Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Which Penguins players have A LOT to prove this year?

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

The Penguins are in the middle of a rebuild, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t expectations heading into the 2025-26 season. Hunter and Patrick take a look at the Penguins’ roster and how there is still potential there for them to be better than expected. After that, they discuss several players who will have something to prove this season including Philip Tomasino, Matt Dumba, Evegni Malkin, and others. Finally, the Champions Hockey League in Europe is making big changes to 3-on-3 OT and that means it’s time to imagine some rule changes we would want to see the NHL adopt.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. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.IndeedNow, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 Sponsored Job Credit. Just go to Indeed.com/LOCKEDON right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have a ton of questions entering the 2025, 2020-26 season, including which players have a lot to prove for this year. Well, Pat and I are going to try to tackle that question 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 Hunser Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Dan.

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So Pat, there's a lot of players on the roster right now that have a lot to prove heading into the 2025, 2026 season. And let's start with a player who we have talked about quite a bit from this offseason. He's going into a contract year. Yet again, he will be a restricted free agent after this season. And that is Philip Thomasino. We're not going to spend the entire first segment talking about him just because we have talked about him at nauseam throughout the offseason.

But he does have quite a bit to prove. 11 goals, 23 points with the Penguins last year. He was a bit up and down throughout the year. He came in very hot of Penguins. Had four points in his first five games. Three of those points were goals. After that, when point was for six games in a row. And you kind of saw that fluctuate throughout the season, Pat.

He'd go hot for stretches, then he'd go cold. And in a way, that kind of sums up a lot of players where they can get hot for a bit and then they go cold, but there's that inconsistency. And I know, again, that it sums up quite a bit of players outside of like the really consistent goal scores. But even when he wasn't producing, I felt like he just wasn't really impacting the game. Otherwise, just wasn't doing a lot of other things to try and help the team win. And that's why I want him to be a bit more consistent. Like when there's games where he's not scoring this year, are you finding other ways to try and help the team win this upcoming season?

And I think this is a player that has still quite a bit to prove, only 24 years old. If he can build on some of last year's success and also be a little bit more consistent and help the team find ways to win, even when not scoring, I think he can definitely get a raise and potentially get a contract extension. That's beyond one year for the Penguins. This is the exact type of player that the Penguins should be taking numerous chances on. Still very young, has a nice shot, good offensive upside. But can he put everything together for this season?

That's why I'm going to be looking for it. Excuse me. Conor Dewer, he was really good down the stretch, really good for Checker. He was producing offensively, which he was not doing with Toronto. Can he carry that over into the 2025, 2025, 2026 season? I like him as a bottom six option, but are we going to get the player that we saw in Pittsburgh down the stretch? Or are we going to get the player that we saw before that in Toronto, where he just was mostly a non-factor there?

So those are two players that I will. want to start out with. But Pat, we're going to get to quite a bit in these first couple of of seconds. But your thoughts on those two players I just mentioned. Well, I want to start here before I get to both of those players. You look at the Penguins roster right now. And if you're watching the show today on YouTube or anywhere else where you're actually watching it, not just going audio, you see it our rundown current roster and its potential. I look at this roster. And I don't want to oversell this. I don't want to make it sound like I see a team. that can make the playoffs and go on a run.

But I look at a roster where it's very boom or bust. I look at this team as it's composed right now on August 11th, and I see a team that has some potential. I see a team that they aren't going to be among the worst in the league, but they could be. I also look at it as a team that could keep themselves competitive for the vast majority of the 25, 26, season because the top six alone is pretty good.

It's a solid top six. The rest of the forward group, a lot of question marks, a lot of potential, a lot of players who could break out and have good years and make this team a little bit more competitive than we might expect. Then you look at the defense and it's just question mark after question mark after question mark. A bunch of players who have serious. boom or bust potential.

Eric Carlson, as of today, is still on the roster. Krista Tang's going to be here for the foreseeable future. Ryan Graves is still a thing. So you look at the defense, and it's a lot of question marks and a lot of work that needs to get done. Same deal with the goaltending. Which version of Tristan Jari is going to show up next year? Will Archer Shilovs take a step and maybe steal the net from Tristan Jari? So overall, I look at the Penguins roster as it's composed right now.

