Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Tristan Jarry makes Pittsburgh Penguins history in potential season-turning win!

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

The Pittsburgh Penguins got a massive win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night but of course, we have to start the show with Tristan Jarry's goal. Hunter and Pat gush about the goal and how Jarry made Penguins history before getting into his performance as a whole. They dive into how confident Jarry looks and if this can continue for the rest of the season. After that, they dive into Sidney Crosby's beautiful goal to get the Penguins back into it. They analyze how Crosby continues to age like fine wine before getting to the tying goal with Drew O'Connor. They marvel at the pass that Evgeni Malkin made before Pat cooks a little bit regarding Jeff Carter. Is this a season-changing win? They also dive into that before they end the show with a preview of the matchup against the Flyers.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.Collective.comCollective is the number one financial solution for freelancers, contractors, and self-employed entrepreneurs that lets you focus on your passion, not your paperwork. Right now, Collective is offering 1 month free and no onboarding fee when you go to Collective.com/lockedonnhl and tell them LOCKEDONNHL sent you. 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.GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime.Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL 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.

We witnessed history last night with Tristan Jari's goal. And for today's episode, The Locked On Penguins podcast, Pat and I are going to discuss that his overall play last night, how the Penguins roared back to beat the lightning, and, of course, preview Saturdays game against the Flyers. 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, joined by my co-s Patrick Dampe. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow Pat on Twitter at Sonam for Wet. And you can follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O. underscore Penguins, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first lesson slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, his episode is by to you by Fanduel. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150,

bucks if your team wins, visit fandal.com slash locked on to get started. And speaking of getting started, Tristan Jari, take a bow, my good friend. And overall, I hope everyone that is listening to slash watching this episode of the show remembers forever where you were when you witnessed Pittsburgh Penguins history on Thursday night when Tristan Jari became the first goalie ever in the history of this franchise to score a goal. It's a second career goal overall. He scored one in Wilkesbury back in November of 2018. But his first goal as a penguin and first goalie to ever score a goal as a member of the penguins. And I feel like we could spend an entire show talking about that goal, Pat. But I really

only wanted to highlight two main things about it. Number one was the shot itself. It was perfect. The height that he put on the puck was awesome. He put it in a spot where no one could deflect it down and keep the puck in the offensive zone to set up scoring chances. That was great. And secondly, I love the confidence that Jari had to do that because I feel like a lot of times when you see goalies try to score in the NHL or just even the HL, it usually comes when your team is up by more than one goal just because it's riskier to do it when you're only up by one goal. But with how Jari is playing and we'll get to that in just a second, he had that swagger to him, he had that confidence. And he was like, you know what?

I'm just going to do this right now. And I'm glad he did because it was one heck of a shot. But that just goes to show how confident he's feeling right now. But what a goal by number 35. God, that was cool, man. Like, and we'll talk about the game as a whole, but what a vibe shift from start to finish. Yeah. And a lot of it is thanks to him.

He played a really great game and punctuated it with a goal. You know, all I could think of was, you know, for you absolute sickos that just remember random moments in Pittsburgh sports, all I could think of was the 2016 mid-summer series between the Pirates and Cardinals where A.J. Burnett just decided in the second inning to go yard. And it's like, that's all I could think of. It's like, okay, well, if no one else is going to give me support, I'm going to give myself support. So Tristan Sharie, even though he did get the support from the team, still played a hell of a game and then punctuates it with, I'm going to score a goal on top of it.

And the thing that's wild to me, and I said this earlier today, the penguins have had low-key some great goaltenders come through their doors. And the fact that Tristan Jari is the first goal to score is wild to me. Who has never scored a goal for the penguins, Pat? Can you name the one that I know you put out there on social media? Yeah, I put that out as bait. and I think everybody was pretty obvious. They're pretty, pretty keen to the fact that it was bait,

but I was going for Mark Andre Flurry. We love you, flower. Just saying, we love you on this show. And I know he's happy for him, but I know deep down, he's probably like, God dang it, man. Why didn't I score when I was a member of the Penguins? The funniest part of that tweet was that instead of going, instead of getting dog piled by people who wanted to yell at me about Mark Andre Fleury,

it turned into let's remember some guys i did see it's like adam clendon denning comrie like a bunch of other people i was like let's remember some guys while we're at it no that's just that it was too good of a tweet i had to bring it up but you know i'm again i'm sure flower wishes that he did score as a number penguins were just overall throughout his career but shifting back to jari for this discussion even outside the goal man 39 saves on 41 shots 951 save or 101 save or 105 1% of He is slowly starting to build some more swagger, some more confidence, as I just said a couple of minutes ago. He's top 10 in goals, stayed above expected with almost seven this year. You're also slowly starting to see him get more and more consistent.

