Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins make more lineup changes ahead of matchup against Calgary!

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins are once again putting some of their forward lines in a blender as they make their way across Western Canada. Hunter and Patrick discuss the lineup changes that they saw in practice as the Penguins prepare to play the Flames on Tuesday as well as touch on the NHL's new annual event, the Frozen Frenzy. After that, they preview this game against the Flames and discuss how the Flames are off to a really good start this season even though a lot of people (us included) had them starting the season poorly. They talk about what the Penguins need to do in order to end their two-game losing streak and hand the Flames their first regulation loss before discussing what Mike Sullivan and Michael Bunting said about the recent scratches.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedStill searching for a great candidate for your company? Don’t search, just match–with Indeed. Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed.com/LOCKEDON. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. 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.FanDuelPlace your first FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - guaranteed ! 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.

It looks like the Pittsburgh Penguins will be making a couple of new tweaks to the lineup for tonight's game against the Calgary Flames. And Pat and I are going to discuss what those tweaks are right after this. You're Locked-on Penguin. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguin. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunser Hodes.

joined by my co-s, Patrick Damping. You can follow him on Twitter at Cundrumferwet, and you can follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first list and watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Place your first $5 bet and you'll get started with $200 in bonus bets.

Guaranteed visit Fandul.com to get started. So, Pat, Penguin's Flames, it comes your way tonight. 9.30 p.m. start time. The Western Canada trip is by far one of my favorite road trips of the season. Top two right up there, the California trip because why? Well, I love late night hockey, and as a big night owl, I get the best to both worlds here. I get to watch the penguins, and I get to stay up late and watch hockey overall. And this will also be the NHL's frozen frenzy tonight. All 32 teams will be in action. And this is peak NHL because this is happening on the NBA's

opening night. Come on, NHL. At least, If you want to do this, do it on like a Saturday after the college football season is over. That way, sure, you'll have some NBA games to deal with that day, but you're not dealing with a full slate of college football, for example, you know, the SEC championship game or the national, you know, college football playoff, excuse me, but still, that's when you got to save it for, not for the NBA's opening night, but still, Pat, it is at least cool that they're doing this again. I had fun with it last year, but come on, don't do it on the day where the NBA,

starts. Progress is progress with the NHL. We like to see them making these kind of changes and doing these out-of-the-box things that they don't do. But it's just, it's so NHL, right? It's NBA opening night. It's a Tuesday in October. We don't really know who any of these teams are just yet. Like, everybody's still trying to figure out what kind of team they are and where they're going. And it's cool. And I like that they're doing these innovative things. They're starting to think outside the box. But like you said, wait to the end of college football. Do this on a Saturday night because we were talking before we hit record.

If this is a Saturday in, let's say, January, where you're just getting out of the CFB, you're in that lull period where the NFL's kind of winding down, every bar is going to have this on on Saturday night. And you can stagger this thing to have X amount of games from like four or five o'clock until 10 o'clock. And then that goes till midnight. And people will be able to stay up and watch it. I'm barely going to get to watch the Penguins tonight because I got to work in the morning.

So I might get to see the first period. But listen, we have to give them their props when they deserve them. This is a good and inventive thing. And hopefully in the years to come, they'll tweak it and it'll get better. But just doing it on a random Tuesday in October early in the season when the NBA is starting their season, it's an unforced error. Yeah, but you do have to be at least a little careful because in early January, you have the NFL regular season, still going at least at the end, you have the playoff implications,

you have the playoffs starting right after that. So you don't want to be going up against the NFL in terms of the playoffs on a Saturday. But if you can do this going forward in a future season, you know, late January, early February, at least on a Saturday where you're not playing against the NFL playoffs or college football games, I think the NFL, the NHL, excuse me, could really kill it in terms of ratings. But wanted to start off the show by talking about that. but speaking of the Penguins, of course, they changed up some of the lines during practice on Monday. It does look like Michael Bunting is going to be returning to the lineup for the Penguins. He was on a second line with Afghani Malkin Mercard Raquel, so that line has been reunited.

