Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins TOP 25 of the 2000s: The Stanley Cup guys!

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Since the year 2000, the Pittsburgh Penguins have won three Stanley Cup championships, and we're naming some players who helped them win those titles! Patrick and Hunter continue the Locked On Penguins Top 25 of the 2000s on today's episode, and this edition features six players who helped the Penguins win three Stanley Cups in 2009, 2016, and 2017. They remember the veteran leadership provided by Billy Guerin and Sergei Gonchar in 2009, Max Talbot's heroics in game seven in 2009, Matt Murray's generational run in 2016 and 2017, Jake Guentzel's introduction to the hockey world, and of course, the K in the HBK Line, Phil Kessel! Finally, it's a Thursday edition of Fan Take Friday, where they get your thoughts on prospects, the rebuilding process, and more! Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.IndeedNow, 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.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.

You may have heard since the year 2000, the Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup three times. And with that in mind, we're going to continue our Locked-on Penguins top 25 of the 2000s going through our favorite guys of those Stanley Cup win. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, 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. And you can find us on Instagram at Locked-on underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you. making us part of your daily routine. Don't forget that we're free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And if you follow us on YouTube, be sure to hit the notification button. That way you can be among the first to know when we drop our newest episodes.

Before we get into it, today's episode is brought to you by FanDul. Football season, it's coming up quicker than you can imagine. So visit the FanDul app today and start planning your future bets now. Hunter set it in the open. You may have heard since the year 2000, the Penguins have three Stanley Cup championships, and that means we're going to continue our top 25 of the 2000s. If you're new, if you're just joining us for this,

here's what we've been doing. We've put our own little spin on the top 25 of the 2000s. Instead of just ranking players, one to 25, we've grouped them in groups of five. We have done the top five moments guys, the top five guys we just like. Top five, oh, yeah, that guy played here. Honorable mentions. And today, in honor of the three Stanley Cup championships that were won in 2009,

2016 and 2017, we're going to go through a few guys who were instrumental and brought us some great moments in those Stanley Cup runs. and let's get right into it. And yes, I know we've been doing this on Friday, but Mr. Hodes there is going to become one with nature this weekend. So we're knocking this episode out on a Thursday. So without further ado, these are two players we're going to start with who were instrumental veterans

in the run to the 2009 Stanley Cup championship. And that is defenseman Sergey Gonchar and forward. Billy Garon. These two guys, a bit of a different role for each. Sergei Ganchar, for all intents and purposes in 2009, was your number one defenseman. He ran the power play. He took a lot of big minutes, scored a ton of goals. When I was coaching, I would tell defensemen, go find all the tape you can on Sergey Gonschar.

Great skater. Head was never down, ever. even when he was shooting the puck. Head was always up. As for Billy Garen, kind of coming to the end of his career in 2009. He's a trade deadline acquisition. He was that veteran presence

that a young penguins team really needed up front. He was both the team dad and the comic relief in the locker room, which was great. He always has the story that so many players retell on one of his first days as a penguin comes in early. He's cooking breakfast at the practice facility.

And what's he wearing? Nothing but a jock. So he was a huge part of that cup run. He was great with Sidney Crosby and was just a big time calming presence for a young team that was looking to get over the hump. Right. He was kind of like the early version of the 2016 team dad pat. When it comes to Matt Colin, everyone called his.

team dad and he was always a ton of fun to watch in a bottom six role but billy garren man one of the more underrated goals that i felt like he scored during the 2009 run of the stanley cup actually came and came two against the Philadelphia flyers he scored the game winner on that five on three really nice shot pass from sergey gonchar and garin just basically is at the side of the net cuts to the front and just jams at home penguins take a two nothing series lead on that five on three in overtime from Garen. And Garen was I felt like one of the Penguins' best players in that game. You look at the stats from that run.

