Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins recall Joel Blomqvist ahead of big road trip!

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

With Tristan Jarry on waivers and expected to go to the AHL, the Pittsburgh Penguins are turning to Joel Blomqvist. Hunter and Patrick begin the show by discussing the decision to place Jarry on waivers and how it got to this point. They dig into some of the numbers and how the Penguins continued to get shafted by goaltending this year, especially these last two games. Then, they break down what Kyle Dubas had to say about the decision and how taking accountability for Jarry's contract was the right way to go about it. Finally, they discuss what they want to see from Blomqvist now that he will be coming up and getting a decent amount of starts.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Indeed:Now, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to Indeed.com/LOCKEDON right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.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.FanDuelFrom the first whistle to the final drive, FanDuel makes the NFL Playoffs even more exciting!Right now, new customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get THREE HUNDRED BUCKS in BONUS BETS – if you win your first bet!Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In case you didn't hear, Tristan Jari was placed on waivers by the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, and Pat and I are going to dive a little bit more into that, plus dive into what Kyle Dubas had to say about the matter 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. 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 Hunter Hodes. joined by my co-host Patrick Damping and follow him on all social media platforms at Sendem for Wet and you can follow these shows, Twitter at L.O. Understore Penguins, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first

lesson slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, this episode is brought to you by GameTime down the GameTime app, create an account and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. So, Pat, a little bit of a slow newsday on Wednesday, right? Yeah, nothing happened. Yeah, nothing really happened with this organization. Now, of course, we're just joking.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, of course. Place starting netminder Tristan Jari on waivers, we will find out in about a couple of hours, whether or not another team claims him. But, Pat, I think I speak for you on this very, and I mean a very low chance that a team will claim him. If there's one that may claim him, again, low chance, it's the Chicago Blackhawks, who I do think need another goalie right now. But I still don't even think they will take him.

on that contract along with any other team. I think, again, the most likely scenario is that he clears and gets sent down to Wilkesbury where he's going to be playing quite a bit going forward because the plan that Kyle Dubas and Mike Sullivan outlined on Wednesday was that Yoel Blumquist would come up. And I know a lot of people were wanting to see Philip Larson. I get it. It also sucks that Larsson got hurt last night during that game for Wilkesbury. And Larsen, you know, he's had a 927 and say percentage.

He's been lighting up the HAL. but I'm actually totally okay with Blumquist coming up. You saw what he was able to do during the first month of the season where the Penguins are playing their worst hockey. Yeah, I know he's playing behind a kind of meh defensive group, but he was still able to make a lot of really good saves during that small stretch of games that we saw him playing. And I'm excited to see what he can do with a nice little amount of games here.

I think they're going to make him the starting netminder for the next little while. And that's the right move. you can have Nadelkevich kind of be that one B to back up goaltender. I don't think you need to make it a rotation where Blumquist gets a game and that Ned gets a game. I think you can maybe give Blumquist, you know, three to four starts in a row and then maybe give, you know, a start to net on a back to back or if Blumper struggles for a game, you can give Net a start. But I think this is the right move to see what you really have in this kid because he looked at it already.

Now he's going to get another shot at this as well. Yeah, I think this is the right call. And it speaks a little bit to me what they think about when it comes to Blumquist as opposed to Larson. Because if you remember, they signed Larson this past off season. And that was almost something of a project. Because as we spoke about on our Wednesday episode, he spent some time in Europe after the pandemic because he was originally drafted by the Red Wings, didn't get a lot of time in the NHL. he went over to Europe where he would get more playing time to hone his game, comes back to North America this summer.

So I think that they're trying to see what Larson is really all about. And that means he's going to have to play, especially in the American League, even though, yes, he is hurt now. But it says to me that they look at Blumquist as part of their future, both in the medium and long term. So they want to see what he does again at the NHL level. rather than just calling up the hot hand.

Because if you think about it this way, Blumquist outside of maybe Sergey Murshov, but again, that's another thing that's kind of in my estimation, similar to Larson, where, okay, we like this guy's talent, we like what he can do, but he's got to work his way up the ladder.

And he's got to develop because if you remember, he's all of 20 years old. So, excuse me, he's still got a ways to go. So I think you're right. I will add an addendum here with Blumquist. I agree to an extent that he should be the starter. But remember, he is a younger goalie.

