Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins stumble again, can they find consistency starting on Monday night?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, locked on penguins listeners. This is Patrick Damp, joined as always by Hunter Hodes. We're starting to show just a little bit differently today due to the tragic news out of Britain that former penguins forward Adam Johnson has died after a freak accident on Saturday night where a collision led to escape coming up and cutting his neck. Johnson was taken to the hospital where he was treated for the injury, but ultimately died as a result. He was 29 years old. Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I followed Johnson's career closely because I didn't. But what I can speak to is the fear that never leaves a hockey player at any level. And that fear is the one of getting cut by a skate during a game, a practice, a free skate, anything like that. And it's a fear that we bury, but it really never goes away.

Starting point is 00:00:54 And I'm really hoping amid this absolutely incredible and deserved outpouring of affection and love for Johnson that this moment becomes one where the sport reflects on its safety regulations and protocols because, yes, it was a freak accident and that's true, but it's a freak accident that could happen to anyone at any level of hockey. And this doesn't mean that I'm saying we need to legislate. toughness out of the sport or anything like that, but we should very much be taking the steps to make sure that moments like this continue to be few and far between. We send nothing but our love, our prayers, our support to Adam's family, his friends, his loved ones, his teammates, and of course the other player involved in this incident,

Starting point is 00:01:48 because this absolutely has to be hell for him as well. May Adam rest in peace, and may his memory live on forever. I thought that was really well said, Pat. And at the end of the day, it was a freak accident. And I'll also say this. Nobody should have to lose their life doing something they love, especially playing a sport at such a young age. And I also send my thoughts, my condolences,

Starting point is 00:02:11 and my love to all of his family and friends. And also the other player right now, I continue to be devastated by this news. It rocked me when I first saw it. And it just sucks at the end of the day. It absolutely sucks. And overall, man, I'll say this, once a penguin, always a penguin in my book.

Starting point is 00:02:34 And again, we send our heartfelt love and condolences to his family and friends. The Locked on Penguins podcast continues. 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.

Starting point is 00:03:04 episode of the Locked-on to Penguins podcast. I am one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, joined as always by my co-o's Patrick Damp. You can follow him on Twitter at Sondon for Wet. And you can follow the shows, Twitter at L.O. Underst Penguins, that again, thank you so much for making this, your first lesson slash watch on the day. And his episode is brought to you by Game Time, down the GameTime app, create an account and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. So Penguins over the weekend are not able to get back to 500. They lose a pretty sloppy game against the Ottawa Senators. They dropped to 3, 5, and O to start the season as their struggles continue. They look so good against Colorado Avalanche,

Starting point is 00:03:44 but they're not able to carry that momentum over to the game against the Senators. I'll admit, I didn't watch the game live because I was at one of my best friends' weddings over the weekend. Congratulations to, I'll shop them. I'll stop them out. Zach and Dana, they got married over the week. Congratulations to them. Congratulations to them. Yeah. I don't know. I'll try to send them this to see if they listen to that part at least, but I will say I was able to go back, watch the highlights, just watch some of the film. And outside of Jonas Corpassallo playing like God, even though he hasn't played well this year, I think this game was won and lost in net. Tristan Jari, not good

Starting point is 00:04:18 enough in the slightest. And this is the type of game that makes, I'm trying to be as nice and objective as possible here. It makes that contract just so sometimes hard to defend, I guess, because he has that great game against the avalanche, right? Where it's like, oh, yeah, this is what you want to see in the number one goal term. He makes these key saves. He makes it look so easy. His movement's really good. But then he has a game like this where after he signed that massive extension is getting over $5 million, it's like, how did he get that kind of money by allowing two really bad goals, which led to him getting pulled?

