Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins win the battle of the birds! Are they getting things back on track?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Pittsburgh Penguins played a textbook defensive game against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night, and I'm going to talk about that with a special guest for today's episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. You're Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes.

Starting point is 00:00:39 you can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Normally this is the part where I say I'm joined by my co-Cat. Patrick Damp, you can follow him on Twitter. But Pat is not available for the Wednesday edition. He had a couple things come up for work, which is why I brought on Nick Berlanski of the tip of the iceberg podcast to help me out today. Of course, thank you all so much for making this

Starting point is 00:00:56 your first listen slash watch of the day. And today's episode is brought to you by Sleeper. Download the Sleeper app and use promo code locked on NHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit terms and conditions apply. see sleepers, terms of use for details. So, Nick, Penguins 2, Ducks, a nice goose egg as the Penguins played, one of their better games of the year on Tuesday night to get to five and six overall.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Before we get to the defensive effort that we both saw from the Penguins, the big story from this game, the play of Tristan Jari and Magnus Helberg. Jari was electric in this game against the Ducks. Both Pat and I really challenged him to perform well in this game, considering how he played against the Ducks last week, where, I mean, with our opinions, he was, I think, directly responsible for that loss against the ducks. But for those entire first two periods, he was very strong. Even though he didn't see a lot of high danger chances, he made some really good sales,

Starting point is 00:01:52 especially at the end when Adam Henrique bumped into his head. Hopefully he's not concussed and hopefully everything is okay with him because he had to come out of the game. Look like he was bleeding at the top of his forehead per Taylor Haas. He had to have stitches after the game. But again, hopefully everything was okay with him. Don't even know how he made that save, by the way. way at the end with about a minute and a half left in the second period. But he was great.

Starting point is 00:02:12 In that game, it looked like he was going to get another shutout on this season. But overall, the play from the Penguins goaltenders is the big story in this one, because Helberg came in the third period and really locked things down, especially in those final eight to ten minutes when the ducks were swarming the penguins in their own zone. Yeah, I don't know if it's because he's so just massive in the net, but it's just a calming presence to see the fact that he really doesn't have to move all that much. much to make the save. He just kind of has to be there and be large. And that's a nice, you know, a nice departure from what we saw with Louis de Ming or whoever's been the third

Starting point is 00:02:49 go tender for the Pittsburgh Penguins, where you've seen them go in and it's a little bit of chaos. It's a little bit of out of position and you're trying to make sure that they're in the right place. But Magnus Helberg, his positioning was on point, you know, from the second he got into the game, he wasn't really tested much at the end of the second period, which was nice, a good job by the Penguins defense, which I'm sure we'll get into. But the third period, I thought his positioning was good. And he made the difficult saves look easy. And that's all you can ask of a goaltender, especially coming in relief and coming in cold

Starting point is 00:03:16 like that. He looks every much like a six foot six goal in. I mean, heck, I'm six months. So I feel like I'm pretty tall. But when I see a human like that, I'm like, okay, I got nothing on someone like that. He is just a massive human. The save, especially on Leo Carlson, late in the third period, off that really nice pass by, I believe it was Troy Terry.

Starting point is 00:03:36 Carlson was coming down the left side of the offensive zone. That I think was the save of the game from Helberg to really keep the penguins to preserve their lead before Sidney Crosby got the empty netter. It's just, it's nice sometimes, man, when, hey, your goalies can make saves to preserve leads. And you saw that both from Jari and Helberg in this one. It hasn't been the case all off the season from Jari. Adolkevich, when he's played, I know he's hurt right now. He's been fine, but in terms of Tristan Jari's case, You haven't really seen him, most of the time, I should say, make the saves that you want to see from your number one goal.

Starting point is 00:04:12 He was making over $5 million per season. He was doing just that in the first two periods. I thought his positioning was really sound. I thought he was aggressive, and I'll keep saying this on the show. When he is playing aggressive, he's coming out of his net a little bit. He is at the top of his game, and you saw that in this one. Again, I can't believe he made that save after what happened with Adam Henrique. But overall, I thought he played a very stout game, and then Helberg was able to come in and finish the job.

