Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins head West in need of some wins!

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

The Penguins kick off their Western Canada swing this week after dropping a point to a divisional rival on Saturday. Hunter and Patrick begin the show recapping a very familiar loss over the weekend (1:20). The Penguins played well in the first and third periods, as well as overtime, against Columbus on Saturday night, but a lazy second period put them behind the eight-ball and left them with just a single point after losing in a shootout once again. Then, the Penguins will take on the Seattle Kraken in a Monday matinee matchup (14:51). Much like some of their recent competition, it’s a team that can defend but can’t score. Simply put, the Penguins will need a 60-minute effort to get two points to start the road trip. Finally, as the Penguins embark on this Western swing, it’s a chance for them to bank points and put themselves solidly in the playoff picture with the Olympic break looming. (24:40)Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedNow, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to https://indeed.com/lockedon right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.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.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. So before tip-off, check the FanDuel app and see what’s dropping during NBA Happy Hour — every Friday from 6 to 7:30 PM Eastern. A little basketball, a little action, and a whole lot of Friday energy.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.

Stop me if you have heard this before, but the Pittsburgh Penguins lost in a shootout on Saturday, 2, Columbus, and Pat and I are going to recap that game. Plus get you all set for the Penguins versus the Cracken on Monday 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 episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes. follow me on Twitter at Hunters Hodes, joined by my co-st, Patrick Damp.

You can follow him on all social media platforms at Sendin for Wet. You can also follow this show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. And you can follow the show's Instagram account at Locked-on underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Fandu, the AFC, and NFC Championship games are here and Fandall is officially in playoff mode. So visit Fandall, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, and grab your profit boost

pack every NFL playoff game day. Pat, once again, the penguins get a point. They're not able to finish the game in overtime after a flurry of high danger chances. And then they lose in a shootout. The penguins are now one in seven in games decided by a shootout this year. We've talked at length about their shootout struggles. We could go probably for 20 minutes about that. for today's episode.

We're not going to do that, but we will spend at least a little bit of time because it was once again, not a pretty sight. Ardra Shilov's at least got them through three rounds, and it's like, okay, maybe they have a chance to break this curse a little bit more, especially after they won one earlier this season.

So I was like, okay, maybe you have a shot two in your second one. Brian Russ comes in in round four, gets a really bad attempt off, and then Charlie Coyle makes no mistake in round four, sending the blue jackets to get the extra point. they've now won four in a row, three of which have been under Rick Bone as the new head coach. But honestly, Pat, it really should not have gotten to that point.

I thought the Penguins absolutely dominated three on three in overtime. And I tweeted this during the game, they have been a lot better in three on three as of late. They just keep getting goalied. And I don't think enough people are talking about it. Elvis Merzleekins, like I did, Fred Vasselowski, tip the cap to you, sir. It was at least four to five high danger chances. that overtime. Ben Kindle, semi-breakaway, makes the save. Tommy Novak, semi-breakaway, makes the save. Kindle from his stomach gets it to Malkin, who is literally 10 feet out, Merslikins in

insane save there, excuse me, Kendall, another insane save. Gino, another one. I think Sid has another chance in that overtime, too. It was crazy save after crazy save, and all you can do is really tip your cap to the goalie. So there's that, but also, Pat, at the same time, we'll get into this in a little bit. You play two really good periods. You can't take a period off and expect to win in regulation. You just can't. That's where I have to start with this because the shootout problems are indeed a problem. We're not going to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that everything is fine. Don't worry about it because you are leaving points on the table. And if they end up missing the postseason by one, two or three points, you're going to look back at these shootout losses.

and that's going to be the reason why. If they were four and four in shootouts, they'd be one point up on the Islanders for second place in the Metro. Those are the differences, man. I'm saying, I'm just saying. Yeah, exactly. But at the other end of it, you played an extremely good first period

where you were clearly the better team than the Columbus Blue Jackets. And then for another moment this season, they come out in the second period just completely flat. And they just give the game back to Columbus. and then they have to play catch-up in the third period, which they do thanks to another elite deflection goal by the captain. And then they do really well in three-on-three, and Elvis Merslikins plays outside of his mind

and gets it to the shootout. And we know what happens there, which, speaking of, enough with Sidney Crosby, enough with Brian Rust in the shootout. They aren't good at them. Or at the very least, they're in a slump in them. So you need to go to other players. Chinikov, he's operating in 100% clip for the Pittsburgh Penguins in a shootout.

