Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - What Rangers fans can expect with Jack Johnson signing there, with Jon Chik of Locked On Rangers!

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

Jon Chik of Locked On Rangers decided to stop by for a special crossover episode of Locked On Penguins today, especially to get his thoughts on the Rangers signing of Jack Johnson. What is his ceiling for next year? Does he actually have good penalty-killing ability as Jacques Martin says he does? Hunter tries to answer those questions, then the two hosts go into more talk about Jesper Fast. Was that contract the steal of the offseason so far? Or was it potentially Craig Smith? All that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.Door DashRight now, our listeners can get $5 off and zero delivery fees on their first order of $15 or more, when you download the DoorDash app and enter code LOCKEDONNHL.RomanGo to getroman.com/lockedon TODAY. If approved, you’ll get fifteen dollars off your first orderof ED treatment. 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.

All right, welcome back. Rangers fans, Penguins fans. We got a special crossover episode for you guys today. This is John Chick with Lockdown New York Rangers, joined by Hunter Hodes of Lockdown Pittsburgh Penguins. Hunter, how we doing today, buddy? Doing pretty good, man. How about yourself? Hanging in there, but, you know, I do have some concerns over the Rangers' supposed prize-free agent signing from this off-season, and you know him quite well.

That's Jack Johnson. A lot of Ranger fans not too happy about this signing, or at the very least, they're kind of underwhelmed about it. You've watched Johnson over the last two years. So, I mean, just tell me what kind of player are we getting here. Is there any hope for Jack Johnson kind of regaining form with the Rangers this season? Hope. You're based on hope. There's probably, yeah, watching for the last two seasons was just a chore. I mean, I would rather just watch paint dry than watch Jack Johnson play on this hockey team. That's probably one of the greatest, the tweet that came out saying he was being bought out, that's probably one of the biggest moments that Penguin's Twitter came together since they won the Cup in 2017.

Everyone was done with him at this point. But, I mean, even if you don't look at, you know, the advanced stats and the analytics or surrounding Johnson's game, which are utterly terrible, you can just watch him on the ice and, like I said, not even look at him and just see how bad he is. I mean, he's bad in the defensive zone. He's an offensive black hole. I mean, every player that he plays with, he just drags him down with him. I mean, 46% possession like this past season. You know, even playing with Chris LaTang.

And Chris Lantang, like, his numbers go up with almost anyone he plays with. His numbers go down because of the Jack Johnson effect. And it was just after game, after game. I mean, I think he, when Sidney Crosby was honestly on the ice with him, his numbers went down. And Sid drives possession like no other in this league. So it was just, it was a long time coming. I don't know why the penguins decided to sign him in the first place.

But, you know, he's off the team now. And it looks like Jacques Martin was deciding to be like a secret agent there for the Rangers by basically saying he recommended the Rangers to sign Jack Johnson because of his PK ability. But, I mean, he really doesn't have any PK ability. But I mean, this is the big thing from that playoff series. He was on the ice for five goals against one goal four by 5V5. And it wasn't just that he was on the ice for those goals. He was actively causing them to happen. Right.

I do remember that. I watched a good amount of that series, yeah. now that you say that, yeah. Yeah, he was just out of position everywhere, just getting roasted like no other. It was really bad to watch. Yeah, and you know, you mentioned Jacques Martin. Obviously, he's the new Ranger coach.

He comes over from Pittsburgh. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, I try to be positive on the show overall and I try to see the good and everything that the Rangers do. This one has made it difficult to do that. But, you know, you hear about like, oh, well, you know, he's familiar with Jack Martin. I'm like, yeah, but like it's not really good familiarity.

Like, it's not like Jack Martan coach this. guy to being, you know, even an average defenseman. It was, it was not good for the time that they spent together in Pittsburgh. So that kind of just made me scratch my head as well there. Yeah, exactly. And he was in charge of the defense here in Pittsburgh. That was his duty with the penalty killing. So I guess he liked what he saw from Johnson.