And, you know, his October, I think was mostly fine, had some bad starts in there. November, though, overall this month, I would say was very good. If he can continue to build on this throughout the season, this is going to be a big deal. deal for this hockey team. He really showed up for a good chunk of this month. I know I kind of was in lying season moment. I talked about, you know, is this maybe the start of his Vesna trophy campaign on social media on Friday. We're not there yet, people. I'm just saying, we're not there yet. But if he does keep building on this December, January, into February, even later on this season, you could make a case for later on that he could be a finalist. I'm just putting

that out there. We have to see it. But he, he is playing some lights out hockey right now, and the penguins do not come back in that game without him. Early on in the first period, and I thought that was the worst period they played all year up until this point. He was saving the penguins' butts. The penguins were being outshot 15 to 2 during that period, and Jari was making save after save, after save.

The two goals that he gave up were not his fault at all. He was just under siege that entire first period, but he was able to keep the game close enough and give the penguins an opportunity to come back in the second and third periods, and they did just that. But again, they don't win that game without number 35, even outside of the goal. Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth. Like, we're going to sit here and we're going to remember the goal and we're going to talk about the goal forever and ever.

Because why not? Golly goal is a rare thing that happens. Right. But the biggest story from last night is not the goal. The biggest story is the fact that if Tristan Jari does not play, lights out in the first period. The Penguins do not win that game. He showed up and showed out.

The Penguins maybe showed up for the first two minutes, maybe of the first period. And then for the rest of the first period, they completely no-showed. And they got dominated by the lightning. And without Tristan Jari, keeping that game to two nothing in the first period, that game gets out of hand fast. It very easily could have been three, four, even five nothing without Tristan Jari after 20 minutes because there was not a soul on the Pittsburgh Penguins on the first period on Thursday night that showed up. I agree. No, they were boat raced that first period. And I even put out a tweet there, man. I said, man, it's going to be a long night. They don't have it. And hey,

I'll gladly take the L on that. We're going to dive into more of this game in the second segment. but I will gladly look like an idiot with the way the Penguins played in the final two minutes because they knew that wasn't acceptable. They knew how badly they played in the first period. Tampa Bay was all over them in their own zone. But credit to the players and credit to the coaching staff for getting this right for the final 40 minutes, but 100% on what you just said. But I think that will do it for this for a segment of today's show.

Coming up in the second segment, we're going to get into the rest of the storylines that came out of this game, especially Sydney Crosby making more history. Drew O'Connor scoring in his 100th game. And yes, Jeff Carter getting the game winning goal. And I know Pat's going to give it to me a little bit on that one. But before we get to that, we got to tell you all about Fandall. As the weather gets colder, the NFL offers stay hot on Fandall.

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That's Fandle, the official betting partner of the NFL and locked on. And we're back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Damp. So, Pat, let's discuss the second and third periods, considering how bad the first one was. And who else but Sidney Crosby to get the Penguins back into it with a beautiful goal to cut the lead to 2 to 1 for a time before the Penguins kept roaring back throughout the second period?

Then, of course, into the third period. When I watched that goal live, and especially when I went back to watch it after, I saw both times that there was really not a lot of room when Crosby was coming down that left side in the offensive zone. Because let's face it, Andre Vasselvesky, he is a giant in the net. He is a mammoth of a goalie. But there is a smidge of room, right top cheese, block her side on Vasilevsky.

And that's all Crosby needed to bury that puck past him to get the penguins back into this game. And of course, this goal, that's Crosby's 564th goal. He's now in the top 25 all time for most goals ever in NHL history tied with Matt Sundeen and Joe Newendike. Congratulations to Cid on that. And honestly, Pat, he's going to be passing some more legends pretty soon. He's only two away from tying Patrick Marlow at 23rd all time. He's all-time-legged. Nine away from tying Mike Bossy, one of the greatest to ever do it at 22nd.

