The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 273: Big Booty Energy

Episode Date: January 17, 2019

Jesse Marshall joins the show to discuss the Pittsburgh Penguins, how and why they're flying somewhat under the radar this year, the vintage Sidney Crosby season we're being treated to, and lessons learned about how to most effectively surround star players with complementary talent.  Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $10 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. A reminder that we’re hosting a daily fantasy listener league contest over at FanDuel every Thursday this season. While you wait for the next opportunity to play to come around, go over to fanduel.com/PDO and tell them we’ve sent you. They’ll hook you up with a bonus $5 to play with after your first deposit, which will surely come in handy throughout the year. See you there! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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With your host, Dimitri... Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name's Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me somehow, against all odds for the first time in the show's history. I've been meaning to do this for a while now. It's my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? Not too much. Thanks for having me. It's good to finally be on the show. It's great to have you. I'm excited. We're going to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins,

and I know there's probably going to be, you know, there's a lot of Capitals fans, those into the show, and Flyers fans, and so on and so forth, in that True Division rivals, who are probably going to be rolling their eyes. But I feel like, you know, somehow the penguins have been weirdly under-discussed, at least from my perspective, from my on national level, right? It feels like there was obviously those back-to-back cup victories, and then even last year they got a bunch of buzz, but it feels like this year they've sort of settled in and I don't know what's the main contributor for that. Maybe just a bit of kind of fatigue or different stories for us to focus on and latch onto and new exciting stuff. But

for whatever reason, it feels like they're kind of lurking in the shadows a little bit. Do you think that's fair to say? I mean, obviously, you know, you cover the team full time and I'm sure you get a lot more of it locally, but it feels like at least nationally that's the case. Well, I think that their October and majority of November was so bad that it was, you could lull about anyone to sleep. They didn't do anything out of the ordinary in those two months. I would say they were below average and below league average in just about every bucket you could drum up. They were at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division. And I think that's where they got the most press was when they hit the basement.

Right. And then the head scratching began. And as they're off to do, they just flipped the switch, went on an absurd run through December. And then when they get back up to where you would expect them to be, you know, it doesn't really, people just expect that. They don't realize the turnaround that took place that took the penguins from where they were to where they are. You see them, you know, in first, second, third place in the metro. And you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense. So they're not exceeding expectations, but they have in short bursts, and it's not been enough, I think, to garner the usual national attention.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at it, you know, just as a whole, collectively, I mean, they're on pace for 100 points to team. They're plus 26 and goal differential in 46 games. They're kind of, I think, all pretty much across the border, five-on-five, somewhere between like seventh and 11th or 12th in terms of all of the shot share metrics and expected goals and so on and so forth and goal-tending. And so, you know, they're right there amongst the top teams. I think currently they are in a wildcard spot, but, you know, there's ultimately only three points separating themselves and the rest of that metro division. And obviously the Islanders being much more competitive than we probably had any reason to expect in the preseason throws an interesting wrinkle into that. And we'll see if this recent surge by the Carolina hurricanes up the standings can vault them into that discussion as well.

But there's going to be a lot of kind of jockeying for position back and forth as the year it gets going here in the final final. half of the season. And I think, I don't know, I still believe that in my, in my heart of hearts, that it's the Blue Jackets, the Capitals, and the Penguins, and they're all right there. And it's going to be a coin flip. But when we enter the postseason, especially in a Blue Jackets Penguin series, I'm going to revert back to what I know. And that's that, you know, the penguin star power. And the fact that I've seen them do it before is probably going to give them a slight edge there. But it does feel like, especially amongst those top Metro Division teams, that it's as close as it gets in terms of prognostications,

for what's going to happen in the postseason and who's going to come out of that jumble. You can really just throw a blanket over everybody at the top of that division. I think that most fans would tell you that Carolina is a little bit terrifying as their shooting percentage starts to kind of like rise from the dead. That's a scary prospect. But I think the focus for the Penguins is maintaining the engagement level that they built in December. they were really

again below average in terms of shots share and you know expected goals share and goaltending especially and when Matt Murray came back from injury that's really what changed the Penguins stayed at league average in shot share metrics and an expected

goals metrics they just got unbelievable goaltending and since he's come back Matt Murray's looking at a goal saved above average run that he's never experienced in his career, even when he was at his hottest in the playoffs. So no matter what the penguins have done peripherally, that goaltending has put them in a position to win no matter what.

And I've often said to me true that the penguins only need average goaltending to win. They can generate shots, quality chances with the best of them year after year. If they could just get a good baseline average goaltender, it allows them to do what they need to do to be successful. and Murray has certainly outperformed that since he's returned. Well, according to Casey the Smith, I mean, you know, obviously he is a pretty unharrowled guy in national circles. And he had a nice little run with the Penguins last year, but it was in a pretty limited sample size. And he kind of helped bridge the gap there while Murray was out with injury and struggling and really weathered the storm.

And I was amazed the other day when the news broke that he had agreed to a three-year deal for, I believe, 1.25 average annual salary with the Penguins. And I was amazed that the penguins were able to get that done. I mean, obviously he has a limited track record. And I think if someone's offering you that type of money in your Casey DeSmith, you probably take that financial security and run. But at the same time, you know, as an unrestricted free agent coming up this summer and how well he's performed at not just limited NHL starts, but also dating back for nearly a decade now in various levels through the NCAA and AHL

and even all the way back to the U.S. Hockey League, I think there would have been quite a bit of interest in him on the open market. And credit to the penguins, because obviously with every single dollar counting for them based on how they've, you know, structured their salaries and how they've constructed this team with, with the, you know, big base salaries up top, it was a kind of tidy little piece of business that probably flew under the radar, but was ultimately a very important one for shoring up that goaltending position and sort of setting themselves up for the next couple years. Yeah, it settled a whole. and it gives Jim Rutherford a piece potentially in Tristan Jari coming up at the trade deadline to quote unquote, I guess, sweeten the pot on any deal he were to make. And although Tristan Jari's AHL resume is middling at best, you know, you always have that change of scenery narrative for a guy that's under 25.

