Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins trim the roster down ahead of back-to-back preseason games!

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins made another round of cuts on Thursday and while most aren't surprising, some young guys are hanging around! Hunter and Patrick discuss the cuts, who they're keeping their eyes on as training camp progresses, and what younger players still have a shot at making the team. After that, they look at how some more of the lines are continuing to take shape on the main roster. They discuss how there's a battle brewing between 3-4 forwards for 1-2 spots before ending the show with an update on Erik Karlsson. Are they concerned about his health just two weeks before the season opener? All that, plus much more is on this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNHL and get $50 instantly when you play $5. PrizePicks. Run Your Game. FanDuelPlace your first FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - guaranteed !Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. IndeedStill searching for a great candidate for your company? Don’t search, just match–with Indeed.Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed.com/LOCKEDON. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Penguins made another round of cuts on Thursday, and Pat and I are going to discuss that right after this. Your Locked-on Penguin, 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 am one of your host, Huntser Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host, Patrick Damp.

You can follow him on Twitter at Sinner-Fruet, and you can follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Game Time, down the Game Time app, create an account, and use code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase. So, Papa Penguins reduce their training camp roster down to 52 players on Thursday

by making a slew of cuts. Overall, a few of the cuts involved at Lee Calvert, Jack Beck, you also had Gabe Classen, you had Justin Lee, Matt Lindgren, all these players, including a few more, are going down to Wilkesbury Scranton for their training camp, which it looks like is probably going to start this weekend. They haven't announced a set date yet for the training camp, but it should be starting this weekend. If not this weekend, it'll be next week.

But all these players going down to Wilkesbury, and in this crop of cuts, Pat, there's really no surprises. There really isn't. I mean, the biggest surprise, and we're going to get into it here in a little bit, is more so who is still in Pittsburgh. But yeah, I mean, looking at this list overall, not a lot of surprises here. These were basically a bunch of names that played in some capacity in the American League or the ECHL over the last year or so, as well as a few guys who we pretty much had ticketed

to go down into the minors or in some cases, and that already happened this week. A couple of guys were sent back to their junior teams as expected. So not a lot of surprises in the cuts, but a lot of names that weren't put on the cut list that are still active this training camp. Right. There's still quite a few players who are still on the training camp roster right now, but we expect to probably go down to Wilkesbury at some point, probably after this weekend, because of course, the Penguins do have a couple of

preseason games. For example, you know, Boca Imam is still on the team. You got Mark Johnstone still there. Billy Covenin. You have Yonah Coppinon. You also have Tristan Bros. Just a few names I can put out there at least forwards-wise defensemen. You still have a few down there as well. We expect to be going down to Wilkesbury or just going back to their junior team. For example, Harrison Brunick has not been cut yet as well. Philip Kral is still on the team, though. He is a little bit banged up right now as well. But there's still quite a few players on the training camp roster right now that, again, we expect to either go down to Wheeling, Wilkesbury be sent back to their junior team.

And just so everyone knows, Tanner Howell, he was sent back to his junior team on Wednesday. No surprise there. We're still really excited about him over all of these next few years. But I do think this at least shows for right now that the Penguins are interested in seeing how some of these other younger pieces continue to develop, excuse me, at training camp. I expect some of them to be in the lineup for at least one of the preseason games this weekend probably against the Red Wings, if I had to guess. But they're not all just sending just all of them back to Wilkesper or their junior teams. They're at least giving some of these

guys a shot to show what they can do before, you know, they probably go down to where they're going to be for the rest of the season. Right. And I think after Saturday, we're going to see another round of cuts before they go up to Sudbury and play in the Hockeyville game against the senators on Sunday because Sullivan kind of hinted at this earlier this week where he basically said having a back to back this weekend kind of hamstrings us from making any sort of cuts because we're going to play two games in a matter of less than 24 hours. And you know that this isn't regular season. So you can still carry that expanded roster and still have all of these guys.

