Penguins DOMINATE Vegas ahead of a very busy week!

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The penguins earned three out of four points this weekend and Pat and I are going to recap

both games.

Plus get you all set for a very busy week ahead coming up right after this.

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Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Penguins Podcast.

I, one of your host Hunter Hodes.

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So Pat the penguins they get a weekend split of this back to back a setback against the

Rangers a three to shoot out loss before pounding Vegas five nothing at home on Sunday.

I want to start with the three out of four points.

I did not like the way the penguins played in the second half of Saturday's game.

I liked the first 25 or so minutes.

I thought they were taking it to the Rangers.

It looked like this was going to be a little bit of a cakewalk win.

But as soon as the penguins took that penalty close to midway through the second period,

it was all Rangers from that on.

They dominated the penguins for the final half plus of regulation.

Penguins almost went in over time to steal that extra point.

Malkin was stoned a couple of times by Igor Schusterkin.

And yeah, no surprise the penguins once again losing the shootout because they have lost

in shootouts all year.

They're now one in eight in shootouts.

But it wasn't a good performance.

It was unacceptable even considering the level that we have seen from the penguins.

I thought they were also handling the puck like a grenade.

They weren't making the right decisions.

Just everything was lackluster in the final half plus of that game.

But they had a chance to rebound on Sunday.

And they showed why this is a good hockey team and why they have a little chance to make the playoffs.

They took it to Vegas for basically the entire 16 minutes.

If I want to be nitpicky, I would say Vegas was the better team for the first

three to five minutes.

But already, she loves really stood tall.

From then on, Pat, it was all penguins, the final 55 minutes.

They stoned Vegas that entire time.

They really limited Vegas to the outside.

I was looking at natural stature and making some notes for today's show.

They created the Golden Knights with eight high danger chances in the third period.

I didn't see eight high danger chances during that period.

I thought the penguins were doing a really nice job.

Keeping them to the outside during that period and just for most of this game.

As a whole, already, she loves was once again, fantastic.

More on him in a second.

But most of all, I saw a response from this team.

You had a stinger the night before.

What do you do?

You come out the next day and you pummel a playoff team,

the leader of the Pacific Division.

And yeah, I know when you combine Vegas's overtime losses with the regulation losses,

excuse me, they're below 500.

But this is still a team that's going to make the playoffs.

I think they're going to win the Pacific Division.

And if they are healthy and maybe they upgrade their gold tending,

I think they can be a tough out in the Western conference playoffs.

The fact of the penguins dominated them as well as they did.

Again, it goes to show Pat that this is a damn good hockey team right now.

I can't disagree.

I think this is a really good hockey team.

I ran these numbers last night.

They're 7-1-2 in their last 10.

Their last regulation loss was Ottawa on February 2nd.

For that, their most previous regulation loss,

one nothing to Boston, January 11th.

And up to this point in this calendar year,

they've played 21 games and they have failed to get a point in only three of those games.

So it's hard to catch a team that is just not dropping points.

That's the biggest thing is since the calendar turned to 2026,

the penguins just continue to pile points up.

We obviously know they're leaving a lot on the table and over time and shootouts.

But at the end of the day, with the fact that the Atlantic Division is extremely top heavy,

the Metro is extremely top heavy,

it's not going to come back to bite them unless suddenly everybody else decides to take the same path.

Obviously, the islanders just refuse to die,

but if the penguins keep

piling up points here,

it's not really going to matter that the islanders aren't going down.

And then you look at this weekend and it had the setup for us to really start to win,

to really start to worry because they come out in the first period and against the Rangers,

and they just obliterate them.

The Rangers look like they wanted to be anywhere but Madison Square Garden on that day.

And then the penguins let them back in and they drop the shoot, the game in a shootout.

And you think, well, this could be bad.

The islanders aren't going away.

You had the Olympic break.

You don't have Sid.

You got Vegas tomorrow.

And then they quell all of our worries by showing up against Vegas

in just taking it to them for 55 minutes.