So three, four games at a time, you need to be a little bit cautious here just because you don't want to burn him out. You don't want to stunt his development. But two, three games, then Ned, absolutely. Rotation, absolutely not. You are, you showed over the last month and a half. half that you can play the kind of hockey that is going to get you into the playoff race and keep you in the conversation. And it has been over the last couple of weeks, mostly derailed

by goaltending. So you have to believe that what you saw early in the season, when this team was playing really poorly, that Blumquist could be a little bit of a stabilizing option in the net. So at this point, if you give him two to three games, then go to Ned, I think that's probably the best way to go. But I'm not ready to say that Sullivan should completely put the saddle on him and play him four or five games at a time. Because we do want to see what this kid has, but we also don't want to completely burn him out. No, that's fair. I just really the point I want to make home is you don't want to do, you know, one start and then the other guy gets a start then one start, then the other guy. I got to get started.

Like, you're not allowing for Blumquist to have really any consistency there. So you got to give him, you know, two to three, maybe four starts in a row, then maybe give Ned one or potentially two. But then, you know, you keep up that rotation, you know, two to four in row for Blumquist. Ned gets a starter to. And then, again, you repeat that for a while. But I'm excited to see, though, what he can do in his second stint here with the Penguins, since he's played really well in Wilkesbury.

And then, again, during that first one of the season where the Penguins were out to lunge and so many games. He was making timely save after timely save. He was at least giving the penguins a chance in a lot of those games, even though they didn't really win a lot of those games. But going back to Tristan Jari here, again, Pat, it was just time for this to happen. The way that he played in those back-to-back games against Tampa and against Seattle, I think that was the final straw. They were like, okay, we're done. Like, you cannot, we cannot keep getting this type of goaltitting where we're basically out shooting teams two to one. We're outchancing teams two to one.

The underlying numbers will support that. But our starting net minder who makes over $5 million per year is allowing three goals on less than 20 shots. Two games in a row, mind you. Like the Penguins were actually playing mostly fine defensively outside of that third period stretch against Seattle. But Trishon Jari still allowed six goals in those two games. And they didn't even give up 20 shots.

in those two games. Again, it's not good enough. They had to make a move. We said it. This week, I want, we even said it last week. Like, they're going to have to really do something about this. Like, this is going to have to come to a head. And it finally did.

So I'm glad that they were able to make the move. The contract was still awful when it was signed. I mean, I even retweeted my old tweet from two years ago yesterday. It was insane to give him that number. I still do not understand it. I know people can come in here and say, oh, well, you know, look at the options. look at the options. And to a degree, I get it, but there are also cheaper options available at the time that will be giving you better goaltending right now. It's up to a creative front office to do it. And don't get me wrong. I know Dubus was only a month on the job at that point.

He cannot finish filling out his staff, but he still could have done a better job with that. We'll get into Dubus a little bit more in the second segment with what he said during the press conference and all that. but this was still a mistake that he really didn't have to make at the time. Yeah, we'll, like you said, we'll talk about the dubest part of it in our second segment. I do, however, want to go back to the last two games to say, to say this, you have to put what happened in the right context, because you played two teams who are vastly different, but there was something in common. You played Tampa Bay, who's an extremely good team.

They have been for the last decade. They're one of the best teams in the league. They consistently show that, but they don't play a Ropa Dope style. It wasn't like you played a team that, to make a Pokemon reference of all things, they didn't go into, they don't go into Hardin and then just wait you out and then beat you. You gave up soft goals against them. And then the next night, you play Seattle, who is just a struggling team. They're not very good.

You take the fight to them for the majority of the game. And he gives up three goals. And all three of them, you can make a case that they were very soft goals. We talked about it when we broke the game down. Yeah, two of the three, you can pin on the defense, but you would like a save. The first goal, it's a two-on-one that the defenseman plays very, very correctly, takes away the passing lane, gives the shooter a low percentage shot, and that low percentage shot goes in.

So if this was the kind of thing where, hey, they played two teams who play a rope-a-dope style, they lean on the ropes, let their opponent punch themselves out, and then counter and go score, and you go, man, like, you knew that was coming. It sucks, but that's how that team plays. You got to be ready for it. It wasn't that. you took the fight to two separate teams, you had all the momentum, you had all the scoring chances, you had all the shots on goal, and you just get it all derailed by poor goaltending.