Mark Recky comes after that at 577. At the end of this season, he's going to be cracking almost the top 20 for most schools ever in NHL history. Congratulations to him, and what a goal that was. Yeah, and I don't want to downplay how awesome the goal was because it was a great shot on a great goalie in a perfect spot. But the part of the goal that I want to highlight here is this is what the all-time greats do. Because let's also not get this twisted.

The penguins didn't exactly come out of the gate on fire in the second period. Early on, it looked like the penguins were going to be stuck right in the mud again, like they were in the first period. And then Crosby's goal drags them kicking and screaming back in. to the fight and it starts the effort up again. And it helped build momentum and it helped get that wake them up and get them ready to go. And to me, yes, it's an intangible thing. Yes, it's not something you can really measure.

But that is what the all-time greats do. They drag their team to a victory. Even on the nights when their teams aren't playing well, they do things like this to get their teams back in the game. So not only is it a historic goal for Crosby, it's just another example of how influential clutch and how good of a captain and all-around player this man has been for nearly 20 years in the National Hockey League. And I've seen it floated out there already, but it honestly does feel like he's going

to be the NHL's version of Tom Brady. I've seen numerous people say that already. and honestly, I don't disagree with the level that he keeps showing. And for this game, I know the penguins were rotten in that first period. We've said that a lot already. But he came out, I felt like, with a purpose in those first three, three minutes. You probably remember the penguins actually came out those first few minutes in the first period looking decent. They had some chances on Vaselowski.

It was those final 16 to 17 minutes where they were really outclass. And it was Crosby's line that really led the way in that first period, at least for those first couple of minutes. And then it was him and his line that really led the way to start the comeback in the second period, too. And you say, this is what all-time grades do. This is one of the many, many reasons why Cindy Crosby is going to go down as one of the five greatest players to ever play the game. Outside of that, Drew O'Connor, get a goal in his 100th game. Congratulations to Drew. And what a pass by I have getting Malkin there, by the way, Pat.

That was a beautiful pass coming down on the two-on-one. I know we like to make fun of the Penguins a lot when it comes. to overpassing on two-on-ones. That was a situation where the pass was there, and it was made beautifully by Malkin. And those two really good games now from Gino, he was in a little bit of a rut before these last couple of games, but he's really turned it on these last two.

That was a great pass and a great finish from O'Connor. He's looked really good these last couple of games. And I know it's been in the top six role. He's been elevated a little bit, playing with some all-time grades, but he's still slowly starting to turn his season around a little bit, and that's great to see. Yeah, and the pass.

just, I mean, the best thing about that pass was that it was against Victor Headman, if I recall correctly. And that is one of the best defensemen to play the game. I don't know where he's going to rank in the pantheon of all time, but right now he's arguably one of the best. But what Gino did there was so smart and subtle. He slowed up just enough to where it throws Victor Headman because if Victor Headman lets Malkin stop and get an open shot, maybe he doesn't score, but it's a great A opportunity. But if he keeps going, he's going to screen his goalie.

And it was enough to freeze him to open up the lane for him to make the pass to Drew O'Connor to get the goal. And that was just a brilliant, brilliant move. It was. I love Gino coming down. the right side of the offensive zone there, and Freesed Hedman, got the pass over to O'Connor, he makes no mistake. And of course, the game winner, who does it go to, Pat?

Big Jeff Carter. There it is. And I'll say this. I'll say this when it comes to Jeff Carter. That was a nice goal. It was. Matt Niotto, really nice pass to Carter for that. And it was a nice finish.

And honestly, this was probably one of his better games of the season. And that's fine. I actually enjoyed watching Carter play in this one. If he can have games like this at times a season where maybe he's not playing on a nightly basis, I guess, I can live with that for the final year of his contract. But I know you want to cook with Carter, so I'm going to hand it over to you. I don't even really so much want to cook. Like, you know, obviously everybody knows I like Jeff Carter. I always have.

And it does taint my ability to analyze it because I have that bias of liking him. as his career as a player. But to build on what you said, I would be a lot happier with the way they use Jeff Carter. If we do this thing where every couple of weeks, you sit them down for two to three games. Not as a punishment, not as anything negative, just to, hey, Jeff, listen, getting up there an age.