And I see a team with a lot of ways to go. This could be a surprisingly competitive team. This could be one of the worst in the league. They could just be in that mushy middle where some nights they look good, some nights they look terrible. We'll see what happens. But to bring it back, especially to Philip Tomasino, you hit on my biggest question mark and my biggest thing that I'm looking at for him.

When he had his good moments last year, He looked like he could be a potential top six option in the future if he develops correctly. Because remember, he's still only 24. There's a lot of hockey ahead of him, presumably. But when he was not producing, you didn't notice him. That's my biggest problem. Because you brought up, oh, outside of the best players, when these guys aren't scoring, you know, everybody's streaky, which is true.

But when you look at the best players, when they're not producing, the process is there. They're playing the game in a way where you go, okay, if they keep doing this, the goals and the points will come. Sometimes you just hit a dry spell. Sometimes the pucks aren't going in, and that's part of the sport. For Tomasino, you look at his game over the last year. And like I said, moments where he was producing, you were like, wow, this guy, if he figures it out, this could be a top six long-term option for the franchise. But when he wasn't, you went,

he's really not even noticeable. And obviously, he's not the coach anymore, and people would get frustrated with Sullivan's lack of usage of him, but he would give him opportunities, but there were nights where he wouldn't do anything with them. Obviously, the sample size is much smaller, and we'll talk about these guys later on in the show, but I look at Covenant and McRourty.

At the end of the year, yeah, they put up points, but you could see in their games, okay, they're doing things that lead to point production pretty consistently. Tomicino has to figure that out. Same goes for Conor Dewar. We're not having, you don't have massive expectations for a guy who's going to be a stealing of a second pair guy, but you want to see them put those flashes together more consistently. And that's the two biggest things for those players is that they have to find consistency.

They have to put it together for five, six, seven, eight games at a time. And even when in that stretch, they might not be the best player on the ice, they might not be putting themselves on the score sheet. But you want to be able to look at their game and go, all right, they're figuring it out. So keep that momentum going. Right. Especially with Tomasino's case where even during the games he wasn't producing, it felt like the process wasn't there.

It felt like he was getting in his own head a little bit, wasn't getting even the goal scoring chances. Again, when he was on last year, very good. I like some of the minutes that he had with Afghani Malk and the underlying numbers were a bit of a mixed bag. I wrote about that in my feature late last night for the hockey news when talking about Flood Tomasino heading into this year.

But if he can add some more things to his repertoire, be a bit more consistent even when he's not producing, I think you have a really good chance of signing an extension with the Penguins. and potentially getting a raise from the contract that he got on July 1 after the penguin decided to nongender him, even though he was an RFA. So I'm not asking for him to, you know, turn in the second coming of, you know, Nico Hesha or Sasha Barkov in his own zone, but, you know, maybe if he can add a bit more defensive awareness to his game,

just a little bit, and he can add to his process on nights where he's not scoring, that will be huge for him, I think, in my opinion. But that will do it for this first segment. coming up in the second segment, Pat and I are going to continue this discussion and discuss other players who have a lot to prove heading into this year, including, of course, Matt Dumbah, who was very bad last year, Connor Clifton, who also was not very good last year, Chris Lattang, etc, that's coming up right after this.

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They have a ton of proof heading into this year just because they were not very good last year. Not Dumba at this point going into this year. looks pretty cooked, but if they can get a little bit of value out of him, if that, maybe they can try to entice a team at the deadline to flip for him. Same for Connor Clifton. You know, he spoke at his media availability a couple of weeks ago saying that, you know, he kind of lost himself last year in Buffalo. He was excited about the trade where it's a fresh start.

If he can find a little bit of his game again, kind of the same thing as Dumbo. They can try to flip him at the deadline. So those two are quite obvious. I'm not expecting great play out of either of those two guys, but they still have quite a bit to prove heading into this year where they can maybe try to show to the rest of the league that, hey, we can tackle third-paring minutes for you. So how about you give us a shot at the trade deadline

of the Penguins are able to get some value out of him, especially now that they have a brand new coaching staff and they'll have a new system in place. So those two there. And then we've talked about it a bit during the offseason. Chris Lutang, he definitely has something to prove this year, too. Last year was not very good. you could tell that there were more warts in his game, wasn't as good defensively.

