Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Who are the TOP 5 CURRENT Penguins?

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Locked On NHL is putting together its Top 100 NHL Players going into 2025-26, so we're doing our Top 5 Penguins in 2025-26! Patrick and Hunter begin the show with the obvious: the number one Penguins going into 2025-26 is captain Sidney Crosby. They also discuss who rounds out the rest of the top five, including Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell, or even Kris Letang. To close out the show, they take a look back at the career of Chad Ruhwedel, who announced his retirement earlier this week. 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.

Locked on NHL is starting a new thing where they're going to do the top 100 players in the NHL right now. So we're going to bring that in-house a little bit and continue our summer of lists with the top five current Pittsburgh Penguins. You're 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 edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym 4 Wet, joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

You can give our show's Twitter account a follow at L-O-U-U-Discore Penguins. You can also follow us on Instagram now at Locked-on underscore Penguins, and of course we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine. Don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And if you follow us on YouTube, be sure to hit the notification button. That way you can be among the first to know when we drop our newest episodes. Before we get going, today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Football season is right around the corner.

Visit the Fandul app today and start planning your future bets right now. Hunter, unfortunately, it is just you and I on today's episode. No surprise, guess there's not going to be a Taylor Swift reveal on this episode. It's just us to Jemokes talking about the top five penguins right now on the current roster. So as I said in the cold open, we got an email from our bosses at Locked on NHL recently to name four or five best. best penguins right now. This isn't what we've been doing each Friday where we're doing the top 25 of the 2000s, which we will continue that on Friday. So stay tuned for that because we've got a really good list for that. But they're going to, like I said, they're going to start putting together

their top 100 current NHLers. As part of that, they ask for our input. So we're going to kind of take you into the process as a listener to this episode. And we're going to go. And we're going to go over some of our four or five, we'll go with five best penguins right now. And this doesn't include, like I said, anybody from the past 10 or 15 years, it's right now. It also doesn't include emperor penguins or African penguins or anything like that. So let's jump into it and let's just, let's just get the obvious out of the way. The best penguin right now is very obviously the captain number 87, Sydney Cros. We went over everything he's done, what he's been doing, what we expect of him recently.

But no surprise there, right, Hunter. The best penguin right now is number 87, Sidney Crosby. Pat, if someone doesn't have Sidney Crosby in that top spot, that is not a show or a person worth listening to or anything like that, it's Sidney Crosby. It's not even close. Three straight 90 plus points season, despite being in his mid to late 30s, he's now 38. I think he's potentially going to have another 90 plus point season this year. One of the best players of all time. And even though he's 38 right now, he is still the best player on this team.

We're not going to rage bait anyone here or anything like that. That's ridiculous. No, for sure. And before we keep it going here, because we already did last week to celebrate Sid's birthday, we went over everything with Crosby. We don't need to spend a lot more time on it. If you're here, you know, you know, you know. He's arguably one of the best players still in the league and definitely on the penguins.

But the funny thing about the current moment that we're in for the Pittsburgh Penguins is there's a very clear dividing line of like, these are the good players. These are the not so good players. If this was even five, six years ago, this would have been a really kind of difficult exercise just on the sole fact that. there was a lot of talent on the penguins. And the top five penguins, it was basically Crosby, Malk, and Latang, and if you're going to do four or five, depending on the day, depending on the time of the season, depending on who was hot and who wasn't, it would have been really hard.

It would have been really hard to fill out numbers four and five. So instead of wasting any time here in just getting into the really obvious ones, Hunter, I know you have one to put in the top five. that might surprise people. So go ahead and hit us with that one. I don't think this should really surprise anyone. I have Eric Carlson in my top five. Honestly, Pat, if you want a really hot take,

I would very much consider putting him at number two on this list by talent alone. This past season, again, in terms of five on five points among all defensively, he was tied for fifth with Evan Bouchard in Lane Hudson. I know people. He's not good defensively. he has not been good defensively for a long time. But when he is on, it's breathtaking to watch him coming out of the defensive zone with

control, running things offensively from the point. And yeah, I know. He hasn't been as consistent as we have wanted him to be with the Penguins. But in terms of talent, Eric Carlson, to me, needs to be on this list. And he needs to be very high on this list. I don't disagree in principle. I think if you look at the Penguins roster on Wednesday, August 13th as we record this, there's no question he's in the top five best players on the team right now.

