Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins with a DUD in Ottawa, can they bounce back this weekend?

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

The Penguins' losing streak has reached seven games after a dud against the Ottawa Senators, so how can they bounce back? Patrick and Hunter begin the show recapping a 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators, where bad luck met bad effort, making the Penguins' losing streak hit seven games. They go over a couple of bad calls that went against the Penguins, but the blame lies more with a lack of jump right from the opening faceoff. Can they fix this? How, and who has to step up? (0:00) They'll get the chance to bounce back this weekend as they have the Montreal Canadiens in a home-and-home series, starting Saturday in Montreal and then Sunday in Pittsburgh. With Montreal's young talent, what can the Penguins do to slow them down and get back into the win column? (15:59). Finally, Fan Take Friday returns, and with the Penguins in a losing stretch, there's a lot to get to, including if they should just tear it down and tank, if Kyle Dubas's plan is working, and so much more. (26:30)Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedNow, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to https://indeed.com/lockedonright now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.MonarchTake control of your finances with Monarch. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at https://monarch.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. So if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit FanDuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. 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 Pittsburgh Penguins' woes continue as the losing streak reaches seven. What went wrong? Can they get out of it? And a recap of the Penguins for nothing lost to the Ottawa Senators right after this. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome in to the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, 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. You can find us on Instagram at Lockedon underscore Penguins and TikTok at Lockedon. Penguins. Of course, as always, we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine. Don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as YouTube. And if you follow us on YouTube, which you should be. Make sure you've hit that notification button so you can be among the first to know when we drop

our daily Monday through Friday episodes. Before we get started, this episode today is brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app. create an account and use code locked on NHL and you'll get $20 off your first purchase more on them later. Well, Hunter, we got to talk about the 4-0-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night. And I am of two mindsets of this game.

The first is the one that I think everybody wants to hear from both of us on this show. It was not a good effort. They were flat pretty much from the, jump. They didn't really recover from a slow start. They didn't get a ton of contributions. Ottawa pretty much dictated play for the majority of the game, and it ultimately results in a four nothing loss. The other mindset that I don't think a lot of people are going to want to hear, but I do think is part of last night's game, is it is a when it rains, it pours kind of

moment for the Pittsburgh Penguins because if we take the, we can't even take the context out of it because it's a seven game losing streak now. And you look at some of the moments from last night's game and put them in the context of the fact that this team is just in the barrel right now going over the proverbial waterfall. Less than two minutes in, a penalty that never gets called gets called when Stutzla drives to the net, has some contact with Shilovs, and the ref calls Shilovs for a tripping penalty. Now, we can talk about Stutzla and his willingness to dive. That wasn't that.

It was just a hard play. That happens a million times a game, a million times a night in the NHL, and it never gets called. For some reason, it gets called last night. Who knows why? Then in the second period, you have a goaltender interference call. call where there was no goaltender interference, and it takes a goal off the board for the penguins.

And then you also add in David Perron's goal hits a skate and somehow goes into the net, and then Claude Drew's spin-around goal 99 times out of 100 that doesn't go in. So you mix those two things together, and they are just in the midst of a rough stretch where nothing is going wrong, or going right, excuse me. But also their effort isn't great. And you put it all together. And here we are. I'm going to start with the effort part because that's what I was hoping to see last night.

After you had lost six in a row, you lost every game during the homestine, you have the dad's on the trip. You're getting away from Pittsburgh. And you can tell in the opening 30 seconds to a minute, honestly, that this was going to be a long night. They didn't have their legs at all. from the drop of the puck, the first 15 minutes especially were awful, to say the least. And I don't want to come across as a caveman here, but sooner or later, someone is going to need

to step up and pick up this team off the mat and do something about this. Where is the passion? I know, I sound like a complete boomer for saying that, Pat, but where is the passion? Where is the effort? Where is the heart? When is someone going to say, enough is enough and do something about it? You and I said going into the season, we didn't expect them to make the playoffs, and we expected them to lose more than when they were going to win.