The most impressive part to me about the Vegas win is that they stifled them defensively

in a way.

I don't know.

I've seen Vegas get stifled in a long time.

There was nothing in the neutral zone.

They were forced to just dump it in.

And by the time they dumped it in,

the penguins defense were there to break it back out.

The penguins were very efficient in the offensive zone.

They took advantage of every opportunity they got for the most part.

PK was great again.

And our she loves another quality start.

Yeah, I'm really glad you brought up she loves again, Pat.

Because you said it.

He was once again fantastic.

And he now has wins in five of his last six starts.

And during that time,

he has only allowed tangles.

I mean, you go back to his start that really got this hot streak going.

January 22nd against Edmonton Bat.

His state percentage since then until now.

938, 900, then 903, 926, 967.

And obviously a perfect shutout yesterday.

He is playing at a very high level right now.

If you go back even further,

she loves his five and two and two in his last nine starts

with a 936 saber's edge.

I think of the playoffs were to start right now.

And this can change, of course.

He would be my game one starter in the playoffs.

I wouldn't have a very long leash just because the penguins have gotten

really good goal tending as well from Stuart Skinner.

So if she loves fall search, for example,

you can just go to Skinner or, you know,

if he's dealt by the deadline and you bring up Murushov,

you know, he's obviously having a great season down in Wilkesbury.

You have that option too.

But right now, Pat, he would be my game one starter

if the playoffs started today.

He has been locked in over the last month and change.

He was also good for Team Latvia,

at the Olympics.

And he's getting more comfortable

as he gets more starts in the crease.

He's anticipating shots.

He's playing very confident.

I am really happy with the level that he is playing at.

And if he keeps us up,

I think he's also going to earn at least a short-term contract extension

by the end of this season.

I really liked his game again.

It's hard to say that if the playoffs started today,

he wouldn't have the net in game one just because of how good he's been.

And this is kind of why Kyle Dubis took a shot on him.

He's 24.

He's still pretty young.

Has a lot of untapped potential.

He's shown that he can show up in big games.

He's shown that he can be counted on when things are on the line.

His biggest problem up to this point has been consistency.

He will have those incredible highs where he'll take over the net,

say for Vancouver in the playoffs.

And people are like, well, that's that's it for Vancouver.

They're going to just get steamrolled by Edmonton.

He comes in and helps them push Edmonton to the brink.

And no one expected that.

But then he'll also have he had a stretch run of games where sub 900 save

percentage gets pulled a few times.

So far this year, there was a dip and I'd say like December-ish,

but at the same time, the whole team had a dip.

So it's hard to say if it was if it was on him,

or if it was just the entire team's play.

But right now, for the last two months,

he has been consistently a pretty good goalie.

I agree with you on that.

And last point I want to make about these two games as a whole of the weekend

before we pivot to a couple other talking points.

And the second segment is the power play.

I think Todd Nelson really worked overtime over the break to try

and get this unit back to basics a little bit,

just because you remember before the Olympic break,

the unit was just in a right.

The zone entries weren't there.

The puck movement was not very crisp.

They weren't utilizing that shoot first mentality.

They weren't going to the front of the net.

Everything just looked a bit too stagnant on the power play.

But over these last two games, everything has changed.

And I think a lot of credit has to go to Todd Nelson for the work

that he has put in with this unit.

Everything looks so more refreshed.

They've had to kind of obviously navigate life without crossby,

at least for a little bit on the top power play.

They've made some adjustments.

Everything is more simple.

Carlson is ripping the puck a lot more to the front of the net,

which I love.

I love when he uncorks some of those suckers sometimes.

I also obviously love his playmaking ability on the top unit

on the power play.

But when he uncorks it, man, it really is a lot of fun.

And I thought he was great on the power play,

especially against Aegis, also against the Rangers.

I'll say the same thing.

You saw Ricardo Rekel get a goal on that unit yesterday.

My god, Pat, he really needed one considering

how much he struggled on Saturday against the Rangers.

He just hasn't had the same type of season from last year.

