Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins looking for a bounce back game in Los Angeles!

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

The Penguins continue their California swing tonight in Los Angeles against the Kings, and it's a chance to bounce back! Patrick and Hunter begin the show discussing the notes from the morning skate in LA, where there will be some lineup changes, including rookie Ben Kindel getting his first healthy scratch as part of his development strategy. (0:00) Then, they take a look at the Los Angeles Kings, who have had a slow start to the year, with a 1-2-1 record to show for it. Part of the Kings' struggles has been thanks to some poor goaltending, and they talk about how the Penguins can exploit that tonight. (11:55) Finally, while it may be early in the season, they look at some studs and some duds through the first week and a half of the year. (23:29)Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHLfor $20 off your first purchase. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.FanDuelDownload the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins.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.

I hope you've got your coffee and your energy drinks stocked up, and you had a good midday nap because the Penguins West Coast swing continues tonight in the city of Angels against the Los Angeles Kings. Hunter and I are going to get you ready for that game 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. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym 4 Wet. Joined as always by my partner in crime, the one and only Hunter Hodes.

You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's Twitter account a follow at L.O. underscore Penguins. And you can also find us on Instagram at Locked-on underscore Penguins. Penguins. Of course, as always, we appreciate you making this part of your daily routine. Don't forget that we're free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as YouTube. And if you follow us on YouTube, be sure to hit the notification button. That way you can be among the first to know when we drop our daily Monday through Friday episodes. Before we get started, today's episode is brought to you by GameTime.

Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code locked on in a for $20 off your first purchase more on them later. Hunter, the penguins are back tonight. They're headed to staples crypto.com forum arena, whatever you want to call it these days out. Always the staple center to me, man. I'll never call it any of those other weird names. It's the staple center. And I also just finished recently the book Showtime by Jeff Perlman. So I'm also calling it the forum because of the Los Angeles Lakers. But that's a whole other discussion. for a whole different podcast. But we are going to see some lineup changes.

We're going to start with the penguins, and then we'll get into our keys to victory as well as get you up to speed with the Los Angeles Kings. But let's start with the penguins. Just like in Anaheim, one of the young prospects is going to get a scheduled night off, and that is Benjamin Kindle, much like Harrison Brunich, it's becoming apparent that this management team and, coaching staff has a development plan in place for them. And it's going to be, as you so eloquently described earlier this week, Hunter, a pitch count, so to speak, for these guys. And one thing I want

to get out of the way for that, because I know that there will be a lot of questions about this. The nine game quote unquote tryout is games played. It's not games on the roster. In theory, these two could not play another game the rest of the year and they would still not have their contract kick in. Now, I don't know what the intricacies are of holding them and not playing them and what goes on with that agreement. But the quick and dirty of it is they've got to play nine games before that kicks in. So scheduled night off for him. Harrison Brunick does come back into the lineup tonight in MorningSkate. He was paired with Caleb Jones, appears he's going to be back in the lineup.

And the third line taking place of Benjamin Kindle, you will have Tommy Novak centering Philip Thomasino and Philip Hollander. So a couple of line changes, lineup changes for the Penguins tonight. And it's a good chance for them to get back on track here because Los Angeles has not had the greatest of starts. No, the L.A. Kings are one and two and one to start the year. They've lost three out of four games.

This is a team that's, historically very stingy defensively in their own end. They were one of the best teams defensively last year until they ran and do the Oilers again. And we all know what happened with that one, Pat, round 3,000. The Oilers are able to beat the Kings once again in the playoffs. But during the regular season, this was one of the top defensive teams. It's usually very hard to get high quality scoring chances on them.

And I'll say this. That's one of my keys to victory tonight. You have to be able to get to those dirty areas because usually the Kings are great in front of the net. Now, the Kings, they do have some injury concerns, Pat. We'll talk about that in a bit. On Jacobo-Patar is questionable game-time decision. This is his final year in the NHL.