And I understand that every team has rough stretches. But I still won't accept losing like this where the effort just isn't there. You want to lose a lot of hard fought games. That's totally fine by me. And they were doing that a lot to start the season. But over this last stretch here, there's just been games where it's been flat out embarrassing to watch, especially these last two, honestly. I mean, last night's effort was really embarrassing.

I will give you bad luck also did play a role that first penalty to start things off really bad, but also you're allowed to simply kill a penalty there. The penalty kill also has to be better. The goaltender interference in the second period. Even if that goal had stood, do I think the penguins come back? Probably not, but they were at least trying to gain a little bit of momentum.

I like the challenge from Dan Hughes there. He kind of had no choice. voice. I just, the league doesn't know what goaltender interference is. Like, spin the wall, spin the bottle, spin the wheel, whatever you want to play. It's ridiculous at this point, man. Like, Jake Sanderson literally tripped Linus Olmart to the point where it looks like Olmark got headshot snipe from 200 meters in a video game. Okay, they're just not going to look at that. Raquel was also being pushed into Linus Allmark. He was also outside the blue paint. How there is goaltender interference pat i have absolutely no idea the league just makes it up as they go along

here whatever but even with that that luck and it was part of it i won't accept efforts like that where no one is doing anything to really pick up this team off the mat it was a lot of half-ass defensively half-ass offensively as well it's simply not good enough and it needs to change i I feel like I keep saying the same things on the show because they keep making the same mistakes. And until that changes, I'm just going to keep saying the same things, man. I know that it's a take I've had before. 99 times out of 100, the whole, oh, they got to get an energy guy. They've got to get a physical guy.

They've got to get a fighter, yada, yada, yada, is just laziness. It's just the lowest common denominator kind of take because it just means that usually, you don't have an answer for whatever is ailing a team, whether it's X's and O's, whether it's roster construction, you name it. But this is the one out of 100 where you're right. They need some sort of spark. They need some sort of energy, whether it's bringing back Boko and mama to just come up and wreak havoc against an opponent, whether it's somebody who's on the roster right now,

just having a shift or having a moment. hell we are initially when it happened last season against the flyers when Alex Nadelcovic blew his stack before getting pulled when he did it at first we went hey you got to make some saves here bud like you can be as upset as you want about getting pulled but eventually you got to make the saves then we learned oh wait no this was him lashing out at the team as a whole and saying wake up it wasn't him mad at the coach it wasn't him mad at the players in front of him. It was mad at the situation.

He was mad at the team as a whole that they were. And when is someone going to do that, Pat? Because we haven't seen it yet. Like, when is someone going to go in the locker room or on the bench and say, enough is enough? It should have happened already. I mean, let's be real here. But when is this going to happen?

Because I just, it's really sucks seeing the same things over and over again. honestly even Sid looks disinterested out there at times, which I can't believe I'm even saying just because of how much of a legend he is, but he just hasn't been playing well the last few games. We saw Chris LaTang struggle again last night, especially with his foot speed continuing to slow down. And I've talked about that on Twitter. The situation is very tricky.

I don't think Damuze and the coaching staff are going to scratch him, but I think if you want to put Brett Kulak up there with him and maybe cut down his minutes by a couple more minutes, that's fine. And I think that's probably the next step with this. I just, I know everyone's going to keep saying, scratch him, scratch him, scratch him. Just don't really see Dan Mews doing that. I would be a bit surprised with that.

But Archer Shilobbs, I don't even think he played well. I said, yeah, part of the goals were the Perong goal, especially was bad luck. But hell, you know, this might be a bit unfair to him. I want a save on the first one, even the Drew one. And I know what you said was fair. I still kind of wanted to make that save there. your team that is not playing well in their own end and he just hasn't been playing well as of late so yeah i mean in that regard too in that regard too i think both are allowed to be true is

that the jeru shot yes 99 times out of 100 it probably doesn't go in but you're also allowed to look at your goaltender and say hey eventually you need to pick your team up and you need to have a performance where we saw this before the trade with Jari. He had a couple games before he was traded where the team in front of him wasn't playing great and he kept a minute or he stole it. They need another performance like that, whether it's from Skinner, whether it's from Shilov, whether it's from Murashav if he comes back up at some point. Both are able to exist in the sense that there was a lot of bad luck last night.