Starting point is 00:04:50 The Brady-Cochuk goal was awful. Chuck literally shrugged his shoulders after that win. He was stunned that it went in. The dominant Kubolik goal that led him to getting pulled. That one was also. really bad. Heck, they had a goal path that came off the board because the penguins never lose offside challenges except for one earlier this year. I think that's the first one they've ever lost with Madison, Nicol, running it after Andy Sosier got promoted. They are just a great dynamic

Starting point is 00:05:13 duo for offside challenges. But overall, I never thought the penguins had a chance in this game just because their goaltending was not good. And Tristan, these type of starts, they've got to be fewer at this point. It's what we've talked about. since the summer. It's consistency. That's Tristan Jari's biggest issue. And if you want to be a championship or at least contending starting goalie, you have to have consistency.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Your team can't be worried about what version of you is going to show up on any given night. It can't be a wincing of which version of Jari is going to show up tonight. However, there is something about this game. that I want to kind of go on a little monologue, rant, whatever you want to call it, because it's a question that I have seen on hockey Twitter a lot, Penguins Twitter, and I know that that's the website where nuance goes to die, but either way, that's where a lot of us have our discussions about sport. So everyone's been asking the question, why does this always happen?

Starting point is 00:06:27 Why does it always, why do they always get goalie? Why do they always get goalied? And I'm going to have to go back and do a long-term running of the numbers on this. But anecdotally, the way I see this going, for the last six, seven years, depending on who's in net for the Penguins, whether it's Mark Andre Fleury, Matt Murray, Tristan Jari, any number of the backups they've had over the past six, seven years. Here's how this script has played out. Penguins start a game hot. They come out, they put on a lot of good pressure. they get six, seven, eight, nine or more shots on the opposing goalie.

Starting point is 00:07:01 And while those shots aren't A1 chances, they're still very good early chances borne from pressure. And then at one point or another, the other team comes down the ice and scores, an absolutely backbreaking goal. And it doesn't, sometimes it's a good goal. Sometimes it's, hey, they made a nice play and nothing your goalie can do. Sometimes your defense breaks down.

Starting point is 00:07:24 But a lot of the time, it has been a goal. goal that your starting goalie should not give up. And if there is one sentence, even in this era of analytics and statistics, and you all know, I'm all about it. I'm not anti-analytics. I'm not close the spreadsheet and watch the game, nerds. That's not who I am. But I'm not going to discount things like momentum. I'm not going to discount things like confidence. When you start a game hot and your goalie gives up a back breaking goal after a hot start to put you down one nothing, there is no sentence in hockey that deflates a team more than, man, we could have really used to save there. And then, because there's been a lot of discussion about what's the system, why haven't they changed the system?

Starting point is 00:08:08 Why are they trying to do the same things? Who knows if the penguins were going to run the same system against Ottawa? Because less than five minutes in, despite a hot start, they're down one nothing. I can't blame the power play goal on Tristan Jar. That was bad defense. Riley Gregg was left wide open in front to tip of shot. from Claude Drew with no, no resistance. But 10 minutes later, a bad goal from Brady Kachuk.

Starting point is 00:08:32 And yet the team is still out shooting them. They're still out pressuring them. And you can say what you want about Eunice Corpusolo, but he had run support. He got the run support he needed. He was up to nothing after the first period. So he had that margin for error that he could play a little more aggressive. He could be a little more risky.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Tristan Jari didn't have that safety net anymore. And he wasn't making the saves he needs to make. So you can complain about coaching. You can complain about the system. You can complain about skaters. But eventually, to quote our good pal Josh Yohe, you're allowed to make a save. Right. No, no, I agree with you.

Starting point is 00:09:08 And even though that first goal, I wouldn't classify it as like, I guess, a backbreaker. But it's still one where it's like, I think it killed the morale of the team a little bit because you're playing so well. you take that dumb penalty you're trying to kill it off boom the puck's in the back of the net and then afterward what especially I think killed the team morale

Starting point is 00:09:31 you get that power play after a really nice shift from the second line right Kenny Malk and Riley Smith and Ricard Raquel and you get on the power play the first unit comes out there and they do as they've done all year basically absolutely nothing

Starting point is 00:09:45 I feel like in these types of games when you allow a goal like that and when the power play really struggles it sucks the life out of the team and it makes them play worse. And you saw that happen here because Tristan Jari really struggled after that first goal and they couldn't score on the power play at all. Heck, they couldn't really do much at 5 on 5 after, even though Yonis Gospasalo was making

