Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins with an unacceptable effort on Tuesday night...

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins had an unacceptable start against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night which doomed them, and Hunter and Pat wasted no time in crushing the team for that kind of effort. They discuss how nobody seemed interested in playing during the first period and how that's not good enough, especially with where the standings are now. They analyze how Tristan Jarry had a bad start for the first time in several weeks and how that happens for goalies sometimes. They then discuss the Ryan Graves problem and how he's not giving them anything right now. Is it time for him to be benched for a few games? They give their thoughts on that situation before analyzing what Sidney Crosby was able to do in another vintage game. Finally, they discuss their picks for Warrior Helmet Wednesday.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SleeperDownload the Sleeper App and use promo code LOCKEDONNHL to get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Penguins dropped a tough one to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night. And on today's episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast, Pat and I are going to dive into what went wrong for this team. Your 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.

You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. joined by the best coast in the world. Patrick Damp, you can follow him on Twitter at Center for the Wet, and you can follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O. or somewhere 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 GameTime, down the GameTime app, create an account and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase. So, Pat, Capitals for Penguins 3, in a game of the Penguins deserved to lose after the way they played in the first period. those first 19 minutes and 30 seconds. Their controllers just disconnected.

They came out of the gate. Really sluggish. Tom Wilson opens the scoring basically a minute in. And there's two things I hate about that goal. Number one, that's a saveable shot from Tristanjari. I don't think he was aggressive enough from the net. I thought he played too passive, too deep in his crease. If he comes out there to challenge Wilson a little bit more, he probably saves that.

Number two, Ryan Graves, my man, you are six, foot five, you have one of the longest reaches on the team, and you're telling me you can't get stick on puck there in that situation, just not good enough. And then after that, heck, there's a time in this first period, the capitals had three goals to the Penguins one shot. Just not good enough in a game where, honestly, you can make an argument that this is the Penguins' biggest game of the year so far,

and they came out that flat when two crucial points were on the line, unacceptable, Pat, just completely unacceptable. There's a lot. to talk about in this game. Like, it's genuinely kind of funny that like, this is a tale of two games because the first period was a, the,

the, the only phrase that is coming to mind for me about the first period is comedy of errors because that's exactly what it was. It was, it was terrible because here's the thing. And for the listeners, we're recording this a little after 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.

So I've had a. good while to sit and think about this game. Pat had to work people. That's why. And the more I think about this game, the less angry I actually get about it. Because first and foremost, let's start here. Biggest game of the year, you have a chance to leap frog, a divisional opponent, and a divisional rival to get back into a playoff spot and start making your mark in the division. And they come out flat.

That's unacceptable. There's no two ways about it. However, Jari, there are nights where Jari's just not going to have it. That is true for every single goalie that's ever played in the national hockey league. There are nights where you just do not have it. And first goal, that's a sign. He doesn't have it. That's just, it's not his night. He's not going to do well. And then you have the second goal. Again, Ryan Graves, big for nothing. Puck goes off his stick, takes a weird bounce and goes past Jari. And then the third goal, same deal, like just a shot that Jari has to have. And the thing that I kept coming back

to was until about the 15 minute mark of the first period, between like the second goal and the third goal, it was a boring game. The caps weren't exactly dominating. The penguins were flat. It was boring. It wasn't like the caps were taking it to the penguins. The penguins just didn't show up.

And that is a gigantic problem. And I'm not going to call this team out for leadership, because when Sidney Crosby of Gennie Malkin, Chris Littang are your leaders, you have great leadership. But you have to have killer instinct on a night like that. Even if, even if you play to a 50-50 in the first period and go to the locker room and say, hey, that's not acceptable. We have to go back out there and we have to take it to them, which is what they did.

They did not show up until there was about two minutes left in the first period. And that's unacceptable. Right. I agree with you with how the capitals were playing boring. Honestly, I thought the capitals were playing boring. Even after Ricard Raquel got things going for the Penguins late in the first period to make it 4-1, Penguins get two more in the second period to make it 4-3. And then that third period for the Capitals, that was a textbook road period of hockey.