Billy Garon was third on that team in points. Everyone knows the top two in terms of points. Evgeny Malkin, who of course won the Kahn Smythe, and Cindy Crosby, who was number two. But Billy Garen was number three with 15 points, seven goals, 15 points in 24 games. Whenever there was a big moment during those playoffs, Billy Garum was very likely a part of it. Obviously, Crosby and Malkin, they were part of almost every goal it felt like during the Staling Cup playoffs that year.

But during a lot of the goals as well, don't discount how good Billy Garant was in 2009. And as for Sergey Garnshaw, who we also have here, one of my favorite goals from that run as well, came in the clinching game against the Flyers in the first round. Penguins are down 3-0. Looks like it's going to go back to Pittsburgh for a seventh game. game and penguins obviously stormback, they tie it, and then Gonsharr gets the game-winning goal

in the third period before the penguins are able to ice it a little bit later in that period. And by the way, he uncorked that slapper, my friend, just an absolute vintage Sergei Gonshire slap shot goal. He was so good at running the power play. And it kind of felt like at least at times Chris Lattang was getting ready to take over. being the number one defenseman in future seasons. Like he was still getting a good amount of minutes during those playoffs. But Gonshire was still the guy at that time.

But again, it was obvious that Latang was getting kind of low-key taught the role while Gonschar was finishing up his career with the Penguins. But they don't win the Stanley Cup without those two dudes doing what they were doing at five on five and especially on the power play. Power play in 2009 was an act. absolute unit in Gonchar was a huge, huge part of that. And speaking of not winning the Stanley Cup in 2009 without a certain player, we got to mention this guy too. Coming up next on our list is the hero, Mr. Game 7 himself, Max Talbot, scores two goals in game seven at Joe Lewis Arena to win the Penguins

the 2009 Stanley Cup, his first goal, nothing but hard work from him and Hvgeny Malkin, retrieving a puck on the forecheck. Puck goes to Talbot, he cuts in front, gets Osgood to open up the five holes, slips at home to give the penguins a one-nothing lead. And then later in the game, coming down the wing, he notices Osgood is off his angle, shoots the puck from the top of The circle goes top shelf to give the penguins a two nothing lead that would eventually get cut in half. But that would be the final score of Game 7's 2009 Stanley Cup final capturing the Penguins first Stanley Cup since 1992. And along with scoring the two goals in game seven, Talbot was a guy in 2009 who he didn't produce a ton. in the playoffs.

But when he scored a goal, it was a big goal. And when the games got bigger in 2009, especially in the playoffs, Max Talbot stepped up his game. Him on that Gino line, man. Like, it's so funny, Gino was that good with kind of the second fiddle of wingers, you know,

him, Ruslan Fedatanko. And they were still fairly effective during that playoff run. You know, Max Talbot ends that. playoff run with eight goals, 13 points in 24 games. Fetitanko himself. He was at seven goals, 14 points in those 24 games.

And with Talbot, you're right, man. Whenever also, as I mentioned for Billy Guerin, whenever there was a big moment, especially the biggest one, Max Talbot was there to really do something crucial for the Penguins. It's so funny. I look at both those goals that he scored in Game 7. I don't know what Chris Osgood was doing. Thank you very much.

but Max Talbot absolutely sniped both of those past him, just had the game of his life, if I'm being completely honest. And as far as I'm concerned, you know, he's always Penguin Royalty. I know he played for other teams throughout his career. He obviously had that stint pat with the Flyers, which is a little bit annoying. I know Teenage Hunter was very annoyed about that. But he was awesome during especially that Stanley Cup final series against Red Wings

because those were the only goals that he scored in that series. He had a goal in game three against them, which was obviously also huge. And again, he was fantastic. We have to have him on here. You absolutely do. And the last piece of lore for Game 7 Max Talbot was it flies under the radar. And I went back and looked it up earlier today. I should have bookmarked it, but I didn't.

I think it might have been it was either the trib, or the Post Gazette. But before the game, after morning skate, when all the reporters are talking to players before the game, a couple guys were talking to Max Talbot. And as every reporter is apt to do before a game seven, they're going to ask every player, who do you think's going to be the hero tonight?