Starting point is 00:10:06 some really good saves. They just couldn't get anything past him. And you have a grand opportunity, especially on the power play, to do something. And you just don't do it like they've done in so many games this season. They lost the goaltending battle and the special team's battle in this game, both power play and penalty kill-wise. You're not going to win many games in the NHL when you lose that. I know that's probably not breaking news to anyone who listens to the show,

Starting point is 00:10:29 but it's rang true this year. They've won games against Washington, for example. They got great goaltending, and they had a couple power play goals against the athlete. We had great goaltending, and they had great penalty killing. You've got to win those battles if you want to win most games in NHL this year, and they lost both them against Ottawa. Those are the main reasons I think why they lost this game. And these problems need to be fixed.

Starting point is 00:10:52 And we can talk about the power play in the next segment a little bit more in depth. But the problems to me, again, are a lot different than coaching and system. I think it's a lot more personnel oriented as of late than it is coaching. And I know that's kind of a 180 for me from last week because you watch the way they played against Colorado compared to the way they played against Ottawa. And I don't know on, like I said, I don't know if. Saturday they were going to run a similar system against Ottawa than they were that they did against Colorado because they never had the chance to do it. They were behind for 55 of the 60 minutes of the game.

Starting point is 00:11:32 And whether people want to admit this or not, you are going to play differently when you're playing from behind than when you have a lead or when it's tied. And that's not an indictment. That's not an insult. That is just a fact of life. And I didn't see going off that. I didn't see that same commitment to defense that I saw in that game against Colorado. We saw the blueprint for success with the penguins against a high-flying team like the avalanche.

Starting point is 00:12:00 And yes, the centers may not be as good as them, but they still have a lot of high-flying talent. We saw that in this game. I don't know why they kind of went away from that blueprint there, especially after those first five minutes. But I also do think that was a key contributor in this loss. But I think that I'll wrap up this first step. But coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to dive into the power play. And also why we're really not seeing too many changes, especially to the fourth line heading into Monday nights game against the Ducks, a game that I am planning to attend

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Starting point is 00:13:20 All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hodes. joined by my co's Patrick Damp. Again, thank you all so much for making this your first list of watch of the day. So let's dive into the power play a bit more. When I was doing my rewatch of this game, dropped down some notes for today's show.

Starting point is 00:13:36 I really noticed a lot of overpassing. And again, we've discussed this a lot on the show. I don't want to be one of those shoot-it people in PVG paints arena. I'm sure I'm going to hear quite a few tonight when the Penguins inevitably get a power play against the ducks. But in that game, especially on that first power play they got when the senators went up 1-0, thanks to the power play goal, I did find myself, shake in my head. All right, someone's got to fire a shot to the net here on that first unit.

Starting point is 00:14:02 And you didn't see it. They're trying to, I guess, Harlem Globetrotter the puck into the back of the net. And sometimes less is more. The power play just, it feels broken right now. And that's not good eight games in the season. Yes, they are getting some chances. This is courtesy of 404 response code on Penguins Twitter. They rank second and expected goals for per 60 minutes

Starting point is 00:14:24 and first in scoring chances for 60 minutes on the power play. They just can't finish. And that's basically what it comes down to. They're getting a lot of bad luck. But I didn't really see a lot of bad luck in the game against Ottawa. I've seen bad luck in other games. Again, shout out to 404 response code for getting those stats from natural stat trick.

Starting point is 00:14:39 I wanted to include them in the show. But what I saw is a lot of overpassing, not really committing to firing the puck to the net. and the senators, whenever they got the puck, we're just easy pickings. They're just clearing it down to ice. The zone entries were not good. A lot of this just seems like a broken unit,

Starting point is 00:14:55 especially in this game. I've got two things. One will soothe the minds of the, they got to get a different coach for this. So it's a little red meat for you guys. And the other thing is a personnel issue. I'll start with the personnel issue. I'm going to make you wait for your dessert here,