You also see Drew O'Connor with Cindy Crosby and Brian Rust. Thankfully, they are continuing to have Drew O'Connor on the top line. They should have been doing that when the season started. I'm glad they're doing it now, but it again kind of felt like an unforced error. I think Anthony Beauvillier is totally fine, but outside of that game against the Red Wings. I haven't really noticed him too too much to start this season. I feel like you could have just had O'Connor up there to start the year and Bovillia and the bottom six. But I digress. And speaking of Bavillier, he is still on the third line with Lars Eller and Cody Glass has been

moved up to the third line. While Yassie Poolyarly goes down to the fourth line with Achari and Kevin Hayes defensively, same pairings, Matt Griswick, Chris LaTang, Marcus Peders, and Eric Carlson, Ryan Graves, and Ryan Shea. So for the Fords, we already talked about a little bit about about Bunting. I'm good with him coming back into the lineup. I think you get that message across. Hey, this isn't good enough. We're going to sit you for a game. You'll come back in the next game. Looks like that's what's happening. And hopefully he'll be better off for this now. But the one thing that I am a bit, I guess, weirded out about. Why is Yassie Pooley-Yarvey on the fourth line with Achari and Kevin Hayes? I understand that you want to have Glass on the third line.

And I think of the players who haven't scored yet this season, I think Cody Glass has been the best of those players, he's kind of had some bad luck so far. He's looked, I think, fairly well in these games that he's played in, but he just hasn't been able to get on the goal sheet yet. But with how great Eller and Puyarvi have looked together, again, I feel like that's just maybe a little bit of an unfirst error, putting Poo Yardy on the fourth line with Achari and Hayes. And having a chari also at center, again, I don't understand that.

I would just keep Achari at Wing because he's shown at least to start this season that he's better at wing compared to center. Now, granted, I don't think a charie. Chari has played that well this season. I think he's been fine on the penalty kill, but otherwise he hasn't really been that good, but he's at least a small upgrade at wing compared to Seder. I would honestly put Kevin Hayes at center and have a chariot wing, but still, kind of a little bit confused that they're going to put Cody Glass on the third line,

and yes, he pulled Yardv on the fourth point because a game ago, you had pull Yardvie on the second line with Malkin, you rewarded him, but now you're kind of just bumping him down to the fourth line. I don't know, just kind of weird to me. It feels more like utilizing your depth. more than anything. I don't feel like it's a demotion or anything for Yessie Pouillard. I look at that third line, Pavilion, Eller, glass, and it's fine enough. But I think now putting Poo-Yarvi on that fourth line, you're giving them an extra resource so you have a better

chance of being able to roll four lines. And we saw that that fourth line over the weekend just got absolutely caved in. So this might help them out a little bit rather than looking at it from the standpoint of their demoting Pooey-R-V, it just looks like they're trying to better spread out their forward depth rather than putting a punishment on Yessie Puy-R-V. And as much as I've liked his game this year, I didn't think he was all that effective with Malkin. So it was cool to see the one-game tryout. I know a lot of people probably want it to be longer, and I get that.

But again, I spoke about this yesterday. You can tell that the patience is out for Mike Sullivan. There is no, we're going to be stubborn and patient here. It's if something doesn't work, we're moving on from it. And you now also have the prospect of Michael Bunting returning to the lineup. And we'll talk about some of the stuff that happened with the scratches later in the show. But now that you have a guy who you want to be your second line winger back in the fold, that pushes everybody else down.

