Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins DOOMED by slow start and mistakes in Washington!

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

The Penguins had another sloppy start on Wednesday against the Capitals, and it cost them. Hunter and Patrick begin the Thursday edition of the Locked On Penguins Podcast by recapping a 5-3 loss to the Washington Capitals, which turned into a tale of two games. (00:45) The Penguins started slow and played sloppily through the first 30 minutes, but a solid effort in the final 30 minutes wasn't enough to mount a full comeback. They then discuss whether they’re starting to get worried after the last 7 periods. (12:00) While it is still early in the season, some recurring mistakes have begun to crop up. Can the Penguins fix them, or could they threaten to derail their season? Finally, since the Penguins lost once again, Hunter and Patrick hand out their 3 shames of the game. (23:50)Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!OdooGreat organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon.IndeedNow, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to https://indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.Butcher BoxIf you're looking for an easier way to get great meals on the table, give ButcherBox a try. Go to https://ButcherBox.com/LOCKEDONNHL to get $20 off your first box, plus your choice of free ribeye, new york strip, or filet mignon in every box for a year — with free shipping always.GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.KALSHIToday's episode is brought to you by Kalshi. For a limited time, Download Kalshi and use code Locked On to get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi. Trade what’s next.FanDuelThis season, FanDuel is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all-new FanDuel Rewards Club, featuring exclusive offers, surprises, and more. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what’s waiting for you or visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Another slow start and really stupid giveaways, doom the Penguins once again on Wednesday night in Washington, and Pat and I are going to recap that game coming up 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 the Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunters-Hoddies, joined as always by my co-host, Patrick Damp, a bit later on in the show.

We're going to get into the second edition of our three shames of the game after the Penguins lost 5 to 3 to the Washington Capitals on Wednesday night. We're also going to discuss, are we fully worried yet? Or is this just a little blip on the radar to start the season? But kicking things off here, Pat, another slow start dooms them once again. They were asleep at the wheel, literally right at the opening puck drop. 23 seconds in, former Penguin Anthony Bavillier scores to make it 1-0. I have no idea what Trevor Van Reevesdyke is doing there

and he was awful throughout this entire game. More on him and a little bit of Pat. I have no clue what he was doing there. I have no clue what anyone was doing at that time. It was nice for the Penguins to get that goal back. But the rest of that period was just an absolute slog from the Penguins perspective. They were not handling the puck very well.

They were horrendous in their own zone. What Chris LaTang did on the second goal, Pat. Like, what are we doing here? You get a puck along the boards. You're throwing it to no man's land behind the net. The capitals are like, okay, thank you very much. We're just going to take it and we're going to fire that puck into the back of the net. Did we take the lead?

Just too many stupid JV level mistakes killed them tonight because honestly, man, I'm like it. Some crap for this. That's fine. I like the process in the final 35-ish minutes of that game. The difference was mistakes killed them. It's a tale of two games. That's really what it is. was the first 30 minutes of the game and then there was the second 30 minutes of the game.

The first half of the game, the penguins were sloppy. They were making incredibly boneheaded mistakes. You highlighted Chris Latang's giveaway where you might as well give him a secondary assist on Wilson's goal. Literally. Because he gives it right to PLD. PLD finds Tom Wilson uncovered in the slot. And I saw a lot of people say, how can you lose that guy right in the slot? they didn't. They weren't expecting Chris LaTang to pass it to the caps behind the net. So there wasn't

a blown assignment. It was, what is this guy doing? And then you have the second 30 minutes of the game where they tightened up. They played smarter defensively. They were more, they were more defiant, I would say, against the caps forecheck. And the problem was, like we've seen so many times over the last couple of seasons, they put themselves so far behind the eight ball, it becomes almost impossible to get back. Right. And even just outside of those couple plays,

we saw Declan Carlisle, Pat. No clue what he was doing that miscommunication with Artie she loves behind the net. That was another one where it's like another self-inflicted error. And then Declan Carlisle tries that cross-lights pass along the blue line, easy interception 2-10. When you're in that situation, you dump the puck around. You cannot make that pass to the opposite end of the blue line

when there is a Capitals player streaking right across, ready to intercept it. Just again, those four plays just gift-wrapped at the Capitol's goals, and they were JV-level mistakes that you simply cannot make. We saw some J-V-level mistakes against Winnipeg. They carried over into this game, and yeah, it was nice to see them really push back in the final 35 minutes, Like, for example, after Novak's goal, they were the better team for the rest of that game. I thought the Capitals were a little bit sloppy in their own end.