It's crazy, by the way, that we've arrived to this point. On Zeiko-Batar was part of my childhood, one of the best players that, you know, I've watched growing up, and it's not going to be the same without him in the NFL. So I'm excited to hope. Hopefully he'll be in the lineup tonight because I love watching him when I can. But as for this lineup tonight, honestly, Pat, I feel you're going to see this type of thing throughout the season where there's not going to be like a set lineup for five, six games in row. I think you're just going to see a lot of rotating just because there's a lot of experimenting going on. You said it during the offseason how Damuz is going to be kind of like that mad scientist, just cooking stuff in the lab.

That's kind of what you've been seeing so far, where some players have been in and out the lineup. I know some people are going to freak out about Ben Kindle, but this is fine. he's played the first four NHL games of the season. Give the kid a little bit of a break. Like it's still quite the jump from the CHL to the NHL for an 18 year old kid. I am curious still if this means he is going to stay beyond the nine game trial. I'm still very much TBD on that. I think there's a better chance Brunick stays.

But it is fascinating that he's getting that same treatment. So are they planning on doing the same thing with Brunich and maybe having him on a pitch count similar to him the season where we both think Brunick it's going to be, you know, 45-50-ish games, you know, could we say the same about Kindle? If his ELC kicks in, we'll have to see. But, you know, Noel Chari's going to come back in. Philip Hollander is going to be on the third line. I really want to see that third line cook tonight.

Last game, it wasn't really good. Kindle was doing his best, but Novak and Tomasino weren't really good. I do want to see both of those players have better games tonight. And then defensively, I'm not surprised that Dumbas coming back out. didn't have a good first game. He'll get back in a bit later, but wasn't a really good debut. And outside of a few hits,

I don't think Connor Clifton was that good either. So I'm not surprised that Caleb Jones is coming back in. And then Pat also Archer Shilovs is going to get the start. Seems like we're following a pattern here with both these goalways rotating between starts. Sheelovs, then Jari. Sheelovs, then Jari. And now to Shilov. So we might be seeing a true 50-50 split as of right now.

You will, I think, and it's kind of been mirroring performances for the both of them for Shilov and Jari. First two games for each of them, they looked pretty good. I know that we had our gripes about Jari and the home opener, but when you put the totality of that game together, the way he stood strong by that final onslaught by the Islanders, that was a pretty strong performance to end the game with. And then with Sheelovs, he wasn't tested a ton against the Rangers in the season opener, but he made the saves he needed to make. And then you go to their next two games. And wow, I said it yesterday.

Jari against Anaheim, he was not anywhere near the top of the blame for that loss. But it wasn't his strongest start. And then Sheelovs against the Rangers was not very good either. So they've kind of been tossing the ball back and forth to one another. to speak. And you have to figure that Dan Mews and the coaching staff are going to look at this as until one of them truly takes this job by the reins, we're just going to keep rotating them until somebody really puts together a string of strong starts. I do want to take a step back and look at Kindle and Brunick real quickly. And I may be overthinking this, but I also get the

sense that this is kind of going to be related to something we heard in the first week of the season where Dan Mews and Dubus kind of talked about this where Brunick and Kindle, they were okay in the season opener. They had some strong moments. They had some down moments. And they said, what they want to see from them is how do they bounce back? How do they build off of the strong things? How do they adapt to the things that don't go so well?

this can also be part of that development plan. You get a night off. How do you look when you get re-inserted back into the lineup? Are you able to continue a stretch of strong play? Or is it going to show that, okay, maybe you're not quite ready for the rigors of the NHL because when you're a young player, unless you are a generational talent or a blue chip prospect, your rookie year, you're going to see a lot of in and out time. You're going to see some stretches where you don't play.

You're going to see some stretches where you get severely limited minutes. How do you bounce back from that? So I look at Kindle and Brunick as, okay, this is another test on where they are as prospects. I think that's fair. I also think a lot of it is they just don't want to burn them out so quickly just because, you know, the NHL schedule is so much more rigorous compared to, you know, what you see in the Canadian hockey league. So I am totally fine with them giving him a night off.