Starting point is 00:15:13 people who want coaches fired. Personnel problem is something I've been saying all season long. Nobody's taking charge on the first unit because if you watch it was either the first or second power play opportunity the team got against Ottawa. When the second unit came out, they got, they may not have gotten through, but they got two or three looks at the net. And they were very definitive in their movement. They knew where the puck was supposed to go. They knew who was supposed to move it. They knew who was supposed to shoot it. And if a much less talented second unit understands how to do that, there's no excuse for the first unit to not understand

Starting point is 00:15:47 how to do it. The second unit looked better in that game compared to the first unit. And it wasn't even close. So that to me is an indictment on the players because this is what I've been saying all season. Somebody on that power play, the top unit has to become the alpha, whether it's Crosby, whether it's Malkin, whether it's Carlson. One of those three has to just step in and go, either I'm the quarterback and I run this unit or I'm the trigger man. When the puck comes on my stick, it's going to the net. So everybody adjust according. And nobody is doing that.

Starting point is 00:16:20 Now, the other thing in these go hand in hand that I will say as an issue for coaching is I don't know if anybody except for Carlson has been designated in any kind of role. Obviously, the guy you put up top and the kind of power play that the penguins run in zone, guy up top's your quarterback by default because that's where the puck starts. That's where it gets distributed. And that's Eric Carlson. So he's the quarterback. I also don't think that Todd Reardon has named anybody any sort of role player. You have Crosby and Malkin on the half wall.

Starting point is 00:16:52 You've got two guys down low. And what's everybody's defined role? Is Malkin a trigger man or is he a pass guy? Is Sidney Crosby your down low grinder guy who's going to get the puck out of the corners, get it to the other guys? Or is he your trigger man on the half guy? wall. Is Jake Gensel digging it out low or is he standing in front of the net? Is that what Ricard Raquel is doing? Brian Rust, Riley Smith, whoever.

Starting point is 00:17:15 You eventually have to tell these guys, okay, Sid, when you get it on your stick on the half wall, shoot it. Malkin, when you have the puck on your stick on the half wall, shoot it. Everybody else gets to the front. Right. Eric, when you've got it up top, if you've got a lane, shoot it, everybody get to the net. And again, that's to what you said. Less is more. Just do what you have to do. So those are my two thoughts on the power play. And again, like you said, less is more. Keep it simple.

Starting point is 00:17:42 And they're also, I feel like not creating these shooting lanes that they should be. They're not really making the goaltender and work for I feel like a lot of these saves. And you're right about getting Malkin. He should be when the puck comes to his stick on the right half wall. He should be firing that to the net every time. We've seen that. Blast away. Just blast away.

Starting point is 00:17:58 Yes. The Gino bombs. How many times have I said that on this show? And I'm saying this before you even joined his co-host. that feed Gino for his Gino bombs. He has an amazing one-timer. Is it Alex Lovetschkin level on the other side? No, but it's still insanely good,

Starting point is 00:18:13 and it beats goalies more times than not. Have him be the trigger man from there. You want Cindy Crosby to be your download guy from behind the net, sending some stuff up? Yes, you can do that. You want Ricardo Rekyll to be another trigger man on the other side of it. I think I lost you there for a second there,

Starting point is 00:18:28 probably because I was rehashing some of the things that I'm, I feel like I'm going crazy because they're not doing these things. But again, for Ricard Raquel, if you want him to be a trigger man on the other side, you can have him be that guy too. Or if you want to make some changes, I know this struggle during the preseason.

Starting point is 00:18:45 You can also put Chris LaTang out there in the Raquel spot and see what he can do. Again, did it look bad during the preseasoning camp? Yes, but you know what? You don't just go away from that. You work to continue to make it better. And right now, this power play just, again, despite them being top two in scoring chances

Starting point is 00:19:02 and expected goals, it feels like, and I love using those stats, it feels like it varies almost from game to game. They've gotten quite a bit of those chances in select games, I feel like, and one of them was especially not a sender's game. It just feels like this power play in a time, it's just, it's moving in mud, and it's not doing enough. Like, sometimes you need games where your power play wins it for you. And outside of that game against Washington, has there really been a game this year where

Starting point is 00:19:32 the power play has won them the game? No. And that's one of the reasons I think why you're seeing this team struggle out of the gate because in years past, even in, I think, worst penguins teams than this, power play has come through a lot. And it's gave them more wins than maybe they deserve, but you're not seeing that here. And I do think the penguins, I'm not going to say they fully deserve it better than three and five and oh, but I do think this is a better team than their record indicates. Two quick things, lastly, before we move on, the power play. One, to what you're saying about it needing to be opportunistic and win games for you. Think of any of the three Stanley Cups here in the Crosby, Malk, and Latang era.