And we know that chances are on Saturday, we're going to. see a lot of younger guys, a lot of non-regulars in the lineup to get one more shot to make their mark. And then on Sunday, we're going to see probably as close to an NHL roster as we're going to see this year when they go up to Hockeyville. Because again, that's a marketing game. They're going to have to do fan service. You can't treat that game like a regular preseason training camp game. You have to play your big guns, get them out in front of all of the fans who are being treated to this special night. But then I look up and down this roster right now,

and you see names like Billy Coyvinen still here, Vasily Ponomerev is still here, Sam Poulan is still here on the defense. Like you said, Brunich is still here, Philip Crawl, Owen Pickering. And then the biggest surprise for me, and again, I know some of this is in service, the fact that they're going to have a back-to-back this weekend,

but pretty much all of the goalies are still here. We know Jari and Nadelcovic are going to be the one in two this year. That's pretty much set in stone. But Philip Larson, Sergey Mureshov, Joel Blumquist, all still on the roster going into this weekend. So very surprised to see that. But to your point, this shows that they aren't just giving us lip service about we want to get younger. We want to try to inject some youth into this lineup. up. Now, that could all change when we get to the regular season and the end of training camp and

preseason. And all of a sudden, it's the same cast of characters and everybody else is waiting for a spot. But you would figure when they make a big round of cuts right before the baby penguins open their training camp and they leave a lot of these guys on the main roster in training camp, they're giving them an extended look. See, no, I do hear you on that, though. This is kind of a tease for the second segment, which is coming in a few minutes. Some of the lines, at least for the NHL squad, are starting to take shape. There are some veterans in there, but there are at least a couple of young players, at least trying to make their mark in the son-up.

You know, Yassie Pooley-R-V, Cody Glass, etc. I'll discuss Al-Trey Pustin a little bit later. But you're at least seeing a couple of guys being given a shot. I do want to see, you know, maybe someone like, again, Pustin be given more of a shot on the NHL main squad considering what he did last year. That's still something for the second segment. But to your point, I still mostly agree with you. And also, I really wonder if we do get Sergei Murashov's preseason debut this weekend.

He really hasn't played in the first two preseason games. So will that change on Saturday? I kind of hope it does because I want to see what he can do against, you know, because I feel like the Red Wings will at least play some of their NHL regulars. And that game, it might not be all of them that. It might not be a dress rehearsal. but I assume they'll play some of the NHL regular. And that's why I want to see

Marisov playing that game to get his first taste of going up against again, full NHL talent. So do I. And we kind of saw it already with Joel Blumquist the past couple of games. He obviously started the first Sabres game,

got a look in the second one, in the second half of it. So I think they've gotten a good look at what they want to see from him. It wouldn't surprise me on Saturday if we either saw Sergey Murshov play the full 60 or if they split between him and Blumquist to see what they both can do. But I think we are on track to see Murshov on Saturday. And then probably on Sunday, it'll either be Jari splitting with Nadelcovic or Jari on his own.

Just because, again, that kind of game, you wanted to look like an NHL game more so than a preseason game where everybody's trying to make their mark. One of the biggest surprises to me, though, going back to this training camp roster so far, is that Avery Hayes is still on the roster. I thought he was solid in the second game. I wasn't overly impressed, but we saw how good he did in the Prospects challenge and to the point where he has gotten some praise from Mike Sullivan. The issue right now, though, is that he's on an HL deal.

and if they want to keep him on the team, they are eventually going to have to trade or not trade him, sign him to an entry level contract. And I believe they're at 48 right now. So if they sign him, that takes him to 49 and that could really handcuff them going into the regular season. So I'm very curious to see how he performs over the next few days because he is clearly making a mark on the coaching staff and management.

and if he can play himself to the point where he becomes sort of undeniable, they might just bite the bullet and give him an ELC and see if he can make the team. Right. And I mean, last season, you know, six goals, six goals, excuse me, nine points in 29 games. It's nothing to, you know, go crazy about. But I think it's still fine production for someone in only 29 games last year. And I expect that to go up this year, considering that he is going to be in Wilkesbury for the full season.

and maybe there's an outside, outside shot that he could be called up during the season. But I feel like, again, you know, you have to sign and do that entry-level deal. And B, I feel like there would have to be a massive swath of injuries for that to happen. So overall, I don't think he's going to be on the main squad at any point this season, unless there's just a bunch of injuries overall. But I do agree. I think he's going to have a shot at least to show more of what he can do potentially for that Saturday game. I do think for that Saturday game also, you're going to see a good mix.

