Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins rally against Boston for BIGGEST WIN of the year!

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

The Penguins flipped the script against the Boston Bruins on Sunday at PPG Paints Arena, erasing a 3-0 deficit to beat the Bruins in OT! Patrick and Hunter begin the show recapping the Penguins' first three-goal comeback without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin since the year 2001! They talk about how Igor Chinakhov got the ball rolling with a wicked power play goal, Anthony Mantha's massive performance, and how the Penguins were able to force the Bruins to play a style they don't frequently play. (0:00) Then, they take a look at the first game of the weekend back-to-back, which was a shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. They get into why the Penguins continue to struggle in the shootout, what they can change, and how on Saturday, shootout struggles weren't the Penguins' biggest issue. (13:31) Finally, the Penguins' hectic month gets worse this week when they begin a five-game road trip that will see them meet multiple contenders across a week-long span. (26:10)  Everydayer ClubJoin the Everydayer Club for ad-free audio, access to our group chat on Discord, and more. Use code DEADLINE ahead of the trade deadline for one month free. Tap here to learn more: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Indeed Now, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to https://indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuel FanDuel is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a College Basketball Parlay Profit Boost.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are about to head out on one of their toughest road trips in recent memory, but they are starting that road trip with quite a bit of momentum after a massive win on Sunday. Hunter and I are going to recap the weekend back to back and get you set for this five-game road trip on a brand new Locked-on Penguins podcast. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. team every day. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym 4Wet. Joined, as always, by 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. You can find us on Instagram at Lockedon underscore Penguins. and TikTok at Locked-on Penguins. Of course, as always, we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine.

Don't forget, we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And if you're following us on YouTube, which you should be, make sure you've 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 going here, quick apology to our listener. I'm battling a cold. I was at the game yesterday. So mix those two together and my voice is not great.

So I hope you can all deal with that because I know I'm annoying at baseline and now I've got this. So it's just making it worse. But let's get into it, Hunter. What a win on Sunday against the Boston Bruins. The penguins are able to erase a 3-0 deficit and then a 4-3 deficit. to win five to four in overtime against a team that for my wrestling fan nerds, the Boston Bruins put you in a goonter sleeper hold and don't let you up until you pass out. And as soon as they took a one-nothing lead on Sunday, I thought,

here we go again. They are going to boa constrictor their way around the penguins. They're going to choke the life out of them. and we are not going to get a win when we so desperately need one. And then when it was 3-0, I figured this is just call it. We're done. We don't even need to play the rest of this game. But the penguins flipped the script.

They stuck with it. They played their asses off. They got some luck here and there. But they were able to turn a game against a team that usually plays stingy, low-event hockey, into a back-and-forth, really exciting game. game and they get a much needed two points. I was waiting for someone to really seize the moment, answer the call, because we weren't getting that, Pat, for the first 34-ish minutes of this game.

It was a lot of just, they were playing fine enough, but it felt like this was another game where they were going to throw the kitchen sink at Boston, and no matter what, the puck wasn't going to go in the back of the net. No one was going to seize the moment. And then everything changed once Igor Chinikov got the Penguins back in this game to make it 3-1. Blistering wrist shot on the 5-on-3. Very happy that he is out there. Man, his release again is so much fun.

And everyone else followed his lead. I'll throw Eric Carlson in there too. I felt Eric Carlson and Igor Chinikov were the two best players on the ice during this game. Everyone else followed their lead. Connor Dewar gets his goal. of the year, honestly. That was a Sidney Crosby-esque backhand to make it a 3-2 game.

Seconds later, Anthony Mantha, really nice move to tie it. And then even when Pavel Zaka gets a hat trick and to basically just stun everyone, Boston calls timeout just before that to try to calm everyone down. They get that goal to take the lead. But the Penguins, they show that resiliency. They

show that fight. They show that heart. They tie it up. G-Lovs makes some really big saves in the final few minutes of the third before Tommy No-back is able to win it in overtime. And I'll see this, fat. Is that a pick play? Yes.

Is NHL officiating bad? Yes. Do I care right now? No, because the penguins have been hosed a lot of times by NHL officiating this year. So for this one moment, I really don't care. They were kind of due. I will give Eric Carlson this. He did enough on that pick play to make it look accidental.

