Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins kick-off a weekend back-to-back with a Black Friday matchup in Boston!

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

The Penguins are back in action after Thanksgiving and they'll have a weekend back-to-back starting in Boston on Friday night. Patrick and Hunter get you set for the first game, which is tonight at TD Garden. The Penguins have had some chaotic matchups with Boston over the last couple of years and with the Bruins' early struggles, it could be a chance for the Penguins to build on the momentum gained in a win over Vancouver. Then, the Penguins will return home for a Saturday night date with the Calgary Flames. They discuss how, despite not having the most talent in the league, the Flames have been able to find success through a team-oriented approach. Finally, they go over some news and notes from practice as well as another young player possibly being linked to the Penguins. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app or go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNHL to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. 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 ONE 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 will have no time for leftovers after Thanksgiving as they kick off a back-to-back tonight against the Boston Bruins. And then they'll welcome in the Calgary Flames on Saturday night. Hunter and I are going to get you set for both of those games 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. And welcome back to another edition of the Lockedon.

Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym 4Wet. Join, as always, by the one and only my co-host Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's account a follow at L0 underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine. Don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. Plus, if you're following us on YouTube, don't forget to hit that notification button so you can be alerted when we drop our Monday through Friday episodes. Before we get going today, today's episode is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase.

Hope everybody had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving, day full of food, and some absolutely chaotic football that Hunter and I were talking about before we hit Recruit. but this is of course a hockey podcast, not a football podcast. Go listen to our good pal Chris Carter on Locked on Steelers for that after you finish up this episode. But for the Penguins, like I said, there is no time for leftovers. There's no hangover Friday where they can just hang out on the couch all day because they're right back in action on a jam-packed Black Friday for the NHL with games starting at 1 p.m. and going all through the day and into the night.

and the penguins will be part of that action at 6.30 tonight in TD Garden against the Boston Bruins. And kind of two teams right now, Hunter, that find themselves in sort of similar situations. Wow, we know that the penguins there near the bottom of the standings, but the Boston Bruins find themselves third in the Atlantic right now with a record of 1110 and 3. but hilariously, the Boston Bruins are in third with a goal differential of minus 18. So if there is one thread that kind of bonds the penguins and Bruins together right now, it's the fact that they can't really score and they cannot get a save. So Hunter for the Penguins tonight, what do they got to do to get a win against the Bruins?

Well, Pat, I think it's quite simple. You got to shut down Brad Marshall and David Posternach. thank you all so much for listening to this episode. But no, like those two are really driving the bus for the Bruins this year. As expected, they are their two best players. You look at the stats for them. Posternak, one of the best goals scores in the league, eight goals, 22 points and 24 games. Marshan, he also has eight goals, 17 points in 24 games. And oh yeah, by the way, did you know that Brad Marchand always kills the Penguins? It feels like every single time these two teams play, he scores a goal, whether it's on the power play, five on five, or especially.

short-handed. He has killed the penguins short-handed numerous times during his career. You know he's going to be on the ice for something big in every single game against the penguin. So that's really where it starts and almost ends. The Bruins, they still have other, you know, good players on this team. Again, you know, Lin-Home brought over. He has only three goals in 24 games, though. I'm not sure how that contract is going to age. I think right now it's kind of looking a bit poor. You know, you have Pavlzaka, he has five goals. But up and down this roster, I feel like it's a bit too top heavy. And I feel like that's the biggest reason why the Bruins aren't as good this season compared to recent seasons. Yes, they are definitely in a playoff spot

right now. But the biggest reason for that is because the Atlantic Division, Pat, it's terrible. You really only have the Panthers and the Maple Leafs as two legit good teams in that division. Boston has been, eh, they also fired John. Jim Montgomery. Tampa Bay has kind of been eh this year. Buffalo, the same thing. Detroit's not very good. Ottawa is towards the bottom. And Montreal is also not very good. So you have a lot of mid to average to flat out bad teams in that division. And then you have the top, which is again, Toronto and Florida. And then I would probably put Boston in that mid range this year. As I mentioned, they fired Jim Montgomery. They had basically seen enough from him this season, which was a

pretty bold move considering the success that Montgomery brought them and he was scooped up basically a week later by the St. Louis moves. I think Montgomery is a great coach that the Penguins had wanted to fire Mike Sullivan at some point during that time and hire Montgomery. I would have been all for it because, again, I think Montgomery is one of the best coaches in hockey, but the Blues, they beat them to the punch and I felt like Donald Armstrong made a really good move there. But for the Bruins, that was, I feel like their last ditch attempt at kind of being like, okay, we got to get something going this year. their goaltending has not been very good. Jeremy Swamen, this is what happens when you miss camp and the preseason.