And yeah, we all knew there was going to be

a little bit of a dip in goal scoring.

I just didn't think it would be like this much down.

But I thought he had a really good game on Sunday,

Brian Rust, Seven Straight, 20 goal seasons.

Congratulations to him.

Very consistent on this penguins team.

But again, Pat, it all goes back to how Todd Nelson has been

able to simplify things for his top unit

without Sydney Crossby on it.

These are past few games.

It has been a night and day difference

compared to what we saw before the Olympic break.

The keyword simple.

That's it.

That's what I talked about last week

going into this stretch without crossby.

The power play just has to keep it simple.

Carlson ripping it is only going to make things better.

These guys have an issue first mentality

in winning battles in front of the net.

That's just going to help you tremendously.

And it definitely did against Vegas.

It definitely did against the Rangers.

So they don't have to change a whole lot going forward here.

If you keep up this type of mentality on your power play,

you're going to keep your spot right there in the top three

and probably never let it go.

But Pat, TJ Oshie told me before the game on Saturday

that the penguins power play was going to stink

without Sydney Crossby.

They've only scored, you know, multiple goals

since he said that they scored one against the Rangers.

Obviously, another one got called back for.

Yeah, by letter of the law, I guess it was goal interference,

but I've seen way worse go uncalled.

I'll just leave it at that.

And then you get two against Vegas.

It probably should be three.

Pat because one of them came literally right

after the penalty expired.

So I'm going to count it as basically three power play goals.

So power play was red hot.

This weekend has been really good

or less three games.

And I'll have an opportunity to stay hot

going into another very busy week

for the penguins this week.

But that's going to do it for this first time.

Coming up in the second segment,

we're going to touch on a few more story lines

from these weekend games,

including how Ben Kindle continues to play lights out,

right and rust and a whole lot more.

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I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes.

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Now Pat, few more storylines from the weekend games.

We got to kick the segment off with Ben Kindle.

He continues to make plays that just have my jaw on the floor.

He knifed around three Rangers players

during a play on Saturday where it was just like,

oh my god.

And I know it wasn't his best game on Saturday,

but even in his games where he fully doesn't have it,

he still will make a play like that

where it's like, man, this kid is good.

And then he opens this one

again today.

He gets his 15th goal of this season.

What a wicked release.

That was just cuts to the slot,

fires it to make it one nothing late in the first period.

He continues to be such a revelation

for this team.

I think he's going to hit 20 goals by the end of this season.

I still want him playing maybe a bit more higher up in the lineup.

I still have not that confident in Ricard Raquel as a top line center.

I thought he was better on Sunday against Vegas, Pat,

but I saw the way he got cleaned out on Saturday

against Vincent Trocheck and just overall in the face off-dotted.

Pat scares me for the next two, three weeks.

But Ben Kindle was once again awesome.

Everything he is doing just turns to gold.

There's really not much else I can say.

I think we've just been singing his praises all year

and rightfully so.

And it's going to continue on this episode.

He was fan of freaking Tastik also made

a few really strong defensive plays that

goes to highlight how great defensively he is at just 18 years old.

The kids, the kid is such a great hockey nerd player.

Like if you're if you're a big time hockey nerd,

Ben Kindle checks every box because he just does so many little things

that if you're not

died hard in the wool, like breaking down film,

you're not going to notice.

But if your sicko is like Hunter and I

and you watch the nuances of his game,

it's incredible what he's doing at age 18.

It's it's genuinely shocking that he is this good

in this mature of a player for an 18-year-old

who last year was playing in the WHO.

Now he has 15 goals in the NHL.

Four of them are game winning goals by the way.

So the kids score in in big moments.

But it's just the complete package of

he's playing a really mature, really developed game

that spans 200 feet.

And he's got the production to go with it for an 18-year-old.

And I'm with you on wanting to see him further up in the line up.

I said it last week and then this weekend kind of confirmed it for me.

Listen, I think Rekel's fine as a stopgap,

but you're going to have to move them down at this point.

