. But hey, they got the win.

That's all that matters to them. But I still need to see more effort from the Penguins in the offensive zone going forward because I feel like even though Carolina played a very good defense of the game, I feel like Pittsburgh had more to give in that game. They really did. And an effort like that, you would expect to see some changes. And we certainly did against the Winnipeg Jets. And it worked until it didn't.

And Hunter and I are going to talk about that in our second segment. When we come back, we'll keep this conversation going. But before we do that, we have to tell you about our first sponsor. And that is Indeed. We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search. Match with Indeed.

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Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs, more visibility at Indeed.com slash locked on. Just go to Indeed.com slash locked on right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this very podcast. Indeed.com slash locked on terms and conditions apply need to hire. You need Indeed. All right. Welcome back to the Monday edition of the

the Locked-on Penguins podcast. And unlike our cohort, Chris Carter over on Locked-on Steelers, it is not a victory Monday here on Locked-on Penguins because the Penguins weekend was an offer. And that continued on Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets, losing six to three. And like we said to end the first segment, it led to quite a few changes in the lineup. We saw Drew O'Connor promoted to the first line. Anthony Bavillier was sent down to the third. line. Yesy Poo-Yarvey gets put on of Gennie Malkin's wing and Tristan Jari gets healthy scratched along with Michael Bunting, who was also healthy scratched and Yoel Blumquist backed up. And for the most part, the Penguins played a fairly good game, if you ask me, at least offensively. They were on the

attack. They took the game to the Winnipeg Jets. They were relentless on the forecheck. They were willing to shoot the puck. They once again got depth scoring from Kevin Hayes and Lars Eller, who had the three goals, Lars Eller, with another two-goal performance. He's off to a really good start this year. Same thing with Kevin Hayes, who had a beautiful finish on a power play. And the problem here in lies with what everybody in the Penguins orbit wants to talk about right now, and that is the Penguins defensive.

effort. The problem with Sunday's game was the penguins, for all intents and purposes, when they were in the offensive zone, they were the better team. They had a hell of an effort in the offensive zone. They were attacking. It looked like the back-to-back cup years. They were just relentless. But any time the puck went into the defensive zone, you winced in rightfully so. When a peg gets five goals plus an empty netter and pretty much all five of those goals with Alex Nadalkovich in net were defensive breakdowns. So Hunter, I know you have a lot of thoughts on this. I'm going to stop yapping and I'm going to let you cook.

Well, I'm going to start this with a old quote. You'll know exactly where this is from when you hear it. Everyone that listens or watches the show will know exactly where this is from. So are you ready? I really think their goal is to be the worst defensive squad in the league. That is literally what this is right now. Everyone is running around in the defensive zone like a bunch of headless chickens. No one knows what their assignment is.

There's no communication. It is awful to watch. They're putting their goaltenders in terrible positions. And granted, yes, Shurzanjari has had a horrific start to the season. His confidence has not been there. He's given up easy goals. but the payments have made it so hard on him and every goalie that has been in net

because they refuse to play any sort of team defense in the defensive zone. I mean, you look at one of the goals from last night that really stood out to me that I put in my notes. The one pat where Ryan Graves just standing there when Alex Nelkevich makes the save, puck goes right to Ryan Graves, doesn't do anything with it.

He allows Mark Scheiflead to just put the puck in the back of the net. I'm like, why are you just standing there? It's just the total lack of accountability from anyone, at least so far on the team when it comes to team defense is ridiculous. And I have some stats overall. In all situations, the Penguins have given up 108 high danger chances this season. That is the most in the NHL overall, 108. At 5 on 5, if we just go down to 5 on 5, it is 87 high danger chances. That is also a terrible number.

While these games might be more entertaining, more chaotic, you need to have a semblance of defensive play in your own zone. It is past time for this head coach to make changes. I know I was out on Mike Sullivan after this past season. I was ready for them to move on. They decided not to do it. We all have to live with it. But if he is going to keep being this head coach

for at least this entire season, season, he has to make some adjustments with how this team is playing defensively. I'm not saying they need to go back to doing what they were doing in 16 and 17 because he doesn't have that personnel, but it has to be better. You should not be getting nervous every time an opposing player comes into your own zone with the puck on his stick. You see, also, for example, I know I'm kind of running around here with all these notes in my Google Doc and everything.

when a player comes into the zone with control, a penguin's player will go to him to defend, but he'll also leave an entire area of the ice just unattended. And that allows for other players on the other team to get to that spot and get really good chances while the penguin players are like, oh, what the heck are we supposed to do? You've been seeing that constantly through these first seven games.

And I don't expect this team to be as good defensively as, you know, Winnipeg, for example, as you just saw. They've been great defensively all year. you know, Carolina with how they clogged up the neutral zone. Heck, even Toronto has had a pretty good start to the season defensive wise. But it's got to be better than this. And as long as it keeps being like this, you will continue to see them lose games to playoff caliber teams and contenders.