And he's still, you know, relatively fresh when it comes to his NHL experience. So locking up DeSmith, I think, was kind of a statement that the bargaining chip of Jari might be available. And I think for context on how good Casey DeSmith has been, for as great as Murray's been since he's come back and how unbelievable his run has been, if we look at overall year-long performance, Murray's recent run has still not caught him up to Casey to Smith with regards to gold save above average. DeSmith still leads him in that regard. And that was critical for the Penguins turning the season around because they had so many injuries at that time. And you kind of felt like everything was teetering in the balance. DeSmith took the reins and stole the job,

declared himself his starter through his play. And you wonder now how his performances will be affected by these long stretches of inactivity. his two most recent starts were gaped by spans of five or more days and were two of his worst performances of the year. So you kind of wonder now how will things play out with Murray getting the lion's share of the minutes and you kind of hope that he can keep the momentum built, but that's definitely something they're going to have to watch moving forward. And maybe if Murray comes back to Earth a little bit, they might balance that out a bit more

to keep the Smith's hand a bit hot. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it's ultimately obviously a good problem to have. Like, I'm sure that any goalie would tell you that they want to get as many starts as possible just so that you can maintain that rhythm and really feel the puck. But at the same time, we've seen that the NHL has transitioned away from the, you know, traditional workhorse goalie. Like, we were seeing guys like Marty Bruder and Mika Kepersoff starting 75 games a year for

their teams. Like, those days are long gone. And we're seeing that the teams that do wind up and the goalies that do wind up having success later on in the postseason are typically the ones who are starting in the 50, 55, up to 60 start per season range. And so it's really a nice spot for them. If Murray's especially going to keep playing anywhere near as well as he's played since he came back from injury in December to basically have two guys that you can roll similar to what

I think like a Boston's doing with Yarrow Halak and two Karask where they can just kind of alternate those guys and know that they're going to get probably a quality start from either one of them and to kind of set themselves up. And then whoever's playing better come the postseason. and I imagine the Pittsburgh Penguins based on how much they have invested in him and sort of what he's done for them in the past. They'll want Matt Murray to be that guy. But if Casey Dismeth is outplaying him,

I don't doubt that they're going to feed him more and more starts if he keeps earning them. And not to promote unfounded narratives. But there's always, coincidence is a thing, maybe here, but Murray's best performances have always come. historically when there's another guy right next to him that's playing really well. And again, maybe that's just luck of the draw. Maybe that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe he feeds off that.

And maybe from a human element perspective, that's the kind of environment he loves. And it's hard to argue with the facts. I used to just scoff at that until you saw it happen again this season. And Smith is playing the best hockey of his pro career. he comes back, gets in net and just, you know, really post-career best numbers over a 10-game stretch. So it's, you know, there may be some validity to that. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's been remarkable. I think he's like a 945% or something in those 10 games.

Yeah, he's been out of his mind and dismiss been good all years. So they're pretty set up there. I mean, you know, when I was prepping for the show, I was kind of looking into all the individual numbers and trying to get a better feel for the penguins. and, you know, I led off the show by talking about how I felt like the penguins have been lurking a bit in the shadow, and maybe there's been some other stories that have halted ahead of them and garden more attention than they have. And I think you could basically just regurgitate all of that for Sidney Crosby. You know, obviously with some of the remarkable years the guys like Nikita Kutra were having at the start of the year, McKinnon and Randinen,

and you go on down the line and what Connor McDavid is doing in Edmonton. But, you know, ho-hum, I was looking the other day and evolving, Wild released this Goals Above Replacement update and Cindy Crosby is the number one skater there and his five-on-five impact especially just really dwarfs what anyone else is doing in this league and just pretty much any way you look at the numbers, any way you slice them, he's having sort of not necessarily a throwback season because I don't think he was in decline but he's having I guess like a vintage season where he hasn't really done this since 2013-14 or maybe even going back to before the concussions in 2009-2009-10.

And obviously the league has changed a little bit and it's more slanted towards offense and everyone's putting up crazy numbers. But just based on how Crosby's been playing, especially of late, I mean, it feels like this season he's having really is kind of not yet getting the attention to the search because he's been remarkably dominant.

Yeah, it's quiet 55 points in 43 games, averaging almost an assist per game. You know, I need to get to a point right now where every night you watch him, something happens that you just kind of scratch your head and wonder, you know, what he's seeing on the ice that enables him to do some of this stuff. His game is evolving, you know, young Sidney Crosby was an end-to-end skater who picked up speed in a neutral zone and just daked his way through three or four guys and scored these highlight real goals.

And old Sidney Crosby is just three or four steps ahead of. everybody else in his puck distribution is at a level that I don't know that we've ever seen it at any point in his career. His vision is off the charts and environmentally speaking, he's playing with Chris LaTang who's having an unbelievable, in my opinion, Norris caliber season. Jake Gensel, who's one of the rare players who's been able to give a bump to Sidney Crosby. You know, most of the time it's Crosby doing the elevating, and he's the one picking everybody up.

Gensel, in his career, has always given Crosby a massive bump, and that this year has just skyrocketed. And then complementary pieces, you've got your Patrick Hornquist, you've got Brian Rust, Dominic Simone. All of these guys are not household names, but they're guys who have proven, you know, from an analytic perspective, to be drivers. of offense. Wherever you put them,

I call them fixers. If Mike Sullivan needs a line to start spending more time in the offensive zone, one of those players is generally involved in the switch. And now Crosby's got one of them in addition to Jake Gensel.

So really, Dimitri, they've just been mowing people over. I mean, that's really what's been happening. And they've been muscling teams in unbelievable ways night after night. And nobody's figured out how to stop it.

you best can just hope to contain it. And they do make themselves vulnerable to a good counterpunch. So if there's a solution to it, you know, it's to play D first and try to beat them off the counter because that's the one area. I think that they have proved to be vulnerable. And I think that's reflected in the rate at which they allow scoring chances. I knew he was having a great year. Obviously, he's atop the leaderboard in scoring.

You mentioned the 55 and 43. And especially at the start of the year, the Penguins were uncharacterial. drastically drawing very few penalties and his power play production in and of itself wasn't what we typically expect from him. And so I knew that, you know, a lot of it was, um, the 5-on-5 scoring was definitely there and dragging everything up. But then I look today at, and, uh, the Penguins are outscoring teams 51-21 with Crosby on the ice at 5-on-5, which is just insane. And obviously there's, um, you know, some percentage manipulation there. And maybe they've gotten a bit fortunate and gotten a few bounces going their way. But whenever you're controlling 70% of the, of the goals,

and especially when you're a guy like Crosby who's playing as much as he is and generally drawing the other team's best, like that's just preposterous. And then obviously all of the other numbers, whether it's shot share or expected goals are all right there in line with it and are all in the high 50s or even approaching 60.