And Shilov actually did make a couple of really good saves. when this team was still kind of in it. But even though we all knew, hey, it's not there tonight. But he did battle, which I will give him credit for. At the same time, there are a couple goals where you go, come on, man, you've got to bail your team out here. You got to keep your team in this. But as a whole, to end this segment, you're right.

It's the most troubling thing is the effort in the lack of effort or the lack of heart or the lack of intensity. You've now lost seven straight games. The goodwill that you have built up from having a really good start is all but erased. And now we're going from talking about, hey, can this team surprise and stay in the mix all season long to, are they going to be a lottery team? Because I know how tight the Eastern Conference is,

but you look at the trend line right now. And until they give us a reason, and I don't see it turning around anytime soon. The good thing is, we'll end this on a positive. I still think some of these things are correctable, especially with the lack of confidence. I think they can rediscover that. I also do think, and this is something that,

well, my friends and I were having a conversation about this last night, and they 100% miss of getting himalking quite a bit on the ice, but I think they also really miss him in the locker room as well to kind of brighten up the mood a little bit. Like, that's also something that Gino has been great at throughout his career. There's a reason why he's been one of the top leaders on this team. So not only have they missed his play on the ice pat, but I think, and maybe this may sound silly to some people listening or watching, but I think they really just miss him in the room as well.

And I hope that once he's back here really soon, that can start to maybe change things. I'm trying to look for some positives here because I don't want to spend all another full episode just being a negative Nelly. and, you know, Blake Lazott, they also very much miss him on the penalty kill. So you have all that. Again, I do think some of these things are correctable with the confidence, you know, them playing hopefully better with leads if they're able to get some here this weekend. They have a home and home now with the Montreal Canadians. But I still want to see that effort, that intensity, that passion, whatever other word,

you want to call it because it's simply not there right now. And I do think, and I said this on Twitter, a lot of these top veterans, like, you know, Crosby, Rust, you know, even Letang, Carlson, they all got to step up. The long term veterans on this team, I know Carlson hasn't been here very long, but he's still like a very long time veteran. But the mainstays on this team, they got to start stepping up. The good news, like you said, is that there is still a lot of time to turn it around. It's only been 33 games to this point. They are all of two points out of the second. wild card spot and all of four points out of third in the metro.

So as we have been saying for quite a bit, one good week turns a lot of this around. But as we're seeing now, a couple bad weeks put you out of it. So a lot of time left. And it starts this weekend with a home at home against the Montreal Canadians. Hunter and I are going to get you set for that game when we come back right after this. but first we've got to tell you about today's first sponsor and that is game time the world cup is coming back to north america for the first time since 1994 and with 48 teams for the first time ever it is going to be massive but let's be honest getting tickets is usually the hardest part that is why the game

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All right, we're back here on the Friday edition of Locked on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp right alongside Hunter Hodes. a marathon first segment about that 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators. I don't think we need to spend a ton of time previewing this Montreal game because we just saw the Montreal Canadians not that long ago, but it is the tale of two teams going in two very different directions right now. The young Montreal Canadians are starting to find their stride. They've done quite well recently.

They have beaten the likes of the Chicago Blackhawks, who while they are falling off, have been a bit of a surprise. They beat the Edmonton Oilers who have been red-hot as of late, and obviously they beat the Penguins. So this is a team 5, 4, and 1 in its last 10. They're young, they're fast, they're talented, and we saw that firsthand just about a week ago. Right, I agree.