Starting point is 00:20:10 How many times did a power play goal come at the absolute best time? Oh, yeah. In almost each round of those Stanley Cup runs, they get an absolutely opportunistic power play goal. The other thing is, the Gino bomb, or even if it's not Gino, just somebody on that half wall, that's a great tactical weapon to have on the power play, because guess what it does? It pulls the penalty kill closer to that player because they don't want to give them that lane and it opens up other opportunities. Or it just is there as something is a safety valve. And if Gino fires one 50 feet above the net and it serves as a breakout, who gives a damn?

Starting point is 00:20:49 Because guess what? I taught kids this all the time when I coached. You can be the fastest skater on the ice. You can be the world record holder in speed skating. But guess what? nothing and nobody moves faster than the puck. So it's not like missing that and giving them a free clear is going to give them a breakaway.

Starting point is 00:21:07 So fire away. Right. And even if some of those pucks don't go in the net, say one of the goalies makes a pad save or something like that, you create rebound opportunities. And when you have Jake Gensel there, who I think is a pretty good net front player, he can clean up that garbage.

Starting point is 00:21:20 Yes, they don't have a Patrick Hornquist type player in front of the net, but Jake is still pretty competent at that spot. If he can come in there, clean up some garbage, you can have other players on that unit, come up and clean up some garbage, crash net, make the goal you uncomfortable when if any Malkin fires those pucks. And I think that could be another thing that really gets this unit going in the right direction. But I think that will do it for this second segment.

Starting point is 00:21:40 Coming up to end the show, Pat and I are going to preview Monday nights game against the Anaheim Ducks, a duck's team that, believe it or not, does have a better record than the Penguins so far this year. 4-4-0, they beat the Philadelphia Flyers in their last game. So we're going to dive into that coming up very shortly. But before we get to that, we got to discuss Fandall. score orally this NFL season with Fandul America's number one sportsbook. Right now, Kunu customers get $150 of bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150 if your team wins.

Starting point is 00:22:11 If you've been thinking about joining Fandual, there is no better time to get in on the action than right now. The app is so easy to use. There's a wide range of betting options, including spreads, player props, money lines, over unders, and so much more. So visit fandul.com slash lockdown and kick off the NFL season. that's Fandu, the official partner of the NFL and Lockdown. All right, we're back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hodes, joined, as always, by my co-host Patrick Damp. So another home game for the Penguins on Monday night.

Starting point is 00:22:42 As I said, I will be there with my friends. So I'm hoping I can get my record up to one-in-one after the awful opening. I lost about a couple weeks ago. And the Anaheim Ducks come to town, a team the Penguins beat both times last year. They blew them out in Anaheim and then had a really close game in Pittsburgh. I think you probably remember that game. They tied it with less than 30 seconds left. And then Trevor Zegris made that awful pass in overtime coming down.

Starting point is 00:23:04 It was a 2-1-200 or something like that. Penguins go back the other way. Crosby and Gensel do their magic. And the Penguins win that game. John Gibson was very good in that game. He was having a bad year. He brought it in that game. And how the Penguins lost that game?