You're going to see some AHL guys. You're going to see some NHL guys. And then for the Sunday game, like last year with that game up in Canada, that's going to be like the main dress rehearsal game for the Penguins heading in the next week as well. I think next week, I don't think there's, I don't know if there's going to be a full dress rehearsal game like you could see on Sunday, but it'll have more regulars per se. But I think Sunday is going to be the main one where you see at least Crosby, Malk and Latang, get their one preseason game in before potentially taking the rest of the preseason off because there's really,

I think at this point, no point to play. playing them in most of these games. Oh, I agree. I also think, though, we're at the point now where we're ramping up to get the regular season, where as the next couple weeks progress, we're going to start seeing more NHL regulars in the lineup because they are giving these early extended looks to some of the new guys, some of the younger guys, and the closer we get to opening night against the Rangers, they're going to want to get some of these regulars in the lineup, at the very least, for the bottom six to get them some game action. and chemistry in because like I said yesterday, you can look like a world beater in practices and

scrimmages, but it's your own teammates. Nothing simulates the speed of an actual game. So eventually some of those guys are going to have to figure it out as they will in regular play rather than in practice. So I think right now this is a good track for this team to be on right now where they're trying to figure out what they have in these newcomers and these younger guys and the closer we get to the regular season, they'll have a clearer picture of that and see who's worth keeping on and who's worth sending down the woke spare or back to juniors.

Right. And I think this Saturday game will be a big telling point, I think for some of that just because, as you alluded to, there's probably going to be a whole more swath of cuts after that game. And then after that one, we'll, I think, fully get to see, okay, who is really getting a longer look compared to some of these other players that will likely get cut after that game. But I'll do it for this first segment.

Coming up in the second segment, we're going to look at some more practice lines on Thursday and how some of these lines are continuing to take shape heading into the regular season in less than two weeks at this rate. But before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is GameTime. Game Time has a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier.

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and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200 and bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. That's fandul.com. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my host Patrick Dam. So, Pat, the Penguins have been kind of splitting training camp into two groups at this point. You have the main NHL squad, and then you have the other squad filled with players from junior, AHL, ECHL, and all that. So we're going to be focusing on the NHL group,

at least for this segment. So on the top line, you have Drew O'Connor, Cindy, Crosby, Brian Rust. No surprise there. Again, I think at this point, it's safe to say with, what, 13 days until the regular season, it's Drew O'Connor's job to lose at this point on the top line.

Michael Bunting of Gunny Malkin Ricard McHale. No surprise there. Then you have Cody Glass with Anthony Beauvilliers, Lars L.R. Yes, E. Poole, Blake LaZotte, Kevin Hayes, and Noel Achari. It's looking at least right now, with less than two weeks to go, that this is going to resemble the lineup that we will see on opening night against New York Rangers, assuming there's no other trade that happens or anything like that.

Then you have Matt Grizzly, Chris LaTang, you got Marcus Peders and Jack St. Ivony, Ryan Graves with Ryan Shea. You got John Love, Big, and Sebastian Aho. So Grizzlic Letang, that's going to be the top pairing, Pedersen with St. Ivany. St. Ivany is just a play. holder for Carlson and then you got Graves and Shea. Shea is kind of a placeholder for St. Iveny, I think, at this point. Eric Carlson did not skate today. We'll get into that to end the show. And if we're really concerned about the situation where it's going. But I think at this point, overall, at least right now, we can kind of see where this is going with the lineup. I was seeing some complaints on social media. Oh, my God. Why are all these vets in like Kevin Hayes and Laura Zeller and Nootari? And it's like, okay. I very much understand, and I'm a little bit in this camp as well, that they should be giving more opportunities to younger players.

I totally understand your thinking on this. I get it. But they didn't acquire Kevin Hayes to sit in the press box every night eating nachos, people. That was never going to happen. He's going to play on an every night basis. I've had a couple conversations with a couple buddies about Anthony Bavilli. They're like, oh, well, he's going to be a 13-4 every night. Is he?