He has had a same percentage of under 900 this season so far. He's not playing that well. Jonas Corpusalo, he's honestly not that much better. He's 9-07 this year, but he's still not that good of a backup goaltender, you know, compared to Swamon who's 888. It's been rough, and usually that's a big strength of the Bruins. With Swain and Olmark those last couple of seasons, that was arguably the biggest reason outside of Montgomery being behind the bench as to why the

Bruins were so good. They were also a lot deeper forward. That's kind of gone out the window. I don't think Don Sweeney has done that good of a job with his team over the last year and change and maybe even going back a bit earlier than that. So for this game, though, if you're able to shut down Palsernak, you're able to shut down Marshan, the Penguins will have a big opportunity to win this game because you look at Boston center depth.

It's still not very good even after adding Linholm. You have Zopta as your top line center. He's not a top line center on most playoff teams, I would feel like in this league. You have Lindholm there, of course, Charlie Coil. It's not the greatest. So the Penguins will have a big edge there. And again, you look at their forward lines. Even though the Penguins 4 group, it's definitely not nearly as good as it has been in other years.

There's a real argument to be had of the Penguins 4 group is on par, if not better, than Boston's forward group. So I really do think this could be a potential big game for the Penguins, big considering Boston center depth. Yeah, this definitely feels like an advantageous matchup for the penguins tonight, just because Boston, like you said, extremely top-heavy team, they don't have that much depth, but still the talent that they do have gets it done when they need to get it done. And to your point, Jeremy Swayman has an 888 this season as a save percentage.

And when you go from him and Olmark to now Swayman and Corpusole, that's a really, that's a pretty big downgrade. And the thing I've been beating the drum about when it comes to Boston is eventually their ownership has to take a look at Don Sweeney because this is now his fourth head coach. This team does not have the depth that they have had in years past. It's extremely top heavy. And yeah, we, you know, we've had this conversation about the Pittsburgh Penguins where, oh, okay, the head coach eventually is the guy who takes the fall. We have kind of, you know, you have definitely been talking about getting rid of Mike Sullivan. I have warmed to that idea, but I still maintain that this team's issue is not a coaching issue. It's a roster construction issue.

And I look at the, I look at the Bruins and say the same thing. I don't think that Montgomery was at all the problem, but he takes the fall for a roster that's not very deep and struggling goaltending. That's the classic recipe since we are a day after Thanksgiving to getting a coach fired. He usually takes the fall for a team that is unable to get a save and is not built very well. So I look at the Penguins tonight, and it has to be a very similar effort to what we saw on Wednesday night against the Vancouver, Canucks. They have to be willing to shoot. They have to be willing to take the game to Boston. And unlike Vancouver, when you're on the ice against their bottom six, that is going to be

your time to feast because shutting down a guy like Posternak is so much easier said than done because he is one of the best goal scorers of this era. And you just know eventually he's going to get his. And then whoever it is in net, whether it's Alex Nadelcovich or if it's Tristan Jari, they're not going to have a morning skate today. So we won't get any updates until about 430 when Mike Sullivan has a media availability. But you have to have a similar effort from whether it's Jari or Nadelcovic tonight like you got on Wednesday against the Canucks. Right. I mean, Jari still has to play a bit better for my liking. Again, I'm not going to sit here and say he's fully back or anything, because I don't think that's ever going to be the case with him

in Pittsburgh. But he at least has played marginally better since coming back from Wilkesbury. Though if they do go into Delkevich today, I want to see him play a lot better. His game has been really slipping in his last several starts. He has not had a good month of November pat. You know, a lot of these games, he's well below 900, letting in some soft goals. If he gets to start today, I need to see a much better effort from him. because, again, while Jari has also not been very good for basically this entire season, he has at least been marginally better, as I said, since come back from Wilkesbury.