He didn't really push Sullivan and take him out of the lineup. And that's, I guess that's one of the biggest reasons why I'm glad that Martin and Rakey are both out of this team. Now I wasn't, you know, big on both of them going. But now that I've seen this, you know, I think Sullivan needed to surround himself with assistant coaches who actually push him with lineup decisions because I don't think Martin especially did that with Johnson and Schultz just because of how bad they were in the series. But I mean, you know, I think that was the biggest thing that's come out

of the Penguins off season is that Jack Johnson is going to a division rival and they'll be playing him four to five times next season if it's a full 82 game season. So yeah, yeah. No, it's crazy. And, you know, the one thing, it's kind of sad that this is the most positive aspect of this move for the Rainers, but the one thing that I keep reminding fan, because You know, you go on Twitter, we all tend to overreact. You know, we're all sports fans. We're all very passionate. But, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, my God, we signed Jack Johnson.

This offseason's a disaster. And okay, yes, it has been a little bit of an underwhelming offseason for the Rangers. But the one thing that I think is important to keep in perspective here if you're a Ranger fan is that, you know, this is just a one year deal. It's barely a million dollars. And they did have a need to kind of bring in a veteran defense and to replace Mark Stahl and kind of hopefully hold down the fort until some of their prospects are ready, guys like Keandre Miller. And so, you know, I don't think it's all doom and gloom. even if this is a complete disaster, there's no way he's going to be on this team for more than a year,

I think. But it's kind of sad that that's almost the most positive aspect of this is, okay, well, he came cheap and he won't be here for very long. Yeah, I mean, there's honestly a chance that he could be in the press box throughout the season. That's entirely possible, yes. I mean, I was reading the athletic. I think Craig Custin's like interviewed like executives on his piece for the athletic.

And I think they talked about it, Jack Johnson's signing. He talked to an executive. He said, he takes a beating. is he a perfect player? Absolutely not. I'm like, wow, I wonder which executive said this. And it sounds like it was probably

Jim Rutherford that was defending him. And they basically said, you know, you take this kind of deal all day long. And it's like, I'm not really sure I would under no circumstances take that all day long. I mean, like you said, though, it's a one-year deal.

He makes over a million. It's not the end of the world. But, I mean, if you would have had told me that Jack Johnson was going to be a day one free agency signing, I will have told you there's no damn way. So that was, I think, the biggest surprise.

Yeah, it's crazy too because, you know, I, again, I did, I did think that the Rangers should look at bringing in, you know, a one-year stopgap defense in, like a veteran defense, but a couple, a couple names that I threw out there who actually signed for less money. And these guys are not perennial all-stars or anything like that, but you got guys like Trevor Van Rheemzdyke and Luke Shen, both of those guys signed for just six figures. And I think probably either of them probably would have been a better signing than Jack Johnson. And then if you're the Rangers and you do that, maybe that pays the way to resigning yes for Foss, who they just let get away for only $2 million.

annually for the Canes. So I don't know. The whole thing is kind of underwhelming, but I guess at this point, you just cross your fingers and you hope for, you know, an improbable reclamation season here for Jack Johnson if you're the Rangers. Yeah, you got to hope for something. As I said, yeah. As the biggest thing you can do is just somehow hope, you know, hope he does involvement all over himself in the defensive zone, to be honest. That would be a positive, absolutely. Just changing gears a little bit here. I figure we could talk about free agency as a whole. You know, we talked about Johnson, obviously.

The penguins, you know, they've been a little bit quiet and free agency. Justin Schultz leaves the team. He signs a two-year, $8 million contract with the Capitals. Is that a big loss for you guys losing Justin Shultz and free agency, or do you think he was expendable? Not at all. He was, I think he was expendable. His level had dipped a lot, excuse me, these last couple of years. He really wasn't the same after that fractured ankle.

injury during the 2017-18 season. He had to miss most of it. And the play honestly looked semi-okay, but then after that, battled some injuries, but then when he was healthy for a lot of those last two seasons, just wasn't himself. I mean, the Penguins of the organization, they were kind of bad-mouthing him on his way out. They were assuming that they were not happy with his play in the bubble, not happy with his play during this past season.

