Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins head south for two massive games against Florida and Carolina!

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

The Penguins will head south as the winter weather bears down on Pittsburgh to take on the defending champs in Florida and a familiar foe in Carolina. First, Patrick and Hunter get you ready for a rematch with the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers who the Penguins have already beaten this year. Despite having a winning record against Florida this season, the Penguins will need a better effort this time around. Then, they'll take on a team that has beaten them by a combined score of 9-2 in just two games in Carolina. They have a chance to make a statement in these two games and Patrick and Hunter give their keys to victory. Finally, Head Coach Mike Sullivan made some odd comments about two players on the Penguins, they dive into what it could mean or if it's just some coachspeak, word salad. 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.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR 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.

The penguins are headed south for two, count them, two massive games against two Stanley Cup contenders. Hunter and I are going to get you set for both of those games and more on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Your Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media at Synonym 4Wet, joined as always by my partner in crime, 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 us part of your daily routine. don't forget that we're free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. Plus, if you follow us on YouTube, don't forget to hit the notification button so you can be among the first to know

when we drop these daily Monday through Friday episodes. Before we jump into it today, today's episode is brought to you by Fandall and you can start the season big with a big return on Fandle. New customers can place a $5 bet and you'll get started with $250 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. just head to fandule.com to get started. Hunter, here we are in the city of Pittsburgh.

It is gray. It is cold. It is snowing. There's going to be snow pretty much all weekend all the way through Monday. It's going to be a gross couple of days. So what are the Pittsburgh Penguins doing? Naturally, they're heading south to get some sunshine and play some hockey. They will start a quick two-game road trip. Well, they will finish up three-game road trip because they were in Detroit earlier this week, but I digress. They will do a quick Southern road trip beginning tonight when they take on the Florida Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions, a team that surprisingly they have already beaten this year.

We went over that a while ago. It was a game they probably didn't deserve to lose, but they don't ask how. They just ask how many. And this could be another golden opportunity for the Penguins tonight. to beat up on the Florida Panthers because this is going to be a tired Florida Panthers team coming into tonight's game. This is the second half of a back-to-back for them. Granted, both were at home. I do believe if I want to check this just to make sure. Yes, yes, it was. This will also be a second consecutive home game for them,

but they're coming off a 3-1 loss to the Carolina. I almost said Panthers. That's an NFL team. I am all over the place. The Panthers, the NFL team are bad. The hurricanes are not. Hurricanes. And it's because I also wanted to say this.

We joked about it before we hit record. It was the most Carolina Corseys game to ever Carolina Corseys. Just running down some of these stats real quick. And then Hunter, I will stop my yapping and get it over to you because I'm sure you're waiting to say quite a lot about the Florida Panthers. Carolina gets 40 shots on net. They win nearly 50% of the faceoffs. They take all of two penalties.

They throw 34 hits. They block 16 shots. And then when you open up the advanced analytics for the first 40 minutes at 5 on 5, Carolina gets 65% of the shot attempts in the first period. And then 59% of the shot attempts in the second period. So Carolina wore the Florida. Panthers down for 60 minutes and got a win. And what do you know, Florida has to play again tonight?

The Penguins have not played since New Year's Eve. So they are rested and ready to go. Yep. I think you hit everything there. The Panthers are going to be fired up for this game. They are definitely not happy with the way they played on Thursday night. And Sergei Babrovsky started that game. I would be a little bit surprised if he went fully back to back.

I think they're going to go to Spencer night tonight. which would be a break for the Penguins because they saw Spencer Knight in the first matchup, and the Penguins lit him up like a Christmas tree. Knight was really bad in that game. And honestly, if you really break it down, he was the biggest reason why the Penguins won that game. They took advantage of some pretty poor goaltending, even though they were fully outplayed by the Panthers. And he was the main reason why the Penguins were able to win that game with two points. And so funny, as we are recording this, Pat, Penguins have just made a trade.