I do think we're all being a little unfair

about the Rangers game when it came to him in the face-off.

Yes, he got offered.

But he went up against Vincent Trocheck a lot.

And Trocheck is one of the better face-off centers in our league.

He kind of goes he kind of does that against just about everybody.

Put a put a not natural center up against him.

And he's going to eat.

So I get the point, but I still maintain it that

with as good as Kindle has been at this point,

you've got to move them up the line up while it is out.

Just for no other reason, he has earned it.

Also, when it comes to face-offs, and this is even,

this is not even just a Rekel thing,

but Penguins only won 23% of face-offs in that game against the Rangers.

That's not going to cut it, man.

Like, I'm sorry.

Like, you're going to have to, I think, make an adjustment at some point here

over the next two to three weeks until Crosby is ready to come back.

And I kind of talked about this in my recap from the Hawking News.

If Maulkin is potentially able to play center,

if he's a bit more healthier Pat, I would consider that.

And I know you don't want to break up the Novak Malkenshinocovline,

but maybe if you want to move Maulkin to center there, move Novak to wing.

I know Maulkin has been great at wing since coming back,

but I just think that something is going to have to come to a head here with this,

just because, again, I understand them trying Rekel at center.

They were doing this during training camp in the preseason.

Just not sure you're going to be able to do this on a consistent basis

for the next two to three weeks until said it comes back.

I usually said fine stopgap, but I just, I really hated what I saw on Saturday.

I'm not even just from him, Pat, just from all the centers in general.

They all got cleaned out during that game.

So I do think that has to be a point of emphasis going forward.

As for, you know, another big talking point for this segment, man,

Brian Rust, seven straight, 20 goals.

He's in, he continues to be so consistent for this team.

Former third round pick, he's had to fight his way up to the NHL

and he plays his ass off every single game.

He's wearing an A right now on his sweater for obvious reasons.

He's one of the biggest leaders in that locker.

And I still think even with Sid back,

I still would love him to wear an A no matter what,

just because he is that much of a leader.

But he continues to just, you know, do all the little things very well.

And, you know, that goal yesterday, peak Brian Rust goal,

he drags the scene into the fight when they need to be.

And I just can't say enough about the way that Brian Rust has played.

Not just for this season, Pat, but throughout his penguins tenure.

That is a pure penguin through and through.

And I just can't be happier for him.

Oh, he's, he is such a great leader.

And I think if the penguins want to be silly about it

and have a third alternate captain,

even when Sid comes back, it should be Rust.

But I also don't think he needs it.

Just the way he plays, the way he carries himself.

He doesn't need a letter on his jersey

to let people know that he's a leader of this team.

Just the way he plays, the way he conducts himself,

the way he interacts with the, with the press.

He's just such a good player.

And I, I maintain what I've always said about him.

And that's the fact that I know

you could probably get a King's ransom for him in this rebuild

because 20 goal scores who make the money he does

are in high demand.

But he is a better person to teach some of these young players

than your crossbees, then your malkins, your latangs,

your Carlson's, etc.

Not saying that those guys aren't going to be good mentors.

Not saying that those guys aren't going to set

what is already a really good culture in Pittsburgh.

But they are natural top tier top picks.

Brian Russ was a third-ground pick.

Brian Russ had the work his ass off

to get to where he is today.

And right now a lot of the players in the penguins system

are Brian Russ, essentially.

So having him around to be a lot more approachable

to see the way he conducts himself,

that's going to help your Avery Hayes,

your Ben Kindle, your Rutgers,

your Macroorities,

Ville Covenins, etc., etc.

Because this is a guy who came into the penguins

with little to no fanfare,

worked his ass off, went from a bottom six-winger,

penalty killing, defensive forward,

to a top line, 20 goal score,

using all situations type of player.

And that's the guy, if I'm Kyle Dubis and Dan Muse,

that I'm telling these young players,

watch what Brian Russ does.

Watch how Brian Russ conducts himself.

That's a guy you should want to model your game after.

Right, and he has also said that he wants to stick it out

with the penguins.