I struggle with it a little bit, though, for a couple of reasons. One, again, just to make sure it's out there, not disagreeing with you, he's in the top five. It's like I said earlier this week. I do think Eric Carlson has been a victim of unrealistic expectations. He was never going to be a 100-point defenseman on the Pittsburgh Penguins for multiple reasons. One, do you look at the San Jose teams he was on? They were just like, Eric, go do whatever you want to do. Like, we don't care.

Just go. And that's what he did. You come to the Penguins, he was going to be another piece of the puzzle. he wasn't going to be the guy that they put the saddle on, independent upon him to do everything. He had more help. So by virtue of that fact, his point share was going to go down to how much was the question. The other thing is what I think I struggle with with him is with another player we're going to talk about later on in the show,

is that he's just been inconsistent isn't the right word. But there have been stretches where he's been really good. There's been stretches where you watch his game for a week or two weeks and you go, yeah, that's the guy they went and got. And then you have a week or two weeks where you go, he's not a liability, but he's also not contributing everything you would want him to contribute. So while I agree in principle that, yes, of the penguin's current roster, it's almost impossible to not put him in the top five.

but it sucks because, again, the unrealistic expectation, you look at Eric Carlson and you think, oh my God, it's Eric Carlson. It's not Eric Carlson of five years ago. So it's a really tough one to look at. Another one that we'll touch on real quick. And then we'll kind of debate a little bit in the second segment. You've got to go for me with Ricard Raquel after last year. He really bounced back.

I said it two seasons ago, but it was to discuss his season most recently. I think between the injuries, not being able to get a consistent game going two years ago, made it a blip on the radar. And he proved that absolutely this past year had a really, really good season. He plays 81 games, 35 goals, 70 points, really looked like the record. Rakell that he was when he was first acquired by the Penguins a couple of years ago. 100%. He's in my top five. And again, people, we're really only doing this based on talent right now on the Penguins roster. Like that is literally our criteria for this just because, again,

locked on NHL, they're doing a top 100 players around all the NHL. They asked all the hosts, give us your top three to five players on your team. So we wanted to make it local and just talk about the players that we submitted again. Sidney Crosby, very obvious. Eric Carlson, for me, he needs to be on this list somewhere. I would argue him maybe at number two. If you want to say number three, number four, that's fine. But Ricard Raquel, he is also on my list, Pat.

I was debating going back and forth, you know, somewhere in between the three to five range. If I had to pick a number right now, I'd go number four. So you probably know who the other two are going to be based on how they played last year. But Ricardo Raquel 100% needs to be on this list. Was absolutely tremendous for the Penguins last year. 35 goals, 70 points, 81 games. Whenever the Penguins needed a big goal, he was right there for it. He had such great chemistry with Sidney Crosby.

Hasn't been traded yet, though I don't think he's going to finish that full contract out with the Penguins. Still TBD on whether he gets traded before camp. But he was tremendous last year, and he very much deserves to be on this list. If your top five doesn't have Ricard Raquel on it in terms of current penguins talent-wise, you're doing it wrong. Right there with you. And if you're like me and not great at math, that's three players for a top five.

That means we've still got two to go. And we'll discuss who those two could be. You probably have a good idea. But you know what? It's a podcast. We're going to talk it out. So make sure you're hanging with us in that second segment. We'll get back to that right after this.

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right alongside Hunter Hodes. And let's keep it going here, Hunter. As we said in the opening segment, Locked on NHL is doing their top 100 players in the NHL right now. And as part of that, they've asked us to contribute to it. So we're going to localize it today with our top five. We've already got Sidney Crosby, Eric Carlson, and Ricard Raquel. So let's talk it out with this one.