Are you ready for this? It's something small. Don't worry. It's nothing earth-shattering here. No, they didn't trade for Elias Peders and J.T. Miller from the Canucks. But they have acquired Colton Pullman from the Buffalo Sabres, a defenseman in exchange for forward Bennett MacArthur. Pullman is signed through this season and he's going to report directly to Wilkesbury. So kind of the baby trade, Kyle Dubus, helping out Wilkesbury considering how good of a season they're having. We discussed that on our Thursday episode. Wilkesbury definitely should make a playoffs, especially if they're able to win all of their games in hand. So totally fine trade for Dubbus. again, really reinforcing Wilkesbury with the way they are playing this year. I hope I didn't scare you there when I first said that they made a trade that it was going to be something big. But for this matchup with Florida, you are going to need to play 10 times better than the way you played in that first matchup.

Yeah, it was great. You were opportunistic. You finished your chances. But the Panthers dominated them during those entire 60 minutes. Outside of maybe a few shifts where the Penguins were able to capitalize. on chances. The Panthers just steamrolled them, especially in that third period. I was not surprised at all that the Panthers were able to tie that game and send it to overtime, not just because the Penguins were so bad at defending leads and they still are,

but because the Panthers had been crushing them all game long. So you are going to need to play so much better in this one. You're going to need to account for Matthew Kuchuk every time he's on the ice. You know what type of player he is. You know what type of player Sam Bennett is. They're rats. They're going to try to, you know, spin in a little bit. They're going to try to get under your skin. It's important to really, again, ignore them, play your game. And if you can really get these special teams in your favor,

you will have, I think, a really good shot of winning this game. Tristan Jari, he's going to get the start in this one for the Penguins. Nadelcovich, you know, he was fine in that start against the Red Wings, but I at least understand why Sullivan is going back to Jari for this one. But it looks like there's also going to be a couple of other lineup changes. Owen Pickering, he's coming. back from his concussion. Great news. Really glad that he's healthy. I want to see how he does in his first game back. And also, Pat, Kevin Hayes playing in his first game in almost a month,

Anthony Bovillier is going to be coming out, which is kind of interesting. I don't think Bovillier has been that good, but he also just recently scored. So it's just kind of funny the way Mike Sullivan uses these forwards, takes one out, puts another one in. I figured, again, if you wanted to take a forward out, it would be someone like Nyeda who really only kills penalties. But Bo Villiers, I guess that works. But I am glad that Kevin Hayes is coming back in. He has been scratched, in my opinion, for a bit too long. But I also think these two games are pretty favorable for him, especially someone that's a playmaker. You know, he's going to, I think, play with Drew O'Connor. He had a really good game in Detroit. I can see that duo, at least on the third line, really working out.

I was going to, I was going to step in there and say that I think Kevin Hayes, is suited better to play against the Florida Panthers than Anthony Bavillier. It just his size, the way he plays the game, I think that's a little bit more suitable for Hayes than it would be Bavillier. But on the whole, I agree with you. I don't understand what the method is to his madness with some of these lineup decisions. But either way, I do think it was way past time for Kevin Hayes to get another look in the lineup, because he has been pretty solid this season when in the lineup.

And back to the actual game itself, I talked about it at the beginning of the show. The Carolina Hurricanes gave the Panthers everything they could handle just one night ago. So for something that has been plaguing the penguins quite a lot this year, that is starts. The start of tonight's game is so, so, so important because this is going to be a tired Florida Panthers team. And if you read Josh Yohe's piece yesterday in the athletic in a quick interview with Patrick Hornquist and some of the people who have spent time around him, both in Pittsburgh and Florida and everything that he brings to the table, he's now in a front office role with the Panthers.