They didn't even have a scoring chance that entire period. Heck, Pat, I don't even think they had a scoring chance mainly in the second period. They just stayed back, sky-hooked pucks to the red line of center ice, just block shots in front of Darcy Kemper. that's all they did. It was boring because they were sitting on the lead the entire time. If you're a long time fan of the Penguins, you know what that second half of the second period and third period was?

Game 7, 2009 against Red Wings. That's what the Penguins did against them. I love that. Went into a complete shell and did nothing of consequence and just defended a lead. Yeah, I love that comparison because I was kind of thinking that a little bit during that third period where the capitals were just hanging on for your life. The penguins were throwing the kitchen sink at Darcy Kemper. but they were just blocking shots in front of him,

just again, skyhooking the puck out of the zone. That's all they were doing that entire third period. But just going back to the first period, I don't know how you can come out there like that and just play at that level against a team that you're fighting for playoff positioning with. And this is against a Capitals team. I will say it again on this show.

I don't think the Capitals are any good. What they showed me last night, they took advantage of the Penguins sleepwalking for the first 19 minutes and 30 seconds. after that, they got their butts kicked. And the only reason why they won is because they had a four-goal lead after, after, well, about 15 minutes of play last night. If that would have been a three-goal lead,

heck, I'll even say this, I think if that Traver-Weedle goal was not offside and Cinnon Crosby actually had his skate on the blue line, the Penguins may come back and win that game because at that point it's 3-1, the Capitals may not even get that power play to make it for nothing in that situation. And with how the Penguins played the final two periods, I think there's a decent chance that they come back to at least get a point in that game, if not win it. But you're right about Trishanjari as well.

Right when I saw that first goal go in, I'm like, okay, this might be the first time in maybe six weeks where the starting goalie doesn't have it. And sure enough, the second goal, I'm not really going to blame on him. The third goal, though, from Martin Fevararvi, that one can't go in. That's a seeing-eye shot. You've got to be able to see that. He gets pulled. It's the right move by Mike Sullivan.

But the fourth one from Alex Deltkovich, I'm not really going to put that one on him too much either because Ryan Graves was just swinging in front of the net. Yeah. But Mike Solve was right to use that timeout. He was right to pull Tristan Jari. But overall, they stunk in that first period. And that's not acceptable when you have this big of a game in that sort of situation where we're in January now.

I mean, this is put up or shut up time for this team. You can't come out there and have that type of effort. And building off what you said, it's not. If this is a game in October, you go, oh, man. Man, if they can find a way to bottle up that second and third period, this team's going to be great. Right. But we're in January now.

That time is long past. And to continue building off of what you said, the second and third periods, they were legitimately great. They were, they met the moment. That was the team you needed to see for 60 minutes. They were relentless on the forecheck.

Sidney Crosby, it's just, it's becoming a broken record. He is once again, one of the five best players in the National Hockey League, a vintage Sydney Crosby performance, as Hunter Hodes would say. And what makes it so frustrating is, even if you put aside Tristan Jari not having his best night,

they play the way they played in the second and third period for 60 minutes. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. They wipe them if they played that way in the first period. Because again, I don't think the cap rolls are any good. I see a few good players on that team. They're starting goalie who has been better than Kemper this year. He's been decent, but he's hurt right now.

But their underwings are terrible. I don't like their depth. Their defense isn't that good. But they took advantage of the penguin sleepwalking. And that's all it can take sometimes. And before we talk about some changes here that are looking like they're on the way, or some of the ones we want them to make, I'm not saying this is a joke or an inside meme for the locked on.

one's community. You know who I have to give a shout out for for last night's game? Jeff Carter. He was in the first period. He was one of maybe two guys who showed up for that game. And that's embarrassing. I think he's, I think I do think he's a bit of an unfair villain this year, deservedly a lot of the time. But I do think it's snowballing to the fact where we're blaming Jeff Carter for stubbing our toe in the morning when we get out of bed. But if 39 year old Jeff Carter is the only guy who shows up in the first period on this team, that's an issue. But I noticed him in the first period. He was forechecking.

