Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins embarrassed in home opener, look to bounce back against Detroit

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

The Penguins were absolutely embarrassed in their home opener against the New York Rangers to the tune of a 6-0 loss. Patrick and Hunter let out some of their frustrations about the loss including digging into what a problem the goaltending position has become, how the coach has to make some changes to the system to better suit his personnel, and so much more. Along with venting frustrations, they also discuss how the Rangers are for real and arguably one of the best teams in the NHL. Finally, the Penguins have a shot at redemption right away as they'll head to Detroit to take on the Red Wings tonight. They get you set for that game and lay out what the Penguins must do to get their first victory of the season. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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. IndeedStill searching for a great candidate for your company? Don’t search, just match–with Indeed.Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed.com/LOCKEDON. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed.  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.

They say that you only get one chance for a first impression. And well, in the Penguin's home opener, a lot of us have a bad taste in our mouths. Hunter and I are going to talk about that and more on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. 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 on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet. Joined as always by the illustrious, 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 L.O. underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you making this part of your daily routine because we're your team every day. And don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. before we dive into the home opener, today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use promo code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. So we will get into the game as a whole hunter, probably in our second segment closer to the end of the show. But we are going to kick this episode off with the one thing that I think everybody in Penguins Land wants to talk about after that disaster of a home open.

last night against the New York Rangers that saw them lose six to nothing in what was just a disastrous performance. It was one of the worst home openers in recent memory and one of the worst season openers in recent memory. But we got to start with a guy who has so much pressure on his shoulders right now. He has to be a guy that has to perform, especially after the way last season ended, and that's the guy between the pipes, Tristan Jari. And there's really only one way to put this. He is officially a problem. Now, I want to throw this caveat out to start the show,

and I'm going to say this multiple times during this episode, and I'm sure you will as well. It's one game. It's one of 82. They have 81 more to play, and things can change in a day, in a week, in a month. It is a season of ups and downs.

But when you combine how the last season ended, what the question marks were going into this season, and now how this season has begun, it is not encouraging. So I'm going to start here. I understand that people rightfully, and I am among them as well, have questions about the head coach.

Has he been here too long? Is he too stubborn? Does he need to change? Should the organization look to move on from him? All of it is understandable. All of it, frankly, is justified because this is what sports are. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're Bill Belichick.

It doesn't matter if you're Scotty Bowman. It doesn't matter who you are in the coaching world. All of them have shelved lives. you are hired to be fired. But when you look at last night's game, they give up six goals officially, and a seventh gets called back from an off-sides review. And in my estimation,

five of those goals of the seven that went in the net, you can pin on Tristan Jari. Real quickly, I'm going to run through this and then Hunter, the floor is yours. The first goal, it was a good tip. this is the National Hockey League. Other teams are good. They are allowed to make good plays.

It's part of a professional league. So we can wipe that one off the board. Even people will say, I don't know about Latang's defense on that. He had his guy covered and locked up. He made a nice play. It happens in the NHL. The disallowed goal.

Everyone's going to want to come for Ryan Graves and Jack St. I haven'ty on that play. They played it correctly. They took the puck carrier. They took the guy in the middle. The four checkers did not get back in time, leaving a third man open. but a half of a one-time shot from the right circle,

goalie's got to stop that. Second goal, we of course can give Marcus Pedersen crap for unnecessarily diving, but it's a shot along the ice, eye to eye with Alexis Lafranierre, and it goes five hole. Got to stop that. Third goal, it is definitely a defensive breakdown,

and everybody has to wear it, but go back and watch the goal, goal. Tristan Jari never gets set. He's never in a good spot. He's jumping in and out of the crease. And yes, it's way more on the defense than it is on the goaltending, but you're allowed to make a save once in a while. Fourth goal, again, defense, not great. They don't play that rush very well, but an unscreen shot goes far side top shelf. That should not be a goal and NHL goaltender gives up. Fifth goal, short-handed.