Starting point is 00:04:36 even though the penguins were a bit reeling in those final eight, 10 minutes, it's just nice when your goalies are like, okay, we'll do the job here. You guys, you know, dump the puck to the red line and out. That's what you saw those final eight, ten minutes. Yeah. And the goalies were able to do the job. And that's, I think, one of my biggest takeaways from this game.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Yeah, the goalies allowed the Pittsburgh Penguins to just play road hockey. Yeah. Dump it deep, make this other team come out and play 200 feet and just try to drain the energy from the crowd. It's exactly what they did. And the thing is, too, the timely save, it's not just, in the third period when you have that opportunity for Leo Carlson, Tristan Jari in the first period made a really big save. I think it,

Starting point is 00:05:12 I want to say it was against Mason McTavish, but it was a one to nothing game at that point. McTavish gets an open shot and we saw what happened last Monday. He beat him twice last Monday. So for Jari to come out on top of that one, it's a timely save. It doesn't have to be that big one in the third period, but that keeps it at one to nothing and allows the penguins to get back on the right foot

Starting point is 00:05:31 after they had slowed down a little bit after that Zahorna goal in the first. Right. And honestly, I didn't really think the Penguins played that good of the first period. I thought they really turned it on in the second period. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But they got the timely saves that they needed to throughout this game, which is something that I don't think we really have said much this season. Outside of that, though, before we head to break, the legend of redeems the horn and Nick continues to grow.

Starting point is 00:05:54 It is crazy that this guy was left off the opening night roster after what we both saw in training camp in the preseason, got his third goal of the season on Tuesday night. It was a little bit of a lucky balance, yes. but I'm not going to apologize about that because the penguins have been the victims of some pretty unlucky balances in the back of their net this season, and they haven't really got some of their puck luck of their own so far. But So Horna, right place, right time, going to the net. He has been the spark of the third line really needed when he was called up. I understand giving Jansen Harkins a shot, but redeems Zohorna at this point is a better hockey player than him. And he's really helped elevate the games of Lars Eller and Andrew O'Connor as well. Speaking of them, I thought Eller and O'Connor were really. solid in that game. I thought Elro was getting a couple good quality chances. I thought O'Connor was getting some more chances. I think the puck is going to find the back of the net for him

Starting point is 00:06:41 sooner rather than later. But Zohorna, man, he was his average game score last night, I believe was top five on the Penguins. Yet again, he continues to be an absolute force out there for the third line. Yeah, and it's not just Zahorna. It's Eller and O'Connor and where they're scoring their goals. I know O'Connor has been held off the score sheet so far this season, but you look at where he's getting all his opportunities. It's right in front of the net. That's where Zohorna scored again last night. So where Zahorna has scored all three of his goals. These guys, not to say that they don't have talent,

Starting point is 00:07:09 not to say that they can't score off the rush, but they're going to get their bread and butter in the front of the net, in the crease, and they're pretty much the only line on the Penguins that has been doing that all season long, and it's starting to pay dividends. I mean, Zohorna, I think the big thing that I've noticed since he came up, you knew he had the long reach. He's actually utilizing it more on the forecheck this year than I've seen him in seasons past.

Starting point is 00:07:30 He's getting into an area where he just, comes in on you on the offensive zone. And when you're trying to get out of your defensive zone, what are you going to do with the puck? Because you can try to dance around him. And even if you dance around him, he turns around with that long reach. And it takes up your entire body once again.

Starting point is 00:07:47 He's actually utilizing that long reach a lot more this season. And it's helping on the forecheck. It's helping on the back check as well when he's coming back into the play. And I think it's really, you know, helping with the fact that like O'Connor is the speed and shifty type of guy that's going to come in and force you to make the, the drastic play. So Horn is a guy that's going to come in and he's just going to take up all the space and suffocate you in the offensive zone. And I think it's a really good combination for the

Starting point is 00:08:11 penguins right now. And we saw signs of that coming out. I feel like in the preseason, it was the game against the Red Wings in Detroit. And he was just hounding the Red Wings in their own zone with that long reach, set up one of the goals in that preseason game. And he's continued to do that since he was called up to the big club after he was sent down to Wilkesbury. And it's really nice to see. I would love to see him more on the penalty kill as well with that long reach because I think he can break up a lot more plays on the PK with that reach. Overall, though, it's been really nice seeing him have this success because I feel like the talent has always been there with him.