Yeah, I agree. Both you and I know if you were to. Marvel universe brings some truth serum and inject it into our next. We would both say, yeah, of course Carlson picked him on purpose. But he did enough in that moment to make it look almost accidental that it didn't go uncalled. But you and I both know he did that intentionally. But again, the penguins have been on the receiving end to some poor officiating all season long. I'm not going to call it karma.

I'm not going to say it's deserved because. you get what you earn. You get what you get when you go out and do it. That's what makes sports so great. But at the end of the day, you're right. I kind of look at this weekend as a two-part movie, so to speak. So Saturday against the Flyers, they lose in the shootout. We'll get into that throughout the show. We're kind of going to weave back and forth between both games in this episode. but Saturday was, all right, we don't have Sid, we don't have Gino, what are we going to do, who's going to step up. And you play a team like the Flyers who, I don't know really how to describe them.

Like, they're definitely not a basement dwelling team, but they're also not a good team. They're kind of just there. I don't really think they've picked a direction that much right now. They're kind of just stuck in neutral. They're aggressively mid. They are aggressively mid. They don't know what they want to be. They've got some young talent.

They've got some good players. They've got some bad players. It's a weird team. So you look at that game and it's like, all right, who's going to step up? And they kind of just played as well as they could without their big guns, did some good things, did some bad things. It was a weird game. But then you play Boston. And it's like, listen, everybody has a role in this game.

Everybody has to play it or else we're not going to win. Against the flyers, you can kind of improvise. You can do what you want to do to figure out who's going to do what. But the penguins locked in on Sunday. And I'll say this, even falling, like I said this during the game when I was there with the people I was with. Even when they went down three nothing, this didn't feel like a Boston three nothing game where the penguins were getting the life choked out of them. The penguins were playing well enough. they were pushing back, that I kind of went, Boston's going to put the sleeper on,

but it's going to take one. And then that Igor Chinikov goal made me go, they might have something here. It's funny. Like, I can't lie. I honestly felt it was over when the ruins made it three nothing. Because Pat, when you're a goaltender, what? Oh, it doesn't tend the goal. That Posternak goal.

I'll let you take that. No. Yeah. He's got to do a better job behind the net there. And that was an off game overall from R.D. She loves. Yes. Let's be real.

He has not played that poorly in weeks. He's going to be fine for the stretch run. He made some really big saves down the stretch in the final three minutes to really make up for a shakyish first 40 minutes. So again, he gets a pass. He's going to be totally fine. But he needs to do a lot better with that play. It's funny, Pat. That puck was actually about to go wide.

It bent off his pad and went in the net. So he got all. He also, in a way, got a little bit unlucky at the end, but he still obviously needs to do a lot better overall going out of his net to play the puck. I also think that's an underrated part of the weekend, too, is the skaters as a whole, I'm not going to put them over and say, oh, they had a tremendous weekend. The guys, the forwards and defensemen were just fantastic. They had some high points.

They had some low points. But an underrated part of the weekend, Skinner and Schenner, G-loves were not very good. Yeah, I agree with that. I think Skinner definitely could have been better on Saturday. That was one of his weaker starts of his Penguins tenure. There was, you know, that one goal where he just got like pulled out of his net for no reason. I'm like, Stu, what are we doing here, man?

Like, already led in a couple of goals, not even just the goal that made it three nothing, Pat. But he was just off his angles a bit too much. It felt like he wasn't seeing the puck as well as he had in recent starts. And both are going to be better here. on the stretch. I mean, the Penguins have gotten top five, 10 goal tending over the last month and a half to two months. So I think they're going to be fine. But still, definitely some shaking moments from both goaltenders, but that's not going to fly on this upcoming road trip. We'll get into that a little bit later. Penguins are going up against some really,

and I mean really good teams on this road trip and both goalies are going to have to really respond. But I want to end this segment with this because I have some thoughts on the Flyers game or the second segment. Igor Chinikov made that overtime winner happen. he was a puck hound all game, especially in overtime. And this wasn't some run-of-the-mill defenseman that he was going after. This is Charlie freaking McAvoy, one of the five to ten best defensemen on the planet. He was hounding him that whole time, was able to steal the puck, cut to the front of the net. Yeah, Corpusolo, poke checks him, but he's able to get the puck back and do just enough before it gets to Tommy Novak,