I mean, Jim Arthur even said in his end of the media conference, you know, we thought on that pairing with Jack Johnson because, of course, he had to defend Jack Johnson to above all costs. He said, we thought Schultz had more to give. So they were just bad-mouthing him out. There was no way he was going to come back. I saw the Capitol's $4 million per for him. I think that's a little ridiculous.

He's not a $4 million per player anymore in this league. They may stick him on the top four. That's just not going to happen. I mean, I've seen some Capitals fans try to defend that signing, say, you know, you could change a scenery, and play with Demetri Orlov. Guys, this ain't the 2015, 16, 2016. 16, 17, Justin Schultz anymore.

This is not who he is. And you need him in a very selective role. Bottom pairing gets maybe 10, 12 minutes a night with a good shutdown defender next to him. But I just don't know if the capitals will have that. So I don't really care that they wash holds. And while we have a moment to pause, it is time to talk about Bill Pard. There are six new flavors for the Bill Pard. A few of them, Cherry Barakia, carrot cake, apple, almond, crisp.

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You can go to Billbar.com and use promo code locked on, and it will get $20 off your next order. That's promo code locked on for $20 off at Billbar.com. I got you. Now, is there anyone that is still out there for the penguins? either a restricted free agent or unrestricted free agent who you would really like to see them bring back for this upcoming season. Because I'm looking at the list right now and between obviously the NHL roster and the minor league roster, there's a lot of players here.

But anybody that you really want to see the penguins bring back for next season, perhaps beyond. Yeah, from their UFAs, no one really. I mean, I know Connor Sherry is out there, but he's not coming back. I mean, they just signed two free agent forwards. I would have preferred they given that extra 600K to Esper Foss. I mean, he got three years, two million per. That was one of my big targets that I really wanted just because, you know, I mean, you saw him play, obviously, because he was with the Rangers for so many years.

Good PKer, good depth player can play on the third line, fourth line. It would have filled a need for the Penguins. And I think he's better than Jankowski and Rodriguez. But, I mean, the two signs that they had, they're both low-risk, 700K. It's not going to really bother me. But, I mean, I really would have wished that. And then another one was Craig Smith, but 3.1 million per to Boston. I don't believe the penguins are going to do that.

But looking at the free agents right now, there's not too many that I really want. I mean, they could use a right shot defense to play next to Mike Matheson, who they just acquired. What are you going to go get Travis Hammondick? I mean, he's getting older. There's a couple other options out there. Please know Cody Cici. That's a hard pass for me. He's just not a good player.

And he just gets caved in his own zone. almost every shift. So, I mean, they'll probably go to roll with Chad Roodle there unless they want to go out and make a trade for a right shot D or if they want to sign someone like Hammondeg or something like that. But there's not a lot of options right now for that. Yeah, and you mentioned Ypres Foss there. Let me tell you, it absolutely killed me to lose him in free agency

to the hurricanes this past season. And it's interesting to know that, you know, even a Penguins fan who's watched this guy play from the other side for a couple of years, or actually more than a couple at this point. But somebody who's watched Jesper Foss play, you know, you were interested in him as well. And, you know, I don't, I don't know if I would say he's necessarily the steal of the free agency season here, but he's one of the steals because, you know, only two million a year for three years for Yesper Foss. I thought he'd get more than that. I thought he'd be up toward, you know, at least two and a half million, maybe three million. I don't know if the flat cap has something to do with that. But, you know, it doesn't always show up in goals and assist with Ypres. I mean, he can chip in a little bit there. But his thing, he's a great defensive forward. He's a great penalty killer. He'll throw himself in the way of a slap shot. He'll do whatever it takes to win the game. He'll go to the dirty parts of the rink, all that good stuff. And I think you do need players like that if you're going to be successful in this league.

And one other thing that I'll mention about Foss is, you know, obviously the Rangers had the qualifying series against the Hurricanes, the best of five. And Foss gets injured about a minute into the game and he doesn't come back for the rest of the series. And I think that really, really hurt the Rangers. It just felt like their heart and soul had been ripped out when Yesper Foss wasn't out there. So, you know, again, I'm not going to make him sound like a perennial All-Star, an MVP candidate or anything like that. But Esper Foss, man, he is a great complimentary player for him. a team looking to, you know, go on a championship run.