Again, all of our nightmares coming back to life with this power play. But again, watch the goal. Chris LaTang puts Criter under some duress. Criter never gets a handle on it. Jari just backs into his net and the puck floats right behind him. Again, a lot of people to blame there, but Criter never getting a handle on the puck and the puck just sliding by Jari, whether it's a poke check, whether it's more aggressive.

aggressiveness, whatever, he has to have that. Sixth goal, that's entirely on the defense. It was just a putrid effort and nobody helped him out. And you can't blame him on that one. So that's five of seven pucks that went in the net that I have to pin on the goalie. And to the point I was making at the start of this about Mike Sullivan, we have his critiques of his system. They are valid.

They are real. But I don't care what your coaching style is. I don't care what your system is. If you can't stop the puck, it doesn't matter. To quote the great Jeff Merrick, when you have a goalie, goaltending is 70% of the game. When you don't, it's 100% of the game. Well, I don't know how I can follow that up from Pat

because he definitely went in there, but I'm going to try my best here, people. And he's right in the fact that, yes, Tristan Jari stunk last night. And this is becoming, it's already been an issue, but it's becoming even more of an issue. And yes, this is game one. Let's see how he adjusts to the later games.

But after the way he ended the season, the way that he was basically benched for the final few weeks for Alex and Delkevich, you honestly, as those games were coming down, wasn't playing that well, the team was just scoring a bunch. And then you start this season here, the second half version of 35 showed up last night. That version where after the first half, he's usually, if you look at his splits, right, he's usually around a 915, 920 goalie in the first half.

The second half, it goes down to like, you know, 900, a little bit below that. That was the version of Johnny that showed up last night. And you're right. First goal, I'm not going to blame on him. Sam Carrick, even though he's a bottom six player. That's a really nice tip. I can't lie. The second goal, I will say, you really need a save there.

You can't open up your five hole like that. But there's no reason for Marcus Pedersen to dive like that. The forward has his man covered. There's no reason to make that diving play. I think if he just goes to Lafranier and takes him away, the penguins don't give up a goal there. That was just a bad defensive miscue. And honestly, we can get into that as well. The defensive awareness last night was putrid.

It was pathetic and it was awful. They pinched way too aggressively throughout that 60 minutes. They made the wrong lead in their own zone so many times. That was an awful effort. I think outside of Jack St. Ivanie for a couple of shifts, None of the defense would play well. Crystal Tang was putrid. Eric Carlson looked like someone who was rusty.

Ryan Graves was Ryan Graves. Matt Griswick wasn't that good of a first game. Jackson and Ivany was, again, had a couple of decent shifts outside of that. Nothing doing. And we can say that for the forwards, too. A lot of the forward lines were bad. The third line was probably the best line on the ice. We'll get into that in the next segment.

But that was a total failure of a performance from everyone out there. that performance reminded me of the game where they got blown out by the capitals when the team realized that Jake Gensel was getting traded last year. That's what that game looked like last night. After the first 10 to 13 minutes, that team quit. It looked like they just didn't really want to play because they had a couple of decent chances those first 10 to 13 minutes. They were forechecking. They were getting time in the offensive zone. They were playing at least fine defensively.

That all went out the window after the first 10 to 13 minutes. It honestly felt like that goal just kind of deflated them, especially the one later on in the first period that made it 2-0. It felt like that goal totally deflated them for the rest of the game. And I know I'm probably going all over here with my thoughts, but just to really sum it all up, man, just a terrible, disgusting performance in the first game of the season. And I understand people.

This team's not a Stanley Cup contender. They're not selling themselves as a contender. So I think the loss, hurt more if they were a contender. But I also will say that type of performance is not good enough from everyone. You know, I don't think Crosby played well. I don't think Malkin played well. Again, I don't really think basically anyone played well outside of a few shifts from the

third line, Cody Glass, Jackson Iveney a little bit, maybe Anthony Bavillier a little bit, otherwise not really too much. But Chris and Jari needs to be so much better. That goal from Lafranier, you need a save there. the third one I mean that was I feel like way more of a defensive breakdown

I think Jari really had no shot on that one the one after that though Pat you're right the one that glanced off his shoulder that can't go in and then the short-handed one we have a bingo on that one the short-handed goal from last year baby but seeing Chris LaTang try to defend that

I just said to myself I'm like wow he's old because prime Chris LaTang shuts that thing down and you can just tell some of his skating has definitely left him because when he was in his prime, he was one of the best skaters in the league. And Kreider, I felt like wasn't even going at 60% there, man. And he couldn't even catch up with him.

