Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins late start dooms them against Detroit

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

The Penguins' late starts once again came back to haunt them in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Patrick and Hunter discuss the overtime loss to Red Wings and while they're still losers in four of their past five games, the effort against Detroit was much better and potentially something to build upon as they look forward to matchups with Columbus and San Jose this weekend. Next, Blake Lizotte's rotten injury luck continued on Wednesday night and this led to the call-up of forwards Matt Nieto and Vasily Ponomarev. They talk about what to expect from these two and if there's anything to read into the reassignment of Joel Blomqvist to the AHL. Finally, Elliotte Friedman spent a lot of time discussing the Penguins in his 32 Thoughts column and how the team could be open for business well ahead of the NHL's trade deadline. Link to 32 Thoughts: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/32-thoughts-where-do-the-penguins-go-from-here/Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Mint MobileTo get this new customer offer and your new 3-month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to MINTMOBILE.com/lockedonnhl. Disclaimer - $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details. Omaha SteaksFrom legendary steaks to mouthwatering desserts and more, save fifty percent off site-wide at OmahaSteaks.com. Plus, our listeners get an extra thirty dollars off with Promo Code NHL and a thirty-dollar reward card when you shop early. Select QuoteGet the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at SelectQuote.com/LOCKEDONNHL. 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.

Well, progress is progress, right? The Penguins drop a hard-fought, three-two loss in overtime to the Detroit Red Wings. Hunter and I are going to break down that game 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. And welcome back to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp.

You can follow me across all social media at Synonym 4Wet. Joined as always by the one and only the illustrious Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter and other social platforms at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's Twitter account a follow at L.O. underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you making this part of your daily routine. And 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'll be notified when we drop our Monday through Friday episodes. Before we get going today,

today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. You can start the season big with a return on Fandle. New customers can place $5 and they'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win that first $5 bet. Visit fandul.com to get started. As I said in the intro, the penguins fall to the Detroit Red Wings 3 to 2 in overtime. And it's tough because this now makes them losers of four of their last five games. However, there were a lot of positives to take out of this game, I believe. Granted, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here. It's the Detroit Red Wings. They did still lose. But given where this team is and where we believe it's going, I liked a lot of what I saw from the Penguins for most of the game last night.

By no means was this a perfect game. It was another very similar story to what we've seen for a large portion of this season. They got off to a very slow start in the first period. They didn't really find their legs until the last couple minutes of the first period. They aren't able to build on it early in the second. They fall into a two nothing hole. But they are able to climb themselves back out of it, tie the game. thanks to goals from Brian Rust and Anthony Bavillier.

And along with pulling themselves out of the two nothing deficit, they pretty much dominated the Detroit Red Wings from about the five or six minute mark, maybe a little bit later in the second period. But at least the second half of regulation, it was all penguins all the time. And again, yeah, it's the Detroit Red Wings. They're pretty much on the same level as the penguins right now. and you would have liked to see them play a full 60,

but given the fact that this team has seemed to wilt under pressure this entire season, the fact that they were able to pick themselves up, play a pretty solid game, but ultimately fallen overtime. You get a point out of it hilariously because the East is absolute clown car this season so far. They're still just one point out of the second wild card. So overall, Hunter, don't love the result. didn't hate the process, though. The process was there for the most part.

The first period, or most of the first period, was pretty ugly from the penguins. They were being outshot at 1.7, 8 to 1. And I even tweeted about it. And I was like, really? This is your response after getting the doors blown off of you just a couple of nights ago against the Dallas stars. It was kind of telling at the time, you know,

the Red Wings go up 1-0. And then later on, they make it 2-0. And it's like, oh boy, here we go again. They're starting to will. But kudos to Brian Rust and Anthony Blavillier for pulling this team back into it. You know, Brian Rust had his usual go-to move. When he goes around the corner like that, cuts to the front of the net, and goes backhand forehand, no goal he is stopping it.

He has done that move so many times. I could watch him do it 500 times a game. And a shout out to Brian Rust for doing that move on a night where you may think it was Jordan Stahl in Pittsburgh. who patented the power move, but it was in fact, Ryan Malone, who was on the intermission panel for SportsNet Pittsburgh, which also, my apologies to people from the Wednesday episode, I believed that the TNT game was exclusively TNT.