It was nice to see them make it 4-3, a nice deflection by Nick Robertson. They had a power play to end the second period, carried over into the third. They had some really good quality chances there. But Logan Thompson, when he needed to, he stepped up, made the big saves, and then Pat, when the Penguins needed a timely save early in the third after TVR's awful penalty there, and that came after he somehow did not keep the puck at the blue line. It was a pretty easy keep. He just fubbles it.

And obvious penalty call going the other way. I still want to save there from Arty. I'm not trying to be too harsh on him, but I have to be objective overall. I know you texted me this as well, Pat. I need a save there considering that the penguins were really back in the game at that point. Yeah, listen, I said it on social media during the game. The thing about Artie Shilov's last night is he was both the difference and the problem

because you talked about the Carlisle giveaway slash Shilov's giveaway behind the net. A lot of that is on Carlisle. He's got to recognize that his goaltenders out of the net and playing the puck and just get out of his way. But Shilov also has to notice he's got help. He's got a defenseman there who can go get the puck and he doesn't have to leave his net. And then the power play goal in the third by Leonard, I saw some people say there was a bit of a screen. Yes and no.

You should have the scouting report on someone like Ryan Leonard. You know he's going to shoot. And it was a mostly unscreen shot from the wall that he just gives up. And in that moment, even though it was only about four minutes into the third, from about the 10 minute mark of the second period for the rest of the game, Penguins snatched the momentum back. They got themselves within one goal. You've got to have a save there.

And it's not unfair to say that to Ari Shilovs because we praised him yesterday. We praised him so far to start this season. He has been serviceable to good since the Flyers series in the playoffs last year. And last night was the first time we saw kind of Arteley. she loves from last year, where a couple of goals that were shaky. And if he makes that save and the penguins kill off that penalty, they've pretty much got 15 minutes to get one goal and maybe salvage a point. But with the way that game was going and with the way Logan Thompson was playing,

two goals was just about a death sentence. Yeah, that kind of just deflated their comeback attention. because they were really kind of taking it to Washington right after the Novak goal. Even before the Novak goal, you could kind of tell that they were starting to string some shifts together. Of course, Pat, it only took 15 minutes to put Ryan Russ back on the top line. I would not be surprised if we get that again on Friday in Columbus. I love what Brian Russ can do with Ben Kendall. We saw it earlier in the game where those two were really good together.

We saw Brian Russ Patented move for his first goal of the season. We have seen him do that countless times. that's one of the positives from this game. But with Crosby continuing to struggle, and we'll get into that in the second segment, they kind of had no choice from a staff perspective to put Brian Russ back up there to see if that can really get the captain going. Again, we're going to touch more on that here in a few minutes,

but I wasn't too surprised. In the end, it was just too many dumb mistakes. Like, if you don't make those JV-level mistakes, this could have been a completely different game. The good part is, and we're going to expand more on this in the second pat. All of this is fixable. Like those mistakes, like the Chris LaTang play behind the net, the Declan Carlis pass

from the blue line, or what R.D. She loves and Declan Carlisle of that miscommunication, all of that stuff is extremely fixable. Now, will they fix it? That's going to be the question. But I will say, this is all extremely, extremely fixable stuff that you can just put on the tape in practice. Right.

We're going to expand further on this in the second. segment, but you look at a lot of what happened against Winnipeg, a lot of what happened from basically the third period on from Montreal until at the end of the Caps game. None of this is a fatal flaw. I didn't watch any of these games, save for maybe the Habs game because the Habs are really, really good. And the Caps, good on paper. I need to see it in practice for a season. Obviously, we have the, and I'm not trying to hate on the Caps. I just, they had a, good solid amount of roster turnover. There's some question marks.

If they can do this consistently, may change my tune a little bit, but you look at what has happened basically in the last seven periods. And none of it is, oh, this is just a lesser team going up against a better team and there's nothing you can do.