I'm like, wow, like, where has his skating gone? And again, he's just gotten older, people. I think that's just the reality here. You know, the core as a whole has gotten a lot older. Let's hang. Probably one of the worst games I've ever seen him play last night, just keeping it real. And I do think as a whole,

we're going to see what this team is made of tonight against the Red Wings. I do expect this team to play a lot better. You're playing a worse team. I know it's Detroit's home opener, their season opener as a whole, but I expect the Penguins to play better tonight. I want to see how Joel Blumquist does. We'll talk about that later on in the show.

But I'd also much rather play this game tonight. Even though it's a back-to-back, I'd rather see what this team is made of after that dreadful performance rather than just have them sit on it for a day or two or three. or something like that. But those are just my overall quick thoughts. We'll dive into more about the game in the second segment, but those are just some rapid fire thoughts here for everyone.

Yeah. And real quick, before we head to the second segment, which we will continue to talk about this game, because for it only being the first of 82, there is a lot of meat left on this bone, so to speak. But one last thing about the goaltending, and then we'll move on here, is here is something concerning that I looked up today.

Tristan Jari has not had a game where he has had an above 900 save percentage since March 14th of this year. In those games, 739, 868, 800, 857, and last night, 854. And listen, the league average goaltending, and I'm talking average, I'm not talking elite, I'm not talking terrible, is just a couple ticks above 9.9. 900, and he's struggling to get there. And that is a massive problem for a goaltender who is making $5 million a year. He eventually has to live up to that contract. But we will keep this discussion going about last night's home opener in the second segment when we come back. But first, we got to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Fandul.

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And listen, I don't want this to come off as an excuse. I don't want it to come off as brushing it off and saying, don't worry, everything's fine. but the New York Rangers, man, that is a real deal, Holyfield Stanley Cup contender. That is a great hockey team. And they very much played like it. And you hinted at this a little bit in the first segment.

First 10 to 13 minutes of the game, I'd say even first 10 to 15, the penguins, I don't think played poorly. I think for most of the first period, they played pretty well. but their weaknesses were on full display when they gave up goals. And the other thing about that is it showed you the big difference.

And again, this isn't going to be me piling on Jari for another segment, but the stark difference was when the penguins had their chances, when the penguins had their moments, Igor Shasturkin showed why he is Igor Shastirkin. He made the saves he needed to make, the routine ones, the great ones, the great ones, and just settling down his team. On the other end, it seemed like every mistake pretty much ended up in the back of the

Penguins net. And I don't want to pretend to be a body language expert here. But you talked about Chris LaTang struggling to get back on the short-handed goal. There is a large part of me that looked at the body language of that team last night that just went, our goalie lost this one for us, and there's not much else we can do. Let's throw this one in the trash and we'll be back at it tomorrow. That's part of it. I mean, I was reading Josh Yoey's recap on the athletic this morning and Lars Eller was, it seemed a little concerned about the way they play, but he even said like he's

really excited to get after it again tonight in Detroit because he wants to really flush this one down the toilet and see how they respond. And I think that's totally the right attitude to have. But as a whole, you know, I agree with you. They're the Rangers. One of the top teams in the league for a reason, bona fide Stanley Cup contender. They'll be making the playoffs and they have a real shot to go deep. Now, that said, there's a lot of people out there who are more pessimistic about this team, and I totally understand why, after most of the last season. They were vindicated last night.

Every flaw about this team was exposed. A, the defensive awareness, total joke. Awful all round. B, the goaltending, very big question mark heading in the season. Awful. C. Powerplay, which we'll get to. We can honestly get to it right now.

Power play wasn't good. The drop pass came back, which is kind of annoying. And I said this on Twitter, I'll say it now. They looked spooked against the Rangers penalty kill. The Rangers play a very aggressive penalty kill. They have one guy that comes up pretty high and puts a lot of pressure on the Penguins puck carriers. And that spooked them. You could see when Latang was at the point, he was taking too long with his decision making.