And yeah, it's just an absurd throwback season. And I'm not sure if, I mean, he's been doing it for a while. Maybe I'm just with age appreciating the fine details a little bit more, but whether it's the way he receives the pucks in stride going full head of steam or whether it's while they're in the offensive, zone how he's just kind of using the angles to box out defenders and really manipulate them and leverage them. It's just all that little stuff is adding up and it's just, I don't know, I feel like I've enjoyed watching Sidney Crosby more than I have in years past, which is weird to say about a guy

who's played 900-something games and has already in his 30s and has been as long in our lives for as long as he has, but that's just how I feel. The best analogy I can give you for what he did this season is this is a team that won back-to-back cups. They know that you don't win. in October and November. But you can't tell that to Mike Sullivan. He does not want to hear that. The last guy who wants to tolerate nonsense and bad habits at any point of the year is Mike Sullivan.

And he's a huge, huge video guy. So you know that some of these poor performances are just getting put on blast and they're getting blown up in the locker room. Sidney Crosby picked the penguins up as if they were like a kitten by the scruff of their neck and just drug them to wins, single-handedly. You say drag them or drug them? Drag them to win. I'm just checking. I just don't know what's going on over there in Pittsburgh.

I'm just checking. So it was just unbelievable to behold. And, you know, again, that line was just so dominant that no matter what else was happening, in the context of the game, whether it be spotty goal-tending, you know, poor special teams, that line was good enough to buoy the team to wins. And everybody else kind of caught pace after a while. And when the winds started to come, you started to see it matriculate throughout the lineup. And everybody kind of got on the same page.

But you could see he kind of just got fed up and I think was tired of it. There were some players-only meetings. There was the Carl Hagelin trade that kind of was a shock to the system. there was some strong rhetoric from Mike Sullivan, and then there was just the play of Sidney Crosby. Those were the sort of the trendsetters that steered the ship. Well, and I feel like our expectations, and obviously deservedly so based on everything himself

and Havgeny Malkin have accomplished in their illustrious careers, have gotten us to a point where we expect so much from them. But I know a lot's been made about sort of the, I guess, underwhelming by his standard season of Gennie Malkins having or the perceived struggles. And then I look and, you know, he's got 50 points in 46 games. Obviously, the underlying numbers aren't necessarily blowing anyone out of the water,

but you also look at sort of the rotating cast of characters that have played with them. And, you know, now it's Dominic Simone and Tanner Pearson. And I think ideally they'd like to have Patrick Hornquist in there while he's healthy after he comes back from this contention, hopefully. But it has been sort of an endless cycle of guys coming into and out of his wing positions. And so I'm not necessarily surprised that he hasn't had, you know, a vintage season. way Crosby's had, but at the same time, it's just a thought that there's another gear for him to potentially hit here as well, because I don't think anyone thinks that he suddenly just fell off

or forgot how to play hockey. All of a sudden, if you add that to the equation as well, and you have Crosby's line playing as well as it is, then that kind of gets us back to that frightening position of that one-two punch that made them obviously as successful as they have in the past. That's the terrifying, I think, aspect of the Penguins, is even when they were in the midst of, you know, their win streak, um, they, You never had all the parts seeming to operate simultaneously. And where Sidney Crosby didn't go off to his best start, Evgeny Malkin sort of carried the team through the first 10 to 15 games.

When he cooled off, Sidney Crosby picked up, you know, Phil Kessel's scoring hasn't necessarily been in line with everybody else's. I think the constant, you know, really has just been the presidents of, you know, Chris Lange and Brian Dumlin on that top pairing. So, you know, the potential for all those elements to continue to, you know, have the arrow pointing up and start to click simultaneously. The team continuously looking to improve somewhere. And I think third line center probably being the most likely place they do that.

You know, there's there's good prospects, I think, on the horizon. And, you know, if they can kind of get the whole thing operating at once, that's a pretty, pretty scary prospect. Yeah. No, it is for sure. Jesse, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor. And then I want to get more into that third line center position and sort of how, how, you know, the future outlook for this team and how they can potentially get even better at the, at the end of the other than anything's.

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Now, let's get back to Jesse Marshall and the HockeyPedio cast. Okay, so yeah, you mentioned the third line center there. And I was reading, Elliot Friedman's 31 Thoughts today, and he had a section about Derek Brassard, and he basically did not mince his word. I think even the direct quote is, Derek Broussard is going to get a new home. And he mentioned the Jets and the Blue Jackets and the Sharks as potential landing spots for him. And I'm very curious to see how this position

development unfolds because, you know, Brassard, by any measure, has really struggled this year. He's an impending free agent. He's 31 years old. And he's unfortunately having a very down season for himself because obviously I imagine he was looking to get paid handsomely one more time. a guy who has seven five on five points in nearly 500 minutes spanning 37 games. Is it very inspiring?

And he's really sort of been the biggest anchor at five on five for this Penguins team so far this year. And I wonder sort of how that's going to play out in terms of what they're going to be able to get back for him. And more importantly, how they're going to fill that spot and whether they're going to go about it by kind of trying to land another big fish through the trade market or whether I don't even know. Oh, like, if you were them, would you, of these two options, which one's more appealing? Would you go after one of these centers acknowledging that you're probably going to have to pay more and the options are pretty limited? Or would you potentially consider bumping a guy like Riley Shan back to the center spot and looking to add a winger instead because there's probably just more options to choose from? So I really do believe that they would be comfortable with adding a wing because Riley Sheehan was very, very sneakily, it was sneaky good last year for the Penguins. It really was. And he didn't

knock your socks off, but he gave you adequate production and performance out of a third line role that was deployed in a really difficult fashion. And right now, Riley Sheehan is outperforming Derek Bressard in just about every fashion. You know, peripherally, you know, from a scoring chance shot share perspective, he's just been better in that fourth line role now with limited minutes and again getting fed a heaping handful of zone starts that are unpleasant. Tough competition, tons of defensive zone assignments. It's been a tough going for him and he's made the best of it. So I think that if that increasing his minutes, I think it's going to be something they're

going to be comfortable with. Matt Cullen then steps into the fourth line center role. And I think that they would be perfectly fine with that. I don't feel like Jim Rutherford absolutely has to get a center back in any trade that he makes. And I think that's also true if he decides to move a defenseman. When Justin Schultz returns, Demetri, they'll have nine competent NHL guys that can step in and play. And there's just not enough room for them. Somebody, I think, it could likely to go, likely to go from the bottom half of that group as well.

and so that being said with the aforementioned Tristan Jari availability as well, you know, Derek Broussard, Tristan Jari, you know, maybe a bottom-paring defenseman, the Penguins have assets available to them right now. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I mean, if you look at the market, I think obviously ideally, if you gave Jim Rutherford some truth serum, he'd probably tell you that he'd love to add one of these impact centers, but there's just so few and far between the market.