So good on Dan Muse for putting him out there. And then the other thing that needs to be talked about, which I don't know if I'm the only one who caught this or if just it's not getting spoken of. But before the game, they showed an interview after the Blue Jackets' most recent win prior to the Penguins in an interview with Merzleekins, where they asked him, hey, you've won three in a row, and now you're off to Pittsburgh, what's the message? And Mersliken simply says,

we're going to Pittsburgh and we're going to win that game too. And he backed it up. He made 29 saves, and a lot of those 29 saves were 10 bell saves. So he deserves a ton of credit for really leading his team to a victory against one of its biggest rivals.

But at the end of the day, you look at this game, and I know everyone's going to be upset about the shooting, outs, but there's really no excuse for it getting there at all. Yeah, that's fair. And it honestly reminded me a little bit of the Flyers game where they blitz the flyers right off the ice in the first period, just like they were doing with Columbus in that first period.

The Flyers really pushed back in the second, just like the Blue Jackets, difference is Pat. Blue Jackets actually made them pay, unlike the Flyers who are continuing to be in a really big slump where they just can't score and a whole bunch of other things. Their goaltending has also been atrocious now that Dan Vladar is out. The Blue Jackets, they made them pay. The Flyers didn't. The Penguins, they pushed back a bit.

In the third, I thought they were the better team in that period. They were able to get another six-on-five goal. That's something that I do like has been better. As of late, they're starting to get much better at six-on-fives after at the beginning of the season. I felt like that was an area they really needed to fix because they weren't even getting the zone for a lot of these six-on-fives. Lately, though, they're actually scoring six-on-five goals. And I've seen Latang and Crosby hook up for that type of goal probably around 40 times. 20 years, it never gets old watching those two do that.

Like Crosby sets up literally right in front of the net, puts his stick down with Tangs like, hey, I'm going to take an opportunity every time. No chance there for Merzleekin. So the Penguins, nice to get a point since Washington also lost in regulation to Florida Penguins, still a point up for third in the Metro. But again, these drop points, they're becoming a killer, man, because that's seven dropped points to shootouts. As I said, if you were four and four, Pat, that's three extra

points in the standings and your four points up on Washington and your one point up on the Islanders. And oh, by the way, you have games in hand on both teams when you look at the standings overall. So again, sometimes those are the fine margins between getting in versus not because as of right now, man, I think the only way they might get in is top three in the Metro. The Atlantic is very competitive this year, way more than the Metro, honestly. And I think Atlantic, I think is probably going to get five teams in the playoffs. So it just makes that playoff race ever so tighter going into, you know, the end of this month, the Olympic break, March where it's obviously going to be nuts, all that.

So you just, you can't be taking periods off. Because again, with Columbus, they made you pay where the Flyers didn't. Right. The good news is that they are playing extremely well in division. They're getting points and wins out of their divisional matchups. So with how tight both the Atlantic and the Metropolitan Division are, they're putting themselves in a position where if tiebreakers come into play, they're in a solid spot.

But at the end of the day, they've got to just start finishing the job. One other observation I had from Saturday's game against the Blue Jackets, and I was wrong on the prediction, but right on the analysis, I loved Hvgeny Malkin's game on Saturday. He was, that was a borderline vintage Malkin,

performance. He was all over the ice. He was buzzing all game long. It just sucks that he didn't get rewarded with a goal because I said it was only a matter of time before he put one in the net. But Malkin played himself one hell of a game, just didn't get rewarded for it. And I also, I do have to give credit despite the shootout to Artur Shilovs. I thought he did a really good job holding the fort in the second period despite giving up two goals. And then for the rest of the game keeping them in a position to win. Sheelovs and Skinner are continuing to make Dan Muses job really difficult because every time it feels like one of them is starting to pull away and becoming the 1A, the other

punches back and has a really good performance. So as much as I know people say they want, and I was one of them wants to see Stuart Skinner take over the 1A, Sheelovs keeps making his case and so does Skinner. So at this point, I think it's going to have to be post-Olympic break that Musin the coaching staff decide who they're going to put the saddle on if this team's going to make a run at the playoffs. But right now, both goalies are making a solid case to be the 1A. See, I'm going to push back a little bit because I didn't like the goal that

She laws gave up to Zach Aston Reese. I felt like he could have been better with that one. It was a blocked shot that bounced out. So I don't think he was quite ready for it. But I agree that he didn't react quickly enough, but at the same time. I didn't like his reaction time. The other two, I'm not really going to put a lot of blame on him. His shootout struggles are what they are.