Even the offense started to go with his game as well. Wasn't as good with a penalty kill, wasn't as good on the power play. You can see he is training his absolute ass off this off season, which is no surprise. I mean, his workout regimen has been second to none throughout his entire career. You see all those videos go viral every single off season for as long as Latang has been the league. There is almost no one out there that works harder than Christensen. Tang every single off season. So I know he wants to go out there and prove to everyone that last year was a bit

of a fluke. But so for me, a little bit of a wait and see. I will never disrespect Crystal Tang. He has one of my all-time favorite penguins. I'm just speaking about what happened last year and how he is just a bit older right now. So we have to, you know, keep some of our expectations in check. But he definitely, to me, has something big to prove heading into this year. That's the biggest thing, right?

is we're not talking about the legacy of Chris Latang here. We're just talking year over year. Right. And last year was a rough year for him. So he does have a good bit to prove this year if he can show that it was a blip on the radar screen. The penguins were a bad team and he just did not have it last year. Obviously, though, you've got to manage expectation here. He's not going to become the Chris Latang of even five years ago.

but can he adapt his game is the biggest question to me, because you can still see it in spurts that Le Tang still is obviously one of the most athletic defensemen in the league. You brought up his workout routine. It's stuff of legend. He keeps himself in unbelievable shape. So even if he's lost a step, even if some of the things he was able to do all those years ago aren't there anymore,

the adaptability is the biggest question mark for Chris LaTang. Can he change things up a little bit? Be a little less aggressive when it comes to pinching, be a little bit less aggressive when it comes to stepping up on opposing forwards. Can he be more of a positionally sound defenseman who picks and chooses his spots better to maximize the abilities that he still has? As for Dumba and Clifton, the hope for them is that they find a little bit more consistency this year. We're not going to have any overarching high expectations for either of them.

But you look at both of them. They're making just a shade over $3 million for Connor Clifton, $3.75 for Matt Dumba. Both are expiring deals. And we know that between a rising salary cap and teams always looking for deals, defense going into the playoffs. Your hope for these two is just to be average. They don't need to be great. You don't want them to be bad.

If they're bad, that's a nightmare scenario simply because you're not going to get anything for them except for them walking in free agency because, again, they're both on expiring deals. But if they can put together some solid stretches, they don't have to be rocks and solidly consistent all season long. But you put together a. a handful of six, seven game stretches where you look like you're a dependable bottom pairing defense.

Those are affordable deals now with the salary cap. Four or five years ago, you would look at Dumbo and Clifton's contracts and go, we're never moving those. That's way too much money for what they're bringing to the table. That said for Dumbo five, six years ago, it would have probably been the opposite. That's actually a pretty valuable deal for what he's able to do. He was great at that point. But those days are long past.

Yeah. So yeah. And I mean, there's two other players. One, we don't know if they're going to be on the roster come training camp. The other is obviously going to be here. And the other, those two that I'm looking at are Eric Carlson and Evgeny Malkin. Eric Carlson, I will continue to say it on this show. I will make that deal eight days a week that the penguins made to get him.

When you put it in context, they freed up more capital. space. They got rid of a lot of dead weight. They brought in the raining Norris trophy winner. And I will still to this day maintain he is a victim of overinflated expectation. He wasn't going to be a hundred point player on the penguins. And people say, well, why not? Like, because he was on a very bad San Jose team. He was pretty much the only person on that team at the time. So they were just letting him do whatever he wanted to do. That wasn't going to happen here. Has he been good here? he's been okay.

I don't think he's been as bad as some people want to make him out to be. But if he's on this team this year and I do think they're going to find a way to move him, whether it's before camp or during the season, he's got to find a little bit more of a step. He's got to find a way to separate himself from the pack and continue to increase his value so you can get more for him. As for Hvgeny Malkin, our pal Josh Yohe said it on the athletic hockey show, unofficially, this is apparently going to be the farewell tour for of getting

Malkin. We've kind of known that, though it hasn't been officially confirmed. Whether it is or isn't, we've said it on the show. They've got to find him more consistent line mates because even in a down year, he had a pretty good pace for what he is and who he is now. You find him more consistent linemates, if Gennie Malkin can have a bounce back year. Well, I think he can have a 60 point plus season if he has more consistent linemates.

