Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins drop another game to Seattle, hurting their playoff chances

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

The Penguins' long road trip has gone from hopeful to disastrous as they dropped yet another game, this time to the Seattle Kraken. Patrick and Hunter are joined by Jesse Marshall of The Athletic for another edition of Marshall Monday and they start the show talking about what is ailing the Penguins and if it's fixable or if this is just who the Penguins are. Then, Jesse gives us some insight into who the Penguins should be hopeful for when they get the call to come up from Wilkes-Barre as well as some prospects Jesse has his eyes on ahead of the 2025 NHL Draft. Finally, Patrick and Hunter get you ready for tonight's matchup against the San Jose Sharks.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! SelectQuoteGet the right life insurance for you, for less, at SelectQuote.com/LOCKEDONNHL.  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.FanDuelFrom the first whistle to the final drive, FanDuel makes the NFL Playoffs even more exciting! Right now, new customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get THREE HUNDRED BUCKS in BONUS BETS – if you win your first bet! Visit 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.

A road trip that started off as promising has now quickly turned into disaster as the penguins find themselves dead last in the Metropolitan Division. And it's Marshall Monday. So me, Hunter, and Jesse are going to break it all down for you right after this. You're locked on penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another edition of the Locked On. Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym 4Wet. Join today by the one and only my co-host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. And joining us today because it is a Marshall Monday is Jesse Marshall.

You can follow him on Twitter and other social media platforms at J. Marsh, F.O.F. And today's episode before we get started is brought to you by Fandool. Super Bowl 59 is here, and there's no better way to make every play more exciting than with FanDuel Sportsbook. New customers can bet just $5, and if you win, you'll score 200 bucks in bonus bets. Download the app or head to fanduil.com to get started. Ladies and gentlemen, we finally got him back. He is here, the one and only Jesse Marshall for Marshall Mondays. And we were kind of talking about this before we hit record.

There's kind of a lot to talk about with this team, because on one hand, you can probably say, that they suck because it's been a rough road trip for the penguins. On the other hand, maybe they don't suck and they're just a mediocre team. They're just a team that sometimes wins games, sometimes plays well and loses, sometimes they get their doors blown off by the Anaheim Ducks. And, well, that pretty much sums up the penguin's recent road trip. They were unable to capitalize after a great effort against the Kings in losses to the Anaheim Ducks and then the Seattle Cracken.

So, Jesse, we'll just start it off with this one. What exactly is going on with this team? Why did they show up and beat up on a team like L.A.? And then drop two absolute duds against teams like Anaheim and Seattle. Yeah, what we are witnessing is the metamorphosis of how teams usually look at the penguins, right? 2016, back-to-back cups, that calendar got circled every night. Everybody's going to give you the best. try to knock the champ off, get themselves a little bit of a morale boost.

Now, you're last in the conference. And when you go to L.A., L.A. looks at you as a night off. We don't have to work as hard to beat the penguins. They stink. L.A. takes the night off. You take advantage. Great. Got it.

Done. Two points in the bag. Then you go to Anaheim, and they stink too. And they're not going to take the night off. because a lot of those people are playing for their jobs next year. They're playing for contracts somewhere else, right? Trying to extend their careers in some cases. They're not going to give up.

And they're fast. They may be bad, but they're fast, right? They got a lot of speed up and down that lineup. That's a problem for Pittsburgh, right? Maybe the penguins take the night off a little bit because they got their two points. It's a recipe for disaster. And then you think I think you go and Seattle just beat you because they're better, right? their better team than you are right now, and they expose some of your warts.