And like I said, this is a team that has proved they can play a brand of hockey that at the very least keeps them in the playoff race. It doesn't mean they're suddenly a playoff team, doesn't mean they're suddenly a contender, but in a soft Eastern conference, they've played a brand of hockey that can keep them in the race, and it's all been derailed by poor goaltending. Yeah, I mean,

we can dig into a little bit of the stats right now, Pat. Tris and Jari, when you look at goals aid above expected on Moneypuck, he is 86th among goaltenders, right down there with Sam Erson of Philadelphia, and by the way, the Flyers have had rotten goaltending all year two, Billy Huso, Alexandria Georgiev, versus Leakins has not had a good year.

And of course, Alex Nadelcovic is only seven spots higher than Jari. Again, people, this just goes to show how poor the Penguins net minors have been this year. You can make an argument that they have had the worst goaltending duo in the league by save percentage. Goals state above expected, not being able to make the timely saves, etc. But with Jari, minus 9.5 goals said above expected, 884 save percentage, 3.31 goals against average. I said it. on Wednesday, I'll say it here. He just looks like a broken goaltender right now

that badly needs a change of scenery. In my opinion, I think he has played his last game for the Pittsburgh Penguins at the NHL level. I do not think he will get another start for this team. I could be dead wrong about that because I was kind of hinting at it a bit earlier this season and then he was able to get a run going of stars, but it didn't work out.

But right now, I do think he has played his last NHL game. for the penguins because I think his agency and the penguins are going to work towards a solution. No, I don't think that's a buyout. That's too much money for too long. A lot of teams don't like doing that. I think they will work on a solution that does not involve a buyout. You know, you can get a team to take on his contract while maybe the penguins retain a little bit. I can see that.

But I do think during that time, his agency and the penguins will work out a solution to get him to another team so he can get the change of scenery that I think he desperately needs. But I think that's going to do it. For this first segment, coming up in the second segment, Kyle Dubus took it upon himself to talk to reporters at the scene yesterday. We're going to get into some of his quotes and how he was able to at least take some responsibility for the mistake that he made a couple of years ago. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is Indeed.

You just realize your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Well, that's easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites. Indeed's sponsored jobs put your post at the top of the page and helps you reach the right candidates faster.

I've been in that spot where you need the right hire like yesterday. The pressure's on and every day without the right person is a setback. That's exactly when Indeed sponsored jobs come in handy. They make sure your post is seen by the right candidates right now. Now you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 sponsor job credit. just go to Indeed.com slash Lockdown right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply if you're hiring. Indeed is all you need.

All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Dam. So, Pat, I took it upon myself. I know you did as well to really go back, listen to what Kyle Dubas had to say because it was a lot. And I will give him credit for this. he basically came out and said, hey, when I make mistakes and I try to make as few mistakes as possible, I got to come out and face the music. And he also said, I want to try to rectify it as soon as possible.

So he's indirectly saying like, yeah, two years ago, guys, I screwed up. I should not have signed him to that contract and I'm trying to rectify it as quickly as possible. I will at least respect him for that. That said, I still think, you know, when we look at that first offseason and I've been a bit critical. of Dubis with that offseason just because it really wasn't that good. He really did drop the ball with some of these signings, you know, paying Tristan Jari, all that money. Not good enough, obviously. The Ryan Graves contract stings.

Those two, I think, are pretty indefensible, in my opinion. You know, Atchari Nyedo, I was okay with them at the time. Obviously, they have not worked out the way that I think everyone is one of them to. Riley Smith trade, I understood the vision. Just didn't work out. I would still make that trade 10 out of 10 times because I thought it was going to work out. Eric Carlson, yeah, I would still make that trade. I know people may disagree with that. I would still make that trade considering what they traded out, how the season he was just coming

off of all that stuff. And he also just signed Laura Zeller during that offseason. And at least the Ned deal for that year ended up working out. But I still think that's by far his weakest offseason in charge of the Penguins. Since then, he's had a pretty coherent plan in place that I at least understand what he's doing. I think he is much better at doing trades and he does free agency. And I even tweeted that on my Twitter yesterday. I think the pro stouting and Kyle Dubus needs to be a lot better in free agency. I think the evaluations need to be better, especially in free agency.

I'm curious to see how, if at all that changes come this July, when they'll have a good amount of cap space to spend, considering that they'll be making quite a bit of trades at the deadline. And some contracts there has had to expire. Again, he's going to have some cap space to work with. again, that goes back to my original point. I'm glad that he was able to come out and face the music. He was able to take responsibility for his mistake.