Starting point is 00:23:17 You know, you might have seen the general manager fired after that one because it was a very weird game, to say the least. I thought they were out playing them, but Gibson was doing his thing. but still that's even though they may have been out playing them i feel like that was the type of loss that would have cost someone their job oh oh yeah i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure it was a two on oh that like he flubbed the pass right and they went the wrong they went the other way and scored like it was one of those because because i remember watching it and going damn that's game and then they flubbed it and i was like oh oh my god oh my god they're gonna win yeah he comes down it looks like he's going to pass it and then he screws it up and then the puck goes down the other way and I'm like

Starting point is 00:23:57 what were you doing on that play he just totally cost his team it was just the microcosm of anaheim's year last year everything bad that went wrong for anaheim last year got distilled into that one moment and then of course they missed out on connor bidarck well barely missing out on him but leo carlson I do think it's going to be really good for the anaheim ducks missing out on a first overall generation talent boy that's never happened to them. I'm breaking news. Sorry, Annie O.D. It's never happened at all.

Starting point is 00:24:25 We can just ignore what actually did happen, though. Sorry, Annie Odie. We love you. I know. Sorry. Sorry. But Ducks come into this game, 4-0. They beat the Philadelphia Flyers 7 to 4 in their last game. And the Ducks, they've had some good seasons so far from some of their players, none other than Pittsburgh Penguins killer, Frank Petrono.

Starting point is 00:24:45 If you're a betting person, we just discussed Fandul coming into here. you can bet on Frank Petrono as an anytime goal score heading into this game, considering how often he scores against the Penguins. He has eight goals in his first eight games this year. If I'm betting, man, I think he's probably going to go nine for nine tonight just because he always scores against Penguins. He has been awesome. Ryan Strom has also been great.

Starting point is 00:25:06 Leads the Ducks and points, 10 points in eight games. Mason McTavish has been very good, three goals in eight points in eight games. Troy Terry coming off a big extension. He's been really good. Adam Henrique has had a decent start to the season. Leo Carlson had two goals in his first four games. So this is a team that has a lot of serious young talent. I will say Trevor Zegras has had a bit of a slow start,

Starting point is 00:25:28 two points in his first eight games, but he can wake up at any time. Despite the Ducks, probably not going to be that good of a team this year. They're still rebuilding. This is a team in a little bit of a lesser extent, like Ottawa, a team that I think could be on the rise this year, not enough to a playoff spot,

Starting point is 00:25:44 but a team that could be on the rise and has some serious, and I mean some serious young talent, the Penguins will have to defend against. Low key thing for the Ducks so far this season is their goaltending is having a little bit of a resurgence. Now, I know the team is only all of a plus one in the standings, but their early schedule has not been easy. It's been teams like Vegas, Carolina, Dallas, Arizona, who could do some scoring, Boston

Starting point is 00:26:09 twice. They'll beat Boston in one of those games. Yeah. And both Lucas Dostle, and I think I got that wrong, but either way, Lucas Dostle, and John Gibson, Dostel has a 915. Gibson has a 905. And for a team that's on the rise and not expected to do much this year, that's not too bad for either of them, especially considering, like I said, the teams they've had to play.

Starting point is 00:26:33 The only team they've really played that's kind of on their level for being bad is Columbus and Philly. And Columbus took them to OT because I think that's a scrappy team that's going to do a little bit more or a little bit better than people think. and they blew the doors off of Philadelphia 7-4. But again, this is not the ducks of last season. This is not a team so far that's just completely woeful and everything's going wrong. I said it last year about the Anaheim ducks.

Starting point is 00:27:05 The best way to describe them last season was joyless. Watching them play was a chore. They looked like they were struggling just to even get on the ice. And all of a sudden this year, they're a little bit more rejuvenated. playing a little bit better. Yeah, it sucks. They missed out on Connor Bedard, but they got a pretty good player in Carlson. So, you know, I think this is a team that's going to be a little bit more of a threat than people think. And good bounce back opportunity for the Penguins site. Last year, Dallas Eakins was a terrible head coach. And, you know, obviously it cost him his job.

Starting point is 00:27:39 But I feel like they were just done with him with at that point. And you are seeing how a new coach can really affect things, at least early on this season. I do think this is a good about-back opportunity for the penguins. I really just, again, I want them to use that same game plan that they used against Colorado going forward. Use it tonight against the Ducks. Punch back when they come in and make some mistakes. Punch on all those things.