I found out damn near puck drop that, oh no, this is actually on SportsNet Pittsburgh, so I had to switch. But very cool move from him, nice homage to Bugsy, Ryan Malone. I was the same. And thankfully, you know, I didn't have to listen to Eddie Olcheck, call another Penguins game. I know he's part of the TNT crew, whether it's the first or second game. But I'm just thankful that I could watch SportsNet Pittsburgh because you're right. I thought going into it, I even went to HBO Max. And I was like, okay, when I click on the game here,

then it was like, it was blacked out. I'm like, oh, I guess Sportsnet Pittsburgh is doing the game tonight. So my apologies on that as well. But yeah, I'm sure Ryan Malone had a very big smile on his face when he saw Brian Russ make that move. And then you saw him a second goal, brilliant pass from Sydney Crosby to Marcus Peterson. That was disgusting. And then an even better pass by Pedersen to Bovillier. Crank up that trade value for both of them right there with that goal, right? Pederson obviously has had a bit of a slow start to the season.

Great play there. And then Bovillier, he's been dominating the Red Wings this year, man. Three goals in two games against them. We'll see what he has in store against them a bit later on this season when the Penguins play them one more time. But I felt like he enjoyed one of his better games of the season. they just weren't able to get that go-ahead goal after. They had some good chances.

Crosby had one where he tried to do one that he did against Henrik Lundquist several years ago. You remember that one in New York during this 17 season, banked it off his helmet and in. He tried to do that exact move to Cam Talb. But it was close. I think it hit the crossbar and went up out of play. If that's an inch slower, that's in the back of the net. And that's probably on the highlight reels on ESPN, Sports Netter.

NHL network, et cetera. So I like that the Penguins were able to battle back and tie this game and get a point. But still, just too many mistakes early on that got them in that hole. If they had played a bit of a better first period, I think they win this game because I felt like for most of the night, I would say 41, 42 minutes, they were the better team. The underlying numbers reflect that. I mean, you look at the 5-on-5 numbers. The Penguins had about 57% of the shot at 10s at 5-on-5, 12 high-danger.

chances for, six-time to injure chances against, 62% of the expected goals. They were the better team. They just, A, they lost Patrick Kane on the penalty kill. We had three guys in the corner. Nope, not sure why you're leaving Patrick Kane all open from the net. And then the first goal, I'm not really going to blame, you know, too much. This is just kind of a small breakdown. Then the overtime goal, you have, A, Alex Nelkevich falling for the fake.

And B, Brian Russ, I thought, came way too far down. I feel like if he stays up a little bit, he will be able to intercept that pass. He just kind of put him in a rough spot there. That's actually the first shot. The Penguins have allowed a three-on-three overtime this year. And of course, it goes in the net. Yeah, and I will say this on the first goal. I said it during the game last night as well.

The culprit to me is Evgeny Malkin because he did not put enough on his dump-in attempt that the Red Wings were able to easily intercept it. It fed right into their transition game. and the penguins did not have time to adapt to that transition game and were completely left out to dry. If he just dumps that thing deep with a little bit more strength, they're probably going for a line change. The Red Wings are regrouping. It doesn't happen. So that was a rare mistake from Evgeny Malkin this year, who I think is having a fine season so far.

And I mean that in a good way, not a, it's fine. He's having a good season. And then the second goal, you're right. You can't get that fixated on the puck on a penalty kill. Is Patrick Kane what he used to be? Not even close, but he still has his hands. He still has his shot. And you cannot give him that much of an open look even now.

And they paid for it. Away from that, though, the one thing I liked about last night was both Alex Nadelcovic making the saves when he needed to. but the defensive breakdowns we've seen a lot this year were not as common. There were a couple, and that's going to happen because you saw, especially in the third period, the game really started to open up. They really started to trade chances. They were going back and forth.

And in those instances, you are going to have breakdown simply because you're playing a faster-paced game. And it's a lot harder to be methodical during those moments. But overall, when Detroit had a lot of their push in the first period, either Alex Nadelcovic was there to make a solid save or it was something of a low percentage chance. And you see that reflected in the analytics of the game. In the first period, the Red Wings only had about 53% of the shot attempts at five on five. And for as much zone time and puck possession as they had, that's a pretty low number. and they only got, they had six high danger chances in the first period. That was the last time until overtime.