So it's like this, we've gone a complete 180 from where we used to be. And I think, I don't want to take anything away from the Penguins performance in LA, but I don't know that it was as much about them as it was about L.A. And L.A. having a night where they probably didn't put their best foot forward. And they probably didn't put their best foot forward because they looked at the video, they looked at the standings, and they said, this shouldn't be a tough one. it's so funny like this game against seattle and i was able to watch some of the game back because i was moving that day and also let me know how this new mike sounds to everyone that's

listening slash watching because i just set it up today i'm in my brand new house that's my office is obviously not done just yet still very much of work in progress but i was able to watch some of this back end look at the numbers after it's funny you you think by looking at these numbers jesse the penguins blew out the cracking you know 16 to one high danger chance advantage scoring chances advantage through the roof, shot attempts to vanish through the roof, but the biggest thing the penguins didn't get in this game was good play in their own zone. I feel like that really doomed them once again. Yeah, Matt Grizzly kind of swimming around in his own zone. Eric Carlson, Chris Tang, also making a couple of really boneheaded plays in their zone. While the penguins did limit

the Crack into only one high-endanger chance at five-on-five, they still did not play well off the rush, do not play well as some of the medium chances, and they got screwed that way. Yoel Blumquist did everything in his power to will the penguins to at least a point, if not two in this game, but he just really didn't get any help. And we can say the same thing in a lot of his other starts as well. We've seen him play at at this level this year, Jesse, where he's given the penguins good goaltending, I think of the three goalies this year, he's been the best.

He just hasn't gotten a lot of help and a lot of his stars. And this game against Seattle, yeah, again, the Penguins, they generated Joey DeCord, Seattle's goalie was really good. but when you're playing that bad in your own zone with some of these JV type coverages, you're going to get exposed. And that's exactly what Seattle did. Right now, this team is playing poorly. The thing is, they had a shot to make this interesting.

Like they had a really good three to four week stretch. They climbed their way back into the race. But you needed a strong homestand and be a good road trip here to really kick that into high gear a little bit. They had a terrible homestand and they've had a bad road trip. and you're seeing where they are in the standings. At the bottom of the Eastern Conference, a potential top five lottery pick is back into play with the way they're playing right now. They're going to sell.

That's not going to be a problem. This team is what it is. A very inconsistent slash middling team that's not really going anywhere this year. Yeah. I don't know. What do you add to that? I mean, that's quite the post more or more,

you can't call it a post-mortem because the season's not over yet. It's quite that analysis. Yeah, it's going to get, here's the, thing. You never know what happens when you sell, right? Because if you bring functional players in that want to make a good impression, right, their motors are going to be turning and they're going to be going. But they're not, you know, no matter what happened, I think they're out, right? They're out of it. I think it's over. I don't think we can worry about, we don't have to worry about the wild card at this point. It's about where they finish. But I think that there's a

sort of air of staleness around like all of it. Right. Like, it's just, it's, we've been eating the same meal for years, right, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I think everybody's kind of like, just change the menu, please. Like, I don't care what it is at this point. Like, I want some variety. And I kind of feel like we're about to get that, you know, potentially and how this deadline shakes out, because I think they're open for business. You know, not, not in some of the ways that have been reported, but I think that there's going to be functional hockey trades that take place. right and that's that's at the end of the day i think what's what we take away from this and i think by and large some of the major players will still remain but let's be honest right like the the multiple attempts at retooling around those players have just been poor right they've been absolutely poor um they were poor under ron hextall they've been poor under kyle dubus and they haven't worked right i think dubus is have i i've what i've appreciated about his more is that he swings right at least he's taking swings

There, you know, the Carlson deal obviously didn't help in the face of the fact that they didn't have a goaltender, which is also his problem. But you get what I'm saying. I think it was, you almost had the sense that, you know, he was at least going to go for it where Ron Hextall had, I don't know, I'm not sure what it was that he was attempting to do. I just, I think it's time, right? Like, it's time to make the most out of the position that you're in right now and just be bad for him. minute, right? And I know like the shareholders that probably doesn't sound good to them, but in the long run, I think they're going to be better for it. I think that they've got a lot of bad contracts. They've got to try to find a way out from underneath. That makes it a little bit more challenging.