He can work on a couple kinks in his game. I mean, I thought he was solid against the ducks. It wasn't his best game of the four that he has played. But I still thought he was fairly solid. I thought his linemates were a bit worse than him. But he still played fine. But you don't need to play him in all these games, especially if you do have plans on keeping him up for the full year,

which again, that is to be determined. We have to see if they want to do that. But I am all good with this. It's part of the development plan. I don't want people freaking out about this. You always want to get development right rather than just rushing them for the sake of rushing them. I will always stand by that. So those are my thoughts on that.

And again, this is a big opportunity for the penguins to get back in the wind column after two losses in a row. Big opportunity for them tonight. Really big opportunity against, even though they are a slow. starting team. The Kings are still a solid team in the Western Conference. And we're going to get you caught up on what you can expect from the LA Kings in our second segment when we come back right after this. Before we do that, though, we've got to tell you about today's first sponsor. And that is Fandul.

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So what are you waiting for? Head to fandul.com to download the Fandul app today and get started. Back here on the Thursday edition of Locked-on Penguins, I'm Patrick Damp right alongside Hunter Hodes. And we hinted at it at the start. It has been a bit of a slow start for the Los Angeles Kings. They are one, two, and one with one of their wins and their only win coming in a shootout.

So this has not been the best of starts for the LA Kings. And let's start with what has actually been kind of a big problem for the Kings to start the year. And that is something that the penguins of the last couple of years can relate to goaltending. Darcy Kemper is day to day. But regardless of him being day to day, he has started three of the Kings games. He has taken two losses. he has a 3.35 goals against average, an 868 save percentage and has surrendered 10 goals against.

So this is a tough start for him. Anton Forsberg started the other game, 4.66 goals against average, surrendered five goals. They just had to reacquire Phoenix Copley because of injuries. So if you're the penguins tonight, I know I'm going to start sounding kind of like a broken record on this show, but the people in the 200 level at PPG paints arena, got to be happy with this idea. You got to shoot the puck because by the sound of it, they're struggling in net, and the best way to attack a struggling goalie is to force them to work often. Right. And, you know,

Darcy Kemper was really good for the Kings last year. So it's been a bit surprising to see him really struggled to start the season. Yes, it's a small sample size, but he was at 9.22. two goalie last year for the Kings. He was one of the top goalies in the NHL and the fact that he's not even at 870 right now, even though it's only been three starts. That's a little concerning if you're a Kings fan. We'll have to see if he starts tonight, but even outside of that, the Penguins have Archer Shilov's, Annette, who he's still a little bit of an unknown at the NHL level, but I trust him a bit more over someone like Anton

Forsberger, even Phoenix Copply, who I just don't personally think are that good. in my opinion. So I think the Penguins will have an edge in net tonight, especially if Darcy Kemper doesn't play. So if Kemper does play Pat and he reverts back to his last season form, then obviously the Kings will have a pretty significant edge in net. But I agree with that take there. Also, again, the premium chances going in might be few and far between just because the Kings are usually very stingy in their own end. They are very good at playing team defense, especially last season. I know it's only been four games so far this season,

but usually this team is great in their own end. So when you get some of those high danger chances, you better be sure that you are capitalizing on them. You look at some of their lines for tonight. If Kopitar plays, he centers that first line with Adrian Kempe and Andre Kuzmako. You have Kevin Fiala on the second line with Quentin Byfield, who I'm still waiting for like a big pop from Byfield.

He's had a couple of 50-point seasons in the NHL. I'm waiting for like that big season. I'm talking 70 points, maybe a point per game, 80 points, something like that. I think he has it in him. We haven't gotten it just yet. But I think the sky is. He is off to a solid start this year, four points, four games, two goals, two assists, kind of exactly what you want out of them.