He was making things happen. He was good in the defensive zone, which is something we haven't been able to say about him for a while. And I'm sitting there thinking, anybody else want to join Jeff Carter right now? And that's not a good thing. Like, I'm glad he did. But given his role in the team now, I shouldn't notice him that often. I should barely notice them.

Right. And I will say just to maybe play a little devil's advocate, he should have had a goal in this game. That the fact that he missed that wide open tapping back up behind Kemper got to hit that chance car. I will say that. I agree with you overall. I thought he was one of the better players in the first period. He was actually one of the few with a pulse in that period. Yeah. Probably should have had that goal that was a hilarious. They showed that replay. They showed that replay. And I'm like, Kemper was like half on Carter's skate and half on his stick.

And I think if he would have scored that, it would have. been miraculous because he was tied up six ways to Sunday. But agreed though, like you would have like to have seen a goal. But he shouldn't be the only one in a game like this who shows up and has a pulse. That that has to be everybody from the drop of the puck. Well, speaking of someone who had a major pulse in this game, Cindy Crosby, as Pat said, vintage Cindy Crosby game, as I like to say, we're going to discuss that plus what the penguins are going to do defensively in the second segment. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about Fandall. The NFL regular season is wrapping up, but there's still time to get in on the action with Fandle, America's number one

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I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co's Patrick Dam. So actually, let's start with the defense for this segment before we get to Cindy Crosby and the show that he put on in this game against the capitals. And that prompted a Crosby's better chant from the crowd at PPG Paints Arena, which I got to say, that made me laugh a little bit. But starting with the defense. Real quick, this is the best time a year. It's quickly running out because it's January 3rd.

But this is the best time of year to go to a penguin game. So next year, if you've got the time or the money, go to Penguins games like from the time between Thanksgiving and just after New Year's because it's a much more fun, much looser. I'll say it drunker crowd. So it'll be, it's a good time to go to a penguin game around this time of year. The crowds are good. The holiday intros that they do in December before Christmas are always second to none. I absolutely love those. So I agree with you on that. Going back, though, to the defense, we've been talking about this all year on the podcast. You know where this is going. Penguins have a big Ryan Graves problem right now. And based on practice on Wednesday, it doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. I'll say this. You can shelter him all you want. You can put him down there with Chabra Weedle. You can even put him. him down there with P.O. Joseph, but it looks like Joseph is going to be playing with

Eric Carlson, which I'd all mind. I thought P.O. Joseph was excellent in his return on Tuesday against the Capitals. He made some really nice plays with the bucked on his stick, defended really well. I want to actually see Mike Sullivan give him a long look here, especially with John Ludwig on long-term injured reserve. But for Ryan Graves, it's gotten to a point where they have to bench him for a few games, in my opinion. He hasn't done anything of value, and we're almost halfway through the first year of this deal. I don't think we're in Jack Johnson territory or anything like that. But I think we're starting to get into like that Matt Hunwick territory a little bit where he's just, again, not doing anything to help the team on a nightly basis.

I have never seen someone, defenseman, I should say, with his size, six foot five, big dude, and with such a long reach, play so soft in front of the net and in his own zone. I don't want to sound like an old geezer or a boomer or whatever you want to call me, but he plays so soft and it's so frustrating to watch. That first goal again on Tom Wilson, get stick on puck there. The one on Alex Andalkovich, either get the Capitals player out of the way or you get yourself out of the way so Nadelcovich can see it. And then on the deflection,

and this was a Capitals player that scored by the name of Beck Malenstein. If that's how you pronounce it, I don't even know who that is. That sounds like an AI drone, make a name. Yeah, that's a guy you get in year 15 of your NHL franchise mode. It's just like the Mark Dong from their, I guess their foreign team, I guess. But Ryan Graves can't even defend a simple one-on-one there. It's just super frustrating to watch.

I know I picked on him a lot this year, but I have to be objective. And he's just not playing complimentary hockey for this team. Pat, what are your thoughts on the situation? Well, first and foremost, I completely forgot about Matt Hunwick. Thank you for that throwback. I forgot he was a penguin for a hot minute. Here's the thing. You brought up Jack Johnson, and this is something I was thinking of this morning.