Is he? I don't think he signed a one-year deal with the penguins to be sitting up there eating nachos either. Same with Blake Lazzot. They are at least giving an opportunity to Yassie Poyarvey. They're giving one to Cody Glass because I think they've been really good this preseason. Now, granted, I feel like they should also have Dalteri Prustinen in that main NHL group as well because I think he showed quite a bit of promise last season in the games that he played. I think putting in with the HL group, at least in my opinion, is just foolish considering what he did. I felt like he was one of their better options. In the bottom six last year, I felt like he was also,

at least decent at times up with Evgeny Malkin on the second line. I think you're kind of doing him a little bit of a disservice overall. But overall, I just feel like some of the complaints that I'm seeing, I don't know. They just really don't mesh up well with me as if people are like being like, oh, Sully being Sully, I don't really think so at all because like the players that I just named, you know, Eller Hayes, Baviliate, they're not coming out of the lineup. If you want to discuss something about Nolichari, I'll at least listen to you. but I see the vision that the coaching staff has with him because he's one of their best penalty killers.

Yeah, I know he didn't drive a lot of offense last year. That very much has to be improved. But I feel like some people are overreacting at least a little bit right now with this. So I just wanted to, I wouldn't call it a rant, but I just wanted to discuss that a little bit here as well. Don't get me wrong people. I want more younger players to get shots. They're getting at least some decent ones with glass, pull your RV. I want to see more with Pustinan.

Gordy, I feel like I do want to see in the NHL group as well because I know, again, I continue to be super high on the trade. I want to see maybe what he can do in a game up with Malkin or Crosby. But I'm also not going to sit here and think it's the end of the world either. So just wanted to, yeah, spew my thoughts on that. Responding to that, though, I'll say this. I think the people talking about that aren't incorrect. I think they're just coming at it from an.

incorrect position. Because, like you said, guys like Bavillier, guys like Hayes, guys like Lazzat, were not acquired to sit in the press box. And you can love that, hate that. Either way, you got to live with it. But the race isn't between them. They are not people who are in competition for a spot. Bavillier has a long track record of being an effective NHL bottom six forward.

same thing with Kevin Hayes. I know that he had a rough year last year, but he was on a team that was probably in about the same boat as the Pittsburgh Penguins, if not a little worse. Blake Lazotte is going to be a revelation at Fourth Line Center. I have been saying that all summer long. The race is between these three people, Valteri Pustin, Yassi, Yassie Pooley-Yarvey, and Cody Glass.

You're not, and at this point, I would say, Poliarvi has the pole position because he played so well down the stretch last year. He has been very good in training camp. And Cody Glass has a lot more to prove. He was not very good last year. He's a young guy with potential and potential only takes you so far. And you can say the same thing about Valteri Pustinen. I'm high on him just like you are.

But let's keep this in mind. Kevin Hayes had very similar production to Valteri Pustin in last year. Pustin had five goals, 15 assists for 20 points. Kevin Hayes had 13 goals, 16 assists for 29 points. Now, Kevin Hayes played more games, and he's older and has had a better track record, but you can probably say that Kevin Hayes is the more sure thing. So I'm fine with keeping him in the lineup, and I think he'll do well at Wing. So I look at it as Pustinan, Glass, and Poolyarvi, and they haven't given Pustinan enough of a shot yet,

which I agree, they need to get him more of a look. Maybe this might be them saying, we know what we have in him, so we're not too worried. So we're not going to force him into positions to prove himself this camp. But at the same time, Poo-Yarvi and Glass have to prove themselves. And so far, I like Poo-Yarvey's game. I liked Cody Glass's game, but it's been one game. And it's a preseason game against essentially an HL team.

So I get what people are saying and I understand the frustration, but at this point, you have to understand who the competition is between. And yeah, Hayes and Bavillier and Lazot may annoy you, but those guys were required to be NHL players. The other three have to earn a spot at this point. And then one last thought. I do think McGority is in that conversation as well, just for a spot on the team.

again, at this point, doesn't look like it's going to be next to Crosby. But I do think he is in that conversation to at least to make the team. He's been good in the couple of preseason games. Hasn't had that wow moment. I expect he'll be in at least one of the games this upcoming weekend. But we do have to say that he is in that conversation along with, you know, Pau-Y R.V. Glass and Pustin, even though still at this point, he could start the season and Wilkes there.