Talbot, bold as ever, says, I like to think it's going to be me. I like to think I'm going to be the guy. And he backs those words up, scores two goals, and the penguins are celebrating all night. in Joe Lewis Arena with the Stanley Cup. So those are just in game three. He opened that scoring in that.

And that was a game that the Penguins desperately needed, my friend, because their struggles at Joe Lewis Arena were very well documented going up. Game three, that was a must win if you wanted to win the Stanley Cup. He gets the scoring started in game three. The Penguins are able to win that game four, too. Then they obviously win game four by the same score. But he was so clutch during that whole series. He really was.

So those are three of our six that we're going to go through today for the best Stanley Cup guys. So stick with us. We've got a couple more to go through to relive the glory days of the Stanley Cup championships in these last 25 years. We'll do that when we get back right after this. But first we got to tell you about today's first sponsor. And that is Fandul. August 26th is officially Fan Duel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches.

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AFC North, that is your day to make your futures bet. So visit the Fandul app today and start planning your future bets now because futures day is one day and one day only. Fandle play your game. We're back here on the Thursday slash Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm Patrick Damp right alongside Hunter Hodes, and let's keep our top 25 of the 2000s going here. We're doing our best guys from the Stanley Cup runs.

And if there is one man for both 2016 and 2017, who you have to talk about winning those Stanley Cups, it would have been really difficult without them. And a lot of you were probably thinking, Sidney Crosby, Genie Malkin, Phil Kessel, we're talking about the man in the net, Matt Murray. And I know he is nowhere near where he used to be. The end of his time with the Penguins was pretty unceremonious. But during those two Stanley Cup runs, I'm just going to give you two numbers.

for 2016, 923. For 2017, 937. When the Penguins won the Stanley Cup back to back, you can have all your Flurry Murray debates that you want. But Matt Murray was a machine in those two runs. 100%. And we're not going to sit here doing that age old debate of, oh, they should have kept Fleury over Murray.

We're not here for that. So if you're looking for that, you can go find that on some other show or find it on social media somewhere. Matt Murray, I'll say this first. Jeff Zackoff was Mr. Game 1 in 2016. That was such a great story. But everyone knows he was not going to

backstop the Penguins to a Stanley Cup that year. With all due respect to him, did his part. We saw that quite a few years later with Mr. Spicy Pork and Broccoli, Louis de Ming. He was a fun story, but he was not a starting goalie. 100%. But again, he did his job. Matt Murray was able to come back. He dominates the Rangers, plays very well against the caps. He does come out of the lineup for one game. I do think Mike Sullivan, Galaxy brained it in game five in 2016. Let's be real here, Pat. He got nervous.

He kind of played to the fans. I know a lot of fans were excited to see Flurry, but once the Penguins lost that game. Mike Sullivan made a bold move to go right back to Murray, Sam like, hey guys, this is my guy. We tried Flurry once, but we're going right back to Murray. And it was the best call. Lock things down in game six against Tampa, absolutely locked things down in game seven, and then was an absolute machine against San Jose Sharks in the San Laker Final. 2017, Mark Andre Fleury, he starts it off. He's red hot, plays his ass off against the blue jackets, plays his ass off against the capitals. the Penguins do not win that series without the elite goaltending from Mark Andre Fleury.

But then once you saw Florey start to struggle a little bit, Solvlin was like, hey, flower, you've gotten us to this point. I'm going to make a change, and I'm going to go back to Matt Murray, who helped us win the cup in 2016. And I'll always say it, Florey started that run, but Murray finished it. You've got to have competent goaltending even outside of your starter, and the Penguins more than had that in 2017. his efforts in game five in game six against Nashville, the way that he was able to get back to back shutouts against them, he was an absolute brick wall,

timely save after timely save, just awesome. And real quick, again, we're not going to dive into the Murray Flurry stuff, but who wouldn't go with Matt Murray at that point, with the level that he was on? That's all I'm going to say about it.

