Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Several Penguins prospects are playing in the World Junior Summer Showcase!

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Multiple Penguins prospects are in Minnesota this week as part of the World Junior Summer Showcase! Hunter and Patrick start the show discussing how prospects Benjamin Kindel, Harrison Brunicke, Will Horcoff, and Mac Swanson, along with Melvin Fernstrom, are faring at the WJC Summer Showcase. They also talk about how, while you don’t want to overreact to their performances, you do want to see how they play with elite talents. Speaking of prospects, an often forgotten one in the Penguins’ system is Cruz Lucius. Patrick dives into how he could be an under-the-radar difference maker in the next few years. Finally, they react to The Athletic’s broadcast ranking,s which had the Penguins surprisingly low. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONNHL at monarchmoney.com/lockedonnhl for 50% off your first year.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new FanDuel customers can get $150 in Bonus Bets if your first $5 bet wins!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 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase is officially underway, and there are some Penguins prospects participating in this year's summer showcase. Pat and I are going to discuss that right after this. Your Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, joined by by my co-host, Patrick Dave. You can follow him on all social media platforms at Cineauverwet. You can follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O.

Understor Penguins. And, of course, you can follow us on Instagram at Locked-on underscore Penguins. And finally, thank you guys so much for making this, your first listen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. Pat and I apologize for no episode on Monday. We were both coming back from the beach. I had an eight-hour drive back from Virginia Beach.

Pat, yours drive was probably five to six hours back from New Jersey. something along those lines, but don't worry people. We're recording today, Wednesday, and then Thursday for this week. We're going to take Friday off. So for our new series, we're going to have that on Thursday this week, and then we'll go back to doing it Fridays throughout the rest of the month of August. I just wanted to detail this week's schedule. We'll have Monday, Wednesday, Friday episodes throughout the rest of the month,

unless something comes up like it did yesterday, where we were both having a pretty busy travel day. But to kick things off for today's episode, Pat, the World Junior, Summer Showcase is officially underway, and there are some Penguins prospects participating. Will Horcoth, in particular, scored for Team USA on Monday against Sweden. And it was a prototypical garbage goal right in front of the net. The puck just went right off of him. He's standing, kind of in his office there, and gets a nice little bounce.

At the time, it gave USA the 2 to 1 lead. And he was playing on a line with Will Moore, Max Swanson, another Penguins prospect. he was participating for Team USA. And then finally, Swedish prospect for the Penguins, Melvin Fernstrom, was playing on the second line for Team Sweden. For Team Canada, Ben Kindle is, of course, there. And then Harrison Brunich is also there as well, Pat. You look at some of the lines during the practice on Monday.

You saw Harrison Brunich with Cameron Reed. So he was on the third pairing behind, you know, players like Matt Schaefer, Kajon, Aegeson, and then you had Ben Kindle on the second line. He actually was on a line with Cole Resch. but they bumped him up to the second line. Gavin McKenna, of course, on the top line with Porter Martone. That's just a disgusting line for Team Canada.

But Pat, a lot of the Penguins prospects getting some good reps in some of these games in the World Junior Showcase. And then, of course, we're going to have the Prospects challenge coming up in September. So they're getting a lot of reps this summer. This is huge for a lot of these Penguins prospects. And we have to approach it two different ways, right? one, obviously we want to follow this. We want to see what they're doing because we're in that hockey starved time in the calendar

where we'll take any crumb of hockey that we can get like the sickos that we are. But like I said, you want to look at this two ways. One, you want to see what they do. You want to see how they play. You want to look at their stats. But don't overreact to them because this is a glorified summer hockey. hockey camp, so to speak. It's not really a tournament. It's not really all that competitive. It's basically a handful of nations getting together with some of their top prospects in the

national program that they're thinking about, either taking to the World Junior Championships, the Olympics, the World Championships, whatever contrived NHL-sponsored tournament comes up in the next couple of years, and just seeing how they play. Now, the other thing to look at when you're a fan of a team and you have your prospects there, the other thing you want to keep an eye on is how do these guys play with other top talent? What does this say about their ability to be on these national teams and play with players who are on the same level or better than them? Because here's what's going to happen for especially when we look at the Penguins case. right. You still have Sid, you still have Gino, you still have Latang. We'll see how long you have Carlson.