Yeah, he would have been, he was one of my first targets that I wanted. He would have been probably played next to Jared McCann. That would be probably one of the McCann's best line inmates that he's played with, especially because the Penguins want to roll with him as the third line center going in the next season, or so I hope at least, I don't really want them to keep moving him around. But, I mean, yeah, he's been a 30, almost a 15 goal score twice in his career, 30-point player. I mean, that's good bottom six production. And like you said, with his penalty killing ability, good shot suppression numbers,

I mean, that's a slam dunk there for the penguins. I wish they would have done that, like I said, instead of just giving out two depth contracts to Jenkowski and Rodriguez. Yeah, and as a Ranger fan, just one more thing on Foss here. You know, it was great to see him kind of develop into becoming a top six four this past year. Now, I don't think that's a prototypical role for him going forward, but, you know, the Rangers just kind of had a need. They felt, I think, that they put a little too much on Capo Caco's play early in the season,

and they kind of flip-flop the two of them. And yes, Per Foss was on a line with Artemmy Panera in all season. And look, we can debate, you know, Artemey Panarin can do this with just about anybody on his line. He can put up fantastic numbers with just about anybody. But bottom line, Artemey Panarin just had a season where he was a finalist for the Harttrophy and the Ted Lindsay. And yesper Foss was just really cool to see. So that's, that was just really cool to see. And again, we could debate how much Foss had to do with that.

But bottom line, you know, Artemie Panarin has this MVP caliber season. He does it with Yesper Foss. That was really a cool thing to see this season as a Ranger fan. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I would have voted for Panarin if I had a heart. Hart Trophy vote. I think he deserved the heart over the other two. But I mean, he's going to be awesome for however many years he's going to be there. I think it's like seven more years that he signed for. So yeah, like you said, the fact that he did that with Foss, I mean, that's nothing

short of amazing. Foss had a good season. I was looking at his hockey reference page and just his underlying numbers, almost 30 points, good possession. Like I said, elite Sasha pressing numbers. That's like, I have to slam dunk for the penguins. And I'm still a little salty that they didn't want to pay an extra 600K for it. I hear you, man. I hear you. I figure we could talk about the draft a little bit too. And, you know, I was looking at what the penguins did. And, you know, obviously they don't have a first rounder this year. And they don't end up picking until number 52 overall. But both of their first two picks in the second and third round respectively were goalies. Joel Blomquist and Kelly Clang. Does that seem a little strange to you that they went with two goalies as their first two picks there?

A little bit. Yeah, I think they're just kind of trying to restock the system a bit. I mean, they trade the full of up system in just a couple seasons. go. DeSmith is going to be called up to be Trod Jari's backup, because of course, Matt Murray was traded to the Ottawa Senators. And Neil Larmy is going to be the backup goal, I mean, the starting goaltender in Wilkesbury that may just sign someone to back him up because DeSmith is going to be called up to the big leagues. So, yeah, they're just restocking the system.

I'm not, like, too jammed about it. I know some people get a little jammed about it, but it's like, guys, this team's going going to stink in the next four years, five years, someone like that. I mean, I'm honestly at the point where, 2026 is just not real at this point. And I mean, obviously the Penguins are not going to be that good. I don't think at that point. So, I mean, these guys have such a long way to go to be coming up to the NHL.

I mean, some people from Penguins, whatever, like showcasing like, oh, look at the draft picks of the Penguins made over the last few years and that there's no been no production. It's like you people do realize it takes players a lot longer to get to the NHL than in other sports, you know, like baseball or, you know, football or, you know, football. They go right to the roster. I mean, baseball, football, basketball, basketball, basketball, that's So, I mean, these guys aren't going to be ready for like, like, what, five, six years in Google Crosby, Malkin, or 39, 40. So I don't really have too big of an opinion on it.

They did what they thought was best. They restocked the system with goaltenders. And, you know, I was reading Jesse Marshall's piece on The Athletic. Yesterday, you went to some film. And, you know, they have some good traits that I do like in goalies that I watched. So it was nice to just see how they play. Yeah, you know, you make a good point there that, you know, obviously in high hockey as opposed to the other sports.