You want to see him maybe increase that pace a little bit. But you do have to be aware of Quentin Byfield when he's on the ice. He is still only 23 years old. He has a lot of room to grow. And I will say this. I haven't watched the series in full, but I did watch the episode of Face Off on Amazon, the Crosby episode. And I don't want to talk about the stuff they talk about with Sid. It's so annoying.

But the other focus of the episode is Anse Copatar and Quentin Byfield. They talk about how Copatar has taken Byfield under his wing, the last couple of of years, really been his mentor. And when you see the way Byfield is starting to develop, the way he's starting to train, again, only 23 years old. This kid has a extremely high ceiling. And if you are Dan Mews and the Penguins tonight, ignore him at your own risk because he has the speed and the skill to really make you regret leaving him unchecked. Oh, 100%. He's, If he puts it all together, and I think he is going to, he is going to be a force. I really think there's that next level that he hasn't tapped into yet.

And I do think it's coming really soon. I could be dead wrong, but I really think he can hit that next level very soon. Obviously, Pat Adrian Kempe, feels like he's also been an underrated penguin killer over the years. So always got to watch out for him. On the third line, you got Warren Fogel, aka McLevin from Superbad, with Philip Dono and Trevor Moore. And then defensively, old friend Brian Dumlin is there. Also old friend Cody Cici, they signed those two during free agency.

They've been paired together at times. And if you're asking how that's gone, Pat, it's been a disaster as expected. They are just not what they used to be, especially Dumlin. C, C, outside of maybe a year or two, has not really been any good in the league. And then Dumlin, we all know him, of course. He was very huge in those Stanley Cup runs, but he's just not that player. anymore. And then, of course, you have the ages wonder, Drew Doughty. You have Brandt Clark, who I expect big things out of for his career, Mikey Anderson, who I also

think is fairly underrated. So this is a very good lineup. I think this is a playoff caliber team that should make the playoffs. Anything more than that, you're going to have to get the right matchup. I just don't think that exists, especially when you have the Oilers and the Golden Knights in your division. So you have to shut down some of their stars. And I said it last game, I'll say it again here until it changes. Special teams, man, I'm sorry. The penalty kill has to be so much better. I got to see more from the power play.

Because honestly, outside of that game against the islanders and a little bit of the opener against the Rangers, I haven't liked some of the power play to start the year. I want to see a lot more of that movement. I want to see them generating high quality chances. The zone entries haven't been there the last couple of games. So the special teams have a lot to prove tonight for sure. And I just want to see some bounce pack performance.

I want to see that third line play better with Tommy Novak and Philip Tomasino on it. I want to see Brian Rust have a much better game. I don't think he has been any good since coming back. And that needs to change very quickly. It does. And you brought up special teams. Obviously, it's still very early. But so far through four games, Kings do have a top 10 power play,

clicking it just over 23%. So you do have to really sharpen up on your PK tonight. But on the other end of. that they do have a lower in the league PK this year at 68%. So the opportunity, if you get it, is there for you to really make your mark on the special teams battle tonight. I will say this to another point that you brought up about this lineup. This is going to be me getting my theory tested out when it comes to our old friend Cody

Cici and the LA Kings. for head coach Jim Hiller, if you look at where they have him paired, according to Daily Faceoff, he's on their third pairing. And I have long said that with the exception of the Penguins, every team that has acquired him or had him otherwise tries to make him a top pairing guy. He's not a top pairing guy. He is a second pairing guy at best and a third pairing guy at worst. if you use him and utilize him correctly, he can be a pretty effective defenseman.

Contract aside. I'm not discussing contracts. I'm not discussing money. I'm just discussing player ability and usage. The penguins understood that about him. He never rose above their second pairing unless they were injuries. And he was pretty effective as a penguin. Every other team has tried to elevate him and it hasn't worked.