The Tristan Jari won probably chief among all of them at this point, but the Graves one's not going to be easy to get rid of, right? I mean, Carlson, I think you can get rid of, but you're going to have to probably eat a little bit on that. It's going to take a lot of, a lot of work and a lot of undoing, but I think we're about to witness the beginning of it here. Yeah, I really, I'm right there with you. We've talked about it on the show with the fact that he's going to have to be creative. Like you said, whether it's retaining something on a contract like Eric Carlson or finding a team that maybe can think, oh, I can fix him when it comes to someone like Tristan Jari.

But you kind of brought up how we're going to start seeing some guys with motors. and you do absolutely excellent work looking at prospects and looking at the young guys. So when you look at where this team is headed with what is to come with this rebuild slash retool on the fly, who are some of the people in Wilkes Bear right now that you're looking at and thinking, okay, this guy is, he's next man up. He's someone we got to know. Yeah, I really like the work of Billy Coyven in this year. I think anytime somebody makes that transition from Europe to North America and starts to play a pro-style game,

like, you're not concerned, but like you watch for how they adapt, right, and how they manage the ice surface and the style of play. And I think he's thrived. Like, I really do. I think his time has gone on, you know, you always the expectation, you know, like the old adage is, well, there's too much east-west. And, you know, when the ice shrinks, you try to make that same moves. and you don't have the space for it.

But here's the thing. When you're as fast as he is, you're rarely going east-west, right? That's the thing. When you can turn the burners on and just right up ice and around somebody, why waste the movement, right? Like, why you don't need that when you have burners? And he's so fast. I think that he distributes the puck really well in transition.

That's an important note. Coming across the blue line with numbers, you trust him to make the right best play. That's not always off of his stick with a shot. That's sometimes in the form of just an absolute platter of a dish, right? Forehand, backhand, it doesn't matter the situation. I think he reads, plays extraordinarily well. I thought I would see more of this sort of like outright dangles from him.

But I don't, I think from his perspective, maybe he doesn't feel that's necessary because he's got so much speed, right? it's not, you know, it's not as, he's not fighting in traffic as much as maybe he thought he would. But his shots, it's gross. It's great. I love it. Really violent off the blade. Unpredictable.

Hides it well. Places it well. Uses it strategically, not just as a shooting mechanism for goals, but as a, like a, you know, pass off pads, you know, trying to create a rebound. Just keep a play alive and, you know, not let a goalie freeze it. so you can get a line change, you know, different things like that. So he's a bit more of a tactician, I think. But I think he's going to do all right. I think I'm excited about it.

I'm bummed that Tristan Bras has mono, right? Because that would be a name. I think we might already have seen up here. I don't want to, like, call him. I keep saying like this Brian Rust comparison, and that sets a really lofty and unfair expectation. But they, stylistically, that's where I'm at. Right. Like, he can give you volume and shots. He can drive shots up for your line. He's good defensively. He's a 200-foot player that's very physical. Like, limited offensively more so than we probably thought when he was in his freshman year. And we were watching like mixtapes of him at that age. But he can play. He can skate. He's functional fits what they're trying to do here right now. And I think he's somebody you could trust with, frankly, like a variety of minutes.

right like he's he's he's he's mega deployable uh that's that's from a forward perspective i think the the two that that i'm looking forward to the most for sure yeah tristan bros i think we were talking about him last week where we did a small wilkesbury update it looked like he was practicing and then he went off the ice because it looked like you know he still had so again wish him the best in his recovery just continuing a little bit of a conversation about prospects jessey i mean murashov this weekend had another heck of a start for Wilkesbury. I mean, he was fantastic once again. And I hope that he continues to get more starts for them. I know Jari continues to struggle just with his overall game. And that means, again,