I respect that a lot while also saying that he just needs to be a bit careful with CalSpace, considering how much the Penguins had in Cap Space that year, and it was all gone in a matter of hours. So just want him to be more conscientious when it comes to that, you know, especially the summer when they're going to have a lot of Cap Space again. Definitely. I don't want to do kind of a full evaluation and breakdown of Kyle Dubis's tenure as general manager here, but we kind of have to given the context.

So the thing I'll say about this is one, I love that he came out and took responsibility for it. This is something that fans and media pine for. They want their pound of flesh, so to speak. They want the general manager, the coach or the player to often come out. and just say, hey, I screwed up. And to Kyle Dubes's credit, he did just that. He came out yesterday and basically said, I messed this up. I made a mistake.

I'll add this addendum to it. And you hinted at it a little bit. That summer, very condensed timeline for him. There was less than a month between free agency and the draft. And I understand that people will say, well, it's not like he was a brand new general manager. He had worked in the NHL for years. so he's not completely clueless, but it's a different organization

at a different timeline with different cap constraints, different prospects, the whole nine yards. So you can't just take what his ideas were in Toronto and bring them to Pittsburgh because, like I said, different franchise, different players, different prospect pool, different cap situation. So a bit of a difference.

And then I look at the goaltending market that summer. It was absolutely terrible. There were not a lot of good options. options. There were not a lot of good free agents and there weren't very many more goalies available via trade. That said, the contract given out was indefensible. He didn't deserve that much money. He didn't deserve that much term. And if you quote unquote low ball him and say, here's a couple million dollars for three years, this is our offer. And he says, no, go let another team pay him. But I can at least understand the logic of this goaltending market soft.

This guy is our, this guy has been in our organization for about a decade. We know him. We know who he is. Let's just take a bet on him. But the contract itself indefensible. So end of the day, I'm very appreciative of him saying he made the mistake and working to rectify it. I wrote about it hours before we recorded yesterday. And I said, it's going to be a tough decision to wave Tristan Jari and send him down to Wilkes-Bair because it's difficult to send a $5 million goalie to the American Hockey League because it's admitting a mistake. And let's be real here. Tristan Jari might not be a good NHL starter.

He's not an American Hockey League goalie. he's too good for the HL, but he's not good enough to be a number one. So it's a very tough call to make, but I applaud him for making it. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think in the NHL, he's probably a 1B to back up, probably somewhere in between there.

Pat, I will also say this going back to something you were saying about the goalie market that year. I agree with you a little bit, but also who are the Penguins bidding against for him? Like looking at the contracts that were being given out that you. Remember, mostly a lot of short-term deals for goalies. Who were you bidding against? What other team was going to go out there and be like, yeah,

I'm going to sign him to a five-time-five deal, which, by the way, by the way, when is that contract for a goalie ever worked out? Very few and far between, my friend, I mean, heck, the Capitals did it pretty recently as well with Darcy Kemper, and then they dealt him to Los Angeles for Pierre-Loc Dubois. So he didn't even make it in his contract either. So again, that's just one example,

but there's countless others where you signed a goalie to, you know, five times five in Jari's case, it's five times five point three seven five. So kind of similar, but there's so many cases where that type of contract for a goalie just does not work out. So again, I just want to know who he was bidding against that year. I know two years later I'm talking about this, but whatever, that's where I'm like, okay,

a creative GM, you know, figures out something other than that. You know, he signs a cheaper goalie during that class that would give you at least average goaltending. Again, I get what some people were saying that the class was bad. It was. The goaltending class that year was bad. But I still personally would have went for a little bit of a more cheaper option. The people that say, oh, he didn't have a choice.

He didn't have a choice. I disagree with that because we saw other goalies get smaller contracts who have outplayed Jari. since then. So that's the main point that I wanted to make during that. But again, as you said too, I am glad that he realized that he made a mistake. He's rectifying it, you know, in year or two of this deal. And again, I really do not think he's going to play another game for the Pittsburgh Penguins. But do you have anything else bad about you? I agree with you on that. And I'll, I'll add this caveat to it. The only way I see Tristan Jari playing for the Penguins ever again is if somehow, some way, both Blumquist and Larson and then even Nadelcovich completely faceplant over the

next couple of months. If that's the case, then you just have to throw your hands up and go, well, this is the situation we're in. And we just have to get through it somehow, some way. but I'm very skeptical that that will be the case. And the other thing I wanted to say about this from Dubus's press conference yesterday was this quote that really stood out to me. And this was from him yesterday. He says throughout this whole stretch, he has continued to come in here, put in the work,