They got a high danger chance. So the defense really buttoned it up throughout the rest of the game. Now, we have seen with this team all year long, will it be a one-off or can it become a trend? Because I liked a lot of what they did last night. Now they're going to have a chance to do it against two basement dwelling teams this weekend on Friday and Saturday when they go to Columbus and then San Jose comes to town. That is something to build on.

And when you're playing opponents like that, it's the opportunity to really build on that. Right. You want to carry over what you did for most of that game against Detroit into these teams that are kind of on the level that Detroit is, but also a bit lower. You know, San Jose is not good this season. Columbus is in the midst of a, you know, decent losing streak so far that at the bottom of the show right now as well. Both these teams are not very good. The Penguins have dominated the blue jackets in recent years. They beat the sharks twice last year and again, the sharks aren't very good, though it's funny. They did just shut up the devils the other day. So they've beaten at least one

pretty solid team this year and I'll be at that game on Saturday. But you're right. You want to be able to carry that over as well as the offensive creation that you had against the Red Wings as well. Now, it wasn't the greatest it's been in some other games this season. For example, the first game against the Red Wings, it was a bit better. So you want to maybe carry that over into these two, I felt, as well. And also just going back to overtime a little bit, Evgeny Malkin had a golden chance to win that. But A, I felt like he waited too long to Deke,

and B, just didn't elevate the puck enough. I think if he doesn't wait that long, because there was a, if you freeze the shot, But he has, how do I want to say it? He's right in front of the net, has the puck on his forehand. I feel like if he shoots it there, he has a better chance of scoring rather than just doing that long deak that he did a bit after. Brilliant feed from Eric Carlson, by the way, that was a nasty pass. But I felt like Gino was just a bit too cute, bit too fancy on that. I think sometimes there less is more.

And I think if he's able to not do as much of a dig, I think the Penguins potentially win the game right there. and then you don't get caught in the line change. Then Brian Rust comes down a bit too low and all that. Right there with you on that. It was a golden opportunity missed and it came back to bite them. One other negative that we are going to get into in the second segment. Blake Lazot, man, the injury luck continues to just be rotten. He gets hit with an errant puck right in the face, leaves the game, does not return.

And it appears that this might be a little bit of a longer term injury. we will see there were no updates provided, but the penguins did make a couple of roster moves today. Hunter and I will get you updated on those when we come back. But before we do that, we have to tell you about a couple sponsors, starting with Fandul. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook,

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Select quote, they shop, you save. Get the right life insurance for you for less at selectquote.com slash locked on NHL. Go to select quote.com slash locked on NHL today to get started. That's select quote.com slash locked on NHL. All right, welcome back to the Thursday edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. And as we were discussing at the end of the first segment, Blake Lazot leaves the game after getting hit with an errant puck,

does not return. And while there have not been any concrete updates available for Blake Lazot, Mike Sullivan did not offer any after the game. The Penguins are off today for travel. They're heading to Columbus, so there was no practice or media availability. However, they did announce that they have sent Yoel Blumquist down to Wilkesbury Scranton, and they have recalled Vasily Ponomerov and Matt Nieto from the baby penguins. This is Panamarev's call up.

Matt Nietto finishes his conditioning stint in the American Hockey League. So likely this weekend, we are going to get our first look this season of Matt Nietto. And we're going to get a look at one of the guys we have been waiting to get a look at, and that is Ponomarev. So I'll start with this, Hunter. Until this team is able to either move one of Tristan Jari or Alex. Nadeilkovich, I'm fine with this move because if they were to continue this three-goaltender rotation that they have been doing, you still want Blumquist to play. You want him to play more

frequently than he would in a three-gold tender rotation. And if you send him down to Wokes Bear with Tristan Jari back up and Alex Nadelcovich here as well, he's going to get more playing time to hone his game. And while, yes, he does appear to be ahead of schedule, you also don't want to stunt his growth because we saw against Dallas, he had a very rough start and you want to see him get back to a level where he was at early in the year. And there's no better place for him to do that than the American hockey league. I'll start here. It sucks the situation. That is the situation is bad. It's just unfortunate because Blumquist has shown that he is NHL ready. He has been the Penguins best netminder this season. But the problem is right now,