And right now when you look at the forwards, I think there's a pretty decent chance that he could accomplish that. Raquel and Russ are still here, whether they are a month from now to be determined. Everyone is still very much on vacation right now. No one is really doing anything. But as we've seen in the last couple of off seasons, Caldupus can strike at literally any time, especially in August. So again, TBD, you have those two players there. Anthony Manta. I also think he has something to prove coming up for Torn ACL.

Year before last year, had a 23-goal season in 23-24. So, again, he's going to try to get back to that level, and I think he is going to get quite a few top six minutes this year. So I'm with Anthony Manta on there. Tommy Novak, we talked about him potentially playing with Afghani Malkin, either a center or winger. If he doesn't, I think he'll anchor the third line and be the third-line center.

He definitely has a lot to prove this year, too, just because we really didn't get to see him much last year. And he's been a pretty consistent player, in my opinion, in Nashville, has a good release, good shooting percentage, also good playmaker, responsible in his own zone. I will keep saying it on the show. I think a lot of Penguins fans are going to really like Tommy Novak this year. As for what you said about Eric Carlson, I agree with you. Some people may not, but I would make that trade every day of the week and I would not look back. Has he been as good as I thought he was going to be?

No, but sometimes that happens with trade. Sometimes when a team makes a trade, it looks really good at the start. But then over time, even though that player isn't the quote-unquote problem with the roster, just maybe doesn't fully fit the team anymore and hasn't been as good as some people wanting to be. And you know what? That's fine. However, he was still good offensively at five-on-five last year. We all know he's not good defensively.

He has not been good defensively since numb, but he was still very good at five-on-five. I shall offensively. So if you do trade him, as I keep saying, I don't know who is going to take those minutes and replace that production in the lineup, even though I do think he has room to be better. And I have said that throughout these last couple of seasons, he can and definitely, hopefully will be better this year if he is on the team to start the year on brand new coaching staff and all that stuff. So that's what I have to say about Carlson.

I already discussed Molkin a little bit. I think he can be a 60 plus point player this year. if A, he stays healthy and B, you know, Dan Mews gives him some solid linemates, and I think there's a pretty decent chance, especially if the Penguins don't want to go Crosby, Rust, and Raquel on the top line that both are there to start the season. I think you would see Mews move one of them down to Malkins line and then give him a different winger on the left side, whether that's Magrorty, Coyvenin, maybe Tommy Novak, Anthony Mantle. Again, you've said a lot on the show this year, Pat.

It's going to be like some mad scientist vibes. I wrote about that for the hockey news a couple weeks ago where I think you're going to see a lot of experimentation going on with him. And when you look at the forward group right now, especially the top nine, why not try to experiment and just see what works for a handful of games before maybe thinking, okay, that could be a staple for the entire season. We've discussed the goalies a little bit. She loves it something to prove after how well he did in the Colorado Cup playoffs. Pat, do you have anyone else to add or should we tie a bow on this? This is one I'll just bring up quickly, and I don't think it's so much anything to prove. It kind of puts a bow on it for my overarching point of I look at this roster and I see a bunch of different directions the team could go.

A player I'm going to have my eye on this season is Justin Brzoe. I think a lot of people have forgotten that he's on the roster. This guy, again, don't want to wildly inflate expectations. I'm not saying he's going to be this big time game changer, but he's a 6-6-4 who isn't just a big, brute. He put up 22 points last year, 11 goals, 11 assists, and he's only been in the NHL for three years, or two years, excuse me. It's a player who, if you can give him some room to run, and he averages just over 11, 12 minutes a night, if you can give him 13, 14 a night and put him in some advantageous situations, I can see him being a high 20s,

low 30s point producer on the right situation. And given how you look at this roster, you look at the way this rebuild is going, a really good undercurrent of it is that there's going to be a ton of competition. The top six guys, they're locked in. You know who they're going to be. even the goal tending. I know Tristan Jari's got the big deal, but you don't go get Artur Shilov's to just have him ride the bench.