If we're not reaching that territory in two different ways. One, yes, he is becoming an anchor and an active liability on this defense, but I don't think it's the level of Jack Johnson. The other thing that's nice is that from both graves and management, we're not being told to not believe our eyes and ears. Because if you remember with Jack Johnson, both him personally and Jim Rutherford, they talked to us like we were idiots.

Right. It was like, you guys don't know what you're talking about. This guy's actually a great defenseman. You're just so stuck in your ways. You want to talk about how bad he is and not all this good stuff he's doing. And I'm like, what good stuff?

Like, I haven't seen any of it. You know, last night after the game, Graves straight up told reporters, I was out there for three goals against. It doesn't matter how those goals go in. That's unacceptable. So he took ownership of it, which is good. Johnson would have been defiant back in the day.

He'd him like, well, you know, I did all this other stuff. And I don't know what you guys are talking about. So at least we have that. Like they're not, they're not fiddling while Rome burns, so to speak on, on Ryan Graves. The other thing is, I don't think they're going to bench him. But I will say, in limited sheltered minutes, he's not bad. Is he good? No, but you get more out of him with less.

And Marcus Pedersen has shown us. He can play pretty well with Chris LaTang. He can play pretty well with Eric Carlson. In a very, very limited amount of time, we saw P.O. Joseph didn't look too bad with Eric Carlson. So let's see how this looks for a little bit. And if you've got a cycle, Ryan Shea, Chad Ruehdle, and Ryan Graves is your bottom three defensemen, let's do it.

because in lieu of scratching him for a few games and letting him get his head to get his head right and try to figure things out, put him in a limited role because we know that Chris LaTang, Marcus Pedersen, and Eric Carlson can eat minutes like nobody's business. You can have them out there for three quarters of the game and give whatever ice time you got left to that bottom pair and you can make sure they're deployed correctly. So I don't think they're going to scratch them. and we've had it in our YouTube comments. We've had it on Twitter.

How can you trade him? Can you trade him? He's got no value right now. He's on a large contract and he's not producing for anything. And no GM is going to take that at all. And I'm starting to come around to what you said. I think they probably missed the evaluation on this guy. I thought it was looking a lot like a Paul Martin early on when he was here years ago

where he struggled in his first year and then turned it around the rest of the contract and became one of the better defensemen, but even then, Paul Martin had solid underlines. Graves doesn't even have that. So it's a massive problem, and I think right now the only solution that we're going to see

is putting him in a very sheltered bottom pairing role. And lastly, this is where I'll finish. Forget the sunk cost fallacy. If you're out to win a championship, you pay whatever you pay to whoever you want to pay, and then you use it to whatever gets you closer to a

championship. If that means putting Ryan Graves on the third pair, I don't give a damn what you're paying him. Put him on the third pairing and make this an optimal lineup however you can. Forget the money. I just hope he doesn't drag down Chad Ruehiel, but I feel like that would be a little hard to do because Rueel, I mean, he's not good offensively. He's fine defensively since coming back in the lineup. I don't think he can drag him down. I just get a little worried because he's dragged down Eric Carlson and Crystal Tang numerous times throughout the season. My biggest reason for wanting him to be scratched for a few games to get his head right is honestly because of your boy, Jeff Carter. They put him in the press box for a few games, and he actually found his game a little

a little bit after that. And he's been, dare I say, fine for the Penguins the past two, three, four weeks ever since he got back in the lineup. I think those healthy scratches really helped them out. That's why I think it could be similar here with Graves. Now, if you do scratch Graves, do your blood Vig's injury, it will be Ryan Shea playing on the bottom pairing with Trevor Riedel. They have P.O. Joseph up with Eric Carlson. You know, Ryan Shay, he's been up and down throughout his Penguins tenure this year. But I guess if you maybe want to go similarly to what they did with Justin Shultz when he first came to the Penguins and put him on the bottom here and you could do that. Now, granted, I'm not comparing Ryan Graves to Justin Shultz.