So if I had to pick between the two, I'd probably go towards 35 today, but if they do go for 39, I want to see a better effort. But, yeah, this is going to be a lot of fun. This is usually a house of horrors for the penguins. It's usually rare when they win of in Boston. The Penguins went one in one in Boston last year. I was actually at the game where they won with my buddy Rick, who also listens to the show. Shout out to you, Rick, if you're listening to this one.

Hope you're having a great Thanksgiving. I'm sure you're going to be watching this game as well. But, yeah, man, I always look forward to the Black Friday game for the Penguins, no matter who it's against. And, you know, this has always been a fun, underrated rival, I feel like, for the Penguins throughout the Crosby, Malkin-Littang era. It's always fun when these two teams get together. So, yeah, I mean, if they can put together a similar type effort that we saw against Vancouver,

especially in the third period, you know, between the Queen Hughes goal and the six on five, got five on five, if they can put together also a similar effort like that where they're defending a lead and they're not giving up too much, I will gladly take that for this game. So curious to see how it goes. And hey, maybe we'll also see if Owen Pickering is ready to go after being sick. I know some people may come at me for my small scoop that I had, but hey, he was going to play. He just got sick.

Yeah, that was an unfortunate moment for him looking to get those big minutes. with Chris LaTang. And we almost got our kingdom for Grizzlic engraves both being scratched. But we will see what happens with that today. That's 6.30 tonight. It is a national TV game. You can catch that on TNT and streaming on Max. And we will obviously have a recap for you of that game coming up on Monday.

But for the Penguins, it's Boston tonight. And then it's Calgary at home on Saturday. And Hunter and I are going to get you set for that game. in our next segment when we come back. But first, we've got to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is Game Time. You guys know we are in the best time of the year for sports. The NFL playoffs, they're right around the corner,

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points on your rent. My question is, why not? Start earning points on rent you're already paying by going to joinbilt.com slash locked on NHL. That's J-O-I-N-B-L-T dot com slash locked on NHL. Make sure to use our URL so they know that we sent you. Joinbilt.com slash locked on NHL, excuse me, to start earning points on your rent payments today. All right, we're back here on the Friday edition of Locked-on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. And the Penguins will get absolutely no rest after a Friday night matchup against the Boston Bruins. They'll return home and welcome in the Calgary Flames, a team that has had a pretty solid start to the season. They are currently second in the Pacific Division, 12, 7, and 4. But very

similarly, I wouldn't say very similarly, but similarly a little bit to the Boston Bruins. They are second in their division with a negative one goal differential. And when you look at this Calgary Flames team as a whole, they are just a team. That is the best way that I can describe them. They don't really have any superstar standout talent that's carrying them. They're getting this done up and down the lineup. And then on top of that, despite having that negative one goal differential, they are still getting very solid goaltending from both of their goaltenders, Dustin Wolf and Dan Vlodar. Wolf has a 921 save percentage. Vladar has a 905. So while this team isn't lighting other teams up and scoring a whole pile of goals, they're playing a very solid, structured game.

And they are a team that you cannot afford to make mistakes against because they will make you pay. and then they will shut it down and have two good goalies behind them to keep that lead. So this is going to be a huge challenge for the Penguins. They did lose to Calgary earlier this year as part of that disastrous Western Canada trip. And it was a game that kind of like I said, you give Calgary a little bit of an opening. They walk through it. They make you pay. It was a shootout loss.

So you can't really glean a whole lot from that. But they score with the extra attacker, Nassum Kod. Audrey scores the goal to tie the game, slips through overtime, goes to the shootout. But this is going to be a big, big challenge for the Penguins on Saturday night. The Flames really have the why not us or the nobody believes in us mantra going for them this season. Because no one was believing in them heading into the season. I certainly wasn't. I honestly felt like this was going to be one of the worst teams in the league this season

when you at least looked at that roster, you know, top to bottom. But credit to them. Again, they have that mantra of why not us? And so far, they're in a playoff spot at American Thanksgiving, which usually bodes well for most teams once we get to mid-April at the end of every regular season. And the funny thing is that they don't really have a lot of players near a point per game this season. It's very balanced when you look at their scoring. McKenzie Wager is tied for their point total. Three goals, 13 points. Same with Rasmus Anderson. Two defensemen lead this team in points. The next closest player is Nazim Kadri, of course. Six goals, 12 points, and 23 games.