I want Marishaw to keep getting starts. But there was a report. It's been the last couple of weeks from Elliott Friedman that the Penguins are looking at Buffalo in terms of their NH ready prospects to players that are already on the team, you know, maybe someone like, I don't know, just spitball in here, Bowen Byram, Dylan Cousins. But he also did stress that they also could be looking at their NH ready prospects. Jesse, Of that group, who do you think Kyle Dubus could be targeting to kind of inject some youth into this lineup for potentially the rest of this season, at least the final month, and then into next season and in the future? Well, I think that the theme is going to be the same regardless of really where you're at. If you look at like a player, like a Rucker Magrorty type of a guy who is maybe like quad A, right?

not quite in the NHL yet, but not quite getting anything out of staying in the AHL. I don't really see anybody like that on Buffalo's roster, though. So that is confusing to me. Because one, you know, the thing about the Sabres are is I don't want to go and make a statement of like intent from their general manager because I don't know that that franchise is necessarily like living in the same reality that the rest of us are. And if I make a statement of something like, why would they be interested in a guy like Marcus Pedersen, okay, I don't know, but like, do they, does that matter? Like, is there a vision here that's like they're, they're sticking to that they're adhering to that makes sense the rest of us could discern? Like, I really don't know that.

I mean, they're not good. They're not parting with any of their top of the line guys. Like, Lennius is not going out the door for them. Like, they're not going to give you anything that's high quality, right? And I don't see anyone that's like flopping back and forth between their system and is like stuck in limbo. So I don't know to answer your question. I have no idea. I'm not sure where that rumor came from.

I think it's the most confusing one of all of them to me because I don't, you know, not only do I wonder what they would have interest in. Like Drew O'Connor maybe. I don't like, is that a name they'd be interested in? Because if he's younger and they think that they can mold something out of him, All right, we'll be right back with our conversation with the one and only Jesse Marshall. But first, we've got to tell you about today's sponsor, and that is Fandul. Super Bowl 59 is here, one game, two teams, endless possibilities. And there's no better way to make every play more exciting than with Fandul's sportsbook.

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Download the app or head to fandual.com to get started. bet just $5, and if you win, you'll score 200 bucks in bonus bets. That's fandul.com, bet with fandle, the official sportsbook partner of Super Bowl 59. And when we come back, we will continue our conversation with Jesse Marshall. Yeah, it's interesting to me because I'm right there with you on that. I look at Buffalo and I go, well, there's really, these teams aren't on the same kind of track, where as in Buffalo's been stuck in a perpetual rebid. for 10 to 15 years now.

And yeah, they've probably got some good young players, but they also haven't put this together yet. So it makes me wonder, yeah, maybe they have a young piece or two, but their development hasn't been exactly stellar. Neither has their professional scouting. So you look at that team and you think, yeah, maybe there's something there. But at the end of the day, it's an organization that has struggled mightily for well over a decade.

and maybe there's a piece or two there, but who knows. One last thing before we let you go, Jesse, I know you brought this up a little bit on social media last week. We obviously know that right now penguins are sitting last in the metro. There's a very real world if they don't find some sort of groove here. That's pretty much where they're going to end up. Do you have any early names of guys that you think could be somebody that they would have to go after in the draft? Yes, I do.

Patrick. I very, I, so I don't know where they're going to finish, right? That's, that's part of the problem in answering this question is because, like, there's a variety of answers I could give you. Should we assume for a second they pick fourth? Is it fifth? Like, I don't, like, I think if we, if we pretend for a minute that that's where they're at, right? They've got a shot. Like, they are in the conversation for a player who could, then I think there's more than one, which is good. that could go into the NHL next season. Like, I want to be real clear about that. Like, if you're talking about the four or five spot, the three, four, five,

like you're getting a player that could play next year, possibly. Not guaranteed. Not guaranteed. But, like, Michael Mesa is unbelievable, right? Like, just disgusting. And I don't know where he'll go. Like, I think he's the second best player in the draft. James Hagen is one of the best skaters I've ever seen in my life.