There's a lot of fixable things and a lot of simple things that the penguins can do to get themselves, I shouldn't even say back on track, It was the fourth game of the season. We have 80 left to go. But you look at some of the mistakes and you think, okay, it's frustrating in the moment.

You're watching this game. You're in the moment you want them to win. But then when you step back a little bit, you go, okay, listen, it's annoying. It's frustrating. Right. But it's fixable. Right. And we're going to expand on that coming up here right after this.

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And of course, you can follow our shows Twitter, LO underscore Penguins. You can follow our Instagram at Lockdown underscore Penguins. And today's episode is brought to you by Kalshi for a limited time. Download Kalshi and use code locked on to get $25. When you trade $25. That's Kalshi. Trade what's next. Okay, Pat, so let's get to our worry meter here.

Scale out of 1 to 10. I'm kind of like in the 4 to 5 out of 10 right now, kind of somewhere in that range. If we get to like a quarter of the way through and they're still doing dumb crap like this, I'll obviously raise it to like to 7 and 8, but we are at game 4 of an 84 game season.

You're going to see some weird, wild stuff. Teams are working out the kinks. I'm not really super worried yet because again, I think a lot of this is fixable, especially the slow starts in the first period. I know that's two in a row. It's not good enough. It's unacceptable.

We talked about that. You need to start games on time. You can't be falling asleep 23 seconds in and allowing one of your former teammates to score on you to make it one-nothing. That's not good enough. You can't be throwing blind passes around the net front to a wide open opposing player who's like,

okay, thank you very much. I'm just going to do a beautiful centering pass for another goal. You also can't do those cross-size passes from the blue line. All of those errors that they made last night are extremely fixable, and I will say this. Hopefully I don't, no, this is not an old takes exposed. I have faith in the coaching staff that they will get their players to fix these mistakes. Because Damn Euse has done such a great job,

because his staff has done such a great job, I'm a believer in them until proven otherwise. I think he will get these things fixed in my opinion. So I actually got to change up the way I wanted to respond here because I have kind of two answers to where I am on the concern ometer. The overall concern ometer, like four, because it's the fourth game and a lot of the mistakes that the players are making are eminently fixable. They're day one stuff. They will figure that out. They are professional hockey players.

Listen, I know everybody wants to dog on Chris LaTang because he's Chris LaTang. The guy has been a lightning rod since he put a Penguins jersey on. But when you have the confirmation negativity bias of you're going to look at the most negative thing he does and say that's Chris LaTang, I told you. He's not going to do that very often. He has problems right now. Let's not get that twisted. But something like we saw the other night, that's a rarity. where my concernometer is a little bit heightened, like in around six,

kind of the opposite of what you just said, the coaching staff. Listen, I understand Robertson made a mistake against the Jets, and it led to a goal against. I don't get burying him for that. In that game, sure. When it happens in a game, 100%, you're trying to win a game in the moment. you make a mistake like that, you sit them down.

But I don't want this coaching staff to think they're too smart for their own good. Hendrix LaPierre on the top line, what are we doing? I like his potential. Maybe he can grow into something. But replacing Robertson, who was fitting like a glove with Sidney Crosby, makes a single bad play, and you put him on the fourth line, you replace him with La Pierre. I don't get that.

So I would love to see if they're not going to reunite Rust Raquel Crosby, get Robertson right back up there. That would be fine with me. I wouldn't mind it. I thought Robertson was one of the bright spots last night. That deflection was really nice to get his third goal of the season. I am with you. That was a weird just move by the coaching staff.

I think it probably has more to do with them trying to get Crosby going. but with all due respect, Hendricks Lapeier, and I think he's been fine to start the year, Hendricks LaPierre is not going to get Sidney Crosby going at this junction. Like, it's going to have to be potentially if they put Brian Rust up there. Maybe Pat, do they move Rickel off the top line? Because let's be real. We're going to talk about Crosby here in a second

because he has not played well to start the season. Ricard Raquel has also stunk in these first four games. I know he has also been a slow starter at times throughout his Penguins tenure. So, like, I'm not like, insanely concerned, but I do think if someone deserves a demotion off the top line from what we've seen so far, well, we all know it's not going to be said, of course. It's Ricard Raquel, because he has been bad to start the season. I do think you have to put an asterisk on that. And I think you have to say he has been bad by Ricard Raquel with the Penguins standards.