You've been have Huberto, who's having a bit of a better year, seven goals, 12 points in 23 games, Connor Zari, Michael Backlin is there, Blake Coleman, of course. But it's been a very well-balanced team in terms of scoring overall. So, you know, that to factor in. And that first matchup against the flames,

I felt like the Penguins were the better team for most of that game. And the funny thing is, they had not one, but two third period leads that they blew. If this team just knew how to defend a lead in the third period at almost any point this season outside of one or two instances, they would have won that game pretty handily. I mean, you got that early goal in the third period from Ricard Raquel. Then Weiger ties it at 746. Achari gets the lead at 1340.

And by the way, I felt like that was Achari's best game of the season to date. I feel like he's had a bit of a better year. year compared to last year, though I still want to see more offense from him, I think. But so that was by far his best game of the season was a physical presence all night, was chipping in offensively, playing well defensively as well. But then you get the six on five and Nazim Kadri scores with 43 seconds that. You've got to be able to win that game in the situation. You've been to go to overtime.

You're able to get a couple of chances. It doesn't work out. You go to a shootout. And yes, I did crush the penguins for some of those shootout moves. But again, at the end of the day, I didn't want to. fully overreact to a 50-50 coin flip and a shootout. They had countless opportunities to win that game in regulation and in overtime, and they weren't able to do it.

So that loss is mainly on them before you get to the coin flip. That is the shootouts. But again, for this game, you want to be shutting down. So my cadre, he has crushed the Penguins a lot over these last couple of years. He always plays well against them. You want to be shutting down weaker who's having a really good season. I feel like in that trade, he was already one of the league's best defensemen. He's continued that here in Calgary.

And then, you know, in terms of Dustin Wolfe, their young goaltender, you know, it's kind of been a 1A, 1B with him and Dan Vladar. But Wolf has been the better goalie this season in only one more game. I would probably expect him to get the start in that game, if you're asking me. And he played well, I felt like in that game against the Penguins during the Western Canada's wing that the Penguins won. I felt he was really sharp in a lot of his angles, made some key saves. I would expect him to get the start here.

But again, for me, got to find a way to slow down cadre. You've got to find a way to slow down Uighur, especially with those point shots. He was firing quite a few shots from the point. So you've got to get your, you know, sticks into shooting lanes. I'm not really sure which goaltender is going to start in that game yet. Obviously, it'll be the goalie that doesn't start this game tonight against Boston. But this is still a Flames team that's definitely a lot better than expected. And you don't want to take lightly, even though a lot of people thought heading into this year,

myself included they weren't going to be very good. Right. And I was with you. I'm still not wholly impressed by that Flames roster, but they're getting it done, like I said, with a full team effort. Are the teams that are in the playoffs right now that I feel like could slip out by April? I feel like in the Western Conference, they're the most likely. But that's only because Edmonton is not in a playoffs spot right now. I feel like Edmonton is going to knock the flames out of the playoffs by the end of April. But again, that's just my prediction. Yeah. And you know Edmonton's going to start turning it on here soon.

That's just what they do. And I look at Calgary, luckily for the Penguins, this will also be the second half of a back-to-back for the Calgary Flames as they're taking on the blue jackets today in Columbus and then they'll be in Pittsburgh on Saturday. But like you were saying, they are getting this done by just playing a solid game. You pull up natural statrick and look at where this team is for things like shot attempts and expected goals percentage. and for shot attempts, they're just right smack in the middle.

They're the 16th best team, expected goals percentage. They're 21st. And it's just a team that maximizes the opportunities that they get. They don't come out and dominate you. They don't come out and light up the scoreboard and score a whole pile of goals. They take advantage of the opportunities they're given, and they play a solid 200-foot game. So the biggest challenge for the penguins going into Saturday, is going to be just playing a complete disciplined 60 minute game because as we saw in

Calgary, it's seemingly every mistake that the penguins made ended up in the back of their net. Calgary took advantage of it. And then that was pretty much all she wrote for that one. So it has to be an extremely solid game from start to finish for the penguins or it's going to be the same kind of result we saw in Calgary. So that game, Saturday night. This is a back-to-back for them as well with travel. Like the penguins, yes, they're traveling, but they're coming back home.