Starting point is 00:08:45 It's just about him getting an opportunity. And overall, I wasn't, I guess, a massive redeemed Zohorna truther early on, but I can definitely say I am now with the way he has played so far this season. But that would do it for this first time. And coming up in the second segment, Nick and I are going to get into how. how good of a defensive performance that was for the Penguins, and if this maybe needs to be the blueprint for some of their wins going forward. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about eBay Motors, passion, drive, and patience.

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Starting point is 00:11:15 I'm Hunter Hodes, joined by my special guest, Nick Berlansky, of one of the hosts of the tip of the iceberg podcast, another must listen for Penguins fans out there. But let's get into the defensive work from the Penguins in this game, Nick. one of their best performances I thought of the season. I touched on this when I was watching the game in the second period. They only limited the ducks to one high danger chance in that period, two scoring chances against at five on five. At the end of the game,

Starting point is 00:11:42 I believe the number of natural statics not up right now, but I believe when I looked last night, it was only around five or six high danger chances at five on five. And that goes to show how committed the penguins were to defending in their own zone. I thought the penguins did a great job, limiting the ducks to the outside, not giving up those prime scoring areas, and making the job easier on both Tristan Jari and Magnus Helberg. Now, is it a little bit boring?

Starting point is 00:12:08 Sure, but it got the job down. I'm not saying that the Penguins need to play like the Barry Trots, New York Islanders, or the Devils of the years past, but this type of hockey, you've seen it work even before this game. I thought it worked against Colorado when they shut them out for nothing in Pittsburgh. It worked again here. I kind of want to see this trend continually. a little bit to see if they can tax some wins together because again, no, they're not trapping,

Starting point is 00:12:32 but they're still doing the work defensively that you want to see. And they're not giving up all these ottoman rushes. This is part of the blueprint that I want to see from the penguins going forward with also maybe a little more finishing in the other net. Yeah, and it's all about positioning. And the other word that Mike Sullivan loves to use is responsibility. They played responsible hockey last night against the Anaheim Ducks. And they showed up. I mean, that Ducks team has been killing everybody this season. They've been playing and beating really good teams and how do you slow down a team, especially of some young players.

Starting point is 00:13:02 You play that responsible hockey, you frustrate them. And that way that when they do get their chances, they're already frustrated. They feel like that's their only chance they're going to have. They might grip the stick a little bit too tight. And they might miss the net. You saw that a couple times last night. The Penguins were doing a really good job of taking away passing lanes, making sure that

Starting point is 00:13:18 the shot is funneled directly in towards the goaltender, and there was no rebound opportunities. And that's on the goaltender that did a good job of sucking up those rebound opportunities, whether that was Helberg or Jari, and also the defense and making sure that they could see the puck and they can grab the puck and they can close things down the second that that puck gets to them. So I thought they did a really good job last night defensively. And I think that that is, like you mentioned, that's the key of success. We talked all off season long on your show, on our show, on every show about, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:45 Kyle Dubas going out when he reinvented the bottom six. He didn't add a bunch of scoring. What did he do? He tried to get a little bit better defense. He got a lot of options for that third pairing. Why? Because he wants better defense from that. He went out and he got Ryan Graves because he needed a better defense than he got from Brian Dumont last season from the Penguins. They wanted to get more defense. They did get some offense when bringing in a guy like Riley Smith. But even that, he's a guy that plays the penalty kill. He's a guy that is responsible in his own zone. He's a guy that Mike Sullivan likes to play and likes to have on his roster. They played a really good game. They played a full