Yeah, we talked about that yesterday. And I think that's also a separate conversation. Whereas guys like Glass, Pull Jarvie, and Pustinen have NHL experience, and they're fighting to continue to be NHLers. Rucker McGority is an unfinished project. He still has to develop. He still has to become a consistent NHLer. And that may require, like I talked about yesterday,

him spending some time in the American Hockey League because his development is better served to play top line minutes rather than to be buried on a fourth line or be a healthy scratch on certain nights. Whereas with Puyarvi, Glass, and Pustanin, we kind of know what they are. And they don't need to be playing top line minutes to become better. We have a pretty solid idea of what their games are. And then the other one last thought I want to have on the lineups is I know that I have kind of said, like, oh, I don't know about Drew O'Connor on the first line.

I was coming from that, from this angle. I think it's his spot to lose because he earned it at the end of last year. He performed very well in that role and it was his job to lose. I wanted to see more guys get an opportunity. And while some of those guys haven't really gotten a great opportunity, nobody's wowed enough to say, okay, we can knock Drew O'Connor down to the third or fourth line. There just hasn't been that standout.

So right now, he's in, pole position to take that job as well he should be. Right. No one has made him lose the pole position. He came in. It felt like still as the quote unquote favorite, even though again, I kept saying on the show, I didn't specifically say that McGordy was 100% going to beat him out, but I did say he's going to have a shot because of how high the team was on him, how it looked like he was going to be, you know, crossies winger for the future and all that stuff. All I said was that he was have a shot. And he very well could become that winger.

At some point, yeah. You have to develop him into that. You can't just throw him on the wing because he's the shiny new toy and has all this potential because if it doesn't work out, for a team that still has designs on getting back to the Stanley Cup playoffs, you can't take that risk. You have to go with the sure thing. Now, if McGrady pops off over the next week and suddenly looks like the guy we want him to be, by all means, throw him on that line and let him figure it out. But he just hasn't

had that consistent pop yet. And it might come. But right now it hasn't. And when it comes to his development, you want him to play top line minutes. You don't want him to rot away in the press box. Right. And I think I at least want to maybe see what he can do in a top six, or at least during a preseason game just to, I guess, get a little bit of a preview potentially for the regular season at some point down the line. But to your overall point, I agree. No one has really, like, wowed enough to the point where Sullivan's like, okay, you're going to play over to O'Connor. O'Connor has the role right now because, you know, A, he's earned it to this point. And B, no one else below him has just had a good enough camp to kind of overtake him in that spot overall.

So I think that will do it for the second segment. I will say they did have Ellerin Hayes at third and fourth line center today compared to Hayes playing a little bit of wing during the lines on Wednesday. they're kind of rotating the center as little bit. You know, you've seen Lazot at wing, you've seen him at center, you've seen Hayes at wing, hey's at center, you've seen Ellor at wing and at center as well. So they're kind of rotating these three players at wing and center trying to find, I think, the right combinations as well overall. But I think that will do it for the second segment.

Coming up to end the show, we're going to give an update on Eric Carlson's health. And if we're any at all concerned about his availability for the first game of the regular season, but before we get to that, we have to tell you all about our last sponsor. concert and that is Indeed. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate is not a search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire, you need Indeed.

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Just go to Indeed.com slash locked on right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indie.com slash locked on terms and conditions apply. If you need to hire, you need indeed. All right, we're back here on this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Dam. So we did get a little bit of an update regarding Eric Carlson on Thursday. So he was not skating yet again. Today was also not a practice, of course.