They're going to be able to sleep in their own beds and all that. For the flames, this is a back-to-back with travel. And yeah, I know if columnist of Pittsburgh is not that far, but the penguins have got to take advantage of that. They did that against Vancouver on Wednesday because the Canucks also had a back-to-back with travel. And you can tell they were pretty gas to start that game. Yeah, they turned it on a little bit at the end of the second period.

They had a couple of good shifts in the third. But mostly the penguins were ready for them in that game. Has to be similar to here with the flames because they also have a back to back with travel here. It will be a little bit easier for the flames because their game today is three o'clock. So they'll be done, you know, around 6.6.30. They'll probably be in Pittsburgh by 8, 9 o'clock. So they'll be, it's not like they're turning this around right away, traveling late night, getting into Pittsburgh late.

So it'll be this very similar thing for the penguins as well, Boston to Pittsburgh. not that big of a travel issue for them. But at the same time, it's still the National Hockey League. It is incredibly hard to play two games in two days because of how tight this league can be. So that is Saturday night, 7 o'clock PPG paints arena. That'll be a locally televised game on Sportsnet, Pittsburgh. You can catch that. And like I said at the end of the first segment, Hunter and I'll be back on Monday to recap both

of these games, get you set for that week. But we are not done just yet here on the locked on. podcast. We're going to talk a little bit about some practice notes from Thanksgiving because the penguins got their workout in before they had their Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and a couple other news and notes from around the penguins that happened over the last 24 hours or so. But before we do that, we got to tell you about our last sponsor. And that is Fandul. Get ready to tackle NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Because right now new customers can bet $5 and get 150 in bonus bets if you win.

The Fandul Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. Just visit Fandul.com to join today, and you'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's Fandul.com, never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Fandul, an official sportsbook partner of the NFB. L. All right, welcome back. It is the Friday edition of Locked-on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp, joined, as always, by Hunter Hodes.

And like I said, the Penguins, they got their workout in before they had a very big Thanksgiving dinner. On Thursday, they had a morning practice. They ran some lines, did a little bit of skate. A couple of things to come out of that. Owen Pickering was not in attendance on Thursday, Sullivan saying that he basically said he's still sick. They didn't bring him into the facility. And they are, we still don't know if he is going to travel with the team as the team is traveling or has already traveled right now to Boston.

And Sullivan said, quote, it all depends on how he responds throughout the course of the day. So we don't really know what pickering status is. As for that, with the lines, not a lot of changes from the victory against Vancouver. First line, Crosby, Raquel Rust. Second line, Malkin Bunting Tomasino, third line, Lazot, Bavillier, D.OC, fourth line, Nolichari, Matt Nietto, Kevin Hayes, and the same defensive pairings that we saw with Ryan Shea and Ryan Graves cycling in with Jack St. Ivney, and obviously we have Grizzlic-Letang, Pedersen-Carlson. So I think this is about right. This is pretty much what you got to do depending upon what Pickering's health is. You got a big win against a good team in Vancouver. No need to really mess with.

something that seemingly worked in your favor. Well, again, if Pickering is ready to go tonight or even potentially Saturday at home against the flames, I would expect him to come in, and I do think 24 is going to come out. It was looking like that was going to be the case for that game against Vancouver. I checked in with a couple of people even after the morning skate, and they said, yeah, the plan was to have both Grizzlick and Graves out.

And you saw Graves was out, but again, you saw the tweet. Pickering was sick, wasn't able to play. That's why Grizzlick was playing. but they were going to scratch him with the way he's playing. But with Pickering still sick, they're going to continue to trot out Grizzleg Letang. And again, try in quotation marks to boost Grizzly's value, but that's not going to happen at this point,

considering how bad he's been this season. I think they'll be lucky to even get a late round pick for him at a deadline or something like that. I still will keep saying it. I want to see Yes, E. Poo Yarvey back in the lineup. I know, Pat, I know. I get what you're saying.