It's so limited for them, especially with guys who are likewise impending free agents, they'd be rentals, which I imagine would be appealing to the penguins just because, you know, I don't know how much more future money they want to tie up unless they were able to get a guy who was on a really good deal. But then I guess that would raise the question of why that team was trading that guy off in the first place. But just purely from the rental market, it's, you know, guys like Kevin Hayes, potentially Brock Nelson, if the Islanders fall out of it.

I mean, Matt Duchesne, but I think the prices are going to be pretty elevated for those guys, whereas the winger market, whether it's, I don't know, Gus Nyquist, Wayne Simmons, Matt Zuccarello, Michael Furland. You go on down the line. I know right now we're still far enough from the trade deadline that you hear all these rumors where it's like, oh, this team is looking for a first round pick and a prospect. But then, you know, I think a lot of that is just sort of, you know, posturing. And I think as we approach the deadline, those prices will come down quite a bit.

And what we've seen from Jim Rutherford and the Penguins is that whenever you think there's, you know, they can't possibly add another impact player here. How are they going to do so? They sort of pull a rabbit out of their hat. And I guess, you know, the counter to that would be that the Derek Broussard trade last year didn't work out and especially when you look back in hindsight at the number of assets they gave back for them and what they've gotten in return. But at the time, I think it was generally viewed as a pretty impactful and net positive trade for them. And I wouldn't be surprised to

see the penguins pull off another thing like that again at this year's trade in line. Well, and here's the thing too, you know, Jim Rutherford, and we can reference Anthony Emi, we can reference Ryan Reeves. He's quick to move on from things that don't work out. And this is, I think, becoming one of those things. It just hasn't worked. I think at one point, Demetri, Derek Broussard was in the bottom five of forwards in the league in terms of goals above replacement. The bottom five skaters, like individually. That's how bad it's been.

And the eye test backs that up. It's just the thing that always gets referenced here is minutes. he will tell you he's uncomfortable with the level of many minutes he's getting. It doesn't allow him to get into the flow of the game. The Penguins have tried to fix that by putting him on the wing. That hasn't necessarily worked out. So they really have tried to accommodate him, I think, and put him in a position where he's going to be comfortable,

and no matter what they do, it just doesn't seem to work. And that's such a head scratcher because the Penguins system is just so up front and so aggressive at the top. and the way that they press and attack the breakout, you would think he would just fit right in. And for whatever reason, it just hasn't played out that way. Yeah, I'm not sure if the antidote to him is more minutes. I mean, I'm not comfortable completely writing him off

and saying he's just done as a useful contributor in the NHL, but he definitely has not passed the eye test in terms of his skating and sort of how he has adapted in Pittsburgh and with this new NHL and I don't know, at this stage of his career, and he feels like he's been a guy who's always had these sort of nagging injuries and bumps and bruises here and there. And I looks like it's kind of taken its toll. And I mean, the numbers themselves, I mean, are staggering for how bad there. I mentioned that he only had the 7-5 on 5 points this year. But, you know, 45.5% shot share, like 42.4 expected goals.

I mean, he's really been dragging down the Penguins performance. And so I know he's a big name, but it's one of those things where at this point, if he's going to keep playing like this, just purely subtracting him from the lineup might be a net positive. And then if you use that, you know, you found salary caps based to potentially bring in an actual contributor, all of a sudden, that could really elevate the Penguins performance where they all of a sudden will actually have the three lines they were hoping to have, especially down the middle when they traded for Bessard in the first place. Knowing how important perceived value is in the National Hockey League, my fear about pulling him

out is scaring his value down even further. And that's, I think, the one thing that they're going to try to avoid down the stretch run. I mentioned earlier that they have those, you know, what I call the fixers in the lineup. the guys that generally give a bump to everybody else. You know, Tanner Pearson's one of those guys, and he's the latest rotating character to get put alongside Derek Broussard that happened in the midst of the King's game the other night.

So I think we're going to see that moving forward. So there's always that hope for Penguins fans that everything they try is going to work. You know, you're like on the edge of your seat the whole time, but that anticipation is waning. And another thing, too, Demetri, is Penguins fans and I think people around the league, I really often have a tendency to romanticize what Nick Benino did for the Penguins.

I think there were long stretches of time where he put up numbers that are very similar to what you just shouted. And it's often best remembered for going on runs in the playoffs where his shooting percentage just out of nowhere skyrocketed to these unbelievable levels that hadn't been at all season and never got back to that level again. The penguins don't need a superstar Jordan Stahl third line center to win. the cup. They just need league, you know, replacement level performances out of that position. And I think Riley Shane can give them that. I think anybody that we've mentioned as a potential trade target can give them that. And I think it's at this point, really, that's just what they're looking for there. Yeah, it's tough because, yeah, as you're right, you mentioned, you don't want to, you know, try to be playing kind of 40 chess here just because there isn't a ton of room for air right now

with how tightly packed the Metro Division and even the wildcard race is. So, you know, every point at this point, at this point of the season really does count, and you can't really be trying to, you know, spend too much time or effort trying to boost guys value for the future as opposed to just trying to win games right now. But you're right. I think obviously that'll be pretty alarming if they bumped him down even further or took him out of the lineup in terms of suppressing his value. And I'm very curious to see how that goes because Ham and Kessel have obviously been disastrous

together and they keep playing together. And I imagine that Mike Sullivan does like that. you know, to diversify the risk and kind of spread the top guys out there and have those three lines they can roll and produce offense from. But at the same time, it just hasn't worked between those two guys. And, you know, we heard Kessel's name in trade rumors earlier in the year. And it's died down a little bit now. But obviously having a more reliable center that's playing at a higher level than Brissarters, I imagine would go a long way towards improving that 5-1-5 performance for him.