And Mike Sullivan, he was a bit vague about it, kind of saying like, yeah, I'm trusting my medical staff that you know we're going to get this right we assume he's going to be ready for opening night against the rangers he actually even said that they're confident they'll have carlson ready to go by the october ninth season opener against the rangers they're working with the strength staff to make sure he quote unquote hits the ground running on the ice granted people i have no idea what this ailment is i have not heard what it is we all know how mike sullivan is very what's the word i'm looking for here i think when it comes to injuries he's like very reserved. He doesn't really say much about them. So again, I have no idea what's going on. If I ever

hear what the injury is, I'll let you all know saying with Pat, but I have no idea what he's doing with overall. But were you concerned about this answer? Because, I mean, it is a little bit weird to this point that he hasn't practiced yet. I don't know what this. Again, I probably said that for the five million time in the last five seconds. I don't know what this injury is. But I don't think I'm concerned just yet. I think if we get to less than a week before the season, and he's still not skating, then I'll start to get a little bit concerned. But right now, I'm really not. Honestly, like the sicko part of me, like a small, I guess conspiracy theory is that he's

going like, you know, full Brandon Ayyuk for the 49ers, except he's not trying to get a contract, right? He's just kind of missing camp in the preseason because, you know, he's a old man, that kind of stuff. But that's just my sicko tinfoil hat theory that I have going on. But are you concerned at all? Slightly. I understand where Sullivan's coming from.

It's training camp. You want Eric Carlson healthy in January, February, March, April. Then you want him to participate in practice and scrimmages and preseason games. But my level of concern went up a little bit today because it was kind of an unexpected absence. They weren't expecting him to practice yet. It doesn't sound like they weren't expecting him to be. part of the big group, but the fact that they had to address it today is a tad concerning, just because the way they had spoken about it in a lead up to today was kind of like, yeah,

yeah, it's a nagging day-to-day thing, and they're taking care of it. We want to make sure he's ready to go, and we want to make sure that he's fully healthy. We don't want to rush him along because we're more concerned about the long-term health of the season. But then that this happens today, and you're like, this might be. a little bit worse than they're letting on. But again, end of the day, I'm not freaking out yet just because I would rather him be 100% in mid-October, early November, then then rush him along, have him re-aggravate

whatever is ailing him, and then he's out for an extended stretch because we know that there isn't a lot of depth on this blue line. There's a lot of options, but there aren't a lot. there isn't a lot of depth. So I would rather patch it up for the first couple weeks of the season, make sure he's ready to go full bore, then rush him along and worry about winning a couple games in the first week, rather than having him not healthy for the stretch run.

Right. I agree with you because they're going to need him if they do want to get back to the dance, considering the level that he was at to end last season and how I expect him to continue to play at that level heading into this season. they need him at 100% health if they're going to do this and they need him at the top of this game. So yeah, if it does get to the point where he has to miss a couple of games, yeah, it'll be annoying. Yeah, it's going to be unfortunate. But I would rather have him at 100% rather than, you know, 75, 80%. I again, I don't know when he got banged up. He seemed like he was fully healthy during the

offseason. Maybe that this was something that happened right before camp. I have no idea. I just hope that he's able to fully recover to 100% whether it's, you know, before the regular season open, which, again, Sullivan and the staff seem confident that that's going to be the case, or whether it's, you know, mid to late October, something like that. But I was going to say, you kind of hinted at this. If we get closer to the regular season, he still hasn't skated, I'll start getting more concerned just because we know there's a new power play coach, a new assistant coach, and we know he's going to be a key part of it.

And I would like him to get, at the very least, some practice reps in on what's a new system. But then I also remember, hey, this is Eric Carlson. He's one of the best defensemen of this era. He knows what he's doing. It's just I want to see him get a couple of reps in before we really start playing actual hockey. Right. And it's also likely, you know, he's involved in those film sessions. And he knows the type of power play that David Quinn wants to run.

Because, of course, you know, he was his coach for a little bit in San Jose. So I'm not as concerned with that, but I still at least agree to an extent a little bit that it would be nice to get him a little bit of reps, at least in practice, maybe a pre-season game before the regular season starts. So we can see just how the new unit looks with him quarterbacking it overall. But I think that will do it for today's episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Friday to help preview the preseason

game on Saturday against the Red Wings and on Sunday against the Ottawa Senators. And we'll go over more training camp notes as well. But again, for Patrick Camp, I am Huntser Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. And we'll be back on Friday.