You don't want to mess with it too much. but I think with the back-to-back this weekend, you got to get him in there for at least one of these games. He's been a big bright spot for this team this year. I want to see him back in the lineup. Yeah, you beat me to that. I think given how many forwards the penguins have in just how basically I said on the,

I believe it was the Thursday episode when we recorded that, that at this point you have seven or eight, maybe nine forwards, depending on who you want to count, that are battling for six spots in the bottom six. Your top six is already well set. I don't think any of those guys are really coming out. I think you can also kind of trade and flip-flop O, D-O-C and Tomasino as guys who are going to stay in the lineup in one way or another,

whether it's in the top six or on the third line. So then I think with the back-to-back this weekend, you're going to see Yassie Poole-Yarvey in at least one of the games just because that's what they're going to try to do, I think, for usage. So I agree to an extent, but, you know, given the way this season is gone, not a whole heck of a lot has worked. Also, one other thing from practice to note, power play units stayed mostly the same. Crosby, Malkin, Rust, Raquel Carlson on the top unit, Hayes, Bunting, Tomasino,

Latang, and Grizzlick on the second unit. So we'll see how that works out. Hunter, before we go, I don't even want to spoil it because you texted me this this morning. Apparently there is a new rumor surrounding the Pittsburgh Penguins from one insider, Elliot Friedman. Why don't you go ahead and tell us about that? Yes, everyone knows. I love listening to 32 thoughts. I think it's one of the top hockey podcasts out there, outside of ours, of course.

But no, I do feel like Elliot does a pretty solid job on there with Kyle, too. And they brought up another name that could be connected to the penguins. And Friedman was, I'll say this, people. He was spitballing. he didn't say he had heard this, he said he was spitballing, that he could see the penguins going after him. And that is Kirby Doc of the Montreal Canadiens. It does fit the mold of younger pieces that Kyle Dubus is trying to go after to, again, inject this team of more youth and kind of a bit meh on him as a whole. I would personally look elsewhere. That's just one man's

opinion, though. Pat, what say you? Yeah, I get the sentiment. I understand in a agree with a lot of people have written this and I've also been talking about it here on the show. The plan right now of stockpiling young assets and draft picks is the best way to go. And really, the other way you go about that is just throwing everything at the wall in seeing what sticks. And that's going to be when you do that, that's going to have a lot of guys that don't work out. you know, these younger early 20s players who had some promise, but it didn't work out for whatever reason, wherever they were. And chances are it won't work out here.

You'll have a ton of those guys come in and out. And I kind of have that same feeling about Kirby Doc. I'm fine with, you know, maybe taking a chance on a 23-year-old player who drafted third overall in 2019. But then you look at what you said. He's had a very large issue not being able to stay healthy. healthy. His best season was 22, 23 with the Canadian's, with 14 goals and 38 points in 58 games. So, you know, maybe he's worth taking a flyer on, but at this point, you know, he's been in the league since 2019, 20.

He's only ever topped out at 14 goals, can't really stay healthy. If it happens, I'm not going to flame Kyle Duis for it, especially if you get them for next to nothing. but at the same time, I think we kind of know who Kirby Doc is at this point. And I wouldn't hate taking a chance on him, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get him either. Right. And he has been at least a bit more healthy this year compared to last year. He only played in two games last year. I mean, the year before that, Pat, he played in 58, you know, 70, 18, 64.

So he's playing 234 games for his career. But just when you look at the body of work, he's just been banged up quite a bit. And I feel like also, why would Montreal want to deal him right now? Like they're already rebuilding. They're starting to go, I feel like, in the right direction, in my opinion. I think Ken Hughes is doing a good job there. I don't see a reason why Montreal would do that. And again, I'm just not as high on the player as maybe some other people are.

I think if you want to go after some other younger pieces, I would maybe go look at someone like Trevor Zegrois a bit more than Kirby Dogg. If you were to put those two as options and to say, okay, pick one. I would pay Trevor Ziris over Kirby Doc. I think most people would, and I maintain what I've been saying about Zeris. I do think that eventually he is going to get moved out of Anaheim just because it feels like that relationship is broken beyond repair. But it's going to cost a lot to get him. And I think he's going to really benefit from a change of scenery and going to a different franchise.

And I don't know if the penguins quite have the pieces to pry him out of Anaheim. But I agree with you. If you're putting the two of them next to one another by comparison, I would take Zichrist 10 times out of 10. But that is going to do it for the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Again, we appreciate you guys taking the time out of your day. Listen to us, yap about puck. And we will get to do that once again on Monday when we return for a recap of both of this weekend's game and get you set for the week ahead.

But for now, for Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you, as always, for tuning in, and we'll be back in your podcast feeds on Monday.