Like, filthy, fluid, disgusting. does things that make you think he's gumbie, that, like, he is a lower half that it doesn't have bones, right? Like, it's just this gelatinous mass that can, like, do whatever the hell it wants. I've never, he's unbelievable. I don't know about the offense, like, offensive upside, maybe not as high as some of these other, like, guys like a Porter Martona's out there, like, who is a scientist that they grew in a lab. Like, those hands are not of this earth.

like they're and he's and a lot of these kids are tough like they're they're mean like they're they're danglers who will punch you in the face like and they're not afraid to stir it up like there's a lot of good names out there i'll give you one that i put a poll on twitter and ask people what they wanted to see a mixed tape of there was a secret fourth or fifth option that i'm going to do that i didn't ask you about it's victor ecklin and this kid guys played against adults last year right so he's got pro experience in sweden under his belt already and has just taken that this year and run with it. And it's, you know, I'm traditionally used to watching SHL tape and seeing the young players

have time and space to like dangle, shoot, show their skills, but not necessarily like take a game over, right? Or like, like, shock you when you watch them. And Victor Eklund does that. Like the first shift I watched this year, he just annihilates someone. It just comes out of the gate. It's a slow start to the game. Random puck retrieval.

You just see this bat out of hell come through this to destroy this person. Take the puck scoring chance. And it's like watching lightning strike. Like it really is. And like he's not a Tom Wilson style player because he's not that big. He doesn't fight. He's not a goon. But when you think about Tom Wilson and the impact he has on a game, right?

The way his physicality can open things up, it's the same thing for me. It's the same thing. He's an unbelievable forechecker. He'll destroy defensemen or depossess them in an embarrassing fashion, full 200-foot player. And it's just one of those kids that you watch and you sit there and I could do anything I want with this player from a deployment perspective. First power play unit, top penalty killing unit, defensive zone draw late in the game, offensive zone draw with your goalie pulled. Like every instance of play, you want him out there.

Defending a lead, trying to gain a lead, like tied game, doesn't matter. Like that skill set is suited for every single moment of hockey. And it starts with this. And I want to be clear, it's not a wasteful physicality. Because we talk about people they chase hits sometimes and it's just they take themselves out of the play. what are you doing? Like, that's not where, like, that puck was gone three seconds ago, right? These are hits to dispossess, right, with the intent of, like, causing a turnover in the moment, right?

And I think that's the difference for me. So the good news is, is that if, like, they get a boost from the, like, they say make a bunch of trades and then all of a sudden they get good for two weeks and they screw it up and they finish six or seventh, you can get Echwell in there. Or like, that's that you're not out of the running, right? Like, you're still in it and a really good player like that. You bring them over next year. He's already been playing against adults. There is no transition period, right? Like you got to get him on the North American ice surface.

I'm not concerned about that. I think the more chance you give them to hit more people, the better off you are, actually. So I'll love it over here. And hey, that is something I have been saying about the penguins for quite a while now is that I am of the belief that they need some absolute bastards in their lineup. And it sounds like he fits that description. But Jesse, we appreciate you taking time again. again on this Monday.

If you got anything you want to plug or let people know that you got coming up, floor is yours. But as always, man, we appreciate it. That's it. So I got mixtapes. I put the poll up yesterday. The results are in. We're starting in Brampton.

So I've got a mixtape cooking for you guys now and start dropping them here soon. It's sad when the most exciting part of the situation right now is the future. But, you know, I'm not complaining about it. I love this. I love this stuff. So it's right. All the more fun for me. You know what I mean? All right.

Well, again, Jesse, we appreciate it. Thanks, everyone for listening to this. When we come back, Hunter and I will get you ready for penguins and sharks, even more late night hockey for all you sickos out there. And we will talk about that when we come back right after this. All right,

welcome back to the Monday edition of Locked-on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp, joined as always by the one and only Hunter. Hodes. And thanks again to Jesse Marshall for chopping it up with us on this Marshall Monday. A lot of good stuff there about prospects, trades in the future because frankly, that's where this franchise is at this moment. But even though we do have a focus on the future and what's to come, there still is hockey to be played. And the Penguins will continue their seven game road trip throughout the West tonight. They take on the actual worst team in the NHL in the

San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center tonight at 1030. And Hunter, this is a game when you look at this San Jose team. The Penguins, if there was ever a game for them to get right, it's against the San Jose sharks. This team, a lot of promise for them. Obviously, Macklin Celebrini, guys like Will Smith, they've got a very bright future in San Jose right now. But this is a team that is still in the early stages of their rebuild.