Starting point is 00:14:17 60 minutes for one of the first times that we've seen over the past two seasons, not just this season. So I thought it was a really good game. And as Mike Sullivan is probably blushing right now in SoCal, it was a responsible game, which, you know, he's going to love watching that tape back. I agree. And it was just the classic low event game, I feel like. Again, you're not trapping, but you're playing a style where it's not, oh, end to end, there's an offensive chance every single shift. The Penguins were not playing like that against the ducks. And I think they learned their lesson with how they played against the ducks in that previous matchup. And, Funny enough, I think the Penguins played well enough to win that game,

Starting point is 00:14:54 but they fine-tuned some things for this one and limited the ducks offensively. I thought every defenseman on this team last night, except for maybe Chabaradal had a really good game. Chris Lattang, I mean, he wasn't even on the ice for, what, Nick, not even a single high-danger chance in this game, which is no crazy. Him with Ryan Graves last night, really strong game for the top pairing. I've been a little more critical of Graves a bit as of late. I don't think he's playing up to the contract that he signed during the offseason,

Starting point is 00:15:20 but I thought overall his defensive work in this game was really solid. He was getting his stick in shooting lanes, getting the puck from any Ducks player that came into the zone. Lettang was doing the same thing. I thought the Carlson pairing with Pedersen was very good. Ryan Shea is slowly developing into a steady bottom pairing defenseman. He had a bit of a rough debut a couple weeks ago, Nick, but I think since then he's definitely gotten a bit better.

Starting point is 00:15:42 The weak leak, I think, on the defense right now with Shabar-Reedle. I understand to a degree why P.O. Joseph came out of the lineup after maybe struggling a little bit in that last game against Sharks. I mean, I test wise, I thought he was fine. But I think the bottom pairing, that's what should be right now is P.O. Joseph and Ryan Shay. That's just my opinion, though. But overall, I really liked the play from the defenseman last night. And, you know, it's always fun when you're seeing Eric Carlson out there on a six on five. Normally you wouldn't see that, but they're trusting him enough in those situations to get the job done. And he did just that.

Starting point is 00:16:12 But overall, just a really strong night from the defenseman as a whole. Yeah, I haven't watched a lot of Carlson over the past couple of seasons. Obviously watched him a lot in Ottawa because he was on the East Coast. But something I've noticed is they're really trusting him with his closing speed because he is one of the fastest and one of the shittiest skaters that there is on the blue line and across the entire NHL. So what they're telling him to do is the second that player crosses the blue line, just attack him. Attack him. Take away the space. Suffocate him like I said about Redeems the Horn and in the forechecking zone.

Starting point is 00:16:44 But just attack him and make sure that he knows that, hey, you're going to be on him in, seconds, he needs to make a decision. And more often than not, especially against a young team like the Ducks, they make the wrong decision or they make a decision that doesn't go quite according to plan and you get them off schedule in the offensive zone. And then there's a guy like Ryan Graves that, you know, you've been critical of him, which is fair. I think that he was not at a level that we expected him to be at when he came into

Starting point is 00:17:07 the season. I think he's slowly started to raise the level of his play as long as he's been getting more chemistry with Chris Littang. But even offensively, he had at one point, I don't know what he finished with, but at one point he had five shots on goal last night for the Pittsburgh Penguins. It's not like the Penguins had 50 shots. They've done that a couple, or not 50, but they've done a couple 40 shot games this season.

Starting point is 00:17:27 It's not like they were doing that again last night. But he had five shots on goal. The only problem is every time he gets a shot on goal, when it's not blocked by the shin pads of the person right in front of them, every time he gets a shot on goal, there's nobody in front of the net. If you had any traffic in front of the net, Ryan Graves might have a goal or two this season.

Starting point is 00:17:43 So it's a game in Graves that has been progressing. over the first 10 games, and it's getting to a point where you know the ceiling is so much higher, but you still see games like last night where Graves was great and Latang was great. And like you mentioned, that pairing didn't give up at least Chris Latang in 22 and a half minutes, which was by far the game high at five on five alone, didn't give up a single high danger chance. And then Latang went out and, you know, led all penguin skaters with two and a half minutes of the penalty kill time, which is ridiculous as well. But, I mean, just a solid performance all around.