We've talked about them at length on the show. D.Muse has been asked about if he's going to replace him in the shootout. He keeps saying, no, that's not going to happen. So for anyone out there that wants that to happen, I don't think you're going to get your wish. You're just going to keep riding with she loves when he starts. It is funny though, Pat, with almost all of these shootouts. It is she loves in that. It's never the other goalie, even though they have the goalie rotation 50-50.

It's always she loves in these games. Even when Tristan Jari was still here, just very odd. But yeah, I felt like again, he could have been a little bit better at the start. But I will give him credit again. He made some big saves in the third. And that save in overtime on Charlie Coil was also really big as well. So he's coming up clutch in those situations. But it goes back to what I've said before.

I just want to see that same consistency at the start of the games. That's all. That's all I'm saying. That's why I think I'd still rather Skinner get a little bit of the 1A starts. But that's me. I think Skinner is going to get the start today. If they keep the going rotation, I thought Connor Clifton played perhaps his best game as a penguin.

That was an absolute piss missile for his first goal. As a penguin, I thought he was very physical once again. I thought he was also moving the puck well from his own zone up the ice. Just a really solid game from him. I've actually kind of liked the way he's played his last. two to three-ish game. So thought that game was his best as a penguin, even though you and I have said on the show, we haven't been that big of fans of his performances this year.

But I think as of late, he is playing a bit better. So we do have to be fair and give credit where it's due. Ricard Raquel was good. Cindy Crosby with that outrageous pass to him. Ho-hum. Chris LaTang, man, he was also fantastic. But once again, he continues to play lights out with Eric Carlson hurt. And speaking of that, Pat, probably not too much longer until Carlson is back. I was at practice on Sunday. He was out there, no contact Jersey, going on the trip. I expect him to play at some point on this trip, in my opinion. But, let's hang in.

He's also been fantastic. Those were some of my other standouts from Saturdays game. That'd be a huge lift to get him back because they have done a really good job as of late, keeping the ship afloat without him because we talked about it. Losing him is a huge loss with how well he has played this season and how much of a factor he has been in this team's unexpected success. But Latang deserves all the credit right now because he has elevated his game to a level. We haven't seen in quite some time.

And that's all credit to him. He's getting the opportunity. He's seizing it. And if you can get Carlson back sometime in the next week and Latang can keep this level of playup, it only bodes well for this team moving forward. Yeah, that's the thing, man. If Latang really keeps this up when Carlson comes back and he does his thing, all of a sudden you have two very viable pairs for the rest of this.

season because I think LaTang has been lights out for the last couple weeks ever since the calendar flip the 2026. I just want to see if he keeps it up. We know how great Carlson's been for most of the season, especially offensively. Now that LaTang is really, you know, filling in offensively and he's been better in his own zone too, you know, that would be huge for this team, man, if both players are really humming at the same time. But I think that's going to do it for this, for not this episode, for this segment, excuse me, of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We're not ending the episode after only 14 minutes today, people. We still have a big preview to get to.

And speaking of that, Pat and I are going to give our thoughts on today's game against the Seattle Cracken coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our first sponsor, which is Fandall. The NFC and AFC championship games are here, and Fandall is officially in playoff mode. Every game day during the NFL playoffs, Fandall is giving customers even more ways to get in on the action. Because right now, every NFL playoff game day, Fandul users get a profit.

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All right, we're back here on this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. That's my good friend in coast, Pat Shamp, and Pat. Penguins Cracken comes your way today at 5 o'clock Eastern time from Seattle, the first game, at a four-game road trip for the penguins as they will go to Western Canada. After this one, the Penguins flew out to Seattle after practice yesterday, and they will take on a Cracken team. That is also just flat out weird,

and I don't really think the Cracken are that good, honestly. Yes, I know. They are third place in the Pacific right now. That's not really a high bar, considering how weak the Pacific is this year. They are in a pretty big tie for third place. San Jose also has 51 points, so does Anaheim, and so does L.A. Seattle this year, 21.

in 17 and 9. They have lost three in a row. They've won five of their last 10 games, so 500 during that time. But still, they have lost three in a row. Penguins, I felt like they outplayed them in their first matchup this year. Lost an overtime after,

I'll bring it back to something I said earlier. Penguins dominated that three on three, basically had the entire puck. Seattle's first chance to get that goes in the back of the net. Just really awful luck there. That was one of the games that Sergey Murashov started earlier this year. I felt like he really wanted that overtime goal. back just wasn't that good of a goal to give up with the penguins.