They are two completely different players to different situations with how Shultz was in his former stop before he got traded to the Penguins. But that's maybe, I guess, the one saving grace, if you want to call it that, where you can give him, I don't know, 12 minutes and I to see if that can help him. But, you know, if they do, if they do do that and it looks like they're leaning that way based on what they did in practice on Wednesday and it doesn't work, you're going to have no choice but to put them in the press box. Right. And I've, I've said this on the pod before is, excuse me, I've said this on the pod before.

I think back to the 1991 Penguin Stanley Cup highlight tape where they had Badger Bob miced up. And he was talking about, I think it was Kevin Stevens, who was going through a struggle. And he basically told Kevin Stevens, get away from hockey for a couple days. Don't come to the rink. Don't come to practice. Don't dress. Don't go watch tonight's game on ESPN. Just go see a movie. Go listen to music. Go walk your dog. Don't, don't think about hockey. And for a lot of guys in an era like today where the scrutiny is 24-7 and the coverage is 24-7, here we are on a daily podcast talking about it. It's really easy to get mentally dragged down by the expectations you have as an NHLer. So you have poor performance. You have a big contract and it's all

bottling up inside of you and it's going to lead to negative play. Just go disappear for a few days. You don't have to be a hockey player every day 24-7, 365. Just get away from it for a little bit, come back. And you know what? If you play in sheltered minutes, start building up that confidence, start playing a little bit better. It doesn't have to be outstanding every single game. A couple big plays with the stick. Move a couple guys out of the net. Have a good penalty kill.

Start building on those performances. And that's something I think Ryan Graves can do because he did it in New Jersey. Like, you know, maybe he gets away from the rank when the team is in Boston because they're flying there for Wednesday for Thursday's game, a game that actually saying, I'm going to be there at the God in Boston. And it's one of the arenas I've always wanted to go to. I'm going up there with my friend Rick, who's a longtime listener of the show, one of my really good friends. I can't wait to go there for Thursday night. But, you know, maybe he does that. But I know a player who is not going to get away from the rank because he never

does. And that is Sidney Crosby. Vintage game from him on Tuesday night. He willed the penguins back into it with the way he was forechecking down low, the way he was passing the puck in the offensive zone. That goal that he scored was the most Sidney Crosby goal out there. When he goes down on one knee, oh, it's over. It's over for any goal. that is in the net that I don't care if it's Connor Hellebuck, Igor Shosturkin, Elyos Sarkin, doesn't matter, it's over. And the way he was able to stay with that puck there was tremendous. The way that he was able to basically ragdoll Rasmus Sandine behind the net, be like, okay, I'll take that puck, and then I'll pass it in the slimmest of margins to Jake Gensel.

It looks like there was no room there for that pass. It's like, oh, there's room because it's me. I'm Cindy Crosby, and he's able to get that puck to Jake for an assist. And by the way, Cindy Crosby is now 12 on the NHL's all-time scoring list with 1,540 points. So congratulations to him. But just what an effort from 87 yet again. And it's becoming a nightly occurrence at this point with the level he's playing at. I've got nothing to add. He's playing at a level in an age where most guys, his age, are long gone from the National Hockey League.

I don't know how long it's going to last, but for the love of God, people, just embrace it. yes, like there will be a time in the not so distant future where he is not playing hockey for this organization and that obviously makes me sad and it should make all of you listening to slash watching this so sad. So cherish this forever. But that would do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show, it's Warrior Helmet Wednesday. We missed last week because Pat was on his holiday vacation, but we're back this week with Warrior Helmet Wednesday. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about game time. You shouldn't have to worry when you're you're buying tickets to your next big event. Game time is the fastest and easiest way to buy tickets

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Terms of why, again, crane account and regime code locked on for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed. All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Dam. So it's Wednesday. You all know what that means.

we teased it heading in to this third segment. Pat, your warrior helmet might surprise some people for today's show. It didn't surprise me when you first told me, so I'm going to hand this over to you. This one should not be a shocker to anybody who has watched this team the last week. And I understand the last week was tough coming out of Christmas, going right into New Year's. So we're all in that haze. As I've said, it's the Loki season one Citadel at the end of time where nothing matters. but the winner for me for this week for Warrior Helmut Wednesday was easy.