And he basically told this team going into this year, because some people may forget this. Yeah, the Panthers of the defending champions, they were in the Stanley Cup final just a year before that. So they have played a lot of hockey over the past two years. And Hornquist basically told them, have a good start to this season because you are eventually going to hit a lull in the middle of the season. You are eventually going to have a rough stretch

because you have played a ton of hockey, the emotions have been high. So if you start well this season, you're going to give yourself plenty of room to have that winter lull, say late December, early January, maybe even into February, and then you can start ramping back up going into playoffs. This has kind of been the lull period for the Panthers. They're coming back to Earth a little bit. They're not struggling.

They're not really like falling off or anything. But last few weeks, they've been up and down. We just talked about how they just got a tough game against Carolina. So for the Penguins tonight, you can take it. advantage of that by a fast start. If you can get a goal or two early or at the very least get some sustained pressure, first five, seven, ten minutes, you might be able to take advantage of a tired Panthers team. Yeah, that's been the biggest thing for the Penguins these last few weeks.

You know, I know they've climbed themselves back into this race, but there have been too many poor starts. You can't do it tonight against a tired team, especially after they played on Thursday night. You're going to need to go out there and you're going to dictate the tempo. You want to dictate the pace of this game. You don't want the Panthers to really come come out there and just kind of push or shove you around, even after, you know, playing last night. You want to be the ones that are really trying to push them around. Even though the Panthers have that ratty element to them, they have those type of players. You still want to be the ones that dictate how this game goes.

Again, I think they're going to play Spencer Knight. You've had success against him already this season. You know, anytime you can get traffic in front of him, do it. You know, he was really shaky in that game in Pittsburgh. I think that's another key for this one. There's also the crowd there, yes, the Panthers have had a pretty solid fan base, I would say, ever since they've really gotten good these last several years. But there's always a good amount of Penguin fans that go to those games, man.

I mean, I remember when the Panthers were kind of just starting to get back to being a contender, Penguins fans, that was probably 70, 30 in that arena. It's gone down a bit now considering how good the Panthers are. They just won the Stanley Cup. But the Penguins are still going to have a good amount of fans there. You still want to maybe use that to your advantage as well. Special teams always going to be a big factor. They didn't win the special teams battle against Red Wings,

but if you can get back to that dominance, the PK can maybe bounce back in this one, that would be big as well. And again, I want some more timely saves from Tristan Jari. I still want to see him up his game a bit more here in the second half. And hey, this has a big opportunity against one of the best teams in hockey. It's a huge challenge. The Penguins can make a big statement by getting a,

couple of points tonight and getting a win over the Florida Panthers. But that is tonight at 7 o'clock at Amarant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida. You can catch it on SportsNet, Pittsburgh here in our area. But that'll do it for this first segment. When we come back, we got another game we got to talk about. And it's a team that we talked about a little bit here in our first segment. And that is the Carolina Hurricanes. We will get you set for that Sunday game when we come back right after this.

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Western Pennsylvania this weekend continues on Sunday when they head to Carolina to take on the Hurricanes. A team that has pretty much owned them for the last few years, they have already dropped two of the three meetings that they will have with the hurricanes this year. A 4 to 1 loss on October 18th and then a 5 to 1 loss on November 7th. The penguins do not match up well with the Carolina Hurricanes. The good news for them, this will be a bit of a tougher matchup for them because Carolina is going through a little bit of a rough patch in their schedule. So the penguins might catch them at a good time. But like so many things, both of these games this weekend essentially have to be carbon

copies of one another. You have to start fast. you cannot make a ton of mistakes. And you especially against Carolina have to be defensively accountable because you know this team is going to fire everything at the net and they are going to try to hem you in your zone with a heavy forecheck, working the puck, low to high, trying to score off of rebounds, tips, and deflections.

I say this every time these two teams play. If you can box out their forwards after all those point shots, come in, you will have a good chance of winning this game. It's just that in the two matchups this year, they haven't come close to doing any of that, and they've been boat raced off the ice in both those games. Let's be real here. The hurricanes kind of toyed with the penguins in both of their wins against them. It was pretty ugly.