They'll have another shot at the Seattle team today. And this is a Seattle team that, you know, offense, it's been hard to come by for a lot of of these guys this year. I mean, the players that have the most points, Jordan Eberley and Maddie Baneers, only 31 points in 45 and 47 games each. So again, offense, this is the type of game where I really want to see the penguins play well defensively because, again, the Cracken, it just, you know, it just, you know, hasn't been their strong suit this year offense.

You know, there's Chandler Stevenson has 13 goals and 29 points. Vince Dunn has six goals and 29 points. Jared McCann, Old Penguin, of course, has 10 goals in 23 games. Brandon Montor has six goals and 17 points. But again, man, the biggest guy is Jordan Eberley, who's been a penguin killer, Maddie Baneers, who has 31 points. This is a team that has been struggling to score throughout the year. So I do want to see if the penguins can kind of take advantage of that.

Yeah, let's put it this way. The Seattle Cracken and all the other teams that you listed that are in a fight for that spot and third in the Pacific Division, they would all be behind the Philadelphia Flyers in the Metropolitan Division. They would all be somewhere between sixth or fifth and even lower in the standings in the Metropolitan Division because the Pacific is incredibly weak this year. It's pretty much you look at the Pacific Division. It's Vegas, Edmonton, and then everybody else. So that's something to keep in mind. Don't let them being in third in their division tell you anything different than that. But I also look at this.

This is going to be funny enough, I bring up the standings in the Metropolitan Division. This is going to be a very similar game to what you saw against Columbus. This is a team that is both coached and built to play 200 feet. They're not going to sell out for offense. They're going to be more defensive than they are offensive. that has kind of been the hallmark of the Seattle Cracken since they entered the league a few years ago. So at the end of the day for the Penguins, you really just have to play a similar game that you did on Saturday without taking off a period. Because you're going to have the talent, you're going to have the depth, and you'll likely have the speed to take it to this Seattle team.

And that's pretty much what you have to do for 60 minutes. The other issue that they're going to run into is when you look at C.S. Seattle this year. Last year, the problem was they had one goalie in Joey Decord, who was really good, and then they had one goalie in Grubeauer, who was really bad. That has since rebound. Both of them have saved percentages over 900. Both of them have played really well before he got hurt once again.

Matt Murray was even playing really well for them. So the idea that the crack in have of wanting to play a complete, more defensive responsible game was hinged on getting good goal tending. The past couple years, they haven't really gotten it. This year, they have got it. So their issue is they can't score, but they also don't give up a ton of goals. Or at the very least, they don't score enough to make it look like it. Because if you look at them in the standings right now, they're in third place in the

Pacific with a minus 11. But at the end of the day, they've scored. 130 goals and given up 141. So it's pretty tight. The issue is that they can't score. Yeah, they ranked 25th in the NHL among all teams in goals per game this season at 2.74. If you look at a little bit of their underlying numbers this year, they rank 31st in the league and expected goal share. So not only can they not score, Pat, they're even having trouble generating good goal scoring chances, 45.3% expected goals. share at 5-on-5.

Only the Chicago Blackhawks are worse than them in that category per money puck. So again, offense has been very hard to come by for this team. So if the penguins can kind of replicate some of their good defense performances that they've had lately again, like against Detroit, for example, against Carolina, for example. I think they can be in good shape for this game. You did mention it, though, for their goaltending. Their goaltending has been very good throughout the year in 28 games where Joey DeCorp, 12, 11, and 5, 9-0-0-2.

save percentage, Philip Grubauer in 18 games, 916 with a 2.46 goals against average. And even, you said it for Matt Murray, he's played in five games. And even, even he has had a 922 save percentages here. They have a combined team save percentage at all situations, Pat, 908. So when, it doesn't matter who's been in net for them, they've gotten some really good goaltending. So that has been a big key as to why they've been able to stay in the playoff race, despite offense being hard to come by for the team a lot this year. Yeah, it's been a big, it's been a big improvement for Seattle. If the, like I said, if the goal scoring can start to match the goal prevention, I don't think it's a team that's going to

go on any sort of run. Let's not get carried away. But it's a team that could and should be in the mix if they can start finding some goals. So if you're the penguins, you got to hope that trend continues against Seattle today. Other thing that we should mention that we don't want to forget here, big milestone game for the captain coming up today. This is game number 1400 in the NHL for Sydney Crosby. Really, really great article on the NHL website from my old high school newspaper, classmate, Wes Crosby, about the captain's 1400th game. A lot of good stuff in there.