And it was allowing the Rangers to, A, have easy clueling. or B, having really good shorthanded opportunities, and then obviously they had the goal later on, but it was spooking them. They were taking too long with the puck on their sticks. You've got to make quicker decisions, especially when you have a penalty kill that's pressing high like that. You want to be able to make those quicker decisions, draw them down low, open up the shooting lanes. They weren't doing that at all last night against the Rangers penalty kill. So power play, definitely not good. And as for Mike Sullivan, you talked about this in the first segment. I think with Sullivan, they've made it very clear that they believe in him.

And they, I mean the front office and I mean the ownership group. Tom Warner and John Henry of FSG read the game last night. They didn't interview with some of the media. And by looking at some of the quotes, they still very much believe in Mike Sullivan. Kyle Dubis believes in Mike Sullivan. I know there's like fan dual odds out there that have him as the quickest coach to be fired this season. I don't think that's happening people. I would be very surprised if he's.

fired at all the season unless they start out, you know, 010 and 2 or something like that. But I think just with where they are as a team, I don't think they want to eat $5 million for the sake of it. I think if they were a contender, they would have already fired him. And yes, I'm speaking as someone who wanted the penguins to move on after this season. I felt like it was time to move on from Mike Sullivan. I still think it's probably time to move on. But I'm also not in charge of the team.

So again, with Sullivan, what he needs to do if he's here for the rest of the season. He needs to change up his system. You can't keep running the same thing that you've been trying to run since 2016 or 2017. A, the league has adapted. And B, you don't have the personnel to do it. He has it for quite some time at this point.

And he's got to be telling his defensemen to tone down on the aggressiveness and some of their pinches. He's got to rework some of his defensive zone work and how he sets up the defensemen to have success because none of them had success last night, and it was a big problem throughout last season. And C, I feel like he's got to fine-tune his system to create more goal scoring opportunities. You look at the underlying numbers. Those have always been good for Sullivan's system, but the last couple of years, they haven't

translated to goals, right? And you saw that last night. Some they were having a bit difficulty, you know, getting goals, and obviously they were shut out. So I want, if he's going to be here for the entire season, I want him to actually tweak his system. You can't just keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. So, and trust me, people, I understand that people want Mike Sullivan gone. I argued for it at the end of this past season. I thought it was time.

But I just don't think they're going to do it based on the way the GM is talking, based on where they are, and based on how ownership feels about him. I mean, they feel like he's one of the top coaches in the league still. I know you're probably laughing at me that I said that, but that's what Tom Warner said. That's what John Henry said. But yeah, overall, again, still, just to keep up with the summary of the show, everything was not good enough last night, but it is only game one of 82. And they will have a shot to rebound tonight against the Red Wings of team that they're kind

of in the same tier with, I would say, heading into the season. For sure. And to build off your Sullivan point, here's the thing that I noticed last night and that is in both the good and in the bad. the offensive zone strategy has changed. They are very much working a behind the net below the goal line strategy trying to draw defenders in to open up the middle of the ice. There were two issues there. One, the Rangers eventually adapted to it and the penguins didn't try enough to make it work.

You saw several film study things on TNT last night where you would see in the offensive zone. There was nobody in the front of the net. And I get what they're going for. They're trying to draw defenders down to open up that middle section of the ice. that only works if you put guys in the middle of the ice, and that is incumbent upon the players to get to the middle of the ice. They have to have the awareness to get to the middle of the ice, which last night they did not, which again, game one of 82,

it's something new that they're doing. It's going to take a little bit of time. On the other end of it, the thing that has to change that it has seemingly not changed yet is the defensive zone strategy. The puck side overload is not working anymore. teams have either adapted to it or the penguins just don't have the personnel to run it anymore. So I don't think there's any shame in simplifying this in making it a box in one strategy

where your defenseman play down low, your wingers play up top, and your center is your rover. And he supports the puck, supports the defense, and helps kickstart the breakout, and then you head on out of the defensive zone. So those are the two things I can see. I noticed and I would like to see change. And one last thing about that. This is also something that I was fired up last night. If we would have fired up this show and recorded right after the game,

it would have been nonsensical and just been a complete mess like the game itself. So I'm glad we waited. But I want to say this about the penguins this year so far too. And again, not an excuse, not something that I think excuses the way they played last night. but Anthony Bavillier, Rucker McGrory, Yessie Poolyarvey, Kevin Hayes, Cody Glass, Nolichari to an extent, Matt Grizzlick, and Jack St. Ivney. These are guys who are either brand new or did not play much last year. That's a lot of turnover for a roster, especially guys who you're expecting to make contributions.