A lot of these guys spend a lot of time in the minors. It takes a while for them to get to the NHL. Unless you're one of the first like one or two or three picks, you're going to probably spend some. Yeah, yeah, you're going to spend some time in the HL. And it's interesting because, you know, the Rangers, obviously they take a lot for in the air with the first overall pick. That's a no-brainer.

But then, you know, they also have the number 22 pick in this year's draft. They trade up to go to number 19. And in my head, I'm thinking they're going to take a center because you take a center, which is kind of where they're a little bit weak anyway. And then you can in the near future have this sign where you have, have whichever center they take, he's centering a line with Bluffarnier and Capo Caco, and that would just be a ton of fun. So I'm all ready for them to take a center.

That's their greatest positional need. And they end up taking a defense in and Braden Schneider. I think he was a great pick as well. It was kind of disappointing to see them not take a center. But then it's like you think about it. And it's like, well, whoever they were taking there, they're probably going to spend next season in the minors anyway. By the time he gets up to the Rangers, the whole dynamic of the roster could change

a little bit. Maybe there's some other center that they brought in via trade, via free agency, whatever it might be. So I was a little disappointed that they didn't take a center there. but you make a great point that, you know, it does take some time for whoever you take to get up to the NHL roster anyway. Yeah, I mean, I wanted the Penguins to go best player available, you know, for both of those picks because they did trade up into the second round to get with the Matt Murray trade, which, you know, some people didn't think was going to happen. But, you know, when you have a goal, we need a team like Ottawa and Oahu a team that also needs to get to the cap floor. You got to get one of their picks. I think they wanted 28, but Ottawa was not going to par with that.

I would have cried if they would have gotten that 28th pick. But, I mean, going back to my original Miami, I mean, I would have referred best player available, like a senator, getting a defense or something like that. But, I mean, we're talking to system with goalies. It's fine. I don't really have a too big of opinion on it. Yeah, I got you. I mean, all it really takes is just a hit on one of them, and you're pretty much set then. Exactly, yeah.

And knowing Jim Rutherford, one of them will probably be trade bait. There you go. And speaking of goalies, you know, both of us had to say goodbye to a beloved goalie. Obviously, Henrik Lunkwis with the Rangers, Matt Murray with the penguins. you know, Henrik Lunkwurst has bought out. He signs with the Capitals. And Matt Murray traded to the senators for Jonathan Gruden and a second round pick. And then he signs a four-year extension with the senators.

Was this a case where the Penguins didn't think they could afford Murray? Or was this more having confidence in Tristan Jerry? Or was it a little bit of both, in your opinion? It's a little bit of both, but more so the latter. You know, they have confidence in Jari. They were never going to pay him Matt Murray, $6 million per. I mean, I think that's ridiculous to pay. most goalies around that kind of money.

I always compare to like a running back in the NFL. You never want to overpay for that position. You can just replace them. You can get average goaltending for cheap, you know, two, three million at times. You can get average to a bit above average goaltending. And that's usually all you need, I think, to win a cup unless, you know,

your goaltender is just getting you there. Like, of course, Anton Kudobin just did with an L. Mint against Colorado and Vegas. So at times you have a goalie like that. But, I mean, yeah, like, it was just a bit of both. I mean, Murray's play had gone down, I think, the last few years. It just wasn't the same as 2017. But, you know, good for Matt that he got that contract.

I mean, it's a four-year deal, $6.25 million per. He's set for life with that. I do not expect Ottawa to give him that kind of money. But kudos to him, he got it, and he's going to be making a lot of money for the foreseeable future. And they were able to get a decent enough package back. Some people really didn't think they were going to get a second round pickback because it was day two of the draft. But they did. And, you know, they're banking on Jari playing at the All-Star level that he did in the first half of the season where he was just outstanding.