Starting point is 00:18:16 and like you mentioned with Rue Weedle, it's interesting because I think Rue Weedle gets a lot of flack unnecessarily because a lot of the plays he makes, nobody's going to notice. Like I have a hard time noticing a lot of the good plays he makes because it's so subtle and it's such small things that just continue to get the pace of play going.

Starting point is 00:18:34 But I think that it's going to be interesting once Ludwig comes back, what that share looks like. Because I do think the Penguins had a real reason to have John Ludwig in there in the game that he played. And I want to see more of that. And then there's also Mark Pesick, who's in the minors right now. He signed a minor league deal with the World's Squint and Penguins.

Starting point is 00:18:51 What does he look like once he comes back from injury and do the penguins try to go back to that well? Because they were high on them at the start of training camp. I think there's options. So if Ruehiel continues to struggle, the good thing is they actually have somewhere to go this year, whereas in seasons past, the answer was, well, you have maybe Mark Friedman. And that's a similar level to Chad Ruehiel at that point. Right. I think my biggest question for the bottom pairing is what does this mean?

Starting point is 00:19:16 for Pio Joseph because he's not really beating out some of these players on a nightly basis. Ryan Shea, who before this season, they're never playing in the NHL, Chad Rweedle. I just don't know what the future is. I mean, we saw Mike Sullivan really talk him up during training camp in the preseason saying, like, oh, this year he's leaps and bounds from where he was last year, but then he's struggling to stay in the lineup right now. And I understand maybe he hasn't been as good as me or other people had hoped, but you figure that he would be one of the better options compared to some of these other guys.

Starting point is 00:19:45 So that's going to be something to monitor. In terms of your point on Graves, it's funny. When I dove into his film over the summer, I saw a defenseman who was shot happy. But over the first few games before these last couple, I didn't really see it that much. But now he started to really fire the puck a lot more to the net. When his shots aren't blocked, which I feel like a lot of them have been this season, he does have a good ability to get them to the net. But as you said, there's got to be people there crashing the net so that maybe Graves can get

Starting point is 00:20:15 a nice lucky bounce because he hasn't scored yet this season. But overall, I agree with you on that. But I think that will do it for this second segment coming up to end the show. Was this the get-back game for the Penguins or is that going to be on Thursday night against a really good Los Angeles Kings team? Nick and I are going to get into that. But before we touch on that, we'll got to tell you all about Fandle. Score early this NFL season with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 and bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150. bucks if your team wins.

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Starting point is 00:21:10 But overall, you can visit fandle.com slash locked on and kicked off the NFL season. handle the official betting partner of the NFL and locked on. All right. We're back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm Hunter Hoddes, joined by special guests, Nick Berlenski, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first host and slash watch of the day. So, Nick, going into this game, Pat and I kind of had this discussion where this should be the one that the penguins really show up for, considering how the ducks walk into

Starting point is 00:21:42 Peechee Paints Arena last week and kind of embarrass them, especially late in the third period. well, I thought in a way this kind of was the get-back game for the Penguins. They took this game super seriously. They played really well, especially defensively. They were able to get a bottom six goal. Sidney Crosoves, they able to ice it. They got strong goaltending, special teams for the most part, really good. It was an all-around strong 60 minutes from the Penguins.

Starting point is 00:22:05 And overall, this is now a successful road trip, no matter what happens in Los Angeles. I know the Penguins obviously want to sweep this road trip to get back to 500, but I do think, in a sense, that this was a get-back game because you played a team that had won six in a row. They just beat the Vegas Golden Knights the other night, one of the best teams in the league, if not the best team in the league. They beat in the Boston Bruins earlier this season. Of course, they just beat the Penguins. This is a Ducks team that has surprised some people, myself included, and the Penguins went

Starting point is 00:22:33 into their building and really shut them down. So I do think in a sense that this was the get-back game, but I still want to see them build off this heading into Thursday night's game against the Kings because they're still behind the eight ball. They're last in the metropolitan division right now. You got to keep digging your way out of this, but I really liked overall what I saw in this game. Yeah, you saw them on Saturday get their equivalent to a week one game in college football, right? You're playing Appalachian State or somebody like that. You just beat the crap out of them. You're like, all right, the vibes are good. The vibes are here. I think this is similar, again, to make it a parallel to