So this is going to take a little bit. Now, does that mean that I'm excusing their effort from last night? absolutely not. There's no substitute for effort and the effort was not there for a large portion of the game. But again, a lot of new faces that are going to have to adapt to what they're doing here and get used to who they're playing with more than anything. So that's another thing to keep in mind. But I mean, overall, I'm with you in the sense that like I'm not, and again, the discussion about Mike Sullivan has become so binary. It's either been you are totally in his corner, you think he can't be questioned, or you think he's a guy who can't coach his way out of a paper bag and should have been let go years ago. But it's deeper than that. And I think he's a fantastic coach. He's probably top five in the NHL right now. But that doesn't mean he's infallible. There are things he needs to change. We just talked about it. So I just implore our listeners this. Don't dig yourself into deep to where everything that goes wrong, you're going to blame on the coach.

everything that goes right, you're going to say happen in spite of them in vice versa. You're not going to turn him into a god who can't be questioned or a doofus who doesn't belong in the league anymore. So just try to see the forest through the trees when it comes to Mike Sullivan. He absolutely can be questioned and you should question them. And he absolutely has his flaws and makes mistakes. And we have seen them on full display for the last couple of years. So that's where I pretty much land with Mike Sullivan and this.

team. But tonight, they get a second crack at the can as they head to Detroit to play the Red Wings at Little Caesar's Arena and Hunter and I are going to get you ready for that game in our final segment. But before we do that, we got to tell you about our last sponsor and that is game time. It is the absolute best time of the sports calendar with college football, NFL, MLB playoffs, NHL's finally here and NBA is not far behind it. know as well as I do, there is no substitute for seeing those events in person. And Game Time is the app to get you tickets to all of those live events. And they have a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite

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What time is it? It's game time. All right, welcome back to the Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. And, hey, guess what? We get to have amnesia from the home opener because they get a second shot at it. And before we even get started, you kind of already said it, Hunter.

This is kind of an ideal situation because there is no time to sit in your misery from that home opener performance because eight o'clock tonight, little Caesar's Arena in Detroit, you're going up against the Red Wings, and you have a shot at redemption because it's game two of 82. And we know the Stanley Cup is not won or lost in October. So they have a chance to jump back to 500, get a couple points on the board, and wash that terrible taste out of their mouth. The Detroit Red Wings, however, home opener, season opener, you know they're going to be juiced up. So you got to be ready for that. You kind of hinted that this to me before we hit record. Pretty solid forward group in Detroit. But then you look at the back end and it's rough.

I mean, they got Ben Chirot getting top 30 minutes with no size. That should tell you all you need to know about their defensive group. And don't get me wrong. Mosider's awesome. He's probably one of the more underrated defensemen in the league. But pairing him with Ben Chirot, it's just not that good, obviously. Jeff Petrie, I think he had a decent year last year for them. He's on the second pairing with Simon Edmondson, and then Oli Mato with Eric Gustavson

on the bottom pairing. Overall, a unit that really doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Goaltending-wise, they're starting Billy Huso tonight, who played really well in that preseason game against the Penguins. that was the penguins mostly their A team, I would say, and Huso made a couple of really big saves, especially at the end, who looked to carry that playover into this game. But their forwards, you know, that's definitely the strong suit of this team.

You know, a top line of Alex De Brinquet, Dylan Mark, and Lucas Raymond. I mean, Raymond last year really came into his own. More people need to be talking about Lucas Raymond. And he crushed the penguins quite a bit last year. I mean, he was crushing teams down the stretch quite a bit. I felt like he was their best player, especially down the stretch last year. He's turning into a star before our very eyes. Penguins will have to keep an eye on him, especially.