But these guys are going to go from being the big fishes, whether it's with their junior teams, whether it's with their collegiate teams to the NHL where they're just going to have to find a role. They're not a couple of them. Yeah, you name some names atop the roster for Canada, USA. They're generational talents. They're going to show up wherever they, go and be the best player on the ice. But for the majority of these guys, they're going to go to the NHL and they're going to have to carve out a role. So this is, while not a one-to-one comparison, you're playing with a lot of really highly skilled, really highly touted prospects. How can you carve out a role on that team? It's not quite the NHL, but you want to work and show that you can be a part

of a team structure. You can carve out a role and be productive in it. For Horcoff, he did exactly what you want him to do. Played a hard nose game, went to the net, got rewarded for it. So as the rest of this week develops, obviously if, you know, somebody who's a penguin's prospect goes off and puts up a pile of points, we can get excited about it. But you want to see how these guys do in this shared environment with some really top international talents. Right.

And the goal that Horcoff scored, it was kind of a carve a copy of what he was doing during development. camp and trust me people i know development camp it's not the best for evaluating players it's to a lesser degree like this pat where you're kind of just seeing what these players can offer in this type of environment you know the prospect challenge that's definitely something where you can evaluate a lot more because you're going up against other team's best prospects but it's still nice to see oh how some of your talk prospects do in development camp especially during like the scrimmage days like that's the big one but even during some of the drills it's like, okay, you know, you're utilizing your release, you know, you're going to that,

you're showing off your puck skills and all that. I'm not sitting here, you know, fully jumping to conclusions, but the goal that he scored, it was similar to what he was doing at development cam. So it was nice to see that carry over. And also for Horcough, he'll be spending this upcoming season at Michigan again, huge for him because that's one of the best programs in the country. He was good after going to Michigan for part of last season. now that he's there for a full season, how does he adjust?

Can he have a really good season going into 2026 and then 2027 as well? They've been kind of throwing the lines in a little bit of a blender. Swanson in particular, he was on a line with Colin Potter on Sunday. Horcoff also played on Sunday against Finland. So he's been playing quite a bit for Team USA. Again, nice goal on Monday. Harrison Roonick, he's going to get minutes. Ben Kindle, obviously he's been getting some practice time as well.

We'll have to see how much he plays. But I'm just excited to see a good chunk of these prospects, at least playing with some other good prospects. But at the same time, how does this translate over to the Prospects Challenge in September? We all know that Brunick is going to at least try to make this roster out of camp right now. It's going to be a bit tougher just because there's been no Air Carlson trade. You have Connor Clifton on the right side as well. Matt Dunba, Chris Letang, it's suffer. But obviously, if you get that Carlson trade, his chances to make the team go up.

at least a little bit in my opinion. So those are just some of my miscellaneous thoughts on these games. I don't want anyone to really overreact to them. I think you can maybe save some of those overreactions through the Prospects Challenge. But it's still nice seeing these players play in a competitive atmosphere late July and early August with some of the best prospects in the world. For sure.

And you beat me to the punch a little bit on that. The biggest thing to keep an eye on will be next. month. Well, little more than next. We're end of July here. But it will be the prospects challenge in Buffalo because you look at the teams that are there. You've got the Sabres who they're perpetually a year away from being a year away. So we'll see what kind of prospects they have. New Jersey sneakily drafts really well. They've got some solid prospects. Columbus same deal. they've got a deep, deep farm system, which is going to really pay dividends for them over the next few years. Boston is iffy, but they always find some diamonds in the rough every now and then.

And then there's the penguins. So how this group of prospects does against another group of prospects, yeah, it's not going to determine if the penguins are going to win the Stanley Cup in the next five to ten years. But it's going to tell you where their prospect pool is at. Are they taking that next step? Do they have a group of prospects collected together that can really grow into something and become the next cast of characters that support a really good team? So while we're going to monitor all this stuff throughout the summer, whether it's these World Junior showcases, anything these guys do with their collegiate teams,

the main event for this offseason is in fact the prospects challenge. I agree, though I will say, just to correct you a little bit, Buffalo's farm system to the Sabres credit is actually fairly solid. Constant healingness headlines that I can keep going if you want me to, but that would kind of be a waste of time. But he is one of the best prospects I think right now, in my opinion. So they actually do have a decent system. It's just that, you know, on the NHEL level, it just feels like they're kind of cursed there for a lot of reasons, of course. But I did want to say that to end the segment. But yes, that is going to be the big one coming up in a little over a month.