Starting point is 00:23:07 college football. This is similar to that next week. Like, oh, you're playing a D1 school this time. They're a little bit better and they are pretty good and they'll have a good season. But that's really the litmus test. The litmus test is coming up on Thursday. And that's going to be the L.A. Kings because, yes, the Anaheim Ducks have been really good this season. They're outperforming all of our expectations. And if you said that they were going to be this good, you're either a blatant Homer or you got extremely lucky. But the Kings are a team that from the outset, we've known, was going to be a very good team this season. And they have gone on to prove it at the start of the year. They're stacked from top to bottom. Not to mention, that's a house of horrors a little bit for

Starting point is 00:23:41 the Pittsburgh Penguins. They haven't won there since 2018. So to go out. out there to get that three-game win-streek, which they have not gotten this season. They've been cut off at two. I think that only happened once. So they've been cut off at two once, and they got to get win-streaks together because especially when you start, what, four and six or whatever they were, three and six at one point, you need to start building win-streaks and you need to have perfect road trips, not just for your team because you come back to Pittsburgh, but because you need to get it in the standings.

Starting point is 00:24:10 They won last night. They're still in the basement of the Metropolitan Division. You put yourself in a hole, you need to keep going. And Thursday is going to be a litmus test. You can't just, as we saw against Colorado, you can't just play great against a good team one time and then fade away the next couple of games. You need to stack good games against good teams. And this is an opportunity to do so on Thursday night. I don't drink coffee, but I'll have, I guess, a glass of water ready to try to wake up and stay up for the Midnight House Club.

Starting point is 00:24:36 Class of water. I can't drink coffee. I've never drank coffee. I try everything I can. And I told Horwatt yesterday on the show, during intermissions, I stand next to where I'm usually sitting for the game. I just stand and watch it. I don't mind that.

Starting point is 00:24:51 Hey, I was just going to say I might have a corona or something like that. Of course, you know, if you're listening to this show and you're underage, don't underage drink. But I'll probably have a corona just to, you know, I work a little early on Friday, but I'll still have a beer for that game. But I agree with you overall. The Kings, very good to start the year, 7, 2 and 2. And if my memory serves me correct, Nick,

Starting point is 00:25:10 they've gotten blown out in L.A. the last two years that they played there. If I believe that's right. So you're right. It is a little bit of a mini house of horrors for the Penguins where they haven't played that well in L.A. It's funny. They usually play the Kings pretty well in Pittsburgh.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Oh, yeah. It's just not the same out in L.A. And of course, that King's team is very good. Pat and I are going to preview that game for the Thursday edition of the show. But also that game is super important because if you can win that game, it may set them out for more success this month, considering how tough the schedule gets. You have Buffalo coming to town this weekend. They're starting to turn things.

Starting point is 00:25:41 around. You have the devils next week on the 16th. They've been really hot to start the year. Carolina right after. You have Vegas on the 19th. The Rangers right before Thanksgiving. You have the sabers and the Maple Leafs on a back-to-back, the lightning. This is a really tough stretch for the Penguins. And they just need to keep digging themselves out of this to get back into the hunt for a playoff spot. Again, I feel like in the sense that this was sort of the get-back game. But if you can bring the same performance on Thursday against the Kings, a lot more people are going to be happy because that's an even better team than the ducks team that they just faced. Yeah. And you look at what their schedules looked like through the first half of the season.

Starting point is 00:26:20 Not first half of the season. Geez, trying to fast forward, I guess here a little bit. No, the first 10 or 11 games of the season, which is where we're actually at on the schedule. They played a lot of pretty good teams, but most of those good teams are all Western Conference opponents. You have not played the best of the East. And the Eastern Conference, in my opinion, is the superior conference when it comes to depth and talent when it comes to the seventh and eighth and ninth teams. There's a lot more talent in my opinion. So you're going to play a lot of those teams like you mentioned coming up. That's really where things start to pick up because, yeah, you play Colorado.