Oh, and here's the thing I'll add to that, Hunter is that the 2017 Stanley Cup against the Predators, let's be completely honest here. That Penguins team was gassed by the end of that final. They did not have a whole lot left in the tank. And without Matt Murray, they probably don't win that Stanley Cup because Nashville. You look at the underlying numbers, they were not in the Penguins favor. They were getting the saves, especially for both goalies.

they were finishing their chances. That's why they won the Stanley Cup that year. The way that they were able to win it with a makeshift defense without Chris Latang is still to this day extraordinary, my friend. It was an unbelievable effort from that team and especially from Matt Murray. But speaking of 2017, let's keep it going with another guy who, what a start to his career. And we miss them.

We wish circumstances were different. We wish he was still wearing a penguin sweater because I have long said, if he would have been a long-term penguin, the sea would have probably been on his sweater after Sidney Crosby hangs him up. And that is Jake Gensel. His first taste of Stanley Cup playoff action comes in the 2017 playoffs. 13 goals, 8 assists, 21 points in 25 games. And here's the thing.

21 points in that playoff run, three of them were on the power play. So at 5 on 5, Jake Gensel, eight teams alive. Unbelievable performances from him in that playoff. And just it was when the myth and the legend of Jake Gensel was born. One of my favorite, someone made a meme about this when the Penguins took a 3-0. thing stranglehold on the blue jackets. And there was a meme of all people photoshopped into crying Jordans after he got the goal in overtime in Columbus.

All the blue jackets fans are stunned and someone just put a bunch of crying Jordan faces on these people. That game still lives rent-free in my head the way that he was kind of just taunting Blue Jackets fans despite being a rookie, that entire game in the first round. He and Sid together were absolutely unbelievable. He was also great against Wynchats. Washington in the second round. And another goal that will also always live Renfrey in my head.

Game one, Nashville, Pat. Penguins go over half the game without a shot. First one, right in the back of the net in the third period. The Penguins are being brutally outplayed by the Predators for most of that game. The shots are not even close to the Penguins favor. The underlyings were not very good. But when the Penguins needed him most, Jake Gensel, was right there.

He was also great in game too, by the way. Got another couple goals in that game as well. Just an absolutely fantastic game from him. And then, heck, even in game three, when the Penguins were up to nothing, I know they lost that game, he opens the scoring and that one too. Every single round, he was incredible.

That was, I think, for a lot of people nationally, the big coming out party for Jake Gensel. People were realizing, okay, this is a bona fide player. And also, I know they didn't win the cup, 2018 him and sid were potentially on another level now you're the way that they were just dicing both the flyers and the caps up i know the penguins lost that series in 2018 the way that those two were dicing those teams up though together was disgusting it carried right over from 2017 i just

prime stint and j together it was so much on man it was unfair it was completely and totally unfair how well they mesh together in the chemistry they had in the way they were able to produce. But we got to talk about one more guy. And I know everybody was hoping we would. And of course we are. It's the man, the legend, the myth, everybody's favorite penguin. Number 81, Bill Kessel. The 2015, or the 2016, excuse me, playoffs.

10 goals, 12 assists, 22 points in 24 games, 16, 17, 8 goals, 15 assists, 23 points in 25 games. And I'm going to start here, because I know that we always have this debate about the 2016 Stanley Cup victory. Oh, Phil Kessel was robbed to the Kahn Smythe, the writer, the Canadian writers didn't like them and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing. First two rounds, it's Phil Kessel's Kahn Smyth. The last two rounds, Crosby stole it from them because Crosby absolutely elevated in the final two rounds. Not that Phil didn't continue to perform, but Cid just went to a whole other level, not to denigrate anything Phil did because the HBK line, especially powered by Phil Kessel's goal scoring and his underrated playmaking made the penguins in that run, especially in 16, a matchup nightmare. That I agree with. The fact that they could put him on their third line and he would just eat those minutes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it was something that literally no team could stop.