with Nadelcovich under contract and Jari back up, the penguins don't want him just sitting in the press box every night or just sitting as the backup most nights. Now, a lot of people say, like, well, he shouldn't be doing that. You're right. I agree. I'm just saying, I think the organization wants to get another look at Jari to see what he learned and worked on down in Wilkesbury and have him apply that to the NHL because again, if he struggles one more time, that's for sure it. And he's definitely going to be, you know, moved, maybe waived, something like that. But Jari is going to get one of the two starts this weekend. I also think that's one of the biggest reasons why he was sent down because Jardy is going to get either the Columbus game or the Sharks game.

And just based on a couple of tweets I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Columbus game just because there was one tweet from Josh Yewe. shout out to him. He even said, well, they don't want him starting at home just because the crowd will turn on him. And, you know, to me, I think that's just not for him, lazy from the team, because, well, I mean, play better at the end of the day. If you don't want the home crowd to turn on you, play better. It sounds like a skill issue, as some of the kids like to say, right? So, you know, you're playing two bad teams, start in one of them. But again, just the rumors are right now that it sounds like they're going to start him in Columbus just to not start him at home. So I think Delkevich will get that start.

But this will not be the last UC of Blumquist. He is going to come up again this season. And maybe it'll be for good this time. He has shown in quite a few of these starts that he's ready to play in the National Hockey League. And in my opinion, that he's ready for one eight minutes. I just think right now it's just a annoying situation where you have a backup who has been kind of this season and then you have a starting netminder who they're trying to work through a lot of these kinks with him and to see what his value is because if he plays poorly again, I mean,

again, you can waive him somehow find a take of frame. You can bring Blumquist back up. So that's how I see it, at least with the gold thing situation. As for the forwards, I know Ponomerov only has one point in five games. He's been a bit banged up this season, but he's doing some of the little things in Wilkesbury that aren't showing up on the score sheet. He's forechecking well. He's being a bit physical.

He's really strong with a puck on his stick. He's really fun to watch when he gets going. He's already made his NHL debut before. And I want to see what he can do in this lineup. We saw Sam Huan make his regular season debut for the Penguins this year, at least, last night. And I hate saying it, he really didn't do that much. He took that penalty, which really wasn't that great. His skating still needs a lot of work, in my opinion.

And yeah, I know there are some big fans of him. I get it. He hasn't had that big of a sample size. but right now I just don't see it with him. So I'm totally fine with someone like Ponomero of maybe coming in for him. And then, of course, Matt Nietto could come into the game as well. And I think there is definitely at least some fans of this team that probably forgot that Matt Nietto is on this roster.

He is. He actually played pretty decent down in Wilkesbury. He had a really nice goal in his first game back. And it's nice seeing him at least healthy just because he's been through the ringer with injuries this last year in change. and I'm not going to sit here and say he's an answer to the bottom six. He's clearly not. But if he can be at least potentially a solid to okay depth piece, I'll take that.

I think he's going to play on the third or fourth line. He was okay in a couple of games last year. Again, I'm not trying to pump his tires or anything here. I'm just saying that I'm at least fascinated to see what he can do to start the season here. Agreed. And the one thing I will add to everything that you said, part of the reason for the Blumquist reassignment is because unless they put Blake Lazzat on IR, they had to make a move to get to the 23-man roster limit.

So it's easy enough to send him down, doesn't have to pass through waivers. You won't lose him. Plus, adding on what I said, he'll get more of a chance to play rather than being in a three-goly rotation. To Matt Nietto, I want to give him a chance here because, like you said, he has been through the absolute ringer since he joined the Penguins when it comes to injury. and I would like to see him and hope that he is able to stay healthy so the penguins can finally see what they actually have in him. I'm with you in the sense that I'm a little skeptical that he's going to be an answer in the bottom six, but he has enough of a track record of being a solid bottom six contributor in his career that I would like to see what he can do when healthy should he stay healthy.