You can maybe get by by beating a team, for example, as you just saw, like Buffalo, like Montreal, like Detroit, because those three teams are terrible defensively, probably as bad as the Penguins, if not worse. But you're not going to get by beating a team like Carolina, beating a team like Winnipeg if you continue to play as soft defensively as they are in their own zone. This needs to change and it needs to change ASAP. Well, I want to push back on something that you said. You said, I don't want them to go back to what they did in 16 and 17.

That's the problem. They're trying to do what they did in 1617. team. They're playing a puck side overload defensive zone system, which whether it's they don't have the will or the skill to play that anymore or other teams have just figured it out. It's no longer effective. It's a combination of both, honestly. Again, Pat, I just don't think they have the personnel to do it. They don't. And I have been talking about this for quite a while now. The change they need to bring in for the defensive zone is a very simple, simplified defensive system. box in one. You have your wingers. They take the point. They go from the face off dots up to the

blue line. Their assignment is the guys at the point. Your defensemen play low in front of the net, dots down. And then your center is your support man, whether it's supporting the defense down low or supporting the wingers up high when the puck goes high. You have good enough centers on this team. And I know people are talking about how, you know, maybe Sidney Crosby's defensive game is a little overrated, which I agree, but also disagree with. That's a different discussion. Same thing with Hvgeny Malkin. And then you have Lars Eller and you have a smattering of a couple other guys who can fill in at fourth line center. But those guys still have the speed and the acumen to play in that center role as the support player. and it'll give you what you talked about, Hunter, where they attack the puck upon entry

and it leaves a portion of the ice open, you move to that system, that part of the ice is no longer open. It's a simple system. And I know that in the NHL and just in professional sports in general, coaches love to overthink things. They love to think, oh, I got to be this brilliant tactician.

But there's a reason fundamentals are called fundamentals because they are the foundation on which the house is built. And if you can play something simple, it will lead to better success. Now, if this was still 2016, 2017, 2018, stick with that Puckside overload. It overwhelmed teams. This team had unbelievable team speed. And being able to play that Puckside overload completely derailed any sort of offensive

attack their opponents had. It's not how this team is anymore. And I said it yesterday. Sullivan deserves credit for changing up the offensive attack. It's not as relentless anymore. It's not built upon speed. It's built upon puck possession down low, pulling defenders down low and opening up that middle of the ice or the point.

And we saw it against Winnipeg. It was very effective. They were great in the offensive zone. They held on to the puck for a long time. They got plenty of chances. If you pop open the hood and look at the underlying numbers, they controlled the shot attempts. they controlled the high danger chances.

They were a great offensive team on Sunday, but they couldn't defend. And to put a bow on it, yes, like you said, Tristan Jari has struggled this year. Nadelkovich was solid in his first start. Blumquist has been pretty good so far. But if they don't get help soon, it's not going to matter what kind of performance they put in. They're going to have to be called upon to steal games at this point. and as much as I like Alex Nadelcovic, as encouraged as I am by Yoel Blumquist, and with everything that's happened with Tristan Jari in the last year or so,

they're not going to be able to steal games. No, they won't. I 100% agree with you. Again, 33 high danger chances allowed at five on five these last two games against Winnipeg and Carolina. Blumquist has started one game, Ndegovitch has started another. And they've both kept the penguins in these games with timely saves. Tristan Jari was not doing that during his starts,

even though the team was also playing just as bad defensively, the Penguins have just gotten more timely saves from the other two goalies, which is why you saw both of them dress on sending its Winnipeg compared to Jari being scratched. But they're not going to go anywhere if they don't clean up this part of their game. It's, I think right now with Jari Scratch, it's by far their biggest issue, 100%. So this has got, they got to start simplifying things. They got to start having cleaner zone exits overall.

it feels like every time they're trying to exit the zone with control, it's a fight. You don't need to make it this hard. They're hemmed in their own zone way too long. Too many careless decisions with the puck. Again, too many aggressive pinches, even not in the offensive zone. You've got to dial it back a little bit. You've got to make adjustments. And if this head coach is not willing to do that, get them out of there.

Sorry. Might be time. you are not incorrect, but there's still a lot of challenges coming on the horizon for the Pittsburgh Penguins this week. As the Western Canada swing continues, we're going to talk about what's coming this week, what the penguins have to be on the lookout for, and how they can come out of this trip with a little bit of success. And we will do that right after this when we tell you about our next sponsor. And that is Fandul. NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on Fandall, America's number one. sportsbook. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play by play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets.

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As the Western Canada swing continues this week, they will play the Calgary Flames on Tuesday, one of two teams in the NHL that are in the Western Conference and have not lost in regulation. They are right there with the Winnipeg Jets as well as the Minnesota Wild. So this is going to be a huge challenge for the Pittsburgh Penguins. That's a surprisingly good hockey team to start the year. So that's going to be a tough test. Then it gets even worse later in the week. On Friday, they've got the Edmonton Oilers.