Yes, it's not the most exciting brand of hockey. I'll say it again. They're kind of the more fun version of the Islanders. Their high-end players are definitely more fun than the Islanders. And again, the way they play, it's a little bit more fun, but I'll also be real here. It's a bit of a slog to watch. It's the way they play is exactly the way Rod Rendemore played when he was a player.

All gas, no breaks, 100% effort every shift. It works great during the regular season. But when you give a really good coaching staff a chance to see it for a playoff series, that's where you can exploit the matchups. And I think that's one of the reasons why Carolina has come up short in the playoffs is because you give coaching staffs time to really watch film on you, scout ahead, you're able to really break down their system. And Carol Rotlana, excuse me, really doesn't have too many options to adjust.

Because, again, that's the way Rod Rendemore plays. And he really hasn't, it feels like to me tweak too much of it. It sounds since coming over. Again, still really good head coach, really good team. They're exceeding my expectations for them this year, considering the talent that they lost. And this is still going to be a very, tough effort. A lot of these games, even before this year, they've been a lot of 50-50s,

but hurricanes have made one or two extra plays to win a lot of those games. You can't have the same thing happen in this one. Another good start is very important. That is really doomed the penguins, I feel like, in these two matchups. They haven't really started that well. And even when they've scored, you know, for example, in that second matchup hat, they were just boat race right after that goal. It really was not even close. when you look at, you know, the eye tests, the advanced analytics, the shot attempts were very much in Carolina's favor. No surprise, they don't call them the Carolina course. He's for no reason, but the expected goals are in their favor, all that. They're going to fire a lot of pucks to the net. It's important,

though, that, A, again, you keep those to the outside, you get rid of those high danger areas, and B, you box out there forward so they're not able to get those tips with the deflections on net, so you make it really easy with your goalies. You have to play a really simple game against this team. I know we say that a lot for these previews, but it really lands here just because of the way the hurricanes play. Very up-tempo, very fast. They fire a lot of pucks to the net. You cannot make dumb decisions against this team and expect to win. You can maybe do it against some of the worst, and I mean, worse teams only you can get away with maybe a few dumb decisions. If you're able to get some timely saves, you're not going to be able to do that against this hurricane's team,

especially with the high-end talent that they have. So good start, very important, playing simple, very important, and playing diligent in your own zone, especially important against a Hurricanes team that loves to fire the puck to the net. You brought up a really good point there about the high-end talent, because if there was always a knock on the Carolina Hurricanes for the last few years, and I still think that knock exists to a certain. There still is, but it made another high-end forwarder, too.

They do. but their forwards are absolutely producing like high-end forwards. They have six forwards with 20 points or more. Roslavik, Jarvis, Svetnikov, Aho, and Marty Natchez, who is having himself a season. 15 goals, 31 assists for 46 points in 38 games. He is playing, what a great brand of hockey he has been playing this season, a player that I don't think a lot of people saw coming, at least not to this level.

But maybe that is the guy that they were missing and he just needed to be put in the right environment. Who knows? Another player, and it's someone that Penguins fans may remember from his days across the Commonwealth in Philadelphia. But somebody who is having a renaissance of a season is defenseman Shane Goss to spare. Yeah. Six goals, 21 assists, 26. seven points. He still has the defensive warts that he has always had because despite that and playing on a team like Carolina courses, he's a minus six. Now, granted, I always say with

plus minus, wait to you get north or south of 10 to really make any sort of judgment call on that because that's probably more indicative of a trend than anything between one and nine. But still 27 points in a minus 6 as the leading defenseman scoring defenseman, excuse me, on the hurricanes, a little concerning. If there is one thing the penguins can and should try to take advantage of, if they get Kachkov in net this weekend, 902 save percentage, 2.46 goals against average. It's a very average goaltender. Is he bad?