Starting point is 00:28:04 And I want to see the power play. Get back to basics. I want to see the bottom six. Hopefully the third line continue to be better. And with the Ducks, you looked up and down their lineup. I do think the penguins have at least a pretty good advantage bottom six-wise. I mean, sure, Adam Henrique hasn't been bad. Max Jones, Jack of Silverberg, but I do think the penguins, you know, they have players in their bottom six that have scored goals throughout their careers.

Starting point is 00:28:27 They just, yeah, they got to hopefully start doing that at some point or else serious changes could be made. But I do think in terms of forward debt, the penguins have the advantage here. I think they're going to match Cindy Crosby's line out against the Carlson's the U.S. territory line. And heck for Carlson, it's your first dose of Cindy Crosby. That's going to be a lot of fun to watch. I think the Maltun line's going to get the McTavish-Straun Vitrano line. Defensively, you have Cam Fowler, who I feel like has been there forever.

Starting point is 00:28:54 At this point, you have Radco Gudis who, heck, let's face it. He is a pain to go up against. And he can actually move the puck up to ice. This is no weird goon or anything like that. He can definitely move the puck up the ice, and he has a physical edge to him. And then, you know, you said it, John Gibson will likely get the same. start tonight, played really well on that game in Pittsburgh last year. He usually has struggled against the Penguins during his career.

Starting point is 00:29:18 Well, not in this one. And, you know, I'll be curious to see how he plays in front of his hometown yet again. But, you know, I want to see some more five-on-five scoring. I want to see the power play get better. I want to see the penalty kill get back to being a bit better after what we watched against Ottawa. And then, of course, the expect Trinjari to start this in this one need a big bounce back from him because they're not going to win with goal.

Starting point is 00:29:42 goaltending where you're giving up three goals on eight shots. Let's face it. Aside from all that, things are going great. Right. Doing great. I want to see them improve in every single aspect of the game. Other than that, things are going great. But also one last quick thing on the ducks, man. Poor Dallas Eakins, dude. Like, everywhere that guy's shown up in the head, but everywhere he's shown up in the NHL, it's been a team that's like, oh, well, it's time for us to bottom out and start the rebuild. And it's like, is this guy ever going to get a chance to coach? a good team?

Starting point is 00:30:14 No. I think he's just going to be succumbed to coaching bad teams for the rest of his career. Like, I genuinely feel bad because I listened to an interview with him on the athletic hockey show a while back. And I was like, man, this guy's really smart, really knows what he's doing. Sounds like he's a great coach. And then you go look at the teams in the NHL.

Starting point is 00:30:34 He's coach. It's always been bottom team, bottom team, bottom team. But, like, you would see that without knowing the context and think, oh man, this guy must suck as a coach. But you look at each franchise and everywhere he's gone, it's been the team that's about to kick off a rebuild and they needed a guy behind the bench. He might just not be cut out to be a head coach at the NHL level at this point.

Starting point is 00:30:56 I think he works better as an assistant. It might be a little column A, a little column B, but I do feel bad that it feels like everywhere he goes. It's a team that's just about to or in the first year of a rebuild. It's like, damn, man, what would you do with a full complement of players? We don't know. Right. No, I agree.

Starting point is 00:31:14 And for last thing, injuries tonight, Alex Coren's on IR, former Tam Bay Lightning player, and then, of course, Jamie Drysdale, who also signed a contract extension with the Ducks over the summer.

Starting point is 00:31:23 He is also on Inger Reserve their young defensemen, who I hope can say healthy because I do think there's a lot of talent there, and it's just unfortunate that he's been pretty banged up throughout his career.

Starting point is 00:31:32 So far, I think that would do it for this episode, the Locktime Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for listening to slash watching this one. Pat and I will be back on Tuesday

Starting point is 00:31:40 to recap this game against the ducks, and I think we'll go pretty early, right? We should be having out there before noon, I would say, on Tuesday, have this recap up and then get you all set for the rest of the week for this wonderful hockey team that really needs to start stringing some wins together if they want to be in the playoff race later this year. That'll do it. Thank you all so much for listening to us, watching this one.

Starting point is 00:32:02 We'll be back on Tuesday.

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins stumble again, can they find consistency starting on Monday night?

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