He wants to be here while they transition back to being good.

And hey, you got a good team right now.

He has said that he wants to return

to the playoffs with this team.

And right now they got a pretty good chance.

You go to Money Puck right now.

Penguins playoff odds are at 90%

with a month and a half to go in the regular season.

But I agree with you about all that with Russ.

A couple other points I want to get to before we look

at the week ahead.

Nice to see Justin Brzo get back on the score sheet.

I felt like he was due, but really nice goal there.

And Igor Shinakov, man, that release is really something else.

He continues to have outstanding chemistry

with Evgeny Malkin.

And I saw those comments regarding Malkin

to the media over the weekend.

Kyle, if you still not listen to this podcast,

just sign in, man.

This conversation should literally take five minutes.

How long do you want to stay here for a year?

How much money do you want?

Five, six million?

OK, done full no move clause.

This should literally take five minutes.

Evgeny Malkin, I think, is going to be willing to take a discount.

A one year term should be very easy to do.

You give them a full no move clause.

And voila, you just bring them back for another year.

Maybe they try to argue for a second year in the contract.

We'll see.

But if this is just a pure one year contract man,

this conversation should not take long at all.

He has shown enough throughout the season

that he should come back for next year.

And also bad.

He was damn good this weekend.

He was galloping, puck hunting, just being a bully on the ice.

And as I just said, his chemistry with Chinacov

is something to behold the way that Malkin has been able

to spring Chinacov for multiple rushes, not just this weekend,

but throughout his penguins tenure,

has been something else.

And Chinacov's release, man.

He barely even had any time to get the puck off.

It still goes to the back of the net.

He now has 10 goals in 21 games with the penguins.

Easily I think should be resigned after the season.

He continues to blow me away with everything

that he is doing on the ice the way that he is scoring goals.

Again, I ask Pat, what in the hell

was Columbus thinking here?

I have no idea.

Not being able to make it work with that kid

is front office malpractice.

That's just insane that the penguins were able to get him.

As for Gino, I mean, you're right.

Like, I don't get what the hold up is here.

And I understood last year saying we're going to see how he does

because you want this team to get younger.

You want this team to start making its way

into its next era of hockey and given the year.

And even I would say two years that have

Gennie Malkin had prior to this one,

they were, it may hurt you emotionally

because he's such a part of the fabric of this era of penguins hockey

and now just penguins hockey in general.

But they were fair questions to be asked about what he had left.

Now he's shown you that he's at least got a year left.

And if the hold up is term, I get it.

But let's look at it this way.

Let's say he wants five and a half.

That still gives you about $42 million

in cap space this summer.

So it's not going to significantly alter your plans.

I get that they want to open the road for certain players.

I get that they want to have some of the young guys come up,

but come on.

It's of Gennie Malkin.

It's not going to severely alter your plan.

It's not like you're trading away anything for an old guy.

It's not like you're giving up any prospects

to keep him around.

It should be an easy decision.

And if it comes out that his people are arguing for multiple years,

then I totally get it.

But one year, come on, we can do this.

Yeah, one year, again, it's a five-minute conversation.

If that he has shown plenty this year

that he deserves to come back for at least for another year.

He's doing all this when he's not even 100% with his shoulder injury.

That he's going to have to manage this for the rest of the season.

And again, he has instant chemistry with a winger

who's only been here for 21 games.

This is a no-brainer of a decision.

Get this done, Kyle, in the rest of the front office.

But I think that's going to do it for the second segment.

Coming up to end the show, Pat and I are going to discuss

the crazy Mark schedule that really gets underway this week

with a lot of really big games with penguins

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All right, we're back here on this episode

of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I am one of your host Hunter Hodes,

joined by my co-host, Patrick Amp, and Pat.

I hope you're ready for a very, very busy week

for Penguin Saki.

Not only do we have the trade deadline coming up here

in four days, and by the way, keep it right here

on Lockdown Penguins if the penguins make any moves

between now and Friday.