and that's not been a question at all. That just hasn't materialized the way we would like it to on the ice. At this level, you have to get to the point where you have to do whatever. is right in the long run for him and us. So he coats it a little bit with the you have to do what's right for him and us. That's him saying in another way, performance is dictating my decision because this is what we have wanted from both Kyle Dubus and Mike Sullivan. And they've fallen short in several areas where you see guys who screw up, guys who don't

play consistently, continue to get minutes. but this is them saying he has not performed up to the level we need him to perform to. So this is what we're doing. We're putting him on waivers. We're sending him to the American League and probably burying him there. So along with acknowledging his mistake, I appreciate him in the organization being a little cutthroat because you're a $5 million goal tender. You need to be the starting goalie and you are not playing like it. So I'm happy with them doing that because it's what we.

have all wanted them to do. At least two business is doing it. I think Sullivan at times has done it, but I also think that he could work on that as well, especially with some of the player decisions on the ice with playing certain players or other players. I've made that argument so many times over the last few weeks with certain decisions, especially in the bottom six, I really don't want to rehash it on this episode. But with Jari, it looks like he probably will get quite a bit of playing time in the

NHL, assuming that he does clear because Philip Larson was banged up. during Wilkesbury's game last night. And the other goalie right now, he made his debut last night for the HL. Jackson Castor actually played pretty well in relief of Philip Larson, but I do think, assuming that he clears,

Jari, that is, I think if Larson's injury is a bit serious, he's out for maybe a couple weeks, something like that, I do think Jari is going to get the lion's share of the starts. And, no, that will keep Philip, not Philip Larson, excuse me, Sergey Marashov and Wheeling.

I know a lot of people have been waiting to see him get his shot with Wilkesbury. I do think it's coming, people. Just not yet, even though, again, yes, he's definitely better than an ECHL goalie right now with the way that he is playing. But I think that I'll do it for the second segment. Coming up to end the show,

we're discussed more about Y'all Blumquist and what we want to see from him in his second stint in the NHL. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about our second sponsor, and that is game time. I love going to live events, whether it's sports, music, theater, or comedy.

One of my favorite memories was attending a concert last year. No, not Steel Panther this time I went to Green Day as well. The energy and the excitement were unforgettable. And oh yeah, smashing pumpkins people, they were also tremendous with Green Day. Now, Game Time has made it even easier to get tickets for your favorite events with their new feature called GameTime Picks. This feature filters off a fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats. So you don't even have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Take the guestwork out of buying tickets with GameTime down the GameTime app,

create an account and use code locked on NHL for 24. $20 off your first purchase. Trades apply. Again, create an account and Mareem code Locked on NHL for $20 off. Download game time today. What time is it? Well, it's game time.

All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. Join by my co-host, Patrick Am. So, Pat, we discussed a little bit about Blumquist to start the show. We're going to do more of a deep dive into it here now that he's set to be recalled later today.

But the biggest thing I really want to see from you all Blumquist is one thing, man, timely saves. Penguins just really haven't been able to get timely saves from both of their net minders and a lot of their games this season, and it's cost them valuable points in the standings. I truly believe that they had had average goaltending to this point. They would be in a playoff spot right now. So with Blumquist, if he can give them that average goaltending, the timely saves that they really need, especially when the Penguins make some mistakes in their own zone, and trust me,

people, there's going to still be plenty more mistakes they make in their own zone because they're not a good defensive team. But if he can still come up with timely saves and be like, hey guys, I got you for this one. Go down there and go get another. I think that's going to be a big deal. Now, we'll get them into the playoffs. I don't know. I still think right now they're probably going to miss. They have a lot of work to do to get back into that second wild card spot.

But what I'm looking for again, just the timely saves, Pat. What's say you? Oh, for sure. and he provided that when he was with the penguins, when they were playing as poorly as they were to start the year. The biggest stat that stands out to me is if you take out when he had the awful start against the Dallas stars, which you can't even really pin on him.

The team played absolutely putrid in front of him. But you take out that start. His save percentage at the NHL this year is 913. And it's not that it's just 913. he faced on average 36 shots a game when starting for the penguins, which at the time of the, at that time, that was what the penguins average shots against were. It's decreased now to about 31.

So it's about five less shots a game. But then you run down all of his starts in Pittsburgh to start the season, 906 against Detroit, 906 again against Toronto, 929 against Buffalo. And that wasn't a start. he had to come in in relief for Tristan Jari, who had a very, very bad start in that game. Or it might have been Ned. I can't remember either way. The penguins tried their hardest to blow that game against Buffalo.