No. Is he good? jury's still out. So if they get a look at him, that's a goal you have to try to take advantage of. Because the penguins, they do pretty well at generating offense at five on five. Now, they're going up against the team that invented generating five on five offense apparently. But if you can keep that trend up against a goaltender like a checkoff,

you might be able to put a couple dents in Carolina's armor. The hurricanes are also so structurally sound in their own zone. it's been really difficult for the penguins to generate offense against them, especially in these two meetings this year. Penguins, they really, and I mean, really have had to work for their offense against that team. But that's also, again, the way the hurricanes play, very good in their own zone. They fire a lot of shots in the offensive zone. They live on those deflections, and they try to get around with at least average goaltending. One more thing with Kachkov.

He drops his stick a lot. I'm just throwing that out there. Be aware for that, people. He drops his stick quite a bit when he's in net. So if you're looking to see how he plays, that's one thing to really look out for in this game on Sunday. It's also nice that the schedule makers are having that game on Sunday and the Steelers play on Saturday.

So we don't get double trouble with Pittsburgh sports and potentially having both those teams lose on the same day. God forbid. Hopefully we get a clean sweep for Pittsburgh sports this weekend as the Steelers play the Bengals. But again, the Penguins, when they get chances in Carolina's zone, you're going to have to more than make them pay for it because with the way the hurricanes play defensively,

the way they have shut down the Penguins offense this year in the prior two meetings, finishing your chances is a big premium in this game. And you won't have to stay up too too late on Sunday unless you're staying up to watch football, which who could blame you, that game on Sunday, 6 o'clock in Raleigh.

Again, similarly on Sportsnet, Pittsburgh. You can catch it there. And go from that to VIII. Vikings Lions for Sunday night football because that's for the NFC North and the number one seat if you're a big NFL fan. So pretty good sports weekend coming up here for everyone. Yeah, real good sports weekend on the docket. But that'll do it for this second segment. Hunter and I will return with a new episode on Monday to recap both of these games as well as get you set for the week.

But we're not done here. We got to talk about some comments Mike Sullivan made on Thursday after we recorded mine. You would have been nice if you made those comments beforehand. So we could have talked about them on the Thursday episode, but I digress. We'll dive into those when we come back right after this. But we got to tell you about today's last sponsor, and that is Rocket Money. Did Rocket Money help you find any subscriptions you forgot about or that you were paying for twice? That has certainly happened to me on multiple occasions.

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Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com slash locked on today. That's RocketMoney.com slash locked on. RocketMoney.com slash locked on. All right, we're back here for the Friday edition of the Locked On Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp alongside the one and only Hunter Hodes. And Mike Sullivan joined Josh Getsoff, excuse me, for his radio show on Thursday. They touched on a variety of topics. But considering this has been a topic of the show multiple times this week, we might as well start here. He talked about Yessie Poo-Yarvey, who cleared waivers, is still with the team.

He was part of Morning Skate today, though he does not appear like he will be playing tonight. He was not reassigned to Wokes Bear, which is interesting because they do play tonight. And we have seen players who get waived, stick with the team until Wilkes Bear plays, and then they get reassigned. Did not happen for Puyarvi. But anyway, on to what Sullivan had to say. I'm going to read this quote verbatim, and then I'm going to let you run, Hunter. He said, quote, we feel like we've got a really good handle on his game.

Yessie and I have had a number of conversations throughout his time in Pittsburgh, and I've tried to define what the expectations are for Yessie in his game. when he goes in every night, how we're trying to deploy him in that role, and in order to help our team and the penguins be successful. I think that kind of gets into what I've been saying to where, if you watch the film on him, yes, there is plenty of good there, but there is so much inconsistency elsewhere, they just want him to be able to put together a full 200-foot game,

and they're probably not totally satisfied with where it is yet. I get that. I feel like I've said enough about Pull Yard V this week with the situation, and I've made my thoughts pretty clear on where I stand and why I think you should at least give him a small run to at least see what he can do and maybe show him to some GMs if you're not going to keep him, you know, pass the trade deadline, past the season, etc. I still feel that way. I still feel like it would benefit you to, you know, at least play him for a few games, help you scratch one of the veterans that are in the lineup right now that are mainly just killing penalties. that explanation was, again, a little bit of a word salad for me. I honestly, Pat, just really don't have that much to add if I'm being fully honest.