And you know what's also kind of funny? So Jacob Ballard, who made his NHD debut against the Penguins, 947, right? He was great. his next two starts, Pat, he played Saturday against the Rangers, and then this past Tuesday against the Flyers, 828 against the Rangers, 8.50 against the Flyers. So there you go. He crushes the Penguins, but then gets lit up by two other teams in the Division, one of which I don't think he's very good in the New York Rangers, but this is a Canadians team. Two and two in their last four games since they saw the Penguins, they lost five, four to the Rangers,

they lost four to one of the Flyers, and they also beat Edmonton and Chicago as Pat said, you know you're going to get from their top talent. I mean, we've talked about Cole Caulfield and why there's a chance that he's going to be on Team USA. You saw him, you know, go to the dirty areas to score against the Penguins. Not that long ago, he was very good in that game. Nick Suzuki has also been great. We all know how awesome Lane Hudson is on the back end.

He also flat out robbed the Penguins of a goal in that game. By the way, Pat, if you remember correctly, really nice play right along the goal line. And then Yvon Demadov has been awesome. Your Heislovsky, nine goals and 20 points and 34 games. Offensively, this team is very good. And, you know, you look at some of the team stats this year. You know, they're averaging 3.18 goals for her game. Very solid stuff.

It's, again, defensively, where I think the Canadians can be had. It's kind of like the penguins where, you know, they give up a decent amount of quality chances in their own end. So can the penguins take advantage of that? One thing I do want to highlight, though, and I do think this is a really, potentially cool situation. This is another positive that I will bring up in an episode where Pat and I have been very negative, but I do think a lot of it is warranted because of the way the team is playing. Cindy Crosby is one point away from tying Mario Lemieux, two points away from breaking that record. He'll have the chance to do it in Montreal

against the team he grew up rooting for. It's a pretty good storyline, my friend, isn't it? Well, it always feels like he has big moments against the habs. I always think back to his rookie year, the shootout where he wins it against his boyhood team in front of his dad at Mellon Arena. Awesome moment. So that is right there on the table. He is still chasing that history. And I think we're all in agreement. I don't think Sid's going to get held to donuts the rest of the season. He's eventually going to do this. So it's just a matter of when, not a matter of if. Right. But to the games this weekend, the thing that I need to see from the Penguins, at the very least on Saturday, indefinitely in both, if I have my way,

is they have to start on time because everyone is going to look at the headline from the last Penguins Habs game and say, oh, Fowler made 36 saves in his NHL debut against the Penguins. Here's the problem. Penguins had four shots on goal in the first period against the Habs. And then they had 16 in the second and 18 in the third. But the problem was, by the time they woke up, by the time they started playing, it was 3-0 Montreal. It was too late, yeah. And Fowler did play really well.

Once the Penguins started figuring it out and started playing better, he was already spotted a lead. And he was already in a groove because they didn't get to him early. I said it on the preview show before that Habs game. You've got a rookie goalie, making his NHL debut. You have to make his life miserable right from the jump. And that means really appeasing the people in the cheap seats. And every time you have a chance, you shoot the puck because you want the. And I know people will say, well, that'll help a goal to get into a game early.

It'll help him really get into a groove. Not if you are going after him from the jump because it's his first game. Yes, he has a great pedigree. He is going to likely turn into a very good goaltender for a while. but you need to give them that welcome to the NHL. Whether it's Fowler, whether it's anybody else in net this weekend, the same rule has to apply, not just for the goalies, because you're in this seven-game funk,

you have not been able to find your way out of it. It needs to be back to the basics. Just puck in deep, throw a hit on the forecheck. When you have a look, shoot the puck, go to the net, simple. nothing too fancy, nothing too crazy, just get back to basics. And if you have to grind out a two to one win, so be it. You've got to find your way out of this. Any type of win would do, Pat, I don't care if it's one nothing, two, one, three, two, you win an overtime.

Hell, you snap your losing streak in a shootout. Just win any way you can to bring the good vibes back in the locker room so you can get closer to getting of Gennie Malkin and Blake Lazop back, which I do think will be a big deal once they're ready. to return. I agree with you about the start. I want to see them past the vibe check. It's something that I haven't really talked about that much this year, but during the late stages of the Sullivan era,

how I would always be like, okay, let's see how they do for the first few minutes. These last couple of games haven't seen it. And, you know, even during this losing check, we've seen it, like the vibe check, you know, be there in a positive way. Like, you know, San Jose, for example, Utah, for example, before going on to lose.