They're currently sitting in last in the National Hockey League with a record of 1432 and 6. They have lost six straight and they are one in nine in their last 10. So this is a game that the Penguins could win should they not take this Santa Jose team lightly. This is the thing about the sharks, Pat. Like they're losing a lot of games, which is no surprise. They're not very good. But they're fighting in a lot of these losses. Like they're coming back from two, three goals down to tie games.

but they're not able to get over the finish line. They played in some really entertaining games recently. They just can't win them. And Macklin Celebrini is a highlight real menace on nightly basis. I mean, whenever I get a chance to turn on a little bit of their tape, I see him jumping out of the screen right away. He is so much fun to watch. He is going to be so much fun for so many more years to come.

Super glad that he is not on the Eastern Conference because he is awesome. Eklund. He is also great when healthy. Will Smith, he's also great. They have these really strong, good young pieces, and they're going to continue to be good for years to come. It's just that they need to get more high-end talent around them so they can truly build this thing up to being a contender.

Also, we have to shout out my Kyle Granlin once again this year. He's playing really well, 14 goals, 43 points in 50 games. It's nice that he's turned this game around. I will 100% say that. I'm glad that he's playing well. He was never going to get those minutes here in Pittsburgh. He was probably never going to get that success here in Pittsburgh. either. I'm just glad that he's playing well, and he will probably fetch the sharks a decent

return of the deadline. Should they look to move him? And honestly, I think you should look to move him considering that he leads your team in points. Yeah, will he be a loss? Absolutely. But you should look to capitalize on him having a really good year this year. You know, Eklin, as I said, 10 goals, 37 points this year. Celebrini has 15 goals, 35 points. Fabian Zetterland has also been a lot of fun. 14 goals. Tyler Tofoli, 17 goals leads the team in goals this year, Pat, with 17. 30 points in 4-9 games, I think they'll also potentially look to dangle him at the deadline. So even though this team is not good at all this year, they are getting some really good contributions

from some of their young guys and some of their depth guys that are a bit older. So this team, while they're bad, it's still a lot of pushover, especially with the way the penguins are playing recently. The biggest key tonight is really cleaning up the way they played in the defensive zone these last two games. They start out really well against the ducks. Then it went to crap for the final 50 minutes. they outplayed the crackin in the offensive zone,

but they gave it all back in the defensive zone because while they didn't give them many high danger chances, they still gave up way too many chances off the rush, making way too many dumb decisions in their own zone, and it came back to bite the penguins in that loss against the raccoon. And oh, yeah, Evgeny Malkin got hurt, tried to come back. I could tell that he was not going to be playing too much longer when he came back

because Pat, he was gliding out there, man. Like you could tell really slow skating, even slower. than normal. And I know his skating has definitely gone down a little bit just because he's older now, but I can tell him like, yeah, he's going to come out of this game. Sure enough, after that shift, he came out. Hopefully it's nothing serious. It looked like some sort of knee injury based on the replay. We'll have to see what update Mike Sullivan gives, but hopefully he's not out too much longer. But still, England's want to win this game. They got to play a lot better defensively. That's, again, the biggest key in this one. And I would go back to Blumquist if I'm Mike Sullivan. He played,

played really well against the Cracken. He gave you a chance to win. Go back to him tonight against the Sharks. Yeah, I would make that same decision. Obviously, since it's a late night game and we're currently recording this around 1130 a.m. Eastern time, we won't really get an update on the goalie until much later today. So obviously, we don't know what that is or what is the status of of Genie Malkin after everything that happened in Seattle. Same thing goes for Brian Rust, who did miss that game against the crack in. So, but the one thing I wanted to add on with what you were saying is you're absolutely right with this sharks team.