The Haglm-Binnino-Keso line was the perfect mesh of speed, skill, and tenacity. There you go. Like, it was just a blast. And I disagree with you on part of that Kahn-Smites thing. If anyone was robbed, it was Chris Latang. I think he deserved the con smith over Phil Kessel, and you can make an argument that he deserved the Kahn Smyth over Cindy Crosby as well. I think for all four of those rounds,

he was one of, if not arguably the Penguins' best player. That was one of the best, that is some of the best hockey I've ever seen Trisletang play. That also tells you how obscenely deep that Penguins team was that we can sit here and go, I mean, Matt Murray could have won it. Yeah, Crystal Tang could want it. Phil Kessel could want it. Well, Sid did win it.

So that's four players right there that you go. They all had legitimate cases to be con smite winners. 100%. And there's so many memories that stand out to me from Phil Kessel. You know, the goal where that he's diving, if he's almost swimming on the ice and he gets up celebrating. The goal to open game six was obviously also great. He was awesome against Tampa Bay in the conference final.

And it didn't matter. if they put him on that third line or if they put him with you know that they they would put him with malkin at times especially in 2017 and you know another memory that lives renfrey in my head is you know obviously him game two against ottawa where he's huffing and puffing and going right back to the bench saying like nothing's working you have to move the puck and then he points his middle finger at someone down the bench by accident i don't think it was on purpose and then you see chris kunitz out there just drinking his gatorade or whatever it was in there just laughing about it like such great vibes both on and off the ice it was the perfect acquisition at the perfect time they

needed another bona fide dude to make this team deeper it was a massive deal but i don't think the penguins gave up a massive bit of value i mean the fact that they got two banners that's what makes the deal a success but even before that pat the deal was a win on paper before they even won those Stanley cups when you look at the players that the penguins sent out to go and get Phil kessel And then Stanley Cups, that's just the cherry on top for me. So the vibes, man, off the charts. What a dude. I think he's playing poker now all the time.

So I hope he's having a ton of fun. So this was fun to do the top five Stanley Cup guys. I, of course, just because my memory appears to be fading, when we were talking about Sergey Gonshire, how could we forget about him scoring the game winner in game three of the 2009 Stanley Cup final? against the Red Wings absolutely uncorking that. And also, who had the MD winner, Max Talbot.

So two guys on our list that we talked about some very good memories, but we have to add those as well. But again, Phil Kesselman, the man, the man, the myth, the legend. And you brought up in 2017, the game two goal against Ottawa. I was at that game. Mm-hmm. And I don't know if PPG paints arena has ever been louder. I pretty sure my ears were ringing for a day straight after that.

It got so loud when Phil scored. So you're right. The perfect acquisition at the perfect time. And that HBK line will live on forever in the minds of Penguins fans. But that'll do it for this part of the Penguins top 25 of the 2000s. We've got one more to go. And we will do that next week. in this one, it is going to be a little bit more traditional.

It is going to be our top five of the last 25 years. I bet you can guess who they are, but we'll tell you our rankings next week. And then you can argue with us about that ranking. That'll do it for this segment. When we come back, it is the Thursday slash Friday episode. So we will bring back Fan Take Friday and answer some of your questions, as well as react to some of your takes. So hang with us.

We're going to do that when we get back right after this. Before we do that, though, we've got to tell you about today's final sponsor, and that is Game Time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a ballgame with your friends or family? Maybe it's game day. You suddenly realize you want to be in the stands,