But these last couple of games, especially, and that first game against Monk, Montreal, where they were just bullied against them, you know, I want to see a much better start. And, you know, this is a team that just kicked your butts in your home arena. So try to get a little bit of payback here in your only visit to Montreal this season. It's also the final game of the dad's trip. I feel bad for the dad's pet. We didn't even discuss that.

Team got shut out in front of the dads on the dad's trip. You can't do that to them. So any response possible here, it's going to be. Dobbs or Fowler in the net just because Montembow is out right now from Montreal. I want to see the special teams be better as well. I thought the power play also really struggled again against an Ottawa penalty kill that is not very good. The puck movement I thought was fine.

Everything else in terms of, you know, creating high dangerous scoring chances wasn't there. Penalty kill struggled a little bit again, wasn't good enough. So I want to see those two better. And again, I really want to see, you know, the long-term veterans really step up here. Like, you know, we discussed a lot of the numbers of Montreal in the first preview against them last week, not doing it as much here because we just saw them. And also because, you know, there comes a point where someone needs to do something. And we can only hope that it starts now.

So I'm looking to the veterans, you know, I'm obviously looking towards some of the younger players as well. I still think Kindle is playing well. I still want to see a little bit more from Rucker McGority personally. But I'm looking towards these long-term veterans. I want to see one of these guys really step up, especially he has what it takes to put this team on his back. We have seen it so many times throughout the years. I think it might have to be one more here so they can really, you know, get the good vibes back. They really do.

And they have two opportunities to do it. Yeah. Both games, 7 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. on Sunday. Saturday in Montreal, Sunday right here in Pittsburgh. So hopefully we're celebrating a Steelers win on Sunday going into what will hopefully be a Penguins win. And obviously we will recap both of those games on our Monday episode. But that doesn't mean that we're done here on the Friday episode. Oh, boy, it's fan take Friday.

And in the midst of a seven game losing streak, we got lots of takes. We got lots of questions. So make sure you're hanging with us in the final segment to hear about all of those. and we'll get to them when we come back right after this. But we've got one more sponsor to get to before Fan Take Friday, and that is our friends at FanDuel. NFL Sundays, they move fast, one big play,

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and we had to take the week off last week from it, Fan Take Friday is back. And we started it on our YouTube channel with a simple question in a simple poll chat are the penguins cooked 58% say they're cooked it's over and 42% say they'll bounce back I'm with the 42% though I don't think it's going to be to the level we saw to start the year but I don't think they're going to be this bad for the rest of the year I think that they're in the barrel it's a rough stretch they're going to find their way out of it. How well they find their way out of it, we'll see, but they're not going to be this

bad for the rest of the season. I agree with you on that. I think this is mainly just a rough patch and they're trying everything in their power to get out of it. I know they're better than this. And we have seen them be better than this, this season. Heck, even during this losing streak, we have seen them flat out dominate teams, you know, the sharks for most of that game. Even, you know, Utah, they weren't dominating them, but they still should. of won that game. Anaheim, they were absolutely dumping on them for that entire game before their controllers disconnected

late in the third. The Dallas game, I thought they were dominating a really good star's team until the fourth line was trapped out there. So even during this losing streak, they have had some really dominant stretches. It's just about getting that back and also getting that confidence back

in the third period with the lead. If they're able to do that, I think they can get out of this and they can get back to playing some good hockey, maybe not the level we saw in October, Pat, but enough to, again, keep them in the race. I always said about a week, week and a half ago that I'm confident that they're going to stay in the race

for the entire season. Not going to back away from it just because, you know, I'm not going to be a flip-flopper here. That's just not what I'm here for. You know, are they legitimately good? Probably not. But I still think they have what it takes to get back into it and stay in the race

for the entire season. Whether they make the playoffs, that's an entire different story. But let's get into it, Pat. Let's get into some. So here's how I want to get into this, Hunter, because we got a couple of takes and questions in the same vein. So sorry to the couple of people who type this out.