I think maybe if nothing else, I might swap Bolivia, excuse me, and Pouillard, and just kind of do that. But at the same time, you have options now in your bottom six. You can do a bunch of different combinations, see what sticks. And I've liked Poo-Yarvey's game in a bottom six role. I've really liked Glass's game in a bottom six role. And Hayes has been solid, so has a chari. So at this point, I think you're just moving pieces around the chess board

to see where they fit better rather than being so committed to certain. line combinations. So it stinks to see him on the fourth line, but I think it actually helps raise that lines level a little bit. I mean, I hope so. But if you're going to kind of move these pieces around, you could also do it for the defensive pairings as well. I'm not saying to, I guess, blow up these pairings. But I think with the way Patterson has performed for most of this season, I'd honestly see what he can do next to Crystal Tank. I'm not going to really call that the de facto top pairing just because I feel like Carlson and Letang, you know, the minutes are pretty close when you compare them overall. But I would at least see what Pedersen can do next to Latang,

I better Carlson, just because of how poor Pedersen has been to start the season, see if that could maybe give them a spark because I've seen, again, the underlying numbers with Pedersen and Letting, they're pretty solid. And Pedersen and Carlson last year were really good together, but with the way they've started this year, I mean, Carlson has been better than Pedersen, even though Carlson had a really bad game against Buffalo, but I still think he's had a pretty solid start to the year. I just would want to see what Pedersen looks like next to Latang to see if that can maybe jumpstart him a little bit. Maybe you put Grizzlik with Carlson, just switch the top two left-handed defensemen, see if they can work on the opposite

pairing. You know, again, Gryslic, Carlson, Pedersen, Lettang. You're not really going to move Ryan Graves up, nor should you. They're very much sheltering his minutes this year and very well deserve because, I mean, with how he played last year, you have to shelter him. But I feel like that would be the next step for me in terms of maybe switching some things around. At the end of the day, and I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you on this. You make a solid point. I would definitely want to see those.

But at the end of the day, and you may call this a lazy analysis, and it may be a team game in hockey, but eventually at some point, these guys as individuals have to raise their level. we have to get more out of Chris LaTang, out of Eric Carlson, out of Marcus Pedersen. And I don't think we need to overthink it and say, oh, well, Mr. Fixit, the ex-player will bring him out of his funk. Eventually, you have to do that yourself. And that's a little bit of what Michael Bunting said, which again, we'll talk about later in the show. So, well, I wouldn't mind seeing that swap happen just because we've seen it work in the past. at the end of the day, when we're talking about three of the six defensemen on the Penguins Blue Line

struggling to start the year, that's an individual issue. That's not a line combination issue. Eventually, these guys have to pull themselves up and start performing at the level they're supposed to. Right. No, I think that's totally fair. And Chris Lutang, it feels like we've been waiting for him to really elevate his game throughout these first seven games start the year. I feel like this has been a, I guess a low-key rotten start from him, especially in his own zone. And I understand that he's a bit older now. I get it. But I know he's better than what we've seen so far.

And I think you're going to see it here at some point. But it definitely needs to get going as well as the play from Marcus Pedersen as well. But that will do it for this opening segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to preview this game against the Calgary Flames and how surprisingly good Calgary has been to start the year here, even though a lot of people, myself included, did not think Calgary was going to be that good this year. Though, granted, again, it's only been five games for them,

but still, they're definitely exceeding some expectations so far. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is Fandall. NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on Fandle, America's number one sportsbook. 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.

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So Penguins Flames, Pat, 9.30 p.m. face off. And this Flames team, 4 and 0 to start the season, and they're getting contributions from everyone. Jonathan Huberdo, after a pretty down year last year, especially for his standards, considering what he did when he was a member of the Florida Panthers, he's off to a pretty sound start this year. Three goals, six points in five games.

You have Rasmus Anderson, a very good defense. He has two goals, six points in five games. Connor Zari, another very underrated player that I think more people should be talking about. He's a point per game player. You have Anthony Mantha has a couple of goals. Nazim Kodry has a couple of goals. Andre Kuzmako. They're getting contributions from so many people in this lineup.

And you look at the lineup overall, Kuzmenko and Nazam Kodrya, you are together on the first line. You have Zari and Michael Backland on the second line with Clay Coleman. You have Anthony Mantha on the third line with Jonathan Huberto. Again, the fact that Huberto is over a point per game right now, even though he's on the third line, goes to show how well he's playing to start this season. And then you also have Ryan Lomburg on the fourth line defensively. McKenzie, Weeger, Tyson, Barry, Rasmus, Anderson, Kevin Ball.