We'll be back here pretty quickly for a quick 10 to 15-minute

emergency episode before breaking down the move

even further for our next full episode.

So keep it right here.

We have plenty of trade deadline content

throughout the week.

Outside of that, the games start Tuesday against Boston,

and the ruins are so weird to me.

Obviously, Morgan Geeky is having a great year.

David Posfenock, Jeremy Swimming is playing well.

Charlie McAvoy, but this is still a very top heavy team

that doesn't have a lot of depth.

Once you get outside of a few players,

there's not as much to that team,

but hey, they're still making work,

and I think they're gonna be a playoff team this year,

which is nuts, just considering

when you look up and down this roster again.

Very top heavy.

The penguins have lost to them once this year

that won nothing game in Boston,

where it was a weird game in general, Pat.

I love the penguins.

Generated a couple of decent chances,

but for the most part, it was very much a

called Julian type game, where they were just

clogging everything up, very boring to watch,

but hey, the Bruins do that quite a bit,

especially with the roster that they do have.

After that, you play a Red Hot Sabers team on Thursday,

which they just pounded Tampa Bay over the weekend.

That's gonna be a playoff team,

I think this year in the Buffalo Sabers.

Penguins have already beaten them twice.

That second game, obviously,

the last game before the Olympic break,

where they pummel Buffalo on the road,

really good game from everyone involved with the penguins,

and then Saturday, the final meeting against the flyers,

who I think are in cell mode.

They are just too far out of it with a month

and a half to go.

I don't think they're gonna sell a lot of pieces,

but I think I can see them selling at least a couple.

One of them being, you know, Rasmus versus Lion,

and I could see a contender looking

to get a beefier defense,

been to play some shut down minutes.

And then you have Boston again,

and the season series against them on Sunday.

So Pat, four really strong games coming this week.

Three of them against playoff teams, in my opinion.

Obviously, you wanna beat your archival in the flyers,

but for me, if you can go two, one, and one this week,

get five at eight points.

I think you're doing really solid.

I'd even accept four, even if you split these four games,

but, you know, I think five is really what I'm looking at

for, you know, the most successful.

Obviously, you know, going three and one and four, no.

That's what you really wanna do,

but I think when you look at these games,

you see the teams you're playing against.

I think five points is where I'm at.

You just gotta keep shredding water until Sid returns.

I'll be honest, looking at this week's schedule,

and the way that they have played in the standard

that they're setting for themselves,

I wanna see six points.

I wanna see them go three and one,

because you know that you can beat Boston,

even though you had that one nothing loss against them.

The fix to that was really simple.

They just, they played right into the Bruins trap game

and defensive game.

You know how to beat that system,

go out there and beat it.

You've shown multiple times over,

and including, since they have turned it around,

that you can beat the Sabers, they're very good.

They're gonna be a playoff team.

I don't even think winning the Atlantic

is out of the question for them.

Like, that's a very real possibility.

But again, it's a team that you gotta go out there

and beat that you have beaten before.

The flyers aren't very good.

I wanna see a win there.

So basically, the way I look at this is,

whether it's beating Boston both times,

splitting with Boston, either way,

I wanna see three and one out of this week,

just because after this, it gets even worse,

because the most daunting part of what is coming up in March

is the middle two weeks.

Yeah, you go to Carolina, then you go to Vegas,

then you go to Utah, then you go to Colorado,

then you go back to Carolina.

That five game stretch is going to be brutal.

So I really, really wanna see them put six points

on the board this week.

It's definitely doable.

As you said, they've beaten Buffalo twice this year.

They've already beaten Philly twice this year as well.

They just gotta saw Boston and that little trap system

that they have and the way they play defensively.

It's nothing like exotic or anything like that.

They're pretty simple.

They stick to a system that they know

and it's paying dividends this year.

Yeah, I know.

Again, they're still top heavy in Slamin'

as mostly had a pretty sound year for them,

but that's still a tough team at times

to break down defensively.

So the penguins will have to try and make

a couple of adjustments from that.