who finishes off the game. It's crazy that Chinokov wasn't even officially credited for, an assist he should be but he made that goal happen what a player he has been again i ask you what in the hell was columbus doing man i have no idea i i can't believe they couldn't make it work with him i think you need to rework that statement a little bit and i'll do that for you in the sense that he was a puck hound all game long it's it's kind of hard to be a puck hound in an 18 second long overtime i did say he was the puck count all game but especially during that sequence.

But to your point, in that overtime, he makes that goal happen because he is relentless on, as you said, Charlie McAvoy. That's no slouch. That's no pylon. That is one of the best defensemen in the league. And he kept him under duress the whole time. And that led to a turnover. It leads to a chance.

It leads to the setup for Novak's goal. So Chinikov has been one of, if not the penguin's best player for quite. a few weeks now. And again, thank you so much, Columbus. If you've got any other young players here in the next couple years that you just can't seem to make it work with, send them our way. Because apparently we know what we're doing. But we got a lot more to talk about from this weekend back to back. And we are going to do that when we come back. So don't go anywhere. Stick with us. We got more coming on the other side right after this. Before we do that, though, we've got to tell you about today's first sponsor and that is Quo. Spring, it's a natural reset point for all of us,

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That's Hunter Hodes. The sun is shining in Pittsburgh. It's nice and warm because the penguins got three of a possible four points in a weekend back-to-back where it started off pretty bleak. So let's get into that a little bit, Hunter. The Penguins, I promise everybody, this is a new episode today. This is a brand new episode. We're recording this on. Monday, March 9th. And the penguins lost in a shootout again. They are one in nine in shootouts now. And you know what? I saw a lot of people get angry at Dan Mews for the shootout. And Dan Mews took some accountability after the game as well, basically saying like, I'm not putting these guys in the best position to succeed when it comes to shootouts. Dan, it ain't your fault. Okay.

Here's what I'm going to say. And I put this on social media. Penguins shooters in a shootout try a deak challenge impossible. Here's what they all do. They either come down the left or they come down the right and they try to catch a goalie five hole. They all do it. I know that traditional wisdom and coaching is, hey, if the goalie's at the front of his crease, you can deke. If he's back, you got to shoot.

The reason all of these goleys against the penguins are deep in their net, is because they know you're going to come down the wing and you're going to try to go five whole. They need to try something new. It's all slop. That's what these attempts are. And I put that on Twitter as well. I know the goaltending has been a major issue in shootouts this year. The shooters have become even worse with the attempts that they have just coming in.

I don't really know what their goal is. And they were talking to the media after the game saying like, yeah, might be psychological. I mean, these guys practice shootouts every week in practice. Nothing is translating over. And I'll push back a little bit on your damn news quote, because he picks the lineup. And I think he needs to try more of the kids.

Put Ben Kendall out there, man. What do you have to lose at this point? Going into this one when you have lost eight of nine shootouts, obviously now it's nine of ten. Penguins have scored on only four of their last 25 shootout attempts. that is disgusting, man. That is legitimately disgusting. And thankfully, there are no shootouts in the playoffs,

but it is damning just seeing them do the same exact thing. You know what someone needs to do? And I hate the move so much. Someone needs to do the Kuznetsov. Just come in on that little crawl and just snipe the puck. I hate it. I mean, that's bad players to do NHL shootouts online for NHL. What is the game now, 26 or whatever?

I mean, I haven't played that game in years. But that's what reminds me of. I hate it. but someone just needs to do it. Trevor Zegris basically did his version of it. That's the thing, though. When Zegris did it, it's because he varied his speed. Yeah.

He started slow. He sped up. He slowed back down. It's annoying. It's frustrating. But guess what? It works. It continues to work.

The problem with the penguins is they come in at a consistent speed, down the wing, they cut to the middle. The goalie reads it. They close off the five hole and we keep it moving. If you do the Zegris thing, you're going to keep them guessing. Is he going to speed up? Is he going to slow down?