I think I've said all I've needed to say about the Puyarvi situation, it's going to sort itself out at some point. It has to come to a head at some point with the way this is going. So, you know, Sullivan, I get what he's saying at least a little bit to a degree, but I also think most of that was kind of just a bunch of word salad to me. So at the end of the day, I think you've got to give them a little bit run to see what he can do and take out one of the veteran forwards. Just not sure that's going to happen.

But also at this point, not really sure how much we're going to have to keep talking about this until another update comes out. Yeah. And another player that Sullivan spoke of is another player that has been the topic of a lot of discussion on this podcast. And that is Matt Grizzlic. He made a wild comparison for Matt Grizzlic, comparing him to Paul Martin, who if you are a longtime fan of the past,

Penguins, you know how good Paul Martin was in the 2010s. I will say this, though. I would have rathered him make the comparison if Paul Martin were here, or if Grizzlik were here for more than just this year. Because if you remember, they signed Paul Martin to a long-term deal. He was pretty bad in his first season. And then after that, he erased any bad taste Penguins fans had with him because he just went on to be one of the most consistent defensemen the penguins have had in a long time.

However, this is where it does make a little bit of sense, but the Paul Martin comparison might have been a little rough. He basically said, for those that remember Martin, he was a guy that didn't have a big shot back there, but was very effective on the power play because of the way he saw it and the way he could distribute the puck. Now, if you look at Matt Grizzlick's game on the power play, he has been their most efficient defenseman with the man advantage.

So that comparison, while if you take it from the 200-foot view and go, Matt Grisly is not Paul Martin at all. But if you focus in on the power play, yeah, it's a pretty good comparison. Power play, yes. Everything else, especially at five on five? Hell no, especially with the way Martin played defensively in his own zone. He was so stable back there, especially when he was with. Lettang for quite a while.

I mean, when he was with Latang, man, they were so fun. You know, it obviously led the way for Brian Dumlin to play on that top pairing for so long. But Martin and Latang were so, and I mean, so fun together, man. It really was a blast watching those two together. But yeah, Power Play, I can see it at least a little bit.

But when you fully compare those two players, Mike, come on, man. At five on five, Paul Martin, at least when you look at Grizzlic this year, twice the player that he has been at five on five this year. So when you look at the whole thing, pretty crazy, but when you scope it down to at least the power play, I get to definitely see it because you're right about Grizzlick on the power play.

Very effective with the way he quarterbacks it. His vision on the power play is very good. He has a pretty solid shoot-first mentality. He also knows when to dish it off to the playmakers versus when to fire the puck himself. I do like his work on that unit. It's the rest of his game that I still think, needs a bit more work. And if he's able to work on that,

the penguins could find themselves getting at least something for Grizzlake at the trade deadline. Yeah, especially because he's cleaned up his game a little bit, I think, elsewhere along. Because, again, this has kind of been the theme of this season with a lot of these players where when we say that they're cleaning it up, they're getting better, they've bounced back, however we describe it, it's not saying that they're all the way back. It's not saying that they're thriving. It's not saying that they're great all of a sudden.

It's just they're cleaning up warts in their game and they're starting to improve. It doesn't mean that we can fly the mission accomplished banner and start talking about what the Stanley Cup route parade is going to, parade route's going to be down the boulevard of the Allies come June. It's just acknowledging the reality. But that is going to do it for this episode of Locked-on Penguins. Hunter and I will be back on Monday. with a brand new episode, recapping both of these games and getting ready for a busy week next week for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

But until then, thank you as always for tuning in. We really appreciate us being part of your daily routine and always tuning in. But until Monday, for Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you again, and we will be back on Monday.