And there is, albeit a small sample, there is a sample that says that, that Chey and and Kessel can produce well together. Last year, there was a stretch of time where the two of them really clicked. I think Phil Kessel is at his best when you can align him with a player that's generally very strong from a shot share perspective. Phil Kessel's game is about rush shots. That's what he's best at. He converts them at an unusually high rate because of his shot.

But he also, I think, allows a ton of chances again. because a lot of those pucks hit the glass and come out of the zone and create chances the other direction. And that's what you live with with Phil Kessel. He's that good that you're okay with that as long as you can get him in a position or he's on a line that is spending a lot of time in the offensive zone by retrieving those chances he misses and elongating the play. that's where you maximize your Phil Kessel potential is by keeping him in the offensive zone longer and finding ways to keep those shifts away from the defensive zone. And that's not to say that Kessel's been bad defensively. I think he's done everything Mike Sullivan's asked him to do.

It's just that nature of his game is such that he often finds himself there more than he does the offensive zone. Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned earlier you were talking about Jim Rutherford and sort of one of his the best things he's done as a GM during his time of the Penguins is acknowledging a sunk cost and admitting a mistake and moving on from it as opposed to trying to justify it and double down. And I think that is an incredibly valuable personality trait to have as a GM running an NHL team. And I was kind of thinking about the Penguins from a bigger picture perspective. And now what we're watching with Edmonton and sort of how they are essentially squandering

Connor McDavid's at least first early peak here with some of the guys they've surrounded him with. And, you know, you experience this obviously, the Penguins as well, where they had that amazing success of the start of Crosby and Malkins career with the two Stanley Cup runs. And then there was injuries there, but there was also a ton of very kind of underwhelming and disappointing early playoff exits and weak supporting casts. And I was looking back at some of those lean years and the list of players. They got legit time was quite a walked-out memory lane with the, you know, the Jason Megnas and Harry Zolnar Chucks and Zach Sills and Bobby Farronomes. Oh, my God. Brian Gibbons, Andrew Ebbott, Joe Vitale. I mean, I could go on for days, but the point is,

is like, they really kind of struggled with surrounding those guys with players that could thrive next to them, but also at least keep their heads above water whenever they weren't on the ice. And lately, they've done a much better job of that. Obviously, without the benefit of

high first when you're constantly near the top of the standings, and especially as a contender, if you're trading away your first round picks for help of the deadline, you've got to get creative and you've got to find different ways to find talent and develop it. And we've seen that with guys like Gensel and Brian Rust and Connor Shiri and Zach Aston-Reece and Dominic Simone. They've gotten all these guys, whether as undrafted free agents or whether as later round depth picks that have materialized into something above that. And I don't know.

I'm just trying to sort of wrap my head around that from a bigger picture sort of perspective because we always hear about how the league is a copycat league and what blueprints teams can take from successful teams. And I feel like there is some sort of a connection there in terms of, I mean, obviously I guess, the Oilers, you know, getting Peter Shirelli out of there and having someone who could competently run that team would be a good start. But the parallels there are very interesting for sort of, we hear constantly how getting these superstar generational players is the toughest part, and it certainly is. But once you have them, I feel like sometimes it goes underappreciated that it's also kind of difficult to actually surround them to optimize that window and compete at the highest level while you are paying your top players as much as some of these guys

are making. Here's one of the biggest concerns I get from people like on Twitter or where on the athletic or wherever. They say what can the penguins do to prevent becoming the Chicago Blackhawks and ending up in this like sunk cost salary cap hell? And I say to them they don't have to worry about being there because they just got out of it. That's where they were there during the Dan Bilesma era. They were in that home run culture. Yeah. The Jerome McGinla culture.

Brendan, you have to get Brendan Morrow. You have, you know, that premier free agent. I think Hosa set the precedent for that. How many draft picks did they give up for, uh, all of them? No, no. Yeah. They never, they went. Wasn't there a Douglas Murray phase there for a while?

Didn't they give up a couple seconds or something? They gave two second round picks for Douglas Murray. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that culture, like, it worked out so well with Hosa. and it was such a great thing that it permeated year after year after year to the point you had a Jerome McGinnla playing on the wrong side of the ice. You acquired him to play him on the wrong side of the ice.

And that's just mind-boggling that they went through a phase like that. So what Jim Rutherford did is he made his home run deal in getting Phil Kessel, which is a great piece of business considering what the Leaps retained. It was very modest deal. And then look at the other deals he's made. is Patrick Hornquist, Carl Hagelin, Nick Benino for Brandon Sutter. Like everything he did outside of that was building those complementary pieces. Some of it came from within the system. And your Connor Sherrys, your Brian Russ and your Jake Gensels, you know,

hell even Brian and Dumlin, I think fits into that category. But the rest of it was just adding where you were missing earlier. And again, not spotlight pieces, but pieces that could drive offense in other ways. and that's really that culture shift is what started to kind of steer the ship. And when his philosophy became entwined with Mike Sullivan's, the two of them were able to kind of feed off of each other. Yeah, I mean, I don't really want to panic, Troy. We get into this, especially on Twitter a lot,

where you know, you're trying to kind of overthinking and get ahead of the curve and go like, oh, you know, this is going to be such a big problem in the years to come. And we've seen time and time again in the NHL that you can get off pretty much any mistake and you can move any contract if you really want to, But I thought what the Penguins did really well there for a couple years, and now, you know, they've broken that a little bit and changed course, and we'll see how it plays out, is, you know, one of my big rules is especially when you have guys like Crosby and Malkin and Kessel and Letang making as much money as they do is I think where you can get into trouble is

committing long-term money of consequence to guys who are ultimately expendable and can be rotated in and out of the lineup. And you could kind of find at least complimentary guys of similar skill sets for, way cheaper. And, you know, I do like a lot of the guys they've signed, obviously, and they clearly make them a better team in the present. But, you know, whether it's taking on an extra couple years of 10 or Pearson or signing Jack Johnson this summer or, you know, the Hornquist and Gensel and Brand Russ contracts that we've seen recently, they have started to lock up some of that future money. Now at the same time, when you do have, and it's not necessarily super long

term. It's generally in the three, four year range. And I think we all expect the penguins under Crosby and Malkin to still be very good for that time. so I don't think it's the end of the world. But that sort of is generally my one kind of rule of thumb when you have a team like that is avoid making those types of mistakes. I feel those are like the subtle ones that hurt you a lot more than sort of the one mega contract that really comes back to bite you. For all of the realizing of mistakes that we've discussed today, the albatross in that is Jack

Johnson. Yeah. I mean, it's beating a dead horse at this point, right? It is. There's no point. And I'll see people like. will say to me, like, you're unfair, and I haven't discussed it much, but I often say, like, he's a great penalty killer.