For now, if the Kings can keep him in a limited kind of sheltered role, he can be effective for you. So now obviously injuries and everything else can play a factor, but ideal world, you keep him where he is now, he can be effective. But I also, because I have such a soft spot in my heart for Brian Dumolin,

did such a great job as a penguin. And you can just tell he's not the same defenseman he was. And if you're the penguins, especially the top six, you are absolutely going to have to, exploit that fact when you take on the Kings tonight. So we will keep an eye on this game. Hunter, that sicko that he is, is going to be up for this one.

It is the Penguins. It is the Kings. Get your pregame naps in. Get your coffee brewed. And make sure you got both screens ready because we got the Steelers and the Penguins playing tonight. But for the purposes of this podcast, Penguins and Kings tonight at 10 o'clock on Sportsnet, Pittsburgh. Obviously, we will recap this game for you on Friday,

but that is going to do it for our second segment. When we come back, yeah, it's early, but you know what? Why not have some hot takes? Let's talk about some players who have impressed early and some players who need to impress more as we get deeper into this season. We will do that when we come back. So stick with us right after this. But we got to tell you about our second sponsor in that is game time. Hockey season is officially here, and nothing beats being in the arena for those opening games.

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Terms apply. Again, that's code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-N-H-L for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go game time. Back here on the Thursday edition of Locked-on Penguins, Patrick Damp guiding you through this. this one alongside Hunter Hodes. And listen, we try not to be the sports talk radio hot take guys, but it's early in the season.

We got to find something to talk about, right? So we're going to talk about, as you can see, if you're watching us on YouTube on the rundown, the early duds and the early studs. Since the penguins are coming off a loss, let's start with some early duds. You kind of hinted at this in the second segment. I'm giving him a slight pass because he was hurt at the end of camp and then came back into the lineup.

But I do need to see a little bit more from Brian Rust. I don't think he's been bad. So let's not get our torches and pitchforks ready for Brian Rust. But you can kind of see that he's still working his way up to speed, getting himself reacclimated, so to speak. but we just haven't seen that trademark pop from Brian Rust yet. And I do think it's coming. He had a couple chances over the last couple of games that didn't go. But I just want to see him put together a more consistent effort in game to game play.

Right. I don't think he was any good against the ducks on Tuesday. I know when you look at the average game score stats, Pat, he was, he led the penguins. I understand that's what the numbers were when you combine all of them. I test wise, I didn't see it. I thought he was a step slow, wasn't getting any prime scoring chances, just looked out of place on the ice. And I do think he will be better.

I mean, he was fantastic for the Penguins last season. He's been fantastic for the Penguins throughout his tenure. But he does need to be better after these first couple of games. He's definitely still getting back into the swing of things, but I need to see it tonight, just not very good so far. Also, I'll say Mac Dumbah, a little bit of a dud so far. I know Pat, one game wasn't very good.

I'll also say for a few other duds, and I hate saying this, I got to see a little bit more from Chris LaTang just was not good in Anaheim on Tuesday. Is he 100%? Probably not. But I got to see a little bit more. I thought the first game against the Rangers

was fairly solid. The Islanders, he was okay. Last two games, though, he's been trending. down a little bit. I know he left early in that game on Saturday against the Rangers, came back for the game against the Ducks. But I didn't think his decision making was very good, especially in these last two games. His skating wasn't up to par. He's not generating offense from the blue line. I got to see a little bit more. Again, there's not many people in this world that are bigger Chris LaTang fans than me. I've loved him throughout his entire career.

And I just want to see him play at a higher level. And I know he can. He's played at a higher level throughout his entire career. So a little bit of a dud for me so far. Stud-wise, how about this? Parker Weatherspoon, outside of the penalty, he's been very steady on the top pair next to Eric Carlson, a million percent. So even taking the penalty in consideration,

he's been good in his own zone, good in transition. He's been there when Carlson makes a pinch that you maybe don't want him to, even though he's really cut back a lot of that so far, this season. He's just been a very good, reliable presence on that pairing next to Carlson. So I like his game a lot so far. Brunick and Kendall, that's very obvious.