You get him to give him some playing time. So there's going to be pushes there, especially at forward in the bottom six. A lot of guys are going to have to prove they still or do belong in the NHL. And I think if you give Brazil a little bit of more runway, that could be a solid bottom six producer. I think he might be. underrated, how do I want to say this?

Maybe not underrated, but I think he may quickly become some fans' favorite penguin in the bottom six for this season just because it gives you the depth scoring, good enough in his own zone, and he can be physical. And I know a lot of fans have been asking for this team to be more physical on an every night basis. They're tired of the penguins being pushed around. I very much understand those gripes. I agree to an extent that they could use to be a bit more.

more ratty, a bit more physical, and Brazo will definitely bring those elements to the bottom six. So I really like that signing when it was made, and I do think he is going to be a good enough player for the Penguins in the bottom six. He's definitely an upgrade over some of the players they had down there last year, in my opinion. So I will agree with you on that. But that will do it for this second segment coming up to end the show. But I know you're going to have a little bit of fun talking about our dream rule changes for the NHEL. We did this a little bit last year. here. We're going to bring it back this year. So that's coming up right after this. Before we get to that, though, we have to tell you all about our first sponsor, well,

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You sent me this article this morning, which got us thinking, hey, we should bring back that segment from last August, where we talked about our ideas for some. rule changes that we would like to see implemented. And this comes from the Champions Hockey League in Europe. They are introducing a no return rule to its games the season, basically meaning if you are in control the puck in the attacking zone in overtime, you cannot go into the neutral zone in overtime. And if you do, the officials will stop the play and a faceoff will take place in the offending team's defensive zones.

So that team that was on offense, no bet. they'll have to go play defense in their own zone for overtime. As for if the NHL will ever do this, I doubt it. Yes. Is it a little bit annoying? Sure. But I don't think the NHL is ever going to do this. It doesn't even seem like it's an issue for them.

Some fans are going to complain about it. I get it to an extent. But I don't think this is ever going to be a thing in the NHL, though it is cool that you're seeing some other leagues trying to adopt. off this. I will say this about potential, you know, overtime rules or something or just power plays going into overtime. If it seems as a power play going into overtime, they should start that face off in the offensive zone. And I will also say that for when a period starts. If you have a power play carrying over into another period, you should have the face off in the offensive zone.

I don't think it's fair that you should have it at center ice. That is a potential hot take for me. And I think that should work for overtime. Okay. So you actually, you got my brain going on this one. So I have, I want to respond to the power play thing first, which I do agree with. I think if a period ends and you're going into the next period with carryover time for the penalty, you should do the offensive zone face off rather than center, rather than center ice, which I think would be a really good idea. I also have a couple radical ideas that I want to put out there. First about power plays, then again, then again about this no return rule in the CHL. For power plays, what if you do this? If a team takes a penalty, regardless of what's

happening in the game, regardless of what the score is, if you take a penalty with under two minutes left in the game, game clock's dead and you just play until the end of the penalty. Like say if you take a penalty with one minute to go and then you have to serve the two minute minor, the game clock's over. Penalty clock is what runs the game now. And the only thing that ends the game is either a goal or the penalty coming to an end. I think that I, every other sport does something like that. Why not do it here in the NHL? And overtime or the regular season or sorry, in overtime or just at the end of the third period. End of the third period. And over time too. Because if it's a game, uh, end of regulation or end of gameplay clock, that doesn't make any sense.

It's like, okay, well, you took a two minute minor with one minute left in the game. It's not actually a two minute minor anymore. It's a one minute minor. But I digress. As for the no takeback rule, I have two ideas of what the NHL could do for this. There's this one that the CHL is doing the no take back rule. I would modify it. This is the less radical one.

And I would put deck hockey rules in place to where basically in deck hockey, they have the same layout, the two blue lines, center red line, two goal lines, all your same face off places. But when you go on offense in deck hockey, you have a floating zone, which basically means you have to cross the blue line on sides with possession. But once you do, the zone then extends to center red. So basically, you could do that for three on three overtime.