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and we're going to close out this show with you the fans it's fan take friday once again we've got a couple good ones here that we want to dive into so hunter let's give the people what they came for and let's start with before i read their question i got to read their name because i know that you want to say something about this. So this comes from Blues Nation CFC. Take it away, Hunter. Sally, this guy's a Chelsea fan. Unfortunate for you. Go Arsenal always. So Pat, you probably don't know much about that. Chelsea is a very big rival of Arsenal. It's a lot of the London teams. Tottenham is also a pretty big rival. And, you know, my Wednesday was a great day just because Arsenal kind of hijacked a signing from their biggest rival and he was about to go there. And

the player was like, actually, no, I want to go play for the team I grew up rooting for. And so they did that. So really good day for me with soccer. I was probably blowing up everyone's Twitter about that. But hey, thank you for the question. I don't like Chelsea, but we're still going to answer your question anyway. And this is a really good question slash comment. He says, the problem with the penguins and Steelers is one and the same,

holding on to the idea, excuse me, of being competitive when you should have retool slash we build years ago in order to give Sid and Gino another shot. But for that first part, I don't really think they are giving Sin Gino one more shot right now. They have been committed to rebuilding since they traded Jake Gensel at the 2024 trade deadline. I think if you maybe want to argue that they should have started rebuilding in 2023, I will give you that. But I think before then they had a very competitive team that could have potentially gone further than the playoffs. If A, they got better coaching and B, they got better goaltending. I firmly believe that.

Like you look at some of those teams, especially the 2021 team, I felt like was very strong. 2022 team. I also felt like was very good. I think they should have gotten past the Rangers that season. They outplay them in the playoffs. Even that series four against the Islanders, I thought they all play the Islanders. But some not so good coaching decisions and some bad goaltending really cost them. So I think the only. Not to interrupt you, but I always come back to that about the 21 and 22 teams. You can rearrange all the deck chairs on the Titanic if you want. The problem was goaltending. Jari completely melted down in 21, 22. Fun story about Louis DeMing. The memes were great, but he was not a starting goaltender. And you can quibble with any other decision, but when you can't

get a save, it's extremely difficult to win. Here's the thing I will say. I'll try to keep this brief, because we don't want to step on Chris Carter's toes and turn this into Locked-on Steelers, but you should listen to Chris Carter on Locked on Steelers. It does a hell of a job with that show. But it's correct to an extent in my estimation. When you look at the Steelers, they held on to Rathusberger for maybe two years too long, and they probably should have either had a backup plan in place,

whether it's drafting, say, Jalen Hertz, who was absolutely convinced he was going to go to the Steelers, but then fell to the Eagles. And a lot of that was the Steelers were kind of afraid of what Ben's reaction would be to getting his successor. And the Steelers should have said, buddy, you're not invincible. In fact, you don't got that much time left. And that would have helped the Steelers along. But when you compare it to the Penguins, Sid is still one of the best players in the game.

Gino still has gas left in the tank. We'll see about the Tang. There's still a nucleus of players here. where if Dubus continues to play his cards right and move enough things around, you can hopefully find some talent to not only give these guys maybe one more run, but you'll set yourself up for the future in a better way than just pushing it down the road like they had been for so long. So I look at it as I'm in your camp.

they probably should have started this process a year prior to when they did. But all the way up through 2022, they were still very much in the mix. So I think we can leave that one there because we're running a little bit heavy here. I want to make sure we get to everything. Let's go to our pal Maddie NCS on YouTube. He says, I think it's all or nothing with Malkin's final season. I'm predicting either an incredible final season or an invisible final season with him.

I'm halfway there. I don't think that he is going to be awful. I think that would be a genuine surprise. But I can see, as we've said on the show, find them some better, more consistent wingers, and you're going to get a good season out of of Guanyi Malkin. I think it's highly unlikely that he completely falls off a cliff. Yeah, I agree with you.

I don't think he is going to be. invisible this year. It would take a lot for that to happen, I think. And as of right now, he still is going to have very good linemates, even if one of those players gets moved. I think he's still going to have very good line mates. I know that was kind of the second half of our good Chelsea fans comment.

He's talking about, you know, I'm not going to give up. I'm not going, he goes, I'm worried we're not going to free up enough space for some young guys. You're going to be stuck in mediocre limbo by keeping the likes of Carlson, Raquel and Russ. I mean, right now, there's still just, going to be patient, wait for the right offer. I will be stunned if all those guys are with the team past the trade deadline. I think at least one of them is going to get moved by that point.