We got some depth this year. You don't need to play all 82. You don't need to play every single night. What we're going to want you for is the postseason, because until he proves me otherwise, he's a gamer in the playoffs. Until he shows us otherwise, he shows up in the playoffs. You go look at his playoff stats with the penguins,

and they are pretty damn good for a small sample size. So you want to keep him fresh for that. And last couple weeks, after a couple of healthy scratches, he's looked fine. Has he been great? he's been perfectly fine. But fourth line winger, I don't need him to blow me away.

I don't even be the best player in the world. And similar to what I've said before, it's not Kyle Dubus or Mike Sullivan's fault that he's signed to this contract. That's all Ron Hextall and he's gone. And if they want to play him for two, three weeks, sit them down for a week, bring him back into the lineup and they do something like that. I am perfectly fine with it. Yeah, and if you want to rotate him with, I don't know, Vinnie Hanna-Straza, whoever else you want to rotate with on that line, I would be down for that.

That's for sure. He's just, yeah, I don't think he's in every night player anymore at this stage of his career. And we all know he might call it a career after this year anyway. But overall, I don't think he's in every game player at this point, considering his age, considering what he's done the last year, year and a half overall. I concur with you. I agree with that overall. And lastly, last topic I want to get to before we preview this game against the Flyers, the way the Penguins played in those final two periods,

and this was also the Penguins' fifth straight win over the Lightning. They've had a lightning number over the last couple of seasons. Is this a season-changing win for the Penguins? Because it has that feel. With the way they roared back in those final two periods, with Tristan Jari's goal, the captain leading the way, it feels like the Penguins are ready to go. on this massive streak.

It just feels like that to me because I said it on Twitter and I'll say it here on the podcast as well. The semblance of a good team is there. This is a very good team at five on five. The I test backs up and especially the numbers back that up. They also have a very good penalty heel and they are getting very good

all situations goaltending from Trishanjari and Alex Indelkavish. If they can just get a league average power play and get that turned around a little bit, I really do think this team can cook and go on a long winning streak. Again, I'll say it one more time. There is a good team in there. You would just have to fix this power play.

And I really think a lot of the issues will be ironed out. I have written about this using this exact wording for Penguins' perspectives on KDKA. If you look at the Penguins right now as a puzzle, the pieces of a contender are there. They just have to fit them in correctly. And if they don't start to fit them correctly, we're just going to see another maybe one and done in the playoffs. Maybe we're going to miss the playoffs again.

But we don't know if this is going to be a season altering one. We're going to find out, though. But here's the thing. They need to do something they have not done yet this year. and that is build off of a win like this. Because outside of the California road trip, they have won games and then retreated back to some old bad habits. Then they get away from them and they win a game.

And then they retreat back to the old bad habits and then it changes again. And here's the thing. It's hard to say in early December game against a team like Philly is gigantic. But it is because if you look at that, the standings right now as we record here on Friday afternoon, one point separates the penguins and flyers. One point. Penguins have 23, flyers have 24. There are four points on the line over the next three days or four days. And if you're the penguins, you want to take both games in regulation from this Flyers team. Because if you take four points and you jump out

ahead of them by three points, you're starting to put a team that's supposed to miss the playoffs and be rebuilding out of their early season win streak. So this is a, aside from it being the Commonwealth Cold War, this is huge. It is. And speaking of that, we're going to preview this game against the Flyers coming up in the final segment. The Flyers are starting to struggle a little bit, but I at least should commend them a bit because they have started the season a lot better than I thought they would. But again, we'll get to that in the final segment before we discussed that, though.

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One of the top rivalies in the NHL, though, at least for Penguins, hasn't been what it once was in 2012 and even before that in 2009 and even going way further back. But it's still one of the top rivalries in the league. league and it's always fun with these two teams get together for the flyers. As I said, they started off the season really well. They're still playing at least decently, but that they lost four of their last five games. They just lost to the devils in overtime on Thursday night.

It was a nice job by them to rally back to even get a point in that game because they were down to nothing after the first period. We also saw a big hit from Garnett Hathaway that saw him get ejected. And I'll, I disagree with that, to be honest. I didn't think that was worthy of an injection. And I don't think you like it either. No, no. I'll go on a quick little mini ran here.