I don't think he's been putrid. I don't think he's been bad. But the role that he is in, in the role he is expected to play, he has underwhelmed to start the year. I'm with you. But to kind of build off of what both of us said, if you are trying to get Sidney Crosby going, just break the obvious glass. Put that first line back together.

You have the proof of concept. You know they have the chemistry. You know they work well together. Are you saying putting Rust back up there with Raquel. Yeah, Rust Rekyll Crosby. And I get it. Last night was Rust, first game back from injury, but come on, it's Brian Rust.

Like, he's been doing this long enough that you don't need to ramp them up. You can just put him on that line and let him go to work. And if you want to put Robertson on a third line with Kindle and whomever else, maybe covenin, I don't want to oversell Robertson's abilities because he is mostly at this point in unknown that they're hoping has higher potential. but he has the ability to play up and down a lineup at the very least. He's not going to kill you if he's in the top six and he'll likely be effective in the bottom six. So you don't need to demote him all the way down to the fourth line for one bad turnover when he's had a solid start to the year.

That was the thing that worried me. As for Sid, he's got to get it figured out here soon. He's Sidney Crosby. I have no doubt it's going to happen. But like I said in an earlier episode this week. Right. We do have to change our mentality about 87. It's not 2016 anymore.

He is not going to be an every night point per game player. He's going to go on streaks. He's going to have a week or week and a half where he's really good. He's going to have a week or a week and a half where he's not up to Sidney Crosby standards. So it's getting a little bit late early, but I'm not worried about Sid. Yeah, I'm not really like super worried. I just wanted to point out that's, you know, it's been. six to seven plus periods in a row now where he has not looked very good.

And it's high time to really get a vintage Cid game going, in my opinion. Well, you got Columbus coming up on Friday. So he's notorious for torture in Columbus. So maybe that's his get right game. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, it would be classic Cid if it was because he loves torching the blue jackets. I wanted to be last night because he's torched the capitals a lot throughout his career too. It didn't happen.

But it's high time for him to really. get going just because, you know, they can't really afford for him to be this quiet for too much longer considering the struggles that they have had recently. I want to end this segment on a positive note because I do think there were some good positives last night despite the negativity that we have discussed during this episode. I thought Tommy Novak had another hell of a game. He has been really good to start the season. I am very happy with the way he is playing. I continue to be marveled at the way Ben Kendall has played that. Like, he has been, been their best player, and it really has not been close.

I know I didn't give him the Warrior Helmet. I went to Artie She Loves just because I kind of went with the story and quotation marks, and I love the way he played in goal in his first two starts. I easily could have been giving it to Ben Kindle, though, that, because he continues to get better and better on every game basis. Every single time he is out there, the Penguins are creating chances, and they are living in the offensive zone. He has been just a rock for this team.

every shift he's out there, I just can't take my eyes off him. He's so fun to watch. So that's still, again, the biggest positive of this game. And those are just two positives in general that I wanted to highlight. I think it flew under the radar too from last night. You know who else had a pretty solid game, in my opinion? Sam Gerard. That's fair.

I know that he's going to get dinged for the second goal where Chris Latang should get a secondary assist. But I thought overall, Gerard played a solid game. And he continues to be better. than we better than he was when he was acquired. And his redemption arc is continuing to build. And I agree with Kindle. At this point, the way it's going, he might mess around and be a point per game player this season,

the way it's going. But he continues to be unquestionably through three games, the penguin's best player. And the way things have gone, the last two games, it's not particularly close. I'm with you. And I know some people are,

they've been asking, like when is he going to be in the top six when's he going to be in the top six that time is coming it's not right now but that time is well and the other thing with that point i think is for all the negativity that we've gone through the one thing i will say i know i dinged them after the jets game just because he only had a single shot attempt but through all four games malcon novak chinikov has in their best line and malgan and chinikov were actually pretty good last night i should shout them out too i thought they played a pretty good game to be so the other thing to that is I would love to see Ben Kindle in the top six,

but there's nowhere to put them in the top six right now. Not right now, no. So we'll see what Damienuze decides to cook up on the top line. Is he reunite Rust with Crosby and Raquel? Does he take Raquel off? Maybe put Robertson up there with Rust and Crosby, move Raquel down the lineup a little bit. We'll see, Pat.