And then they go right to one of the better teams in the National Hockey League in the Vancouver Canucks. Do not let the records of those two teams full you. Those are great hockey teams that are figuring it out and will be right there at the end of the year. So we started talking in the last segment about how the defense and the defensive zone play has to improve. Maybe not so much with Calgary because you look at their roster. There's some talent there. They just play a very good team game. But Friday and Saturday, Edmonton and Vancouver.

if there's one thing those two teams have in common, they can score. They can score in bunches. And if they don't tighten up the defensive zone, those two games could be a world of hurt. Yeah, we could be looking at eight to two blowout losses in those two games if the Penguins do not tighten up at all in the defensive zone. So with Edmonton, you're right.

Bad start to the season. They also did this last year. Look what happened. They got to the Stanley Cup final. They're within one game of winning it all against. of Florida Panthers. And with how the Penguins have played against the Oilers, these last several games, they've gotten their butts whooped. So, yeah, they don't tighten up, especially in that game. You're going to see more of the same. Vancouver. That game in Vancouver last year was

actually one of the Penguins better efforts of the year, both offensively and defensively. But that is still a great Canucks team. If they're able to get Demco back, I think they can definitely challenge the Oilers in a playoff series and potentially be the top team in the Western conference overall this year. even though they've had a slow start of the season as well, I still think they're going to be fine. But another thing I'm looking for this week, does Michael Bunting get back in the lineup?

You can see that the penguins have pretty high expectations for him for this season, as do I. I mean, one of my bowl predictions was for him scoring 30 plus goals a year just because I felt like he was such a seamless fit next to a beginning Malikin. And he definitely has not been close to as good as he was to end last season, but I don't think he's been a flat out corpse on Malkins line. He's just not playing well overall. And I do think a game to maybe get his head right is, I guess, fine,

but you've got to put him back in the lineup at some point this week. I understand scratching him for a game, sending him a message saying, like, hey, you have a little bit of term on your contract. We're really excited about you, but we want you to be better. So we're going to have you sit out for a game, put Valtzvary Pustin in the game, and we're going to have you just kind of clear your, head a little bit, just maybe there's too many things going on.

And I do think he's going to get back in the lineup this week. And I'm hoping that he's able to be better because, again, if this team wants to go where they want to go this year, which is getting back to the playoffs, they're going going to need Michael Bunting to be a lot better going forward. I mean, he only has one point to open the season so far. That's not good enough. So I'm curious to see when he does come in, does he go right back on if Kimmelkins line? Does he start on the third line?

because yes, he pulled Yardv. He was on the second line in that game against Winnipeg, and I felt like that was very deserved. He's had a really good start to the season. I understand people were upset about breaking up the third line, but I'm all for rewarding players who have been better than expected. So I was fine with him being on Malkins line, but I'm still curious to see what happens with bunting there overall.

And then the goaltending situation, of course, you have three goalies on this trip. Are you going to keep riding to Delkevich and Blumquist in these games? Does Jari come back in from one of them? that's also a big question as well. If they were up to me, I kind of just keep giving the net to Nadelcovic while having Blumquist play in a couple of games as well,

just because you still got to get Jari right. You got to figure out that situation. But again, that's just me. Right. And there is one thing I will say, because I know that we kind of dumped all over Mike Sullivan in the second segment. If there is one thing that's worth discussing in praising him for this season

outside of changing up the offensive zone attack. He's not being patient this year. There is no, hey, we're going to wait it out and figure it out and see what happens. He's throwing lines in a blender. He's scratching Tristan Jari. He's giving the young goalie a chance to play. He's rewarding guys like Yassie Puyarvi and Anthony Bavillier, who were strong in the preseason and strong to start the season with promotions.

He's not afraid to take guys out of the lineup. Like you said, Michael Bunting, like Tristan Jari. those are good moves because this team has continued to say that their goal is to get back to the postseason. And if you can glean anything from these first seven games with Mike Sullivan, his head coach this year, it's that his mentality is you are either helping or hurting. And if you're helping, you will be rewarded. If you're hurting, you will not be rewarded. So I can't get mad at him for that because, yeah, I would love to see that third line continue to cook.

but when Yassi Pui-Arvys been playing as well as he has, and Michael Bunting struggling a little bit to start the season, that is putting the players who are performing in a position to succeed. So I can't be upset about that. I agree with you on the goaltending thing. I think even if they don't decide to wave or send Jari down, I think at this point, you let him get his confidence back. You just kind of have him work with Andy Kyoto in practices,

have him stay away from game days, let him figure it out. And if he comes back better, great. If not, then we got a whole other discussion to have. But this is going to be a really, really challenging week for the Penguins. Tuesday night, 9.30 p.m. against the Calgary Flames. That's Eastern Standard Time, obviously. Friday at Edmonton, 9 p.m. And then Saturday against Vancouver, 10 p.m.

So for all you late night hockey fans, this is your week to shine. But we are going to end it there for the Monday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. We will be back tomorrow to get you set for the game against the Calgary Flames and anything else that may come up between now and then. But for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. And we will be back with a brand new episode for you on Tuesday.