So that could be a huge boost, maybe not a huge boost, but at the very least, a confidence builder for him. Because as you said, goes down to Wilkes Bear, plays very well, does all the things you want to see a guy who is a solid NHL or do when they go on an AHL conditioning stint. So now you want to see that translate and have him find a groove here with the penguins. Same thing for Ponomerov. Like you said, he does a lot of things that do not show up on the stat sheet.

He's not going to light, he's not going to light the lamp a bunch. He's not going to make a dozen miraculous plays. But he is going to be a player that you notice is very strong on the forecheck, strong on the puck. And one thing that this team has been missing, very solid defensively. He is a very good two-way forward. And the penguins clearly are lacking that this year. Overall, though, I think when you look at this weekend back to Jari,

I know we don't like it. I know you said skill issue. I know they're professionals, but I come back to what I've been saying about what they're doing with Tristan Jari this season. It's part of the process. We may not like this. We may not think it's great. But this is how you're going to have to rehab a goal like this.

Because let's be completely frank here. A lot of this is between the ears for Tristan Jari. The athletic ability is still there. the skill is still there. But for whatever reason, he's got some kind of a mental block right now that he's got to find a way to break down. And the last thing you want to do for a player like that is throw them directly to the wolves. And if he would have started against the Dallas Stars, even maybe Detroit, just with

how the way they started the game in the first period, that could have been an absolute nightmare for him. And if he can go out against Columbus, if he starts tomorrow, put together a solid performance, You play net again on Saturday, and then you start rotating them and see what you got. It can either get him back to a level that he needs to get to, or you can artificially pump up his value through some good starts and maybe move him if possible, but that is so far down the road. But I think we're going to leave it there. We're going to have to talk about this in the final segment.

And Elliot Friedman dedicating the first half of his 32 thoughts blog to nothing but the penguins. And there very well may be an open for business sign outside of PPG paints arena. We are going to talk about that when we come back. But before we do, we got to tell you about our last sponsor. And that is prize picks. Prize picks is the best place to get real money sports action with over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings. Prize picks has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all.

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You'll get that $50 instantly after you play that first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game. All right, we're back here on the Thursday edition of Locked On Penguins. Once again, I'm Patrick Damp. That's Hunter Hodes. Thank you as always. for making us part of your daily routine. We truly appreciate you spending some time with us and talking some penguins hockey.

But we got to talk about somebody who talked a lot of penguins hockey the other day. And that is the biggest insider of them all, the one and only Elliot Friedman from Sportsnet. And I just want to read the first sentence of the 32 Thoughts blog from the other day from Elliot Friedman. he says Lars Eller is the first but he won't be the last basically to summarize this the one thing that's out to me

and I texted you about this Hunter was aside from it kind of being things that we kind of already knew that they were looking to sell off a lot of players just because of the process that they're in the middle of where they're trying to do this retool on the fly it also felt a little contradictory

because what they're trying to do, and we have, and again, I always say this, watch the actions, don't listen to the words. No NHL player, no NHL coach, no NHL general manager. Maybe not no, but extremely rarely will they come out and say, yeah, we stink, we're tanking, we're not trying to win. That's just not how this business works. So all these guys in the management come out and say, no, no, we're trying to be competitive. We're trying to win.

And then you watch their actions and you go, they're not trying to win. They're trying to retool and fly. He adds in that the penguins are also trying to take a couple big swings for this year to try and be competitive. But when you look at everything that they're doing, want to do and have done, I just don't see it. The biggest thing is, and that was the main line that I really took away from the blog. Like everything else was pretty straightforward. But the line was other GMs know that Dubus would like to take a few upper deck swings,

but is limited by both hard-to-moved contracts and no trade language. What I'd take away from that is I think he wants to take a couple of big swings for younger players who may not be fitting on their team right now that he thinks could be better fits with the Penguins and could help this core three, core four, if people want to call it that, whatever you want, to help them. I wouldn't even say this year, but maybe next year, because this season, at least right now, is chalked. I mean, they can sit here and say that, oh, you know, we want to try and be competitive this year.

We saw the moves that they made on July 1 and all the acquisitions. Pat, it was a bunch of reclamation projects. It was players who weren't good last year. They were trying to get their value back up. And then they were planning to deal them at the deadline. This Lars Eller move, Dubus told all the reporters this, this had been in the works since March. Again, they signed Beauvilliers, they signed Griswick.