They have plenty of options before Friday's game in Columbus. So that's going to do it for our second segment. Coming up to end the show, it's another edition of our big shame. for this game are three shames. We do three stars for wins. We do three shames for losses, and that is coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our final sponsor, which is Fandall. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever. Only on Fandall, how rewarding are we talking? Well, more rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring,

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and Fandall is adding another layer of excitement with rewards and surprises throughout the season. Make this through your most rewarding season ever with Fandall. Visit fandle.com to get started. All right, we're back here to close out the Thursday edition of the Locked-on Pengel. Wins podcast. I'm one of your host Hans or Hodes joined by my co-host Patrick Dampen. All right, Pat. So for my three shames, I'm going all defensemen for last night because

basically most of the blue line was flat out trash. If we're being completely honest, we've discussed that ad nauseum on the show. Pat, put mine up there, at least not for everyone that's watching on YouTube, for everyone that is just listening. One shame for Declan Carlisle, just because of his errors. Two shames for Chris LaTang because of his. errors and then three shames the biggest shames for this game pat trevor van leansdike he was horrendous against his former team and i also did not like the way he played against winnipeg on monday so a night to forget for the blue line we've already discussed them quite enough so everyone understands why i picked the players that i did pat you have a player on there that

i didn't put on there but you have two of the same so i'll give it over to you yeah we're if you're watching on YouTube, you can see it now. And there is a lot of overlap for this one for our three shames of the game. Hunter and I both have Chris Latang and TVR. We both have Chris Latang is two. TVR is three. I've got one for Arter Sheelovs. And I talked about it in the recap of the game. The fifth goal was a need-a-save moment. And I know it's really easy to blame the goalie. But between that and then the miscommunication. You're obviously giving a little bit more of the blame to Declan Carlisle. I'm giving a little bit to Archer Sheelavs, but it's a coin flip for me on that one. As for LaTang, I don't know how many times this episode I can say give him a secondary assist on that goal because

that was just brutal. And then TVR, I don't want to hit any alarm bells. I don't want to oversell it. That was a burn the tape, forget it happened kind of game. Every player has those throughout the season. Doesn't matter who you are. Top line, center, seventh, seventh defenseman all the way down to backup goalie. Everybody has a game or two in the season where just nothing goes your way. And the fact that he was pretty victimized on multiple different occasions, just never had a chance to recover and get himself back into the game. So tough night for him. I mean, the thing that's tough about doing this segment the way we do it is you're going to look at that list and think,

oh my God, these guys totally stunk. And in the case of a couple of them, Latang, not a great game, TVR, not a great game. Carlislew, not their worst. And then as the team as a whole, we've talked about it at length now. It wasn't a terrible game. It was a terrible first half of the game. Second half of the game,

they figured it out. They got back to where they needed to be. You clean that up. They can be a solid team this year. That's all it takes. It's cleaning up these dumb mistakes that, again, I keep going back to this word pad,

people are probably sick of it. JV level. That is what those mistakes. were you clean those up i'm right there with you i think they have the makings of a pretty solid team this year considering that they've been able to score at will in most of their games so that is that is something that we didn't really go over in the second segment that i think we should hit real quick to end the show and it is so in line 18 goals in four games it is so in line with the history of the pittsburgh penguins they can score there is no doubt they can put the puck in

the net. Keeping it out of their net. That's looking like it might be a problem. What do we say, man? This team is never boring. They play a lot of chaotic cocky. That's how it is a lot of times with a pit throw penguins. But that's going to do it for our Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

Everyone take a deep breath. They're two and two, 500 team. A couple bad efforts. Still game four. There's definitely some warning signs, definitely some concerns. But again, I do have faith in this staff to clean up those really bad defensive misuse from these defensemen. I hope I am not wrong for saying that. But again, that'll do it for this one.

Thank you all so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. Pat and I will be back on Friday to preview the game against Columbus and Dallas, because this is a weekend back-to-back. And if time allows for it, we'll do another fan-take Friday edition as well. So for Patrick Damp, I am Hunter Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. We'll be back on Friday.