You have Patrick Kane on the second line with J.T. Comfer and Vladimir Tarasango. Remember, Penguins tried to get Teresanko over the off season, but he ended up sounding in Detroit. I do like that move for the Red Wings. They could use more goal scoring. Third line, you have Michael Rasmussen, Andrew Copp, and Christian Fisher. And then you have Joe Villano, Jonathan Bergrand, and Tyler Mott on the fourth line. So I think their forwards definitely a bit deep. compared to last year, but defensively still not that strong goal toning wise, a bit questionable

as well. They're in the same type of tier that the penguins are. I think I see the Red Wings as a team that's going to be fighting into a wildcard spot like they were last year, similar to the penguins. So I do feel like even though the Penguins failed the test last night going up against a true contender, they should be able to play better tonight. I'm not guaranteeing a win by any means, but I do expect them to play much better than I. And I'm excited to see how Blumquist looks. First NHL start going up against a playoff hopeful team. Still quite a bit of good NHL talent there.

How does he play in his first game? I'm really excited to see how he looks overall. That's my big X factor for tonight, excuse me, is how Joel Blumquist shows in his first game. Because we said it about him in the preseason. One of the biggest features I noticed of him, him was the ability to bounce back because he had some rough starts. A lot of it wasn't on his shoulders.

The team in front of him was not giving him a lot of help. And he was able to bounce back. We know how bad the first preseason game was against Buffalo when it was essentially all of the HL and junior guys going up against Buffalo's NHL team. So he was able to bounce back later on in the preseason, looked very solid, made a lot of very good saves. So very interested to see how he does. And then the other thing is, it's not, it's nothing statistical.

It's nothing analytical. It's entirely intangible for me tonight. I need to see a motivated team. I need to see an angry team. I need to see a team that knows they just got slapped around in their home opener. And you have to have some pride. You just add your home opener spoiled. Why not go return the favor to the Detroit Red Wings tonight?

spoil their home opener. But I'm overall, I think that now that we got all the ranting and raving out of the way from the home opener, I do still see a team that has some talent. There's a lot of guys on this roster who can raise their level and play better hockey. And it has to start tonight. It has to be a full 60 minute effort. It has to be a smart effort. And it has to really just be a game where you sit there and go, like I said, we just kind of. got embarrassed in front of our home crowd, we have to pick ourselves up and have a better effort. It's like the Michael Irvin quote. Have you seen that floated around as that meme? You know, nobody, nobody believes in you. What are you prepared to do about it? So channel the inner Michael

Irvin tonight. Yes. I will always retweet that meme when I see it because it is honestly hilarious. And while this will be sold out at Little Caesar's Arena, I know all those fans are going to be paying attention to something even more important as well. And that's the Detroit Tigers playing for a chance to go to the pennant. I'm just saying, just saying. There's a more important sporting event going on there today. And they're going to be looking to see if the Tigers are able to get to the ALC as potentially play the Yankees. But it's still going to be a sold-off crowd, Little Caesar's Arena, was pretty loud, especially towards the late stages of last season. I expect that to be no different here.

but yeah, I want to see an angry, pissed off team tonight, a team that knows they got embarrassed at home in front of their own fans. And I want them to be like, okay, let's go at least try to do it to a team. We just had it done to us. Let's go do it to another team. And excited about Blumquist, I'm excited about the third line. I thought the third line last night as a positive was their best line. Eller, Pooley, Poo Yardy had a couple of really nice chances on Sir Sturkin.

They were turned away. Eller had a couple really nice passes that resulted in. some chances underlying numbers wise. I know the numbers overall weren't that kind to the penguins. But when these guys were on the ice, they had 64% of the shot attempts, excuse me, about 53% of the expected goals. I know some of that a little bit was in garbage time, of course. But I liked the way that line looked.

And I want to see them continue to use that line here, even though Brian Rust is getting closer to returning. I'm right there with you. I was going to bring them up. You beat me to it. I think there's something there with that line. If they keep building, it's very encouraging. But that is going to do it for this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

Penguins and Red Wings tonight, game was pushed back. It is at 8 p.m. And you can catch that on SportsNet, Pittsburgh. So again, 8 o'clock, Little Caesars Arena against the Detroit Red Wings, catch it on Sportsnet Pittsburgh. Hunter and I will return with a recap of tonight's game for our Friday episode, as well as get you set for Saturday night in the belly of the beast, Toronto, when they head to Canada to take on the Maple Leafs.

But for now, I am Patrick Damp for Hunter Hodes. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. We'll be back with a new episode to end your week on Friday. Until then, go Penns, enjoy the game, and we will talk to you on Friday.