in September. But that'll do it for this first segment. Coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to talk a little bit about Cruz Lucius, a penguins prospect that's been kind of forgotten about. So that's coming up right after this. Before we get to that, though, we have to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is Monarch Money. Ever wish managing your money felt easier. With Monarch money, it can, whether you're going your savings or planning a big purchase. Monarch puts you in the driver's seat. It's like having your own personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money, it's more than a budgeting app. It's a complete financial command center to contract all your accounts,

investments, and spending in one place. So in addition to managing your money, you are also building wealth. Take control your finances with Monarch Money. Use code locked on NHL at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. That's monarchmoney.com code locked on NHL for half off your first year. All right, or back here on this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host, Patrick Dam and Pat. You really wanted to talk about Cruz Lucius today. So I was at development camp for basically all the days except one on July 4th. I felt he was a bit quiet earlier this month to start development camp.

But on day four, that was when I really noticed him. It was the session on Sunday before the scrimmages. And I felt he was all over the ice. He brought a physical element to his game. along the boards and up by the point. He was getting several quality scoring chances, scored a couple of really nice goals, including a one-timer by the goal line.

The biggest thing for him right now, though, is that he's back to full health after a shoulder injury, kept him out for a good chunk of last season. He scored his first goal with Arizona State back in February, finished the season with two goals and 10 points and 19 games. He was feeling good going into Monday's tournament, and I actually felt he was good during that tournament on Monday during the development earlier this month.

but you really want to talk about Kelsey's piece, my coworker on the hockey news, but those were just some of my notes that I had about him during development camp. Pat, what do you really want to say about this player? Because you think he's kind of being forgotten about in the Gensel trade. In a way, like, let's be clear here. Like I think that you look at the Gensel trade, Ponomerev and Coyvenin are kind of the big, big pieces of it. You look at, you look at that and you think, okay, those are,

the guys who are going to have an immediate impact. But then you also have to mention the draft pick that turned into Harrison Brunich, which is huge. But I think the totality of the Jake Gensel trade, and obviously this is not going to be just a rehashing of the Jake Gensel trade, they got a lot for Jake Gensel. And it seems like a lot of it is going to pay off. Now, Lucius, still a few years away in my estimation. because like you said, he's coming off shoulder surgery. He had a torn labrum. I don't care what kind of game you play,

whether you're a finesse player, a goal score, a physical player, whatever. A torn labrum is a tough injury to come back from, and it takes some time. But you look at how well he played for the University of Wisconsin between 22 and 24. He scores 24 goals, 68 points in 70 games played.

and Wisconsin's in the Big Ten. So that is for all intents and purposes, one of if not the best conferences in hockey and you will not have an easy night in the Big Ten. So being able to put up nearly a point per game in that conference before heading to ASU is pretty solid. And then you brought up, he comes back from shoulder surgery,

only plays a handful of games, puts up a solid amount of points in very few games. So the kid has some good offensive instincts, and it kind of feels like he keeps getting forgotten in the penguin system. And it's going to be a bit of a difficult road for him to get back to being, I don't want to say a top tier prospect because he really wasn't ever that. but I look at him as the kind of player where let's say in four or five years, the penguins find their guy, right?

They've got somebody who's their number one center, their top line defensemen. A lot of these prospects they've gotten over the past few years really start to turn into something or at the very least become NHL contributors. They're a playoff team and they're heading into the playoffs. in say 2029. And Cruz Lucius strikes me as a guy who if he develops the way we hope he develops, it's going to be kind of similar to say Connor Sheary or Scott Wilson or Tom Coonhockle,

where when you call them up, you don't think a lot about them, but they're NHL ready. They're going to be a contributor. And once they come up, chances are they're not going back. Speaking of Connor Sherry, he got a PTO with New York Rangers a few days ago. So that's kind of fitting because Mike Sullivan is there. But hey, I mean, if he can somehow develop into a Connor Sherry type player, I would take that considering the career that Sherry had.

But I don't know. I'm a little bit skeptical of that right now. I need to see a really good season from him this year before I really buy into his stock as a potential NHL player down the line. Again, I liked what I saw towards the late stages of development camp, but also that was just development camp. What's next up for him? The Prospects Challenge, the 2025-26 season.

That's what I'm going to be really watching for with Cruz Lucius. I do think there is some decent offensive skill there, but I still need to see it over a full season. I want to see how he plays against the other top prospects. I want to see how he does for his full season this year before I start buying into this a little bit more just because, you know, spent a lot of time over the last year. And yeah, I know he came back. He had some decent production this past season for Arizona State.