Evgeny Malkin, we've touched on him a lot, very obvious. He leads the team in points. He's been fantastic to start the season. Justin Brzoe, very much a stud to start so far. So definitely a good amount of studs. If we want to go for more duds, I'd say, Pat, Tomasino, Tommy, Vak got to see a bit more from them as well. So that's who I have at least so far.

We could probably name a few more, but that's what I got right now. I wanted to touch on Malkin because I sometimes have to be the skunk at the garden party on this show. But I will say this about Gino. This is kind of been Gino's M.O. The last couple of years starts off pretty hot. and then tails off. I don't know if that's going to happen. I don't have a crystal ball.

I can't see into the future. Doc Brown didn't build me a time machine out of a DeLorean, so I can't go into the future and see what's going to happen. But I look at Evgeny Malkin, and here's the thing I will say that gives me hope that this isn't the same trend. You're seeing the trademark hop in his game. You're seeing him be a bully a lot more. I think the last couple years, you saw it in fits and spurts storing hot starts, and you also saw him get some good puck luck.

Through the first four games, Evgeny Malkin's making his own luck. He is taking advantage of the game in front of him, and he's playing pretty smart, knowing when to take those chances and when to back off, which, given his age, given where he is in his career, really good development for him, but he's got to be able to keep it up. I don't want to put him in Dudd, but I do need to see a little bit more from the captain. I don't think he's been any way bad. I don't think he's disappointed or anything. He's got four points and four games. He's looking to continue to break that point per game record. But I want to see, as we like to say on this show,

a vintage Sidney Crosby performance here soon. I want to see Crosby take a game over. I want to see Crosby be the guy who just, says jump on my back. We may not win this game, but we are going to go down with one hell of a fight, which is what we have seen from Sid for so long. And I'm also going to say this, and it might be a bit of a hot take. I'm not going to put them in studs. I'm also not going to put them in duds. The goaltenders. I think a lot of us, understandably, have catastrophized about the goaltending, because a lot of history for us to not have high expectations for Tristan Jari.

We talked about how Archer Shilov so far his career has been Tristan Jari Jr. There has not been a game yet and again. It's four games. This all could change. I haven't seen a game out of either of their two starts where I went. They had it tonight, but they got undone by goaltending. Have they been good? Not really.

Have they been bad? Also no. So, I'm, I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that they are clearing a very low bar, but I want to see that continue. I don't expect them to be Vesna candidates. Just do not be liabilities. I go like it's been like right down the middle.

You got the studs over here. You got the duds over here. And I think you got the goalies going right down the middle. They've had some good moments, especially she loves in the season, Oprah, getting the shut out over the Rangers. And then bad you have that next start where it doesn't really play that well. but I'm not really going to put that entire loss on goaltending just because the special teams were especially awful, the penalty kill included in that.

So you have that very mixed one. And then Tristan Jari, he allows, in my opinion, some stinkers against the Islanders. He steps up late when they have the lead, thanks to Justin Briseau. Okay, that's good. Then you have the game against the ducks where maybe I'd put one goal, the third one, on Tristan Jari. Otherwise, he had really no chance on any of those other ones. felt like he was totally fine for the rest of that game. So I think all that kind of evens out to

a nice little split down the middle there. So yeah, there you go. And I go by the way, I've been waiting for him to really take over a game. It's early. You're going to see it plenty of times. I'm sure this season people just hasn't happened yet. And I do think it's coming. For sure. And what do I always say about goaltending? The only thing you can really ask for your goalie, It's put you in a position to win. And so far, for the most part, the both of them have cleared that very, very low bar. But that is going to do it for our Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

Hunter and I will be back on Friday to recap this game, get you set for the finale of the California road trip when they head to San Jose. And because it's Friday, we got to hear from all you people in our Penguins, Locked on Penguins community. It'll be the return of fan take Friday. We'll put out a post so be on the lookout for that so we can answer your questions,

react to your hot takes, and everything in between. But for now, for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you as always for tuning in. Enjoy both games tonight, and we will be back on Friday.