Phenomenal. Best penalty killer on a team, arguably. I think there's some other things he does well. I think he's gone through stretches, we'll say, where he's been really good at mitigating shots. The constant problem has been the suffocation he provides to the Penguins offense. Yeah, he's a black hole. Even in the points where he's playing good defensively, you're still sacrificing so much at the other end of the ice. So yeah, there's concern there.

But I do think even the Gensel contract is super frugal, I think, for what he'll give you. And that's likely a player that this year will could potentially exceed 33 goals. That's good value, I think, considering what he gives you and where the cap's likely to go. I do think some of the decisions are head scratchers, but there's still enough good mixed in there that I think they're at least, you know, they may be listing a bit, but they haven't capsized at all. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

The Jack Johnson thing. If anyone was tuning in expecting us to roast that, I mean, it's obviously the old news at this point. And you look at sort of just how many minutes Mike Sullivan's giving him and sort of what they're asking him to do. And I don't think anyone, even in the Penguins organization, despite the fact that they paid him what they did this summer to think he's a great player by any means. But, yeah, I mean, I was looking at their books.

And, you know, I think the caps projected to go up to 83 million. next year and i'm sure in the years to come it'll go up even more and for a team like the penguins that's obviously great news but i think they have like 75 million or so committed next year to the two goleys we mentioned six defensemen and seven forwards so obviously that doesn't leave them a lot of wiggle room but at the same time when those seven forwards are you know those top the guys that we've mentioned then all of a sudden you can find guys that are making the league minimum or call guys up from the h out to fill in on those spots and produce above what they're being paid so it's not the end of the world. But it definitely is one of those things where Jim Rutherford and staff will need to be

creative in terms of how they fill out the margins because when you have what, seven or eight million dollars for a handful of guys that you have to dish out, you know, you're not going to be necessarily shopping in the, uh, in the luxury bin come the summer. Yeah, that's true. And they do have a little bit of help. They're going to tap into from the minor leagues in the American hockey league in Wilkeshire. I think Teddy Blugher is a center that is ready. I think he was probably ready at the beginning of this year. And I think letting him kind of simmer for another year is not going to hurt. Forwards like Adam Johnson, defenseman like Ethan Prowell, they're out there.

But they do need to do. And I think this is the one concerted effort you'll see Jim Rutherford making any dealing he does this deadline, is they're going to try to hold on to every pick they have. They're going to try to acquire a pick if they can. They did a really good job in the draft last year. They walk out with no first round pick and they end up with Kaelin Addison and Philibollander. So they did really well last year.

And the cupboard is not anywhere near as bare as it was going into this offseason. But they have to continue that. They sacrifice so much at deadlines and moving prospects and jettison guys out to bring in guys that could win now. The time is now to get that pipeline built back up. and I think Jim Rutherford's made it, is going to make a concerted effort to do that. Yeah, no, I think that makes plenty of sense, especially if you're thinking down the road and you're not just thinking the one year at a time. Yeah, you mentioned the Tang earlier and we haven't really gotten into him.

I did want to give him a little bit of love because obviously I think this year's Norris trophy race is pretty wide open. Like it doesn't seem like in years past where there's a preordained candidate or a guy who's sort of getting a lot of the attention. You know, players like John Carlson and Mark Giridano are having awesome seasons, obviously. you know what hangs right there i mean he's got the 39 points in 44 games he's logging crazy minutes he's playing over 26 at night uh he's healthy which is great to see and the underlying numbers are obviously all tremendous there and and the penguins have been fantastic with him on the ice and the thing that i've been happy to see is you know last year his name service and trade rumors and we heard all about you know his negative rating and sort of

how big of drag he was defensively and then you look and it's like okay his you know his safer centers last year on the ice at five one five was like eight 80 or something or 885 and this year it's back up and unsurprisingly, the goal differential is much more positive and in line with his possession metrics and he's been fantastic and they the penguins rely on him especially but you know that pair is a as a combination with him and Dumlin as much as any team does on their on their first pair and they've been fantastic and I imagine they will continue to need to be due so even obviously even when Justin Schultz comes back he'll add a little bit of a reprieve and as you mentioned they have a lot of uh options there in terms of sort of

third pairing guys but just in terms of guys that can really move the needle having those two guys up there is uh is instrumental for their success it is and you know a welcome addition uh has been marcus peterson um from the daniel sprang trade um you know and anaheim's gotten a lot of look at daniel sprang's been great there um he's scoring goals he's getting the minutes that he felt he deserved. But the penguins have gotten out of Marcus Pedersen. You could argue the penguins didn't need Daniel Sprong. Goal scoring is never their problem.

It's preventing them that was off to the issue. So I think that trade has worked out well for both teams. And Marcus Pedersen has done something to make sure that no other Penguins defenseman has been able to do all year. And that's booey Jack Johnson. So you get the idea that when Justin Shultz comes back, there was magic there with Ole Amato last season. You hope you rekindle that.

only Mata sneakily having a good year. Again, second year in a row for him. Not quite where he was last season, but it's good enough considering, I think, who he's been partnered with a lot this year. You hope you rekindle a bit of that. The Pedersen-Johnson pairing, honestly, is fine with it is what it is. The Latang and Dumlin pairing is going to always be the thing

that drives the whole machine. I think Latang last season had neck, the neck hernia surgery in the offseason. He said, coming into this year, look, I didn't get to do all the things I wanted to do. I probably was way too tired. And I think fatigue really hit me hard. And I don't think I'm going to have that problem this year. Nobody thought.