But we would be remissed. And I know we've said it a billion, a trillion, whatever number you want to put on at times. absolutely incredible that at age 38 Sidney Crosby is still playing at this elite of a level and for the penguins to really get where they want to go, he's got to keep that going. Agreed.

And I do want to see the power play be a bit better. I'll try to work that voodoo magic that I had going into the Flyers game. I felt like the power play was looking a little bit clunky, goes out there against the Flyers, lights them up, you and I look good for that against Columbus. I thought it looked a little bit clunky again. now let's see if they go out there and light up Seattle's penalty hill in this one. So I'm going to try to go two for two about one.

Again, I assume it's going to be Stuart Skinner for this one. And he's been playing very well. I think this is a good matchup for him, considering Seattle's offensive struggles. And even when you look at some of their recent games, Pat, in their schedule, they've also lost five out of their last six games. In four of those games, they have been held to two or fewer goals. Again, that just goes in line with what we've been saying this entire segment. very winnable game for the penguins just like the last one was.

Let's see if the penguins can get the two points and start out this road trip on a good note because this is a big trip in general. And speaking of that, Pat and I are going to discuss the rest of this trip coming up in the final segment right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our final sponsor,

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That's my good friend and co-ed Patrodamp and Pat. This is a big four game trip, man. Three of these four teams are honestly not very good. And yeah, I know. They lost to Calgary already. they lost to Seattle already, but I still don't think those two teams are very good. Calgary also just traded their best defenseman,

Rasmus Anderson, to Vegas. I actually do like that trade quite a bit for Vegas. They're going all in once again. I still think the return is totally fine for Calgary. I think they did as well as they could have for Anderson, but I still like that trade a lot for Vegas as well. But that's a Calgary team that's honestly low-key giving up on the season. So you have them, Seattle, who again,

they've lost three in a row, five of their last six games. Vancouver, you've already beaten once, and they are in free fall right now, Pat. I mean, this is an awful team that I think virtually everyone is available on the Canucks this year. They've already traded Quinn Hughes. I think Elias Pedersen is going to be available via trade. Connor Garland, Kiefer Sherwood.

I don't think they have any untouchables on that team, nor should they, because they're in a pretty big rebuild right now. The biggest game, obviously, is going to be Edmonton, Time will tell if the penguins will see the Oilers without Leon Drysidal. Remember, he is dealing with a family thing over in Germany. So all the best to him dealing with that situation, we don't know if he's going to be back in time this week. If he's not, obviously that's a huge loss for the Oilers,

considering how great he is overall, how much he does for that team. But this is a massive trip, considering the opportunity there for the points to get. and also just with teams really chasing you, you know, I want to really see them put together a lot of 60 minute performances against teams that, again, are flat out, not very good outside of Edmonton. Even though Seattle is technically in third place for a tie pat, as I've said, they're not very good. Edmonton is going to be the toughest game.

I think if you can get five out of eight points here to around six, I think you're doing pretty well. I'll even settle for maybe four, but I'd like to get five plus on this trip. To me, five has to be the floor. You have to get five points out of these four games because you said it. Seattle, I already went over it. They're in third place, but they're in the weakest division in the NHL. So it's not that difficult for them to get into that spot.

Calgary, I look back at the Calgary game and it was a combination of self-inflicted wounds and just a lack of energy. You can make up for both of those against Calgary, especially after they trade their best defensemen and essentially waive the white flag on the season. But that's kind of going to be the theme of these last two weeks of January for the Penguins. You look at who they're playing. Edmonton's the only team that has any sort of aspirations right now. You have Calgary who we talked about, Seattle who we talked about. Vancouver is miles away the worst team in the NHL this year. A putrid 37 points. The team that's the

closest to them is Winnipeg with 44. So they are incomplete free fall. They are just the bottom of the barrel. You lose that game unless it happens on a fluky bounce or they have. Vancouver has lost 10 in a row right now. They still have a few more games to get to before they play the Penguins. Pat don't have a chance to break that against the Islanders, Capitals or the Devil. So there's also a chance that could be on a 13 game losing streak. But we'll see. But I, The only way a loss against Vancouver would be acceptable is if you're on a three-game winning street going in and you're just at the end of your rope on a Western swing. And even then, if it's a hard-fought one, I'm not going to lose sleep over it, especially if you get six points going into it and you're just at the end of a Western swing because we've seen that happen to even great teams where they get to the end of the Western road trip and they're just completely gassed. but that's a discussion for next week.