Is he going to deak? Is he going to shoot? What's he going to do? The goalies, the opposing goalies know what the penguins are going to do. But that's enough shootout, slop from that. I was going to say this. It should never have gotten to that point.

And I'll tell you why. You had a two minute power play with 209 left. And what did everyone decide to do? Let's play Patty Cake. Oh, no, you take the buck. No, you take the buck. Let's do all the perimeter play. The power play costs them that game.

They had. Six power play opportunities in that game, Pat, they had four shots combined. And yeah, Tommy Novak opened the scoring. And that was a really nice passing play on the second unit. Outside of that, the power play was just simply bad in that game. And again, you can really tell how much they are missing both 87 and 71 on that unit. I know that the unit is going to be totally fine. We haven't really dumped on that unit this year for obvious reasons.

It's one of the best power plays in the league. And they've really changed some things from last year to this year, even when last year's power play was really good. But they didn't do enough to end the game there. When you get a gift like that from the flyers, you have to make them pay. And they just weren't able to show it should never have gotten to that point. However, they got three out of four points this weekend.

That is a major success, especially without 87 and 71. You get a three-goal comeback against Boston. That is the first three-goal comeback for the Penguins without Crosby and Malkin in the lineup, since 2001. It has a trivia question. Do you know who scored a Hattrick in that game? Is it Marty Strachau?

That's a good guess. No, Alex Kovalev scored a Hav in that game. Yeah, but here's the thing I'll say, because I agree against the Flyers, what lost them the game was the power play and its lack of production. I'm more annoyed at what it did during regulation because you got multiple opportunities in regulations.

in regulation and you should have put the dagger into them then. The only thing I didn't really like about the overtime power play was they got a couple of shots on net. They got a couple of looks. The problem I had, and it's an offshoot of what you're saying about them playing paddy cake, was that the goal when you have a four on three power play is you want to back your opponent in.

You want to get closer to your opponent's net because it opens up wider opportunities. If you get them to bunch up in front of their net, you're going to have better options. They didn't do that in overtime. They got a couple looks. They got a couple shots, but the Flyers penalty kill was spread out enough that they were able to keep them as low danger chances. I didn't hate the way they what they did in overtime other than the fact that they didn't back them in. But the power play throughout regulation was wholly unacceptable. It just, it never got into a groove.

It never got a bunch of a ton of good looks. So that was where I was more concerned about that. What I will say about Saturday's game, though, against the Flyers, I actually really, like, and again, not a high bar to clear because we talked about this briefly in the first segment, the Flyers are aggressively mid, but I did like the Penguin's defensive effort. I mean, you look at that game and you get into the box score of the game, they held the flyers to 15 shots.

And the Penguins, for all intents and purposes, lived in the flyers zone. Dan Vladar had himself a nice little game. But, I mean, you limit your opponent to 15 shots. Your power play goes one for six. There's your answer of why they didn't get a win. Yes and no for the defensive part, in my opinion. Yes, limiting them to 15 shots. Great stuff.

I did not like their defensive play in front of their own net, though. I think that was a problem all weekend long. Yes, that needs to be cleaned up going into this road trip where you're playing against these really, and I mean, really good teams, even against Boston. And this is something that I noticed as well. You know, Ben Kindle's underlying throughout the weekend were pretty good, especially against Boston. I test-wise, I thought he was out to lunch a little bit defensively in front of his own net. And hey, the kid is human, after all.

He's still only 18 years old. He is going to be totally fine. He is still having an amazing rookie season. I just think it's a couple things you just got to work on. And he has plenty of time. He's still only 18 people. So, again, just a couple of welcome to the, welcome to the stretch run moments, I guess, for Ben Kindle.

He's going to learn from it. I am not concerned whatsoever. Just felt like his work there, you know, could be improved. But I don't say that just for him. I say that for everyone involved. a defense in front of their own net has to be better. I also really like that Damuze switched up the defensive pairings. He put Ryan Shea back up with Crystal Tang on Sunday.