Starting point is 00:26:51 Yeah, you play Dallas and the intensity is there. You know it's a good team on the other end. There's no animosity though. Yeah, maybe a little bit with Colorado, but that's friendly animosity because of McKinnon and Crosby. There's animosity between the Pittsburgh penguins and the New York Rangers. There's animosity between the penguins and even the Maple Leafs. I mean, who knows what that matchup is going to look like with Kyle Dubas coming to this side,

Starting point is 00:27:12 with Nolachari on this side. I don't know what that looks like, but there's more animosity. The games are a little bit more energetic. They're a little bit more physical, and that's what the penguins have on deck. They can't afford to get another loss here against Los Angeles, especially if they go out and they fall flat like you mentioned, they have in L.A. the last couple of seasons. If you look flat against L.A.,

Starting point is 00:27:32 that's just going to take away all your momentum coming home with a lot of tough opponents coming into Pittsburgh and you going to. visit them. So it's very important, I think, for their season to be able to go out there and at least put together a good game. And really, they should, they should get a win on Thursday. I really feel like the vibes are that they do. But like you mentioned, you'll, you'll preview that with Pat coming up tomorrow. Yeah, for sure. Just as I said that this game on Tuesday was one of, if not the biggest game of the season today. I feel like Thursday, it goes up a notch at least a little bit with how good you can always kick that can down the road as podcasters it makes it's one of the simple

Starting point is 00:28:08 tricks that we have i don't and then and then we'll probably be saying the same thing in march or april this team is in the platform at that point but i think that i'll do it for this edition of the locked on penguins podcast oh i did forget one more thing sydney crosby's empty netter on tuesday night was phenomenal by the way that was a beautiful play one that i feel like only sid and maybe a couple of other players can do in the nchel the way he just flick the puck look like he was just sky hooking it out and then the pup goes in the net just a beautiful play there and i when i saw it my jaw dropped to be honest it's just sidney cross we made it just doesn't surprise me at this point we've watched it for 19 years but there's still things that he does that you're like well okay i mean i

Starting point is 00:28:47 guess i mean most humans can't do that but sure sid make it look easy that's fun i know he makes everything i feel like looks so easy and then i think overall we hit on everything i will say one more thing though. Jake Gensel can't go offside on that Noah Chari empty netter. I didn't really like that to be honest. I'm glad it didn't come back to bite them, Nick, but just have better awareness in that situation. Jake, I feel like should know a little bit better there. Yeah, you're going to have a brain fart every once in a while and that's going to happen. You just, you can't have it happen in a moment like that where yes, it didn't hurt them. It wasn't overly pivotal, but it was a one goal game. You can't do that whenever you're getting an empty netter and essentially putting a dagger

Starting point is 00:29:25 to the ducks. You gave them a little bit of life. But fortunately, the penguins were so good. all night long that they just continued that for 55 more seconds and they got the two points. Right. And I don't really feel like the ducks threatened that much for those final 55 seconds in the offensive zone anyway. But I think that I'll do it for this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. Nick, thank you so much for coming on today, I've talked about this game. Where can everyone find you in the show? Yeah, you can find me at Nick underscore Berlanski on Twitter. That's where I put most of my writing, most of everything else. You can catch my writing at inside the penguins.com, which obviously also houses our

Starting point is 00:29:59 podcast, which you can find anywhere you get your podcast from. It's Tip of the Iceberg podcast. Or you can find us on Inside the Penguins on YouTube, which is game recaps, which is Iceberg to go on three days a week, is full episodes, the tip of the iceberg, two other days a week. We got a lot of stuff going on. It's all going up there. So check it out if you'd like.

Starting point is 00:30:18 And I would certainly appreciate it. The Nick and Nick show is one of the best out there, my friends. That's what I call it, at least. It's always fun when two of us can get together, drum out. some content on this wonderful hockey team. But go follow Nick, go follow their show. They also do a tremendous job as well. But again, thank you all so much for listening.

Starting point is 00:30:36 Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Thursday to preview the game against the Kings and see if the Penguins can get this going. And then Friday, we'll recap that game and get you all set for Penn Sabres on Saturday night. But again, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll be back on Thursday.

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