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Despite not playing their best game, the Pittsburgh Penguins were able to get one of their biggest wins of the year against the Utah Mammoth. Patrick and Hunter start the show talking about the Penguins' 4-3 victory over Utah. The team didn't start well, but they were able to recover from a bad first period and a 2-0 deficit to get a 4-3 win. The win was thanks to a great recovery from the fourth line, goaltending making the saves it needed to make, and much more! (0:00) Tonight, the Penguins will head to Colorado to take on the league's top team, and they will get the help of Evgeni Malkin as his suspension comes to an end. They talk about how and why Colorado is so good, and what the Penguins can do to counter them. (11:27) Finally, the Penguins' tough, five-game road trip comes to an end this week, but the schedule doesn't get any easier. (23:21).
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Despite everything working against the Pittsburgh Penguins when they headed to Utah,
they overcame all of it.
But for what might have been their gutsyest win of this season, Hunter and I are going
to break down that game and get you set for another week from hell right after this.
You're locked on Penguin, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the
Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.
Welcome into the Monday edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.
I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp.
You can follow me across all social media platforms at Synonym for Wet.
Joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes.
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Everybody, a very happy three sixteen.
Do you hope your beers and your stunners are stone cold and Hunter is joining me today
from to keep a wrestling reference alive parts unknown because he's dealing with a power
outage from the windstorm.
So his audio and video might be a little bit off because he's joining me Elliott Friedman
style from the quote unquote car cast from his phone.
But we got to get into what was one hell of a gutsy win by the Pittsburgh penguins on
Saturday night.
Over to three over the Utah mammoth, they overcome a two nothing deficit, a really tough first
period and just genuinely not one of their sharpest games of the year, but they stuck with
it.
They battled their asses off and they come out with a big two points.
You can say a lot of things about the 2025, 2026 Pittsburgh penguins, but one thing or
there's multiple things you can't question are their effort, their tenacity, their grit,
and their heart.
And all of that was on display on Saturday night in Utah.
The penguins played a rotten first 30 plus minutes in Utah.
Nothing was crisp.
They could not get any offensive zone time to save their lives, even the small chances
that they did get were saved by the Melka he looked locked in.
But once Anthony Manta got them back into it with his 25th goal, you can see how much
they fed off of that.
And it was awesome to see the fight of this team, the heart, the grit, and that is probably
the win of their season so far.
I know we just said that for Boston last weekend and it was because that comeback was observed.
The way they were able to come back here, so no crossbeast, so no malkin.
They played worse in this game than they did against Boston.
To me, it's the win of the season.
The power play finally started cooking a little bit, even though I was not happy with
the way it was going at all for the first half of this game.
The fourth line pat finally got going again as well that has been very much needed because
I think the fourth line had been a little bit cold as of late.
Again, things like that can happen when you're down, crossbe, malkin, obviously Justin
Brizzo is still hurt as well.
But all four lines contributed in the final 30 plus minutes.
All three defensive bearings contributed and how about Stewart Skinner in goal?
He was so good down the stretch.
I didn't like two of the three goals that he gave up.
I was pretty clear about that on my social media.
However, he was nails when it mattered most, locked things down, huge win to get, huge
two points bad, especially everyone around them won this weekend, man.
Islanders won.
The Bruins won.
The Red Wings are really the only team that keeps losing and that's just because they're
so banged up right now.
But auto was playing back into it, Columbus won again.
You had to win that game and they got it.
Let's get into Stewart Skinner in the fourth line because that really is to me two of
the biggest stories from the game against the mammoth.
I'll start with Stewart Skinner.
It is very funny to me how him and Arthur Sheelhoves are just mirroring one another every
single start because this wasn't a great start for Stewart Skinner.
It was not his best game as a Pittsburgh penguin.
When he puts together his highlight reel of his time as a penguin, however long it may
be.
The game against Utah ain't making it on to the tape.
But down the stretch, he made the saves he needed to make.
He kept them in position to win and that's really all you can ask of him and that's kind
of been the same deal for the last week with Arthur Sheelhoves.
Every time one of these guys starts to take the reins, starts to pull away a little bit
as the starter.
They either fall back or the other guy catches up and they have been keeping pace with
one another.
So all the way back to when Tristan Jari was in the place of Stewart Skinner where the
penguin's goal tending has just meered and paced itself all season long.
I still think should this team get to where they want to go, which is the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Arthur Sheelhoves should get game number one.
But with each passing day and each passing start for both guys, I mean, who knows at this
point?
Skinner could catch fire here over the next few weeks and suddenly play his way back into
starting contention.
Sheelhoves could do the same thing and the way this season is gone, that's probably what's
going to happen.
It really is crazy.
Like, now it's going to be already certain to see if he can do with Skinner just to really
lock things down against the best team in hockey tonight.