And he's only going to make $3.5 million for the two years. It's kind of a coin flip, I think. You know, you got to hope that he gets back to that level. And if not, you know, you're shut out of lock. So it's good work. Yeah, yeah. And it's funny with Lunkwist because obviously, you know, he was bought. out by the Rangers. And, you know, the writing was sort of on the wall throughout this season,

especially after the All-Star break, because that's when Igor Shusirkin got the call. I believe he made his debut in early January for the Rangers. And, you know, he had just put up video game-like numbers in the H.L. And he comes up and does a great job with the Rangers as well, basically just stands on his head. It becomes pretty obvious, pretty fast that, okay, we're going to move forward with him. And, you know, Alex Georgie, if he's a restricted free agent, we'll see if he ends up being back with the Rangers. But it just started to become pretty obvious that this is the direction that the Rangers were heading, that Henrik Lunkwis was going to be bought out.

And it's really unfortunate seeing that, you know, as a lifelong Ranger fan, Henrik Lundquist was drafted by this team 20 years ago. In some ways, I think he deserves a better ending. But that's just kind of the nature of the business, you know, that he was just bought out. And that's just kind of the way his tenure with the Rangers came to its conclusion. But I wanted to get your opinion on that as well. Are you happy to see Henrik Lundquist leave the Rangers?

That's first of all. I know he's a little bit older now, but still. And then also, do you think he's a good fit with the Capitals there? number one it's really weird that he went to Washington it's going to be weird to see him there I think yeah it's like um one of our core penguin players like going to like like because the rangers and capitals they're not like like the number one rivals for each other so it's kind of like you know crosbie and all can go into like honestly like new york or something like that or like Columbus or something it's just it feels weird it feels strange um I'm glad that he's

off the rangers though I mean we really haven't played hendron bunkwist in a while it was It was mostly just, you know, Giorib or Chesterkin. So he's definitely going to get playing time in Washington. I think it's a good fit for him because the capitals have Ilyosem Sonov as their goaltender. And it's kind of like a Matt Murray situation there because he's coming into his own a bit. He got some, a lot of start class season when Braden Holpey was struggling. He's going to have probably the same amount, hopefully more this season.

But it's going to be like a 1A, 1B thing, I would think. And it's only a one-year deal for Lundquist. I'm not really sure if he's going to go back. or honestly he could just take it like year by year like what um joe thornton seems to do you know i just kind of these one-year contracts i know zan jana no chara does it up in boston yeah yeah he signs these little one-year deals at like league minimum it's like okay if i'm feeling good after this i'll play again so i could kind i could kind of see that happening with the capitals in lundquist if they don't like win the cup this season you can be like yeah i'll come back again or if he wants

to retire or retire but i mean it's just definitely going to see it's just if you're if you feel really weird to see him there. But, you know, the hatred doesn't stop for Penguins fans for him, that's for sure. Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, especially now that he's, you know, joined your other big rival in the Washington Capitals. Yeah, you know, it's going to be weird as a Ranger fan seeing him in a different jersey this upcoming season. But I've said all along in my show that, you know, I'm not going to be selfish to the point where I'm like, no, Henrik Lunkless cannot play for another team other than the Rangers.

Look, he wants to keep playing. The Capitals saw him as a fit. They signed him to a deal. That it is what it is. You know, as a Ranger fan, the biggest thing I want to see with Henrik Lunkwis at this point is I want to see him win the Stanley Cup. And as positive as I am about this Ranger rebuild, and I think they do have things heading in the right direction. Do I think the Rangers are going to win the Stanley Cup next season? No, I think that's ahead of schedule.

I don't think that's going to happen. The Washington Capitals, now we saw them kind of, you know, not do so hot in the playoffs this year. They were beaten fairly easily by the New York Islanders, but I still do think they're a good, talented team. And you know what? He's got a shot at it next year. And I would love to see if the Rangers don't win the Stanley Cup, I'll be the biggest, you know, bandwagon capital spin you've ever seen in the playoffs next year because I want to see Henrikunfus win a Stanley Cup.

Oh, man, I could never do that. Even if, like, our core players went somewhere, like a kind of a division rival. It's just in our division. I just, I don't even know if I would have it in me to root for that team. And maybe maybe just root for the player, but I could not honestly root for the team. But, yeah, I mean, it made sense, of course, for that Lundquist had to leave me. You have two young goaltenders there. One of them is a restricted to reagent.