Jake Gensel in the last week, three goals, four assists for seven points, and anybody who knows me knows I was not a big fan of the ESPN broadcast team last night, but they did bring up a great point. This kid, this off season, if he stays on this pace, I say kid, he's almost 30. He is going to get paid. Because say what you will. The stats do not back this up. You can make any case you want.

He's a product to Sidney Crosby. He's not. This kid is a legitimately great player. He is one of the best wingers in the National Hockey League. He is one of the best goal scores in the National Hockey League. And he is proving it yet again, despite, and we forget this, missing all of training camp because he had off-season surgery. And he's just going about his business once again.

and another week where ho-hum, he puts up seven points. He's going to get, in my opinion, 8 million per year on that next deal and potentially he might have more. I think 8.5, potentially 9 million per. If he gets to the UFA market on July 1 of this year now, and I can say this year now because it's 2024, I think he's going to get close to 9 million. It's going to be at least 8. I would not be surprised if it's 9, considering how good he's been since he entered the league.

That's a great pick. mine is a little bit different, but this should not be a surprise to anyone either. I'm going to give my warrior helmet to Alex Nadelcovich. He has been tremendous all season, was awesome, yet again throughout the last week. I know he had a little bit of a rough start in Ottawa. The Penguins did battle back to get a point in that game. He was only 808 Sabresnage in that game, but after that, he bounced back in a big way on Sunday, 3-1 win over the Islanders, 9-74 Sabresench.

He was, I think, the biggest reason why the Penguins won that game. countless times in that contest where he was just standing on his head for the Penguins because they played the night before. But he was even making saves with his mask off. He was diving, sprawling all over the place, just looking like one of the best goalies in the league this season. And then he came in for relief for Tristan Jari against the Capitals. Was 933, 14 saves on 15 shots. That goal that he allowed was not his fault. He was screened by Ryan Graves, as we discussed. He continues to be an absolute rock for the Penguins as their one-beat goalie, 17th in the league this season with almost seven goals saved above expected,

924 save percentage, 2.4-2 goals against average. That comes courtesy of Money Puck. He's been everything and more to the Penguins as their backup netminder, and he had another really strong week. Honestly, I know Tristan had a bad game against the Capitals on Tuesday. I still want to be surprised if they went back to Dahlkevich on Thursday against the Rooms, considering the form that he's shown about these last two games and his form overall this season, you can go to either goal in that game.

And I wouldn't be surprised. But he gets my warrior helmet for this week. That's a good pick. And I mean, just overall, culturally for the Penguins organization right now, you can have a night like last night with Tristan Jari where he doesn't look all that great. And you're confident knowing that the guy you can put in there can man the ship for a little bit while Tristan Jari figures it out rather than having to take on water and hope that

the backup doesn't also falter. So that's a good pick. I can't disagree with it. It's just been nice having one of the best teams in the league overall this season. But before we wrap up, Pat, do you have any other thoughts about this game regarding the Capitals? Before we go on to the Bruins game on Thursday, we'll preview that game for the Thursday episode. But any other thoughts before we wrap up? They're not, here's the thing.

Lastly, there's no need to start lighting everything on fire with this team. Are there warning signs right now? Absolutely. But they're still very much in a playoff hunt. They're still very much right there to get into the top three of the division. So now what I'm watching for, and we'll talk about this more in the preview episode for the Bruins game, how do they bounce back after something like this?

That's the big question right now. And I think we're going to learn a lot about this team on Thursday night. And this Bruins team is good, my friends. They're not as good as they were when they started the season with basically three losses and almost what their first 20 games. They've kind of fallen off a little bit since then, but this is still one of the best teams, not just in the Eastern Conference, but in the league,

and a true Stanley Cup contender yet again. So this is going to be a big test for the Penguins. But we'll preview that game for you all on Thursday. Then we'll recap that game for you all on Friday. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this episode with Lockdown Penguins Podcast. We'll be back with another show for you all on Thursday.