You still have to gain the blue line. line on side, but once you do, the zone extends to the red line. It gives you more room, more opportunity, more movement for flow and everything. I think that would open it up pretty well. Here's the more radical idea I have for three on three overtime. Just kill off sides. Just open the entire ice. You obviously leave icing in place because you don't want to have guys stretching that far,

but you don't have to gain the blue line. You can just go wherever you want. Open ice for three on three. You go everywhere and you see how teams defend it. You see how teams attack it. I think that would be a ton of fun, especially if you're just doing a five minute three on three overtime. People go,

oh, sanctity of the game, all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. We're already taking two players off of each side and playing a five minute period. Screw it. Regular season, take away off sides and overtime and just have fun with it. See, I like that idea in theory, but then we're all going to get a Danny Breyer type goal

where he's like 5,000 meters offside, and then everyone's going to want to throw the remote at the TV, and it's just like, no, I don't know if I'd want to go that far just because, again, where you have situations like that where it's like, that's not fair. He's kind of just cherry picking there. I feel like that will also lead to more cherry picking, in my opinion, Pat.

So again, definitely fun in theory would be total chaotic, but you're going to get some goals where people just can be like, okay, that's not fair. So I don't think the NHL would ever do it. Fun, chaotic, yes. but also super annoying. But with that, I will say this,

though, with the idea of no off side, the response I would have to that is, you have to go, you have to determine risk reward. Yeah. Do you want to send a guy all the way down to the other end of the ice and just plant them there and leave your defense hanging out to dry? Do you want to leave a guy back there to cover him and go two on two?

Or do you want to say no, we can't do that because we got to counter everything. So I think it would lead, would lead to a lot of really interesting choices. And it would, it would force teams and coaches to be creative. It wouldn't just be, all right,

if you don't like what you see, just whirl it on back and just regroup and regroup and regroup and regroup and regroup until you get your perfect situation. So I think if, you know, to quote the Joker in the dark night, just add a little chaos. Speaking of chaos,

you want more chaos? How about this? Let's give it a three on. three. Let's do playoff O.T. played so you win in the regular season. Why not? Why not? I know everyone's going to be like, no, Hunter, the games go too late, midnight, 1 a.m.,

2 a.m., all that stuff. You know what? I'm a night owl. I don't give a damn. They'll never do it, but that's still my hottest take about overtime. I don't give it on people. I love three on three. It has been so fun to watch since they implemented it instead of four on four.

There's been less shootouts, which is obviously a win. I hate shootouts. but let's do some more experimenting. Let's do playoff OT rules in the regular season, five on five, play till you win. Yeah, the games will go late,

even though it's a school night and a work night, but it will be so much fun, man. Well, and I'll respond to it with this, because it leads into my last one that I want to see, I have been beating the drum for the NHL to do, is to implement the 3-2-1 point system.

But if you're not going to do, that. To what you said about play till you have a winner, the NHL clearly doesn't want to bring ties back. They're never going, they're done with ties. Those are done. So if you do what you said, Hunter, instead of doing three to one, just get rid of the point system. Every other league does win loss and it's games back. It's not point system. So if you're done with ties and you're not going to update the point system, just go to win losses. And if you win an overtime, you win an overtime. That's a win. If you lose, you lose. And you'll have better clean standings of teams that are just one or two games back or three or four games ahead. And they clearly don't want to

do anything with ties. They don't want to update the point system instead of putting a more convoluted one in place with three, two, one wins and losses. I agree with you on that. but the NHL loves having the loser point just so it creates closer standings throughout the year. I mean, we used to make the joke these last couple years about the Islanders as being loser point merchants,

that's the main reason why they've been staying in the race, even though they have not been very good. But you've seen other teams over the years just collect loser points like their Infinity Stones who try and stay in the race, even though when you combine those loser points with the regular losses in regulation, they're below 500 overall.

It's just, it's a hilarious. point system, but the NACL has shown no reason to move on from it, and I don't think they're going to unless something drastically changes. But that will do it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all 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 on Friday with Fan Take Friday. And then, of course, continuing our top 25 of the last 25 years. So for Patrick Damp, I'm Hunter Hodes. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. We'll be back on Wednesday.