So one of them might get moved by next week, considering that, you know, we're starting to see the European media tour with the NHL going on and all that good stuff. But as for Gino, I think he's going to have, you know, 55, 60 point season this year. I think you're going to get some good value out of him. TBD on this is his final year, though. A couple more of those. to get to this comes from Ryan Evans for the prospect challenge who are you excited to see and who do you think will make a good impact obviously I'm excited to see

Harrison Brunick just to see what he does before training camp I'm excited to see Tristan Rose if he decides to go there Sergey Murasov if he decides to go Bill Zonan and if he is there really excited to see how he does against some of the top prospects Ben Kendall these are some of the more obvious

ones but if someone also like a you know Charlie Trethewe goes Quinn Boushane if McHale Ilyan goes. If he's on the roster, we still have to see TBD on that. Those are some of the players that I would be excited to see if all of them are on the Prospects Challenge roster,

and that should be getting announced any day now. Right. And one for me that I want to see if he goes, which I imagine he will is Horkoff. Yeah. I've enjoyed watching tape on him, and I think that there is a pretty solid future NHLer in him, should his development go correctly.

And I want to see him make a really good first impression at a prospect tournament. Granted, I highly doubt it will show up on the score sheet. I want to see his game with and away from the puck and not more with not really anything to do with production. I want to see how he fits in on that roster. So that is a guy that I'm really curious to see how he does in the prospects challenge. but we're not going to be able to get to everybody's questions and takes today because we're running real heavy. We had a lot of fun going down memory lane.

That's not going to get to the last question that we have about the defensive logjam when it comes to Eric Carlson. You know, Pat, let's just take 30 seconds for this one. I'm going to make the executive call. Okay, make the decision. This comes from Sean Buckley. How do you think the log jam at defense will play out? Now that's more likely Carlson will be here for the start of the season. What if Brunick impresses so much at training camp that he leaves no choice for the staff to keep him,

what happens on that side. Yeah, as of right now, I am under the impression that, you know, Carlson is going to be on the team to start the year unless a trade happens. I know I've been saying that of the three he's most likely to go. I still will say that if there's a trade being made. I still think he's the most likely, but hasn't been traded yet. So right now, I am operating under the assumption that he is going to be there barring a move. So if he's there, he takes the top pairing minutes. Chris Leng, I think, should take the second pairing minutes. And then you have a battle for the third-to-payer spot. Matt Dumbah, Connor, Clifton, Harrison, Brunick.

If Brunick outperforms both those guys, give him a nine-game trial and see if you can move one of Dumba or Clifton. You took on assets, you got extra assets, excuse me, to get those players. It can be like an old Eric Rousin-Brandson-John-Marino situation when Marino kind of came out of nowhere to make the team. And to start the season, Rutherford moved Eric Ransom, just because A, the cap, but B, Marino did so well to start the year and during camp that he left Rutherford for no choice but to put him on the roster. So that's what I have to happen for me.

A man of the people that Hunter Hodes, he makes sure everybody gets it done. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, there's a lot of teams with cap space. Teams are always willing to take on defense. And it'll be a good problem to have, especially if someone like Brunick shows up and. impresses. You want those guys to develop. You want them to take steps forward. And if Brunick is still on that path, it's a good problem to have. And we know that the penguins for the next year or two are playing with house money. If some of these guys are ahead of schedule, fantastic. It shows that you're on the right path. So we'll see what happens with Carlson. We'll see what happens with a lot

of these guys. But the roster we see right now is not the roster we are going to see when we see Mike Sullivan and the Rangers at MSG to open the season. But now that is going to do it for the Thursday slash Friday edition of Lockedon Penguins. We will be back next week, assuming any news does not break over the weekend. If it does, we'll find a way to get to you. We'll find a way to drop an episode. Maybe I can find Hunter in the woods. We'll see how it goes.

But that's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Penguins. For Hunter, Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Have a great weekend. and we will talk to you on Monday.