Listen, I'm not, I'm not saying this facetiously. I'm not saying this as like a, you know, sarcastic guy thing. If we want to take hitting out of hockey, just take it out. Because that wasn't boarding. It was a big hit that the, whichever of the Hughes it was, did not, what? It was Luke Hughes. Yeah, Luke Hughes. Yeah.

Did not properly brace for. He went into a puck battle, did not brace for a hit and got. crushed. And as much as we want to put the onus on player safety, hitting is still very much legal. And players have to be aware of that at their own peril. I would mainly blame the linesman because you should have called icing there. I don't know how you blow that call, to be honest, but I don't think it was a malicious, dirty hit or anything like that. The Flyers right now, 11, 10, and 2. Travis Connecting has been great for the Flyers this year.

12 goals, 18 points is 12 goals. Leave the team. Travis Sandheim, 16 points in 23 games, Joel Farabee, eight goals, 15 points. Sean Gutier, who has come back this year, five goals, 15 points in 21 games. Couturee has been really good since coming back. He's always been one of the best two-way centers in the league, and you know he's going to be matched up against Indy Crosby in this game. He's been matched up against him for the last 10-plus years, and it's going to happen again in this one.

That's going to be a major matchup to watch overall. Penguins swept the season series against the Flyers last year, winning all. three games against them. They've been playing the Flyers really well as of late. And here's a stat for you. The Penguins are nine and three and one in their last 13 games against the Flyers. That's very obviously very good. And say what you will about John Torrella. I'm not his biggest fan. I have never been a John Torrella fan. I think he runs his mouth way too much and just says some weird stuff that I'm just like, okay, there's just no need to say this, but that's a rant for another day. He has the Flyers playing decently well this year.

and this is the type of team that he can squeeze a lot out of a team that you know there's not a lot of expectations for, but is still maybe going to at least exceed those small expectations. And so far, they've been doing that. Here's the take. John Tortorella is a great coach. There are no two ways about this. He is a great coach because like you said, this is a John Tortorella team if there ever was a John Tortoralea team. You look up and down this roster and there's some talent.

There's definitely some talent. But there is not any sort of elite talent on this. Not anymore. Not anymore. And there will be soon because this team has a lot of good players in the system. I also have to give a shout out to their director of player development. I believe that's his official title. Riley Armstrong, brother of Kobe Armstrong and a good friend of mine.

But here's the thing. This is a Torteralea team if there ever was. one. Not a lot of elite talent. They play really well defensively, and he squeezes blood out of a stone. And this team is going to play you hard. This team is going to play you physical. This team is going to try to frustrate the hell out of you for 60 minutes. This is going to be a big test for the Penguins. And I know a bunch of people are probably shaking their heads right now because this Flyers team is not supposed to be good. But early on, they are good. Maybe good's not the word, but they're well coached, they're disciplined, and they're playing a brand of hockey that is going to frustrate

a lot of teams in the NHL. For the penguins over the next two games, they cannot get sucked into any of that. They're going to try to piss you off. They are going to try to make you take penalties in retaliation to them, and they're going to make you play one-nothing, two-one, three-two hockey. And I know we love track meets, and I know the penguins love track meets. But this is a moment where Mike Sullivan has to outcoach his old friend in John Tortorella and just keep his team on an even keel. If you have to win one-nothing, so be it. Go win one-nothing. The two points are the only thing that matter against this team. That's always a staple of John Torrella teams, though, right? He loves winning those one-nothing two, one, three, two games. He's never been

someone that's really going to, what, open up a game for attracting. He never did it in Columbus, never did it with the Rangers. He's never really done it anywhere he's coached in the NHL pad. So you, Penguins fans do need to be prepared for that type of game. Cam Atkins, and I will also shout out eight goals and 14 points this season. He's come back with a vengeance. And also Carter Har, I know he's given up a little over two goals above expected this year, but he does have a 909% percentage, 2.68 goals against average.

That's still not bad. I don't think he's a bad goal. I know everyone in this fan base likes to clown on him, just for obvious reasons. It's great. But over the last year, year and a half, he actually has played at a decent level. It's just that his team, let's face it, it's not good.