He moves Sam Girard down to Ilius Olobjav. And you could tell one shift into that pairing, Gerard looked like a completely different player. Having a pure puck mover on each pair just opens up so much more for the penguins in their own end, in the offensive zone. And Gerard, he was moving the puck way more smoothly. He was skating better, making, plenty better decisions.

I liked it. And I thought Salovia also played really well, too. And I think he deserves another game in Raleigh on Tuesday. I think you're going to see Damues keep rotating back and forth between him and Clifton and the season. But I liked that pair. I want to see if Ryan Shea can help stabilize Latang a little bit because I'll also say this, man.

I think Latang wasn't that good of a weekend for him. I think he definitely needs to do a lot more here down the stretch again, not pinning everything on him or anything like that. I just think he has to be better over. And I'm hoping, because of his history with Ryan and Shay earlier this year, he can rediscover that part of his game that he had next to Brett Kulak, where he was playing simple, mistake-free hockey and all of that. But overall, you get the three out of four points.

You're back into second place in the Metropolitan Division. You are five points up on the Blue Jackets, so the jackets do have a game in hand. They do play tonight. And your nine points up on Washington still with a game in hand. As of right now, it's looking like a three-team race. for those second and third spots in Metro between the Islanders, the Penguins in the Blue Jackets, unless the Capitol is going on a pretty crazy run here.

But reinforcements are on their way. I would personally be surprised if Crosby is not back within a week to 10 days. He looked great on Friday's practice. Not sure if it's Tuesday in Raleigh, Pat, but I can see later this week where he comes back. I would be stunned if he wasn't on this road trip. And then, of course, Malkin will be back in a week. So they're doing what they've needed to do.

You're treading water. You're surviving. you have points in five of seven games without Crosby. Once both those guys come back, it'll be full steam ahead. But pretty big road trip coming up here. Yeah, the gauntlet is getting laid down this week. And we got to talk about it. Hunter and I are going to do that when we come back right after this.

So stick with us because it's a big week coming. Before we do that, though, we've got to tell you about today's last sponsor. and that is our friends at GameTime. There is nothing like being in an NBA or NHL arena, the crowd, the energy, the moment. Getting the tickets, though, that part has never been this simple. That is why GameTime has become the go-to app

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Raleigh where the penguins have not won since 2018. I was in college last time I won there. That's just scary to think about, by the way, man. So hopefully that breaks this year. I did want to say this. I forgot to say this in the first two segments. You know, it's a playoff push when the penguins play the jam siren at PPG. G pain serena the old air raid siren i saw the crowd was going nuts penguins twitter was going nuts

this is what it's made of man and i love meaningful games here down the stretch this is a lot of fun it's a ton of fun and the old the jam siren the air raid siren whatever you call it dude when that went off the hair on my on my arm stood up because i that's cheesy annoying cliche yes it's all of those things but god do i love it it makes me feel like it's playoff time. So big fan of that, but back to back to the point here on Tuesday, they head to Raleigh to take on the hurricanes, haven't won there in eight years. Then they head west. They go to Vegas on Thursday, who they did dismantle about a week ago. And it was a five nothing score made it sound a little bit closer than it was. The penguins were able to dismantle the golden nights,

surprisingly. Then they're off to Utah. Utah was one of those. games earlier this year where the penguins blew a pretty big lead and they have been looking pretty good the last couple of months. That is a bona fide playoff team in the West. And then on Monday of next week, they go to Colorado to take on a juggernaut of a team who not only was a juggernaut before the trade deadline. They load it up at the deadline. So that's a really good team in Colorado. And then what do you know for their troubles? They finish the road trip Wednesday of next week in Raleigh again where they'll take on the hurricanes. So this is it. This is the moment in this month in this stretch where we're going to find out how good are these Pittsburgh

Penguins because it's contender after contender after contender after contender after contender. and it's all on the road. We don't know when Sid's coming back. You're still going to be missing of Gennie Malkin for the first Carolina game, the Vegas game, and the Utah game. So the first three games of this five game road trip, it is a true gut check for the penguins.

Yeah, and you know, time will tell if Prosby does return this week. Again, if I had to say right now, I think he's back within the next seven, to 10-ish days. Maybe it's a bit sooner he looked really good during Friday's practice, man. I think maybe he has to do a full contact practice first, but the time is coming when he is going to return.