Last game that they had against them back in January,

where I don't even think the penguins,

it wasn't a pure stinker or anything like that.

And the goal of the proven sport,

I felt like was also just extremely lucky.

The penguins just ran into Corpusalo

who played pretty well

and they just weren't able to fully generate enough offense.

Not nearly what you've been seeing throughout the season.

So they can make a couple of adjustments.

I definitely think that Bruins team is extremely beatable.

I mean, the flyers just beat them in Philadelphia

over the weekend here.

So there's that six out of eight points.

Obviously, that's great.

If you can win all four, that's the dream.

But again, for me, if you can go two, one and one,

get five points.

I think you're sitting pretty fine

going into that next week, Pat,

where you have that crazy, crazy road trip

where it's going to be really tough

when you're playing Carolina twice,

a place they haven't won in since I was in college.

You go back to before I graduated in 2020.

It's been since before that path.

Last time they won in Raleigh.

It's pretty crazy.

So they had played them twice during that time

then Colorado, which I think they're going to make a move

before the deadline this week.

I think it's going to be not some cadre.

They sent their entire front office to Calgary last night

to watch Nazum Country.

I think that's going to happen before Friday, in my opinion.

You saw, we've seen how good you saw is this year.

And then you have obviously Vegas.

Again, the penguins are already beat Vegas once,

but I think Vegas is going to be, you know,

playing better at least at home where that came.

But the heart of the Mark schedule kicks off this week everyone.

And I hope you all ready for it.

It's going to get really fun here.

And it's going to be a sprint to the finish year.

Man, a lot of games and not that short amount of time.

And we'll see if this team has what it takes to qualify

for the playoffs and potentially get home ice.

The home ice battle right now is pretty crazy.

The islanders, again, this Michael Myers team

that just does not die.

They want to keep coming back from two goals down,

getting all these balances.

It's very early.

And we so got a month and a half to go people.

But as of right now, the odds are increasing

for a penguins islanders rematch in the playoffs.

I'm sure everyone Pat wants to see that, right?

No, I'm just, I'm just so tired of the islanders, man.

I'm just so tired of them.

They're always there.

They just won't go away.

We can talk about away already.

Josh Bailey, Kyle Paul Mary, Brock Nelson from back in the day,

David Volek, of course, that stupid team just always

haunts the penguins, rather franchise history.

So again, I'm sure everyone in this fan base is

salivating to play the islanders if both these teams do qualify

for the playoffs and get the two and three seeds

and a much more division.

But again, long way to go still.

Let's keep going game by game through the end of the season.

I'm just saying that the odds are increasing.

As we look at it right now,

penguins also six points up on the capitals

for a playoffs spot with three games in hand.

Though I will say the games in hand,

they're going to go down by next weekend

because caps aren't that busy this week.

And I'll play too often the penguins do.

So as I keep saying, those games in hand are important.

You've got to win those games in hand

to build even more of a cushion on the caps.

And obviously the blue jackets,

as all the penguins are nine points up on them right now

that the jackets do have a game in hand, but Pat,

do you have anything else to add for today's episode?

All good here, big week, big month.

We'll see what this team's made of, 100%.

And for the schedule this week, people tomorrow,

we're going to preview the game against the Bruins,

discuss other penguins news Wednesday.

We'll react to that game against the Bruins,

give our recap, give our analysis,

get to wore your helmet Wednesday, Thursday,

preview the game against Buffalo,

react to a bunch of other news Friday,

react to any moves the penguins make.

And this also goes for the entire week in general.

We react to any moves the penguins make,

but especially on Friday for deadline day,

we cap that game against the Sabers

and get you all set for another weekend knocked back

against the Flyers and the Bruins.

But that's going to do it for this episode

of the Locked-On Penguins podcast.

Thank you all so much, taking the time

to listen to Slosh watch this one.

Pat and I will be back with a fresh episode

for you guys on Tuesday,

previewing this very important game against the Bruins.

So for Patrick Namp, I am Hunter Hodes.

Thank you all so much for tuning in.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

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