You have Jake Bean on the. bottom pairing and then goal-titting-wise you have Dan Lidar, aka Darth Vader, as I like to call him, and then Dustin Wolf as well. The game in Calgary last year, I think that was one of the biggest reasons you can look back on and say why the Penguins missed the playoffs. It's how they blew that game. They have the two-goal lead in the third period. You have about half a period to play, and they just blew it. They lost in the final minute of regulation. They didn't even get a point at that game. If you're able to get the two points in that game, you could be looking at a completely different situation at the end of last year.

That penguins were outplaying them that I felt like that entire game, and then they just totally collapsed in the final 10 minutes last year. That was one of the really bad losses for the penguins. But again, Pat, you look at this flames team, their depth is really shining this season. They're getting contributions from their top town. And even though they are in this, you know, we tool on the fly, we build on the fly, this is still a team that's playing.

pretty solid hockey and the front office, they don't want to trade these high end guys. They're like, we want to keep you guys and we want to turn this team over for next season and seasons moving forward. For sure. And you kind of, I'm really glad you brought up that game last year in Calgary because that really is a place to pinpoint where maybe this, that see, I mean, last season was not a great one overall, but that is a great place to maybe take a look at where it all went

wrong because that kind of summed up the entire year. The Penguins play really well for 75, 80% of the game and then just completely toss it away. However, back to the flames, the biggest driver so far through five is obviously Huberto. He's starting to look like the Jonathan Huberto that everybody knew when he was in Florida. So that's a huge development for Calgary that they're getting this kind of production out of him early on. And like you said, Rasmus Anderson, very underrated defenseman, very talented, does not get talked enough about because of how talented he is. He's right there with Hubert O with six points, which is a massive development for them. And the other thing is Dustin Wolf, a very young, promising goalie.

And while he's only started two games, he's got a 944 save percentage and a 2.02 goals against average. if they can get solid play out of him the rest of the way, this is a formidable team because we hinted at this yesterday. This isn't some team where you go up and down their roster and think, oh, this is a very talented team. There's obviously Jonathan Hubertoe, who's one of the better players in the league, but then outside of that,

you're not looking at a team that is just stacked. You're looking at a team that has some moderately good talent, but they're playing up to a level and as a team that it's working for them. And then you get your big contributions from Hubert O, from Anderson, from Zari, and then from guys like Nazam Khadry and Anthony Mantha and McKenzie Weger chipping in. And that's a recipe for success, especially in the Western Conference, because of how spread out the Western Conference is. That is a slog of a schedule to play because you have so much travel as a Western Conference.

team that it's very hard unless you're, say, Connor McDavid and the Oilers to really saddle up an entire roster on one or two guys. So you have to play as an 18 man unit as a team. And Calgary is doing that extremely well early on. Right. And I feel like we're going to have the same keys for virtually every game this season. But until it changes, we have to talk about it. They got to play better defensively if they want to win this one. They're getting the depth scoring. The power play's been better. You are getting the timely saves when Nadelkovich and Wemkewists are in, but you got to cut down on the high danger chances allowed. I understand that these games are a lot more fun to watch right now. They're definitely more chaotic, but there comes a point where you need

to play team defense. And with how Calgary is rolling to start the season with the amount of depth scoring that they're having, you need to have a full committed team defense for 60 minutes when any of the Calgary's lines are all. It doesn't matter if it's the Huberto line. It doesn't matter if it's the cadre line. It doesn't matter who's out there. You need to have a fully committed team defense for 60 full minutes if you want to win this game.