And that's going to give this team such a massive jolt. Obviously, Malkin has three games left on his suspension. No, that Raleigh game is going to be interesting because the penguins have played the hurricanes once this year. Penguins blew them out. And that was when the penguins were mostly healthy. That game wasn't even close. And I remember I was listening to what Rob Brindamore.

said after the game. And he even said, yeah, we got our butts kicked up and down the ice. Like credit to them. They absolutely destroyed us. So you're going to see a much better performance from Carolina, I think overall, especially when they're at home. That's a pretty intimidating building to play in. But let's see if the penguins can break that curse during this road trip where they just haven't won there in eight years. But the hurricanes, they're playing really well. They're one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. They're deep. They're fast. You know, they can put you in a chalkhold, especially defensively when they get a lead. Brandon Bussie, their goaltender has been fairly good this year.

So that's going to be a tough test. Vegas, I still don't know how truly good Vegas is. They're obviously a playoff team. They're going to make some noise, but how much noise? That's going to be the question. Mark Stone is on injured reserve right now. He actually has not played since that Penguin game where what Tang kind of just gave him a love tap, it felt like.

And then he just went down pretty awkwardly there. but they're going to want to play much better after the penguins just, you know, embarrass them on home ice. Utah, that's a fun team, man. I've been able to watch a bit more of Utah as of late. Logan Cooley has been so much fun to watch. Clayton Keller, Dylan Gunther, that is a really fun team. And I pick them to make the playoffs before the start of the season.

And it's looking like a pretty good prediction right now. They are fun. And I hope the penguins are going to be looking at that game excuse. me as a little bit of a revenge factor because, remember, they took that 3-0 lead into the third. They blew it. Utah actually took the lead. The Penguins were able to tie it, get a point. They then lost in overtime.

So I want to see if they get some revenge out of that. And then obviously, Colorado, they have an insane top three centers, man. McKinnon, Brock Nelson, and Nazam-Kadry. Good luck in the West playoffs against that team, but that's going to be a really tough test. and then you end it with Carolina. I think for this road trip, if you can get six out of 10 points, go three and two,

or even, you know, two and two and one, you get five out of ten points. Five to six points, I think for me, that's a success, just because of how many great teams you're going up against

how tough this road trip is. You're playing basically every other night. Anything else, obviously that's even better. But right now, Pat, I'm thinking five to six out of ten points. That's what I'm circling right now. That's where I'm at five to six because we keep saying it.

Coming out of the Olympic break, this team essentially just needs to play 500 hockey to hold on to a playoff spot in the east. They basically have been since it went down. They pretty much have. And you see how it's helped. They remain in second in the metro. So essentially, I think the, What is going to determine for me how this road trip's going to go. And obviously I'm not sitting here with a crystal ball and saying,

I'm going to be right on this. This is exactly how it's going to go. If they can find a way to start this road trip with a win against the hurricanes in Raleigh, I do think that's going to give them a lift. I do think that's going to give them some confidence. Because even though the majority of the roster, Brian Rust is pretty much, I think Brian Rust is the only one. who has been here since

that is looking at this and going, if we can win here, if we can start this road trip with a win against the team that has been a boogeyman for us, we've beaten Vegas. We've shown we can beat Utah. And then you go into Colorado and you go, you know what?

Let it hang loose, man. This is a hell of a team. We're going to go out there, let our freak flag fly. And if we beat them, great. If not, we are not the first. are not the last who are going to lose to this Colorado team.

And then you go into Carolina and think we can punctuate this road trip with a nice little win. So end of the day, five to six points makes this a successful road trip. And I think it's extremely doable. Hunter, unless you got anything to add, I think that's going to do it for a jam-packed Monday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Hunter and I will be back on Tuesday to get you set for the first. game of this big road trip against the Carolina Hurricanes. We'll talk about what makes them a good

team, how the Penguins can get their first win in eight years down in Raleigh and anything else that may happen between now and then. But for now, for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. He's got to go, he being me, give his voice a rest because I'm struggling here, folks. But thank you as always for tuning in. And we will be back on Tuesday.