I'd say he's on the list for sure. it's just a matter of where. We got to go with the guy who might very well be on his farewell tour this season, and that is number 71, Evgeny Malkin. We have talked about Gino ad nauseum this off season, as well as last season. Really tough year to handicap for Evgeny Malkin,

because had the typical Gino kind of year where he gets bumps and bruises here and there, misses some games, And then you also had the other thing that happens to Hvgeny Malkin quite a lot and has happened quite a lot throughout his career revolving door of line mates. Doesn't have a lot of time to build chemistry or consistency with them. Doesn't have by Afghani Malkin standards a great year. But again, when you look at this Penguins roster on August 13th, 2025,

really difficult to say he's not on the top five current penguins. Yeah, if we were doing, you know, a full ranking and maybe, Pat, you can do your full ranking later on in this segment. And then I can, I guess, give mine, I'd have him a bit lower on the list. Not trying to disrespect you know now. It's just because of where he is age-wise. Obviously, Pat, if this were, you know, five to six years ago, he'd be right behind Sid just because, you know, in his prime, he was one of the best players in the world. And he's going to go down, in my opinion, as a top 25 player of all time, especially when you look at his career. accomplishments. But still, last year, despite having that revolving door of wingers,

you have 16 goals, 50 points, and 60 games. He missed 14 games. I will still say this. If he had been a bit more healthy, he gets 60 plus points last season. And you're not seeing as many of the people out there that are like, oh, yeah, you know, he's cooked and all that stuff. I think a lot of that is kind of hogwash, especially when you look at the forward group right now. If that does stay the same, he is going to get some fairly good linemates for this year. And I do think if he stays fully healthy, he's going to have a 60 plus point season. In my opinion, he still has at least a little bit left in the tank. Not what he used to be.

Of course, he's 39 years old, but he still has a little bit left in the tank. When he still has the puck, he's a bully. Like, it's still hard to get the puck off. And once he gets motoring in, especially Pat, once he comes. comes back from a few games off. He really has his legs. It was like that multiple times last year where he would come back after a small thing and be like, wow, Gino just has his legs. It looks like it's 2016 Gino out there with the way that he was skating. So I don't think they're going to do any load management with him or anything like that. And he tried to tell a star player like that,

that we're going to do it. He's just going to tell you to screw off. Like, that's just not how players like him operate. That's not how basically any professional athlete operates. Like they they want to play. Like that's at the bottom line here. But he needs to be in this top five, still one of the best players on this team. And then after that, Pat, this one's fairly easy for me.

It should be for you as well. Brian Rust has to be on here. In some way, shape, or form if people want to put him at number two, I can see it. People want to put him a little bit further down. I also understand that Brian Rust had an outstanding season last year, 31 goals, 65 points, and 71 games. One of the most consistent penguins throughout his penguin's tenure.

TBD on him also potentially not finishing his full contract with Penguins. He doesn't have the no move clause anymore so they can trade him to whatever team they want to at this point in time. But those are my top five current Penguins pure talent. Cindy Crosby, Eric Carlson, Brian Russ, Ricard Raquel, and Afghani Malkin, that's mine. Yeah, the thing that I struggle with right now is between, Brian Rust and Chris LaTang. And this is what puts Rust on the list for me over Latang is that we are operating right now in the immediate.

Right. And if you compare the way they played last year, Brian Rust finishes ahead of Chris Latang. Chris Latang last year only has nine goals, 30 points in 74 games. you look at his career and you break down his point totals. Last year was one of the lowest point totals he's had in his career. The only years that he finished lower was 2009, 2010. If you put that in context, he was still working his way into being Chris LaTang.

He was not Chris LaTang yet in 0910. Had some good moments in the 08 and 09 runs, but he was not the guy. You still had Sergey Gonchar. Latang was still working his way up and becoming a number one defenseman. 13-14. Season was shortened a little bit by both the lockout and everything else.