Then Carolina, a bit of a burp on that one, 895, Edmonton, 920, and he made 50 saves. So there are shots against. So 47 saves. he has been able to make the timely save. Now, I do want to expectations set a little bit here. Don't expect this to be a dominant goalie. Because not just looking at his early season body of work with the penguins, you look at his body of work with the baby penguins.

He's not a shutout machine. He doesn't constantly blank teams. He's only got two shutouts over the last two seasons in the AHL. But what he does is he consistently, gives you quality starts. He consistently has a save percentage over 900. He consistently makes the saves he needs to make. And if you look at the way this team has played over the last month or so,

they're going to have, as you said, they're hiccups on defense. They're just not a good defensive team. But for the most part, if he can handle giving up maybe one or two goals a game, This team has shown on multiple occasions. They can give him the run support. So as long as he's making those timely saves, he's consistently giving you 900 or better goaltending.

You're in a good spot. Right. And you look at more of the underlying numbers this year. He's 34th in the league with two goals stayed above expected. That's better than Ilya Sorokin, who is usually one of the best goaltenders in the league these last couple of years, though, not really. And he's only two spots behind UC Soros.

Again, usually a top five goaltender, but he has struggled a bit this year. 9-04 save percentage, well above both Jari and Adelkevich. So you look at some of the underlying numbers for him, the analytics, Pat. He has been very solid in the first hint that he had. And I agree. If he can just get them those saves with the way the penguins usually generate chances, the way that they're finishing chances at least a bit better this year

compared to last year, that hopefully can be good enough to really bank some wins. And you look at this upcoming schedule. Yes, it is a second. in-game road trip. The Penguins have really struggled on the road this year. They are not a good road team at all. But there will be an opportunity here for him to really have some good starts. Some of the teams he's playing Pat, for example, Buffalo, they're not very good. Yes, they have some good talent. Still not a very good team. Washington after that, that's going to be tough. The two goalies are going to split those two games. I'm curious to see if they go Ned on Friday and then Blumquist

on Saturday against Washington to really give him that first test. off the bat, excuse me. But after that, you know, you have the California road trip, the Kings. Obviously, they're good. Those, the Kings and the Caps are by far the two best teams on this trip. But then you have Utah, they're okay. Seattle, you just played them, but the Penguins really didn't give up much to Seattle, except a couple chances in the third period.

Then you have Anaheim and San Jose, of course. So there is an opportunity here, at least, Pat, for him to really bank some wins if the penguins are able to bring their A game with the rest of their skaters because a lot of these teams, man, and we'll start previewing this road trip on Friday, a lot of these teams aren't very good. No, and again, expectation setting here. We're not calling him the savior. We're not saying that the recall of Yoel Blumquist was like when Rust,

shiri Wilson, and Coonhockle came around in 2016. It's not going to be suddenly this team turns into a wagon. However, like we have talked about for weeks now, what has derailed this team? Goaltending. They have not been able to get timely saves. They have not been able to hold on to leads late because of soft goals. So all he's got to do here is play average. It doesn't got to be great.

Doesn't have to steal games. Just be average. Just play well enough to give this team a chance. And you look at this seven game road trip. they're playing two genuinely great teams in the capitals in the kings outside of that it's all coin flip games they play well enough they can come out with a win they're going to get challenged in Washington they're going to get challenged in la so we'll see what happens with those but end of the day just play average make the saves you need to make and we'll see how this team does

100% and again we'll dive into more about this road trip on Friday when we preview this game Buffalo, and then we'll also preview the game against Washington, but I'll be curious to see how a really rough road team, at least so far this year, does on a two-week road trip with basically everything on the line, because if they really stink up the joy on this road trip, I think the selling could really start, Pat, sooner rather than later. It could potentially start, maybe even during that break in February where the Four Nations face off is taking place somewhere around that time frame. But I think that I'll do it for today's episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I will say if Jari does get claimed by a team once waivers come around in a couple of hours,

Pat and I will have something up for a breaking news segment to discuss that and what that means for the penguins going forward. But if not, we will have another episode for you all on Friday to preview this big road trip and especially these first two games of it against the Sabres and the Capitol. So again, that will do it for today's episode. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. And we'll be back on Friday unless Jari gets claimed on waivers.

on Thursday.