I mean, this is really a 180. Honestly, it is a complete 180 for him. And he did get the knock on the safe percentage last season. And the penguin's sort of poor goaltending was especially. poor with him. But while he didn't, Hemorrhage shot us against, what he did allow and chances were of high quality. And they were often eye-glaring mistakes simultaneously.

And I go back to, I believe it was game five against the capitals in the playoffs, where he and Brian Dumlin just on a normal, regular old capitals breakout somehow end up right next to each other. In the far side of the ice, and if Genni Kuznetsov has a wide. open sheet in front of him and you wonder how does this stuff happen and letang to it will tell you I just my head wasn't there I didn't have it I didn't have the opportunity to get ready and it affected me and I wasn't ready to handle that minute share and now this year you feel like you could give them 35 and he could make do with that yeah yeah I think you know you mentioned better isn't there and

I said earlier one of my rules of thumb is not committing money to two expendable players long term. My other rule of thumb is get as many defensemen that the ducks drafted as you can into your lineup. I don't know what those guys are doing or what they've identified there,

but it's nuts. I mean, obviously some of these guys are first rounders, but over the past decade, they've drafted Jay Gardner, Justin Schultz, Sammy Vatnen, Cam Fowler,

Josh Manson, Hampas Linholm, Shay Theodore, Marcus Pedersen, as we mentioned, Brandon Montour. I mean, in 2015, and they drafted Jacob Larson in the first round.

We haven't really seen much of him. I am calling Murray every day and trying to get him. I mean, I don't even need to see any tape on him or any numbers. I'm convinced that he's going to be a stud no matter what, just because the ducks drafted him and he's a defenseman. I never realized that until you just pointed out that's phenomenal. Yeah, it's insane. It's unbelievable.

It really is. They've been a good drafting team all around, but especially, I don't know what they're looking at or what they're prioritizing. I mean, obviously a lot of those guys are great skaters. But whatever the case is, they've clearly stumbled on some sort of market and efficiency that they're targeting. So, yeah, there's something definitely to it.

You know, I used to have, when Bill West was still covering the Penguins, and I miss his work, I'd have him on, and we'd have these kind of philosophical conversations. I remember he was especially covering a team when Mike Sullivan just took over, and the Penguins had these out-of-whack numbers in terms of their shock quantity versus quality, and they were emphasizing a lot of what they were trying to accomplish, especially at 5-1-5. And, you know, this year, those two numbers are much more in line. But I don't know, is there anything to that argument? It kind of feels like a mood point just because they're pretty, both in terms of

higher danger shot attempts and regular shot attempts, they're pretty much even this year. So I don't know if anything's changed there or whatnot. But I remember that was a big talking point for a couple years there with Mike Sullivan and the penguins. Yeah, I think that Mike Sullivan is battling, like I said earlier, that keeping that engagement level up. You know, the penguins got walked the other night in San Jose. I mean, walk to meet with you. They just got embarrassed. They didn't show up to the game.

And when you do that against the team like the sharks, you know, a guy like Tomas Hartle can embarrass you. And that's exactly what happened. And Mike Sullivan said after the game, we haven't accomplished anything. You know, great, we won nine games in a row. That's good. You know, we won, you know, 14 out of 16.

That's great. We can't just stop now, you know? And I think that's the challenge with a veteran group of guys. And I think every coach that has been with Crosby and Malkin for an extended period has encountered this problem at some point or another. How do you drive teams to want to play really well in game 45 when they know at the end of the day

they're going to play Washington in the second round? That's the thing. And I think to Mike Sullivan's credit, the downfall, I think of Dan Bousma, of Michelle Tarian, of Mike Johnson, was their answer to problems was to try to get the team to play more defense. And I think Mike Johnson's answer, Mike Sullivan's answer has always been try to get them to play more offense. That's what they like to do. It's what they're good at.

It's what the team's built to do. You don't ask your dog to meow, right? And I think that's always been Mike Sullivan's approach. And I think to his credit, and I don't want to knock, this isn't a knock. I don't want to feel like I'm taking a cheap shot at Guy Bouchet here. But think about Gie Boucher, right? his team comes into camp practicing the one-three-one right they play the one three-one in game one ten 17 40 82 right that's who they are uh and when mike solvin finds himself in a pickle

he's not afraid to try new things not only from a lineup perspective but from a systematic perspective um we've seen the penguins in times of trouble just start to run two four checkers they don't ever do that that never happens uh yet when things maybe are going awry, Mike Sullivan will kind of let the horses run and just take the reins off of them. I think that he has engaged the team in a way that other people haven't been able to,

and he's been able to obtain that buy-in in way that other people haven't been able to, and I think that's probably the greatest testament you could give him. And he'll never be in the conversation for Jack Adams. You know, that's just the way it goes. but what he's done to me as someone who really loves to watch strategy and systems in hockey, it's been the most fun I've ever had talking about it because there are nights where you're like, what in the hell happen?

You know, like, how did we end up at this point? Like, this isn't even close to what you did yesterday. You know, and it's all grade one, you know, day one stuff. He's not reinventing the wheel. These are systems that these guys have played since they were nine. So that's why that he can effectively institute them the way that he has. And credit to him, I think that's something a lot of NHL coaches are really afraid to do. Yeah, no, you're right.

And I know you've been on this as well, but I've also enjoyed, you know, he's got Gensel and Crosby out there killing penalties. And just, you know, a little stuff like that where it feels like nothing ever really gets stale. And they're constantly trying to find little hidden advantages to get slightly better, which is what you really need to do in today's NHL when things are so tight. and the room for air is so minimal. And I really enjoy that. And obviously now every team is sort of adopted the idea that, you know, there's playing fast and then there's skating fast.

And the penguins were doing a little bit of both, obviously, when Mike Sullivan took over, but definitely more so the former and sort of that idea that, you know, the puck can move incredibly fast in transition. And you don't necessarily need to have the fastest skaters to do that. And we're seeing more and more teams adopting that. But you're right. I think he's been incredibly innovative in his approach and I really enjoyed it. and just because of the success they've had and the players he has,

he's not going to get the love for the Jack Adams as the top coach. But just in terms of guys that I've gained an appreciation for and really admire the job they've done, he's right up there with some of the top handful of guys in the league. And something very important that you mentioned is this team speed theory about the penguins, right? And they acquire guys like Carl Hagelin and they go out and get these fluid skating defense or like Justin Shultz that contribute to that. But, you know, so much of what the penguins do is about slowing down the other team.