But I still got to see a bit more. You know, I like that they got Coivin, obviously, in the trade. I don't want to rehash it all the way. You know, I still want to see how Coivinen does this season. There have been some pretty crazy expectations thrown out by fans this year about him. Pat, I've seen some people say, like, oh, he plays in the top six. He's going to be a Carter Trophy candidate. Let's pump the brakes here a little bit, people.

If he gets 35, 40 points, he's a half a point per game player over 82 games this year. I will take that and run for the hills. Like that is really good for a full season for Salt Lake Gle of Covenant. Honestly, the same for Rucker McGority. And I think Rucker McGority is going to be a little bit of a better player than Covenant, at least in my opinion. But if you get 35, 40 points out of them this year for a four, four 82 game season. I will a million percent take that going into 26, 27. I just want people

to temper their expectations. Harrison Brunick, I like his ability to be an NHL player at some point. If it's not this year, I think it's most likely next year, but we still have to see. He came very close, obviously, last year. Then, you know, with Cruz Lucius. Still, a little bit skeptical right now. This year, though, for me, it's going to be pretty big. But I think that's all I really have to say on Cruz Lucius. And then I guess we had to rehash the trade. a little bit. Yeah, you do because he's part of it.

And then the last thing I wanted to add about him was Kelsey talked to him. And this is the part of the Kelsey's piece that I wanted to focus on mostly, was that she talked to him about how the penguins have really committed to development. And obviously, you're going to hear us say that and people are going to go la-di-da. Yeah, they're in a rebuild. Of course, they're committing to development. But I want to kind of put it in this context.

we're talking about Cruz Lucius, who, as you and I have said, when we talk about Penguins prospects, he kind of gets forgotten. We don't talk about him a lot. But even he is saying that he talks to the Penguin staff quite a few times per week. They have paid a lot of attention to him even when he was hurt. So you look at that and you think, okay, if they're putting that kind of effort into a maybe prospect, who is going to go back to Arizona State is coming off of a torn labrum and might turn out to be nothing,

imagine what they're doing with the guys who are going to turn into something. So I think we're nowhere near being able to call anything Kyle Dubus has done a success because it is a work in progress. But this commitment to development, to getting younger players, to rebuilding this prospect pool, where we are compared to where we were even two years ago, it is night and day and it is a good thing for the organization. 100%.

I mean, you see all the rankings from some of the top prospect gurus around the league, you know, having them around league average. Pat, imagine what the ranking will be if they get a potential generational talent in the 2026th, natural draft two or even a franchise player. Even if it's not Gavin McKenna, you get one of those few guys after him that have the potential to be franchise players. imagine what that would do to the system. And again, that is the big thing that is still missing with the system

is the next generational player, that next franchise type player, or two, or three, or however many you want for the organization. But that would do it for this second segment. Coming up to end the show, we're talking about the athletics and it shall broadcast rankings and why the penguins were ranked, excuse me, way too low. That's coming up right after this. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. That's Patrick Damp, my co-st. And Pat, the athletics, initial broadcast rankings came out on July 21st. We somehow missed this just because we were busy with other topics to discuss on the show. This was rated by the fans. And the Penguins came in at 31st,

out of 32 teams in terms of their broadcast on Sportsnet Pittsburgh. Obviously, Josh Getsoff, easily play-by-play announcer, and then you have Phil Bork, Colby Armstrong, and Mike Rupp, rotating for a third. the color commentators.

I've said my piece. I think Phil Bork of the three is the best, and that would go Colby Armstrong number two, and then Mike Rupp number three. Colby is really funny, brings the vibes. He's especially good down between the benches for the home games. Phil Bork, he's never afraid to really crucify the team, especially when they're playing bad. But I do think there's a bit more to be desired when it comes to Mike Rup on commentary, in my

humble opinion. Last season, the Penguins were ranked 28th in this, the season. same rankings now they are 31 and one fan says can be very dry at times with like more enthusiasm when something big happens which is interesting because i feel like josh gets off gets pretty enthusiastic when something big happens some people may not like my opinion on this i think we've seen some people disagree with my take on this in the past but whatever i'll say it again i think josh gets off is a really good play-by-play commentator in my opinion he is better than steve mirrors and i mean that has no disrespect excuse me to steve mirrors i know he's crushing it with a

Columbus blue jackets right now, but I just feel like Josh gets up is an overall better fit for play by play with the penguins. But is this broadcast crew top 10 to even top 13 14? No. But is it bottom two level bad in the NHL also now. I think this ranking is kind of insane, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, if the penguins came in at like, or I shouldn't even say Penguin Sportsnet, Pittsburgh, even though it's FSG, it's all one thing, whatever. But I digress. If they came in at like 16, 17, 18, fine, because that's kind of where I look at them is they're pretty run of the mill.