But the basic thing that they're saying is that it's time to throw everything out and do an actual full scale rebuild. Because whether it was people saying that, oh, there hasn't been. a winning culture the last couple of years, or this team is not playing well right now. They need to really start over and all of that stuff and trade the likes of Crosby and Malkin and Carlson and Letang and et cetera, et cetera. Here's the pushback that I want to give on that. When you talk about the last few years, it wasn't the big guys who were the problem.

You had a coach who was still trying to get them to play a system. they no longer had the ability to play. You had a cavalcade of goaltenders who weren't very good and would crumble in big moments. And on top of that, before Kyle Dubus, you had a general manager who seemingly didn't have a plan. He half wanted to rebuild. He half wanted to go for it. And it was nothing but half measures and bad contracts. I get the desire to rebuild into tank.

I totally understand it. It makes sense. But if you just have the likes of Ben Kindle, Rutger McGority, Tristan Bros., Harrison Brunich, and Sergey Miroshov as these young guys coming up in a culture that is basically just, it's fine if you lose. We're just trying to rebuild. We're just trying to find the next guy. It's going to hamper their development.

And whether it's fair, whether it makes sense, who knows, the big. the big three still believing that they can win in holding themselves in the team to that standard delusional as it may be is better for their development than hey it's fine if you lose no problem we're rebuilding we'll be good in a couple years you need them to have that mindset early so when those guys do move on they're able to carry that torch right and it's part of the reason why i've you know been fine with keeping some of these other pieces around that they probably could have traded this offseason just because some of these young players can learn from those guys,

especially, you know, the big three who, I mean, they're not going anywhere. Let's be real here. But, you know, they can learn from those guys. They can see, you know, the culture that they created. And yeah, like right now on the seven game losing streak, it's not necessarily good by any stretch. But a lot of these guys in general, you know, they've been in big moments. they've won, especially Crosi Malkin-Littang, Brian Rust, as well.

And I think a lot of these young players, they can learn a lot from those types of guys. So I don't think this team is going to tank. I mean, they even said heading into the season, they're not tanking. And you don't want to become Buffalo. You don't want to become Chicago for all those years. Hell, I mean, even Detroit tore it down to the studs. We still don't even know if they're going to make the playoffs here. and it's been quite a while for them.

You know, the more I see that type of rebuild, like the less I like it. The Penguins are doing a rebuild right now. It's just not them tearing it down to the studs. They're trying to do it on the fly, like you've seen some of these other teams doing. This does go into one of the next comments here. Starting with the Gensel trade,

Kyle Dubus has done everything with an eye towards the future. Yes, I agree with that. Not one here and now move has been made. I do agree with that as well. I am fine with the rebuild, but talking about winning in the play. is just insulting our intelligence. I would really love for the Pittsburgh media to call Kyle out for saying one thing

in doing another. I guess I'm just confused by the end of that statement because I don't think he is saying one thing in doing another. I think he's been sticking to his plan ever since he traded Jake Gensel. And that's just to rebuild on the fly as quickly as possible and bring this team back to contention as urgently as possible. Now, when I say urgently as possible, you know, not saying it's going to take, you know, six months or anything like that.

I also don't think it's going to take, you know, seven, eight plus years or anything like that. So, you know, they also traded Tristan Jari when this team was playing well. So, again, there's proof right there. He's not saying one thing in doing another. At least that's not the vibe I'm getting. I think he keeps saying what he's doing. He then follows through with it and you're seeing the results. I think he's been doing, in my opinion, a really solid job over the last 12 to 18 plus months.