You know, there was always talk that Lundquist was going to retire. I mean, he still has that competitive drive. He wants that cup. I mean, that's the thing that's been alluding to him his entire career. And, you know, part of me does want him to win one, but also part of me just not doesn't want him to win one because I don't need to see Ovech can give a second Stanley Cup. So that's my thought on that there.

Yeah, I will give you a fun little hypothetical here, though, just to kind of see if I can put you in my shoes a little bit where I'm coming from. So say we're into the future now a couple of years, and Sidney Crosby is 39 years old. Say he's never won a Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he goes to a team like the Columbus Blue Jackets. Now think about it. You're going to be rooting pretty hard for Sidney Crosby to win a cup. Are you not? Yeah, him for sure. Yeah, just rooting for that team would just... No, I know. Yeah. I definitely see what you're coming from with that. Yeah, absolutely. So the other thing, you know, I forgot to mention this last time. We didn't

really talk a whole lot about our team's qualifying round playoff exits. And, you know, it's funny, because I was talking to, I've got a friend that I play baseball with. He's a big Pittsburgh Penguins fan. And going into that qualifying round against the Canadians, he just could not get a good feeling about that series. He just, for whatever reason, he just didn't feel like the Penguins were going to win it. Going into that series, were you feeling good about the Penguins chances? Were you a little nervous due to the layoff? I mean, just kind of give me a feel for that, if you could. I was too confident. I can admit that. I've been eating for all that year. honestly probably since they lost.

You know, I didn't see a path to Montreal really winning unless Carrie Price got hot and a couple other factors. The former happened with Kerry Price getting very hot and then a couple other factors just with, you know, Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz being really bad to a lot of the other players not showing up and then the level of play, like the effort from a lot of the players just was not there. So, I mean, I was definitely surprised, but you know, when you sit back and think about it, it's a very short sample size. I think teams that are making harsh or like rather rash decisions about a four to five

team sample size after a five-month playoff is kind of ridiculous to me. I mean, obviously there were changes that need to be made for the penguins and rightfully so. I think they're a better team now than they were when after that series happened. But, I mean, it was still, it was still, that loss was a little tough to swallow. It was kind of embarrassing. But, you know, I got over a lot quicker than I thought I would. It honestly just took a day or two.

And I was like, okay, you know, five-month layoff. off. Hopefully they made the changes that they need to make. And, you know, so far they have and, you know, hoping that they still may have a couple more moves up their sleeve with, like, a trader, an upgrade of the bottom six or a right shot defenseman. Yeah, you know, as strange as it sounds, I think sometimes getting knocked out early can be a little easier to swallow than say getting knocked out in the Eastern Conference finals or the Stanley Cup finals because you're so close at that point. But with the case of the Rangers and the Penguins, I mean, they were both, the Rangers were 19 wins away from the Stanley Cup. The Penguins were 18 wins away. So it's like,

whatever. We didn't really get that close. It is what it is. With the Rangers, you know, it's crazy because they're the 11 seed going into the playoffs. They're playing the six seed canes. But, hey, the Rangers were four and O against the canes in the regular season. We've got this team's number. I'm all excited. So I think you and me were kind of in the same boat, feeling very good, feeling very confident. And then it was just kind of a gut punch when our teams were eliminated.

But I will say the Rangers ended up with a heck of a consolation prize due to the draft lottery there. Yeah, I was hoping that the Penguins were going to get him just to see how Twitter would react because that would be, you know. I would have been leading the charge, man. Believe that. All the conspiracy theories would be coming out. So I wish, I just wish that would happen just for that reason.

Yeah, yeah. And then getting a Lexi Loughran year, not so bad either, right? Yeah, yeah, another good player on an ELC with the closing window. You take that end day of the week. Absolutely. Well, you know, I figure Hunter we can end right around there, but this has been a ton of fun, as it always is. And, you know, we'll look forward to doing this again sometime before the start of next season.

Sound good? yeah absolutely yeah whenever you want to do it just let me know awesome so yeah ranger fans penguin fans thank you guys so much for tuning in we'll see you guys next time