They signed those dudes to one-year contracts. That should tell you what their plan was heading into the season. The only player they gave more than one year to in free agency, as a free agent from another team, was Blake Lazot. That was it. They were clearly planning to retool the team this year, and Dubis even said during his first, press conference. Yeah, we know really no one believes in us. Well, you're seeing why for the first

month of the season. So I think the biggest thing is they definitely want to try and take a big swing or two for a younger piece, whether it's on the back end or a forward that can help them for quite a while that's had good production before. That's maybe not working out. But it's hard for Dubos to do it right now just because of some of the tough contracts. Some of them aren't his fault, but others are, you know, like Ryan Graves, like Tristan Jari, you know, some of the other contracts on the team, some of the forwards have some pretty long term, some no trade language, all that stuff. He really can't do much about that right now.

But that's what at least I take away from it. Everything else was pretty standard. He brought up Marcus Pedersen's name. We both expect him to be moved. Drew O'Connor, we both expect him to be moved as well. And I will say this about O'Connor too. He needs to play a lot better. He is well below expected this year.

are only three goals in four points so far, and I hate using this stat. It is a very lazy stat to bring up. He is a minus 14. That's terrible. I don't usually look at plus minus just because there are so many other actual stats to look at, but minus 14, his defensive work has been brutal through the season so far. But I still feel like teams will come calling because he is a solid depth score and the Penguins can get some type of return.

for him, but you also had Elliott ad that they don't want to trade of Guinea Malkin. Yeah, we knew that. They're not going to move of Guinea Malkin. He brought up Krista Tang, Eric Carlson, again. We talked about that on Wednesday. We would be surprised if both of them got moved this year. Heck, even maybe a bit going forward. Carlson's contract is very hard to move. I still feel like Crystal Tang retires as a member of the Penguins. But just that language that Elliot used throughout that entire, you know, small five paragraph essay, if you want to call it, that, is that Dubus doesn't want to be bad for a bit. I think he just wants to really get this thing going as soon as possible.

And that's why you saw taking a couple of big swings, getting a younger piece or two to really jumpstart this and really help Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin, and all that stuff. And he also even said they want younger established NHL players first, then prospects who have already been drafted, and then draft picks. Obviously with Eller, it's a bit harder to get a young NHL player just because he's a pending UFA. But if you make another big move, for example, maybe that's a trade that can bring back some younger pieces.

Or maybe you make a trade to really shake up the team, for example, someone gets traded that really didn't see coming. But otherwise, really not too many surprises. And there we'll drop a link in the description box if you all want to read it on Sportsnet overall. But still, that line about the big swings, I'm curious to see what that means as we go through these next several months and into the next off season. I think you're right.

I think that's actually that actually solves what my concern was because, like I said, I don't think that they're going to take any massive swings, but when you interpret it like that, that they're looking to get maybe some younger talent rather than prospects, that starts to make a lot more sense to me. The other thing I wanted to respond to was the Drew O'Connor thing. You're right. He has not been as expected this year whatsoever. It has been very disappointing for him, just like it's been disappointing for the entire team so far. But when it comes to plus minus, I'm of the mindset that, yeah, it's an outdated stat. You probably shouldn't put too much weight behind it.

However, when it starts to get north or south of 10, I believe it has value because we know that you can catch a dash on a line change. You barely get two blades on the ice. The puck goes in. You're credited with a dash. And that's just unfair. But when you start to get to that north of south or of 10, that is a little bit more indicative of a trend because I highly doubt there have been 14 instances where Drew O'Connor makes a line change or has just started his shift and they give up a goal.

So that kind of tells you that something he has been pretty solid at, two-way play. the last few years has slipped this year. But I think we will see. I think that's going to do it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. As always, we appreciate you guys tuning in. It means the world to us wouldn't be worth doing if we didn't have our incredible audience here with us on Locked-on Penguins. But we will be back with a fresh episode on Friday to get you set for both games this weekend against the Columbus Blue Jackets and the San Jose Sharks. But until then, thank you as always for tuning in, and we will talk to you on Friday.