Again, there's a lot of positives about this team right now, but until that changes, they're just really not going to go anywhere this season. No. And here's the thing. I have been very vocal about saying, hey, it's nice. that Mike Sullivan changed up the offensive attack this year. That's worth praising. That's worth giving him credit for because it's recognizing that the roster you have at

your disposal can't play your preferred way anymore and you have to update your system as the roster goes. That has to happen with defense now because this team in hell. I was thinking about this after the episode yesterday because I went on that long tangent about how they got to switch up their system and they don't have the ability to play that puckside overload anymore. And I went and thought about it. And I'm not entirely sure if they don't have the ability to play the puck side overload anymore. But for some reason, they just don't play it right. And if you move to a more simplified defensive zone structure and they play it

very well and they play it to a T and it works, you can maybe start adding elements back into that puck side attack because you look at this team in the defensive zone, the best word to describe it is disorganized. Because I've gone back and watched a lot of the highlights from the goals against. And it's not so much like they're slow. It's not so much like they're unable to keep up with the other team, they're just disorganized. They're out of place. They're losing people in coverage. And that's not a will skill or any sort of issue like that. It's just not playing the system correctly. They almost are fixated on the puck playing like Beer League, which I did last night. And there was a lot of fixating on the puck in the defensive zone in a barn burner of a six,

six tie, but the problem is they're all fixating on the puck and they're not going to places they need to go. So before you can even talk about will, skill, or effort, you have to at least know what your assignment is and they clearly have no idea what the assignment is. Right. And it goes back to something I discussed yesterday when an opposing pup carrier comes into the offensive zone, a penguin player will come towards that player, but then he'll leave an entire area of the ice just unattended. And that allows for other players to get there and get these high danger chances that turn into goals because no one else is covering for that player.

Everyone is, again, running around like headless chickens in their own zone, not knowing what to do. The zone exits are pitiful. It needs to be simplified, excuse me, and it needs to be, frankly, again, just so much better overall. Again, I'm not asking them to be a top five defensive team in the league, but I'm asking them to not be just the flat out worst defensive team in the league, which is what they've been to start a disease. And again, if you look at the underlying numbers, if you look at the

high danger chances allowed, the goals allowed, all that good stuff. But that will do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show, we're going to get some reactions from Mike Sullivan on why he decided to scratch Tristan Jari and also a reaction from Michael Bunting after he was scratched on Sunday. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about our last sponsor, and that is indeed. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate is not to search at all. Don't search. Match with Indeed. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly business according to Indy data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

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I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my host, Patrick Dam. So, Pat, Mike Sullivan was asked about Tristan Jari being scratched and how he handled not dressing in that game against the Winnipeg Jets. And for those looking for a scorched earth answer for Mike Sullivan, well, you didn't get in this one. And honestly, it's kind of rare when he goes scorched earth on a player or just on the team in general. Sullivan said he handled it. fine and this wasn't a scratch. It was a comprehensive game plan that we put together to try and

help Tristan capture his very best. If we're asking him to go up, it's hard for him to get the work done in practice, Andy Kyoto, our goalie coach to help him get his game back on track where it needs to be. So that was the reason why we went the way we went. So, I mean, he can call it not a scratch all he wants. He got scratched Mike. We can just put that to bed there. You scratched him because you felt like your other two goalies are playing better. At the end of the day, those are the facts. The numbers agree with you. The I test agree with you as well. I understand you want to get him time with Andy Kyoto, the goalie coach. You want to maybe get his mental state a bit better just with the way he's thinking when he goes out there and plays the

game, obviously. But at the end of the day, he was scratched. So I don't really understand why he's just beating around that bush there. But okay. And Pat, I know you wanted to bring up a quote about Michael Bunting with an interview with Taylor Haas from D.K. Pittsburgh sports. Yeah, before I get to that, the one thing I will say is that, yeah, like, forget the semantics here, Mike. He was not active in the lineup on a game day and not injured, so he was scratched. But this is what I was kind of advocating for with Tristan Jari is at this point, if you're not going to wave him, if you're not going to send him down, this is what you have to do with him to get his game back on track. And there was a little bit of a nugget in there from Mike Sullivan that makes sense to me, was that, If they were to have him as the backup, at morning skate and at practice, he's going to take less reps because they're going to want him fresh and ready to go for the game in case Alex Nadelcovic or Yoel Blumquist toss out a bad performance or get hurt and he has to go in.