He only plays 37 games. Then 0-708. Again, he is very much not Chris Latang yet, put up 17 points, and then cup of coffee in the NHL in 0607, seven games, two points. So you can't really. count that. So this is one of the lower point totals of Chris LaTang's career. You add that up along

with just the way the eye test went for Chris LaTang last year. Seemed like he lost a step, was a little bit more mistake prone than he has been in the past. And I'm of two mindsets of that. I think one, and unfortunately I feel like this might be the more likely scenario. he's on the downslope of his career. And he's not going to be the Chris LaTang we've come to know and love over the past 15 or so years. On the other, which I think is less likely, is that it was a bit of a blip on the radar. He's in a little bit of a transitional period as his career comes to an end. He's going to have to switch his game up a little bit.

He's not able to do some of the things he was able to do in the past. So he's got to be a little bit more, I guess, the word is efficient with his game to where he's got to be a little bit choosier about pinching in stepping up when to jump into the play when to hang back which when you look at a player like chris letang who as we have said on this show multiple times is an incredible athlete is in an incredible shape i do think that's entirely possible for him to make that adjustment for the last three, four years or however much longer he decides to play. Again, we'll just have to see what the new coaching staff brings to his game to try and

maybe fine tune a few things. He obviously can't skate the way that he used to. He can't bring the offense that he used to with the Penguins. I mean, that's why you saw Eric Carlson kind of really taking the reins, especially at five on five offensively last season. But can they come up with a couple of changes to, as the word you said, make his game a bit more efficient, but maybe in a little bit of a lesser role. So he's not eating 25, 30 minutes a night. I was not trying to disrespect Chris,

Chris Littang by not having him in the top five. It's just that those five players that I mentioned have more talent right now and had better seasons last year than Lattang did. And that's what you can say. Right. For Brian Rust, because you look at his 24, 25 season, career high in goals with 31.

ties a career high and assist with 34, career high in points at 65, looks to be a seamless fit in the top six, whether it's with Evgeny Malkin or Sidney Crosby. And you wouldn't think that's what would happen for a guy who was 32 into 33 last season. Well, just 32 because by the time he turned 32, the penguins were very much done in the season was over, but you don't expect that from a guy who, as we've said on the show, has really had to earn everything he has. He wasn't a highly touted prospect when he originally joined the team back in 15, 16. He was really slated to be a bottom six player, kill penalties, good two way forward. And now he's a bona fide top six forward who continues to produce. So,

I think to put a bow on this, this segment, I agree with your top five. I think we have the same top five. It could change going to next year if Chris La Tang bounces back. If one of these younger guys decides to step up and have himself a big year, if Archer Sheelovs takes a step and becomes a number one goalie in some capacity. So realistically, like I said, in the first segment. bit of an odd time to do this for the Pittsburgh Penguins because very much a dividing line between

who are the best players, who aren't the best players. So really just a matter of semantics when you get into it. But that is going to do it for this segment. When we come back, a steady soldier for the Pittsburgh Penguins for years, has called it a career. We'll talk about that when we come back right after this. But before we do that, we've got to tell you, about today's second sponsor and that is Indeed. You just realized your business needs to hire someone yesterday. So how can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed.

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They were able to get me a couple other interviews as well with pretty quick action. So Indeed is an incredible service. So now you can speed up the hiring process with a $75 sponsor job credit. Just go to Indeed.com right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this very podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. All right, we're back here on the Wednesday edition of Locked-on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp right alongside Hunter Hodes. And I can only think of one word to describe this former penguin who has hung the skates up and called it a career. And that is Chad Ruehedle, defenseman, the only word that I can

think of to describe Chad Rueedle is reliable. Was he one of the best defensemen the penguins ever employed? No. But when you needed them, when you needed a steady fifth or sixth defenseman on your roster that you could depend on when you needed him, whether it was for injury, whether it was for somebody getting sat down for poor performance. If you just needed someone to come out of the bullpen, take some bottom pairing minutes, not be a liability.