You know, it's not always about just physically being faster. They run the hockey equivalent of a full court press. And what's so much fun to watch about their system is they will just absolutely launch a four checker into the other team's breakout. Like they've been shot out of a cannon, 100 miles an hour. I mean, they just hit out of nowhere. And then that player will shift. they'll rotate and the wing will step in.

So what you get is this constant cyclone of pressure. So you're never in a position, the opposing team is never in a position where they have a moment to breathe on the breakout. You know, when you're on a controlled breakout against the Penguins, you are going to have to work to get out of the zone. That has been their hallmark. And oftentimes when you are in those situations where you have defensemen that are under duress, they are not going to make. the best decision, right? And that is what is inherently slowing down the other team's breakout, is the panelists are just swarming them.

And they never let up, whether they're down three or up three, that's the approach. That's the way it works. Sometimes they live and die by that sword. But that's the way it goes, and they really make other teams work for it. And when you look at their zone entry data going back to last season, the players who are apt to generate those turnovers are often the ones who are generating the most clean zone entries and rush shot chances as a result.

Jesse, plug some stuff. Let the listeners know where they could find you and where they can check out your work. As you were alluding to, there, a lot of these sort of systematic X's and O stuff is what I really enjoy about your work and really learn a lot every time you write about the penguins in that regard. So I'd like to get more listeners checking that out as well if they haven't already, so let them know where they can do so. Yeah, so we are at the athletic Pittsburgh for the systematic stuff.

And then got a little podcast that runs weekly called Dying Alive, which is a tribute to Yarmier-Yager's famous uttering in 1995. It felt like he was dying alive. So we have a podcast that runs weekly as well. Awesome. Well, I highly recommend checking that out. And what's your Twitter handle? At J. Marsh, FOF.

Good follow. A lot of soccer talk. or footy is as the fans say. Big, a lot of West Ham United. Yeah. You'll have to slog through that on the weekends. Actually, before I get out of here, how optimistic should we be up on this team?

Obviously, you know, the recent performance, I guess California trip, notwithstanding, has been generally pretty encouraging. And it feels like we've seen them breach that higher gear, but maybe they have been able to sustain it for as long of a period of time as you'd like to hope for a serious cup contender. But obviously, when you have, Crosby and Malkin and Kessel playing at the peak of their games, you're going to be in it in every

playoff series. Do you think, I guess maybe it's unfair to ask this question now. Maybe we should reevaluate after the trade deadline when we see what this roster finally looks like for the stretch run. But where we stand right now, I guess with no one really running away with it in the Metro Division, it feels like, like we said at the start, you can kind of put all those names in a hat and pick one because there's not that much separation between any of them. Yeah, they have a rough schedule down the stretch run, but it's also division rife. So if they do well, they're going to create a little bit of that separation that they've lacked all year. I think that regardless, they're a team that can compete among the contenders, certainly in the division.

I don't know that they stack up to Tampa. But I will say that if they continue to get goaltending at the level that they're getting it, the sky is really the limit. I mean, it's been that good. It's been that above average. and if they can continue to milk that, they're going to be a tough out. Yeah, yeah, I guess right now we really, as things stand, it is Tampa Bay and then everyone else

in both the east, but also the NHL as a whole. So maybe it's unfair to stack anyone up to them. Yeah, they're terrifying, downright terrifying. To be fair, so is Toronto, though. I mean, you know, it's beyond Tampa, you know, it's, like I said, throw a blanket over everybody. But if the penguins, you know, Jim Rutherford, never count them out. This is Rutherford season now, Demetri.

We're in it. We've officially entered Rutherford season. Loves to do his best work, you know, six weeks out of the trade deadline. So, like, we're getting into that point where, you know, we normally see the move. So I wouldn't be shocked if it happens sooner or rather than later. but that improvement they could potentially get, you know, either whether it be at wing or center, like I said,

it's a terrifying proposition. In addition to you assume Evgeny Malkin kind of coming around, you assume Crosby's dominance continues. Those pieces all kind of coming together at the right time, that possibility existing is enough to make me want to throw their hat into the ring and, you know, count them as, you know, maybe one of, you know, three or four teams that could, you know, potentially do the thing.

Yeah, well, it's interesting because, during the regular season, I feel like they can, have they have an advantage or can at least get away with, even if Malkins is not playing at his best, or if the third line with Bressarra is struggling, Crosby's line is typically so good that they can kind of neutralize whatever anyone else has going up the middle and sort of occupy them. And then you sort of have an advantage with Malkin as your second option,

whereas most teams don't have that. But once you get into the playoffs and you start playing these teams of the Leafs now that they obviously have both Matthews, Tavares, and even cadre in the third line or the lightning with Stamco's in point and how deep they are, that advantage kind of disintegrates a little bit, and all of a sudden you're going to have this slug fest, especially down the middle where you're going, where the matchups become so much more crucial

for trying to get your top guys out against the rare instances where the other team doesn't also have one of their top two centers. Or defensemen, for that matter. That's true. I mean, at that point, you know, you could throw out, the penguins ran into that against Nashville. You know, you weren't going to get Sidney Crosby out against that third pairing.

So whether you were going to target, you know, the Suban, you know, pairing or the Ellis pairing, it was up at the air. Like, nobody knew, you know, every week or every game, it felt like it was changing. That's the, that's one way to beat them is to be able to suffocate them like that. But to the Penguins credit, their record this year against teams that are in the postseason now is phenomenal. And maybe that doesn't mean anything either. But I feel like, I feel like they've fallen into the.

trap of taking nights off against teams that they think they're going to walk. And I think Mike Sullivan's pointed that out of a lot this year too. And I think, you know, San Jose aside, they, you know, they lost one to Los Angeles this weekend that was the same story. It was almost like, you know, they kind of thought they were going to walk in there and just run over top of them. So I think their engagement level with teams that, especially inner division and inter-conference that are at the top of the standings has been high level all season

long. All right, Jesse. Let's get out of here. I really enjoy this, the fact that we finally got to do this after all this time. And hopefully we can get you back on sometime soon and chat again.

It sort of takes stock of where the penguins are at after the trade deadline. All right. Awesome. Thank you very much. Cheers, man. The Hockey P.D.O.cast with Dim Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud.

At soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.