They don't want him to be tired for that. They don't want him to be worn out. And if they're going to do this where they try to build him back up, those practices aren't going to be easy. Those workouts aren't going to be easy. He's going to get pushed. He's going to see a lot of high shot volume in practice, whether it's from coaches and players or just workouts in general. So he's going to go through a pretty rigorous workout plan here to get back to where they want him to be.

So at that point, you can't have him doing that and then backing up later that night. Because if you do and he has to go in, he's not going to be 100%. and he's already struggling as it is. So if you were to heap that on top of them, it's just going to be even worse. So I'm on board with this plan if they're not going to send him down or wave him, get him that work, kind of put him in a world where we're going to put you through these paces and keep the pressure off your back. And then once we feel you're up to a certain level, we'll give you another shot.

So perfectly fine with that. And then Michael Bunting, to what you were hinting at there, sat down with Taylor Hawley, yesterday to talk about him getting healthy scratched. He admitted that it was the first time in his NHL career. He's been a healthy scratch. But he said a lot of the right things. And I'm going to read some of this verbatim. So I don't mess up any of his words.

He says, it's part of it. Me and Mike Sullivan talked about it. And I'll leave that between us. I understand where he's coming from. And I've got to be better. I've got to play my game and do what makes me successful. And I know what that is. So obviously I'm eager to get back in the lineup.

I'm confident in who I am and what I can do. And I want to bring that every night. And whenever I'm ready to go again, if that's the next game or the game after, whenever I'm back in the lineup, I'm ready. This is building into what I've been saying about Mike Sullivan this season. He has thrown patience to the wind. He has thrown a little bit of his stubbornness out the window. Michael Bunting has been fine enough this season to start.

but he hasn't been the Michael Bunting he needs to be. He hasn't been the wrecking ball that we want to see in the top six. Everybody was up in arms that he wasn't getting looks on the power play in the last couple of games, but the way he's been playing, he hasn't earned it. If he was being that cannon ball that causes havoc in front of the neck, yeah, put him there. But we haven't really seen that from him yet. So this was a message to Michael Bunting of,

we like you, we like the player that you are, but you have to be that player if you want to stay in the line. Yeah, he's got to take his level up a couple of notches. One point in five games start the season. He's not doing his thing around the neck, cleaning up the garbage, being that pesky little rat. He's got to be a lot better,

especially if this team wants to get to where it wants to go, which is, of course, getting into the playoffs. And I do think he's going to rebound. I don't think he's going to be at the level that we saw him play at last year where he was a point per game player down the stretch for the Penguins. But if he can rebound, to score 20 plus goals this season, get to, you know, 50, 55 points. I'll be totally fine with that for someone that plays in the top nine for this team.

But I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked to see him shot out of a cannon tonight because that's the kind of player that he is. And I also want to add this caveat to build off of what you were saying. This is also what happens with like top six wingers. And I'm not talking about the elite of the elite. I'm talking about guys like Michael Buncing, get a top six or top nine role as a winger, they will have these stretches. They're not going

to perform at a point per game. It's very rare. It might be a half a point per game, 0.75 points per game. And there will be stretches where they don't produce and it looks like they've gone cold. But the issue with Michael Bunting through the first few games was he wasn't playing the type of hockey we've come to expect from Michael Bunting where you can see him like you said, being a rat, being a pest, being physical, causing chaos in front of the net. We didn't see a lot of that from him early. So with a scratching and now the conversations he's had with Sullivan, if he does, in fact, make the lineup tonight,

expect to see a Michael Bunting who is motivated in playing that kind of hockey tonight. I think that's a perfect way to end today's episode, especially if he's able to go out there and kick some serious butt tonight against the Calgary Flames. but that'll do it for today's episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Wednesday to recap this game against the flames, do another edition of Warrior Helmet Wednesday,

and get you all set for the rest of this road trip against Vancouver and against Edmonton. But for Patrick Damp, I'm Huntsor Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We both really appreciate it. We'll be back on Wednesday.