I will give the one review this, that having a rotating cast of color commentators does kind of hurt Josh Getsov's ability to build chemistry in the booth with them. That's fair. I would love to see them just say, you know what? Phil Bork, you're full time on TV. You're with Gets Off. You are, it's, it's 20, 25, like, no offense to my friends who work in radio. I have tremendous amount of respect for radio.

It's, it was my childhood dream, but then the internet happened. So being a radio broadcaster kind of went by the wayside. But at this point, you guys are the A team, Gets Off and Bork, Get TV, Joe Brand, a.k.a. Hunter Hodes can find himself another color commentator. But at the end of the day, if there's a word I can come up with for the Penguins broadcast, I'm sorry if anybody from SNP is listening to our show, it's bland. It just exists. Like, it's fine.

It's not great. It's not terrible. It's just there. I think Gets off is a solid, play by play, man. I would love to see what he can do. Like I said, give him bork full time and keep those guys on most games.

I think that would give it some more juice because once those two learn how to play off each other consistently, be a lot of fun. Right now, it's just there. It just exists. As the kids like to say, Pat, it's mid, it's average, it's fine. Even if you rank this broadcast in, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22, that type of range.

I'd be fine with that as well. But I don't think it's bottom two level bad in the NHL. I will add this, though. I want to, because I do, there was another piece in there on the athletic word said. Fans are critical of having rotating color analysts, the intermission panels, and a lack of criticism for a team that finished while the playoffs again. One, if you watch SNP, you've noticed this. It's honestly become a running gag between me and my.

friends during pirate season. It seems like anybody who played for the pirates between like 2012 in 2016 is showing up on post game analysis panels. It's kind of looking that way too for the penguins. Like if you played between like 2010 and 2017, you might be getting a call to be on the intermission panel. Stop. It's fine to have a couple of guests and a couple of,

hey, this is so-and-so. He's in town and there's a game and there was a game. So we're going to bring on Stanley Cup champion from the Penguins for a fun segment. But not everybody is an intermission panelist. You need to this gets back to the original complaint. You've got to have consistency. Even if you swap someone out every few games for someone else, that's fine. But constantly going to the intermission and going, oh, it's,

Potash and two randoms. It's potash and two more people. Eventually, you've got to let your broadcast build some chemistry and bring in some people who are going to be there

for the majority of the season. As long as Jay Cawfield is there for almost every game. I'm sorry. Some people don't like his telestrations for some reason. I do. I like Jay Cawfield quite a bit

on the intermission. So I want him there for most of the games on Sportsnet Pittsburgh. Obviously, probably not to be there for every game just because for scheduling and stuff. But I want him. him there for as many games as possible. As for like the full-time TV crew, I think I've said this before

on the show. If you could do like a three-man broadcast of Getsop doing play by play, Phil Bork next to him doing color commentary and Colby Armstrong down between the benches, just reporting, you know, like what players are saying and just the atmosphere down there, or even just giving his thoughts as well, just because he's a really funny dude, good vibes guy as well. I think you have the makings of a decent broadcast, in my opinion. And then you can figure out what you want to do with the radio side. Joe Brand, who is not my twin. I'm sorry, Pat. Very nice guy, by the way, Joe, if you're listening to this, you rock. Really nice to meet you at development camp. He's really good on radio for color commentary. You know, maybe if you want to see what, you know, Michelle could do.

I thought she was solid filling in last season. I think if you want to maybe give her a few more games to really expand on her product, that will be good. Maybe you even have Mike Rup to quite a few radio games during this season. I think they'll have a lot of full-time color commentary options for radio even if they do my idea which is the three person team on television but i think that's going to do it for today's episode of the locked on penguins podcast thank you guys so much to take the time to listen to slash watch this one pat and i will be back with a fresh episode for you guys on wednesday and then we'll close out the week with a special edition of fan take friday on thursday and then we'll continue our front top 25 series pat of the last 25 years

that'll be on Thursday and then we'll send you guys off into the weekend. So for Patrick Damp, I am Hunter Hodes. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. We appreciate it and we'll be back on Wednesday.