And I think if the Penguins, you know, obviously you want to make the playoffs, but if you want to really show that this team turned a corner against Tampa Bay, you go out there and you not only win this game on Saturday, you win the game on Monday as well. You go out there and sweep this home and home against them to show that you are the better team. You are still trying to contend for a playoff spot while the Flyers, they had a good start,

but they're not close to being there yet. That's what I really want to see it from the Penguins. I want to see that killer instinct against a team that should not be in the position that it is right now. Show that you are better than your cross-state rivals. And to the Carter Hart thing, this is how you know it is a John Torturella coach team.

In 14 starts, he's only faced 384 shots. In comparison, Tristan Jari has played 17 games and faced 479 shots. So this is a Flyers team that is very good defensively, or at the very least, blocks a lot of shots. So they make life a lot easier on Carter Hart. And when they do that, by the way. Yep. Go ahead.

And so when they do that, Carter Hart has the ability to play well and get into a groove, which last few years he never really had the chance to do. They wanted him to already be an Igor Shisterkin without giving him time to develop like an Igor Shisterkin and that killed him. Right. I agree with you on that. I don't think he was ever going to be that good anyway. I mean, I always thought he was going to be at least a fine,

to a good goalie, but did I ever see him as a top three to five goalie in the league? Honestly, no. And I think he's just been also too inconsistent to this point in this career. Again, last year, year and a half, he's been good, but I don't think his ceiling was ever top five goalie in the league. I just don't really see that overall for Colorado. I would say this is the one and only time Ron Hextall was right.

Because he basically got fired because he refused to bring him up. And he refused to make him the starting goalie. And he pretty much said, you're going to ruin the kid's development. You're going to ruin him as a starting goalie. And while he's starting to show some signs of being a serviceable to good NHL goalie, he had top tier potential. They just got impatient with him.

And Hextall was right. And now you're just hoping he can be a good goalie when you could have had an elite one. Right. I concur with you on that. I'm just going through the rest of this roster before we call it here. You got the four lines. I mean, already talked about Couturee, Travis Kinectney's been great. Joel Farabee, got Scott Lawton, Cam Atkinson, who we already said,

Morgan Frost, Owen Tippett, Nick DeLorea, you know what you're going to get from Nick DeLoree. He's a tough customer. Garnett Hathaway as well. Former Penguin Ryan Paling, of course. He's their fourth-line center right now. Curious to see how he looks after his struggles, especially with injuries last year for the Penguins. And then defensively, Cam York, Travis Hanheim, Nick Seeler, Sean Walker, Rasmus Rastonan, who I could make 5,000 jokes about him on this show. I'm probably not going to do that.

I'll be nice when it comes to Rasmus Stelighton. that's for sure he just he makes a good chunk of money and at least he's on the third pay at least they know what his capabilities are he was never a top pairing or second pairing defenseman he's no no he's a third pairing guy if that for his initial career but do you have any other keys for this one pat heading in saturday night i mean again just we've been talking about it a lot on this podcast and it's going to be huge again these next two games it's discipline top to bottom both in the way you play and not worrying too much about the scoreboard and feeling you have to beat them more and not getting caught up in the tough guy agitator game that the Flyers are going to try to draw

you into. Just play the game you know how to play, beat discipline, and get four really big points in the metro standings that you absolutely need right now. And don't give any loser points away in these two games. Please, if there's one thing I hate about divisional games, even when the Penguins win, it's just you go to overtime and when you give them a loser point. Don't do that. It's the main thing I hate when you win divisional games.

You just have to win in overtime. Win in regulation. That's what I'm looking for with this one. But continue to play strong at five on five. I want to see the goal tending. I'm sure they'll start Shrish and Jari on Saturday. He's going to get a raucous ovation from the PPG paints arena crowd. And then Monday, I'd actually go to Delkevich for that one.

I know Jari's been playing really well, but you can continue to do like a 60, 40, 65, 35, split in net with how both have been playing this year. if the Penguins can get a power play goal in one of these next two games, that'll also be very appreciative as well. That'd be cool with that. Yeah, that would be also very nice. But overall, we're just looking for wins here on the show. But that would do it for this Friday edition

of a Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for listening to slash watching this one. Pat and I will be back with another episode for you all on Monday. Recapping that first game against the Flyers, then getting you all set for the second half of the home and home between the two teams, and then we'll get you all set for the later games later on

that week. But again, thank you all much for tuning in really appreciate it we'll be back on monday