his first off season here was not good i've said that on the show a lot ever since then though i've liked a lot of his work and he even saw at the at the trade down when they traded jake oh crap this team is not where it needs to be so i'm going to really make a lot of changes here and he's been doing that like have they you know tore down to the studs no but this is still a team that is rebuilding on the fly and he even for this year if they were going to add at the deadline it would be a reward for like a debt player like he's not going to trade future assets like that's just not especially at the trade deadline that's not what they're here for i also think that this this question and this take is a tad disingenuous just because he's not going out and saying that the goal is

the stanley cup no he didn't come into this season saying just you watch we're going to be a stanley cup contender he came out and said the team might be a little and not in these exact words obviously the team might be better than we thought, which is always a possibility, not to mention it's professional sports. Like, as much as we like the memes and the jokes when a player comes out and says, none of this matters, we're all going to die or stuff like that, they are the most competitive people on the planet. They're not going to come out and say, hey, guess what, we're going to suck and we're

not going to be good and we have no expectations. And this kind of brings it full circle to the first part of fan take Friday. You don't want to set up a culture where you accept losing. You don't want to set up a culture where you don't have higher expectations. You want to make it so you have a goal or an expectation and you work toward it, even if it's a little unrealistic. I would rather this team say, hey, we want to get better and we want to be good, but I also don't want them to be delusional. and they're not being delusional. There's nothing to call Kyle Dubus out on

because he is saying, we want to get this team back to contention as quickly as possible. That doesn't mean I'm selling off the farm. It doesn't mean that I think these players are better than they are. It's him saying, when you are brought into this organization, whether as a young player,

a short-term veteran, whatever you are, you're going to be held to a higher standard. You're going to be held to a standard that this team wants to get better. better, not just, hey, we're bringing you in for half a year and then we're going to flip you for assets. Or, hey, you're a young guy. You don't need to worry about making the team or playing well. You just need to be here. So I do think it's a little disingenuous, but I don't think

he needs called out for it. I do think that at the end of the day, and this is, we are just as guilty of this as everybody else, we got really excited over the hot start. And I didn't get to say it in the first segment. I do think in a way, this team's also kind of just reverting to what we thought it was going to be at the start of the year. Now, not this badly, but I do think there is an element of, yeah, this team's average to below average. And this is part of that.

And we got some comments about that too, which I do think, you know, totally. totally fair just because of the way they've been playing. You know, I do also like this take care of from someone. They're not out of it and they control their own destiny. I think if you tweak the D, hopefully Gino is back soon and Lazot on the PK. Still have to see how Skinner will pan out. Love the positivity.

And that is certainly something that could happen. Again, I've talked about it on the show today. If Gino can come back, light a fire in this team, if Lazot can keep a puck count on the PK and at five on five, maybe this team does start trending in the right direction. I mean, he's right. They're not out of it at all. and we still yeah i mean skinner's only played one game again still not that big of a fan of him

overall but i'm still going to give him obviously a bit of a chance this season you know john down here you know a stretch like this was inevitable you can't play this horrible defense and expect for the wins to continue i do agree with that also like the defense the coverage in their own zone has not been very good as of late i mean it's been very me all year to be fair a lot of that are expected goals against numbers are not very good. And then, yeah, when you combine it with the goal tending, kind of going downhill, this is what you get. So I understand everyone's frustration.

I completely concur with a lot of what you guys are saying. You know, it sucks that we keep coming on the show here to kind of rehearse the same things. There's a lot of other takes that we can get to. But rest of sure, we've read all of the other ones. And trust me, we hear your frustration. We understand what you guys are saying. And I will end it with this because we are running pretty long here on a fan take Friday, our pal, Maddie NCS, he's got his new bit. You know him from I'm tired of seeing Mike Sullivan chew gum on the bench fame. I am unsatisfied with the direction of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Right now, I think we all are. But again, 33 games in, a lot of time to turn it around, and they'll have two opportunities this weekend against the habs. And that is going to do it for us here on that.

the Friday edition of Locked-on Penguins. Have yourself a fantastic weekend. Hunter and I will be back on Monday to recap the home at home against the habs and get you set for the rest of the week ahead. But for now, for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you as always for tuning in, and we will be back on Monday.