They are, they may be struggling. They may not be very good, but they are battling. You look at a lot of their games, especially in this past month, you see a lot of losses on the schedule. But with the exception of their most recent game against the defending champion Panthers where they lost seven to two, you're seeing games where they're in it and they're battling. They lose, they start the calendar year beating Tampa Bay and the New Jersey Devils two very good teams that they get a win against.

Then they hang on against the Vegas Golden Knights. They lose 4 to 2, but they hang in on that one. Then they lose 2.1 to Utah. Then they lose 3-1 to Minnesota. And these are teams that are playing well, but San Jose is hanging right with them. So if the penguins aren't going to clean up their defensive zone play to, night. This is a game that could extend this pain that they're experiencing on this road trip. So that's the key to night is that you do have to play better defensively.

And again, this goes into something we were saying with Jesse. This is a team in Pittsburgh right now that they're not playing particularly horribly, but it's the microcosm of everything of the last few years. You look at the Ducks game. You look at the Cracken game. You can't look at the tape and go, wow, they're just bad. They played horribly. The mistakes they made ended up in the back of their net.

The team they played opportunistic with their chances because they had a lot of chances against Anaheim. They had a lot of chances against Seattle. And they didn't bury them. On the other end of it, Anaheim finished their chances. Seattle finished their chances. And that really was the difference. So for the panelists to be successful tonight, that has to change.

And Pat, you know, the biggest thing also is those two teams got the goaltending. John Gibson was fantastic. And I'm not saying Blumcoose was bad against Seattle. He wasn't. He gave the Penguins a really good chance. He made some really good saves. But Joey DeCord once again was just that much better in that game. And sometimes that's also a big difference.

You got to get the goaltending. Yeah. And that might not be as much of an issue tonight, knock on wood. But because we have been bitten by that one many times. But you look at the three goalies who have appeared for. San Jose this year. Alexander Georgiev, 876 save percentage, Vita Check, Vanichek. I love that name.

One of my favorites, 885 save percentage, and then Ascarov 899. So while they're not playing horribly, you're probably not, hopefully, again, knock on wood, because how many times does this come back to bite us by saying it on the show, you're probably not going to get goalied tonight, but you do have to take advantage of the chances you get so sharks penguins 1030 tonight in the shark tank hunter anything you want to add before we wrap this one up no not really the penguins just really need to get right win tonight before they end this road trip this week against the utah hockey club which we'll have to see who they come up with the name by the way because getting saying the utah hockey club is kind of just getting a little

old at this point we'll just have to see who they come up with and then they return home and then we got the four nations face off coming up so the penguins are going to be off for quite a bit soon just because the Four Nations face off. But don't worry people, we're going to have a lot of content during that time. Four Nations face off stuff. Wolfsbury updates, probably part two or part three of a mailbag. So much more coming up in February. It's going to be a really fun month.

And by the way, 10 subs away from 3,000 on YouTube. If you haven't subbed yet, please go ahead and do that. So we get to 3K and keep building on from there and hopefully get maybe to 5K by the end of this year. Absolutely. This community, you guys are absolutely awesome. You want to be a part of it. You want to be part of the conversation. because it is a ton of fun.

It's great hockey talk, and you know the two of us. We would talk to a wall about hockey if it would talk back. But that is going to do it for the Monday edition of Locked on Penguins. Thanks again to Jesse Marshall for joining us for yet another Marshall Monday. Hunter and I will be back to recap this game tonight against San Jose, as well as look at the rest of the week ahead and talk about anything else

that may happen between now and then. But for now, for Hunter Hode. I'm Patrick Dam. Thank you as always for tuning in, and we will be back on Tuesday.