It was Chad Rueedle. Wouldn't say a number five, Pat, more like a number six, but he was throughout his Penguins tenure. He was a number seven, but he played a good chunk of number six minutes for them. Played six games in the 2016-17 Stanley Cup playoffs during the Penguins back-to-back Stanley Cup runs. After that, played several more seasons with them

before he moved on to the New York Rangers, played a few games for them last year, but he spent most of last season with the Hartford Wolfpack, the Rangers A-H-L farm team before deciding to call it a career. And for someone that went undrafted Pat, nearly 400 games, started his career with the Buffalo Sabres before coming to Pittsburgh and then finishing his career with the Rangers, felt like it was fairly solid. I'm not going to make a bigger deal out of it than it should be. But you said it.

When the penguins needed him, he was always there to answer the call for number six defensive minutes. He could put him on the third pair, reliable on his own zone, didn't give you a lot of offense. That was never part of his game, but he gave you steady play in the defensive zone when he was called upon. So wish him the best of luck in retirement was a really good soldier for the penguins for several seasons. And like you said, is he going to? steal the headlines, is there going to be a highlight pack for what he did in 2017 for that cup run? No, but we know it. And if you're a fan of a team, whether it's the Penguins or any other who have won the Stanley Cup, you know that rare is it that the 18 players in two goalies

who start the playoffs are going to play for you for every single game until you lift the cup. that doesn't happen it takes a bunch of players it takes 20 plus skaters they're going to be guys who play one two three five games max in a playoff run but you're going to need all those bodies and chad ruido was one of those players it was a no nonsense bottom pairing defenseman that you could depend upon when you needed him in he in a way he fits that model of defensemen that I always talk about, where was he, the only difference is he was never going to play like in all 82 game season. Rare was that he was even going to crack like 50 games, but he's the kind of defenseman that when you go back, you look at his numbers, you look at his

tape, and you just realize solid, independentable, doesn't do anything too flashy. Rare is it he is a liability. And like you said, being undrafted in a guy who worked his way up, guy who carved out a solid NHL career, gets to retire with a Stanley Cup ring, got to play for two really great franchises in Pittsburgh and New York. A lot to be said for that as a workhorse. I will say, Pat, it is funny. He only played in 10 total games for the Rangers. So had a little bit of a cup of coffee there. So I had to, That's 10 more games for the New York Rangers than a whole lot of people can say they have played for the New York Rangers. Hey, that's fair.

I just had to joke with you about that because it's like, hey, he only had a little bit of a cup of coffee. They're only 10 games. But it's funny, he only had two seasons where he played 50 plus games, 21, 22, when he was basically the Penguins number six defensemen for that entire season, played 70 games for the Penguins during that year. And then in 23, 24, he played 52 total games, 47 with the Penguins, five with the Rangers. So for a lot of his career, very reliable number seven defensemen who could step in when there was an injury or two or if someone was struggling or something like that. But he also did get his chance later on in his career to be the Penguins number six defensemen during the 21, 22 season. The last season, the Penguins made the playoffs, by the way. And I know what the missing pieces is why they haven't been able to get back.

Yeah, and maybe, maybe Chad Rueedle was the missing piece after all. But hey, during his prime, you said it. Steady, efficient in his own end, solid number six, number seven. You know, the fact that he almost got to 400 games, pretty good accomplishment for someone who went undrafted. But as I also said, we don't want to make too big of a deal out of this. I just want to congratulate him on a good career. So all the best in retirement to number two, Chad Rueedel. And that is going to do it for the Wednesday.

Wednesday edition of Locked on Penguins. Hunter and I will be back on Friday. We are going to continue our top 25 of the 2000s because it's just a summer list at this point while we wait for training camp. We will also bring back as we do each Friday fan take Friday. So keep an eye on our socials. We will put a call out for your questions, your hot takes and everything in between. So be on the lookout for that. And for now, for Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you as always for tuning in. We will be back on Friday.