So we'll leave that for now. But then you get into the end of the month. You've got Chicago who they surprised, but injuries really derailed their effort this year. And they're still not very good. And then you got the Rangers who we talked about, told their fans, this season's done.

Yeah. We're done with this season. We're not worried about this year. So that's another team over these next two weeks. You're playing teams that are out of it or about to be out of it. So you got to get these wins. Edmonton, I'll say this much about this game, along with them still being good and still potential.

And even if you don't have dry sidle, you still got Connor McDavid, who is the super weapon. It's also the second game of a back to back. You're going right from Calgary to Edmonton. So that's going to be a difficult lift for this team. But it starts with Seattle. I want to see a win today against them. Calgary, you got to make up for the mistakes. made when you played them a couple of weeks ago. Edmonton,

I'll 50-50 coin flip that one because at the end of, it's a second of a back-to-back. Vancouver, here's the thing I will say. You're going to get two days off before you go to Vancouver. So I'm going to actually rescind what I said. You got two days off in Western Canada. You're not going to have a time zone switch. You're not going to have a ton of travel days.

You're going to be able to get acclimated. It's a bad team. You're playing. them in the evening, you should probably get those two points. But I'll, I'll, I'll end it where I started it. To me, five points is the floor. That's fair. And honestly, I wouldn't even chuck up Edmond's into 50-50. I'll disagree with you there. The Oilers have just been a matchup nightmare for this scene over the last few years. So I think the penguins are a pretty hefty underdog going into that game. Oh, I don't mean in terms of odds. I mean in terms of can or should they get a win.

You're playing the second half of a back-to-back. So if they go into it two and oh, and it's the second half of a back-to-back and they lose it. I'm not going to lose sleep. But if they are in desperate need of a win, then that's going to be a really difficult place to get one. Yeah, that part is fair. Yes. If you can win those first two and say you drop a game to Edmonton,

but then you finish off a road trip with a win in Vancouver, that's still a very big success. You go three and one on that trip, six out of eight points. You're looking pretty good heading back home to play a not very good Chicago team and then a Rangers team that you said it, they once again sent a letter to their fans saying, if this is going to be a reed-s-hole, not a rebuild. Good luck with the reeds hole, by the way, with that roster.

I don't think Chris Drewry is going to do a really good job with that. And then you also go into the Olympic break. You have three more games after that, Pat. Ottawa, one of them, that's going to be a huge game. A game on the island against the islanders, that's another four-point game. That's going to arguably be their biggest game of the season, early February. And then they have Buffalo and other big games. So after this month, they'll have three huge games to start February

before that long Olympic break. and then you have the end of the month, and then crazy March coming up with games, basically every other day, back to backs out of the wazoo too. You're playing some really good teams in that month. It's not going to slow down for the rest of the season. So if you have a good road trip,

and I know, breaking news here, it'll pay huge dividends. If you have the opposite, well, you know what I'm going to say for that. But yeah, that's the biggest thing is at the end of the day, you got to have a big road trip here. It's not going to be the make or break,

but it's really going to help this, the direction that this season's going to go. Yeah. Because you brought up post-Olympic break. I mean, you look at the March calendar. There is one time, one single time in that month that they have two days off. And it's the 19th and the 20th. Other than that, they are playing every other day.

And there's a long road trip in there. There's a couple of homestands. So if you can put yourself in a position coming out of this road trip to still be in the mix for the top three in the metro. You're making some distance between you. You're putting some distance between you and the teams that are chasing you. It sets you up to have a little bit of a cushion going into the post-Olympic break schedule, but it also puts you in a position to where you can really solidify yourself as a

playoff team going into the post-Olympic schedule. Yep, I completely agree. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Locktown Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much to take the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with a fresh episode for you guys on Tuesday breaking down this game against the Cracken and then Wednesday we'll get you all set for Calgary. Same thing on Thursday for Edmonton and then on Friday.

We'll recap that game against Edmonton and, of course, get you all set for the final game in the road trip against Vancouver over the weekend. But again, that's going to do it for this one. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with a fresh episode for you guys on Tuesday.