We're going to preview that game a little bit later on today for the episode, but that's
a big opportunity for him overall.
Again, man, I just, I love that Skinner was able to be so nails down the stretch, makes
some really key saves, especially on that six on five.
And he was just so cool, calm, collected, in the crease.
Look at the way when the final, the final buzzer sounded, excuse me, everyone just jumped
for joy.
And they just, they knew how big that win was.
They knew how Skinner had their backs, even though he didn't have his best for part
of this game.
And it's been nice seeing both these gold tenders go back and forth.
Like, yeah, are there going to be moments where sometimes they don't have their best?
Yes, that's just how they are as goalies.
But man, when things get tight late in these third periods, they have been fairly good throughout
this season.
The biggest thing is that they're getting saves when they need them, and that been noticeably
absent from the penguins in the past few years, whether it was Tristan, Jari, or
whomever else was between the pipes, they would have rocky starts, but they would kind
of find themselves back to even, but then in those high leverage moments, they would give
up a goal.
It's kind of been a little bit of the opposite for these two.
They maybe don't have the best start there, you're on a bit of a rocky road, but then
down the stretch, they find those one or two saves that you really need in those high
leverage moments.
And right now, that's really all that you can ask, and we can kind of say the same for
the fourth line because the last week, they, I don't want to go so far as to say they've
played poorly because that's not the correct way of saying it, but they haven't played
up to the standard that they've set for themselves this year, being one of the better fourth
lines in the league.
And they overcame a, just like the team as a whole, a terrible start to the game.
The first Dylan Gunther's first goal is, you might as well give Blake was a lot of primary
assist on it from that turnover.
He never makes that mistake either.
Like he has been a rock all year and that's funny back to back games where a couple players
that make mistakes, they just haven't made mistakes all season.
It's just very strange to see those two players mess up like that, but he took ownership
of it and he played a really good game after that is one of the goals that I think Skinner
should have saved.
But again, he was nails on the stretch, but again, very weird that was thought made that
mistake.
He is human after all, but then they're able to dig in that have a much better second
and third period and for good measure.
No, Elichari gets the winning goal off of nothing, but pure will, strength, heart, effort,
whatever words you want to use by just barreling down in front of the net and cleaning up
the trash and keeping this teams, at least keeping this team's head above water and they
get a massive, massive two points in what you said, Hunter, has been a playoff race
that remains really jam packed.
So these two points were massively important.
Now they get one of their big guns back and it could not come at a better moment because
tonight they are heading to Colorado to play hockey's best team.
Hunter and I are going to get you set for that game when we come back right after this.
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Back here on the Monday edition of the Locked On Penguins podcast, I'm Patrick Damp,
right alongside Hunter Hodeys, who as you may notice if you're watching us on YouTube
is suddenly in a new location.
I don't know if this man's in witness protection or what now because he just keeps changing
up his locations but he's gotten through it because it's been an annoying few hours or
days I should say for Mr. Hodeys over there.
Yes, a very annoying couple of days here where a tree almost hit my house off that really
bad windstorm on Friday night, very annoying but the working to get my power restore right
now should be restored in a few hours.
Had to move locations because they're making a lot of noise and we don't want that here
on this.
All right, let's get into it man.
Evgeny Malkin officially is back tonight and the penguins pat, they go two one and two
in those five games without a mind out.
If you combine the OT losses with regulation it is two and three but they got six out of
a possible ten points and they're still in second place going into tonight.
That is a job well done by everyone on this team.
Yeah, before we get into Geno coming back and previewing the Colorado game, here's how
I want to break this down.
You said it, they they tried it water, they held serve, they did a good job of doing what
they needed to do to stay at the very least in the thick of this race that they are in
the middle of.
Yes.
Obviously, ideal world, we want them to win.
We don't want them to give points back in overtime or shootouts or whatever, but here's
how it went.
March 5th.
Evgeny Malkin gets kicked out.
That's let's essentially say that's the game, he gets that's where it began, he's suspended
the next day.
On that day, they're tied with the islanders but had the tie breaker for second place.
As we sit here today, March 16th, 11 days later, they're tied with the islanders but
they have the tie breaker so they are still in second in the metropolitan division.
In that time, they've gained three points on the Red Wings because as you hinted at in
the first segment, rowings are the only team in this cluster jam that continues to lose.
They've lost one point to the Boston Bruins, one point to the blue jackets and also one
point to Philly, but Philly's pretty much out of it, but I digress.
And essentially, all we ask them when Gina went out, Sans Sid, heads above water, again,
ideal world.
We want you to win, we want you to continue to make the gap even larger, but when you lose
your two best players and you lose a couple other bodies in Sam Gerard, in Justin Brazil,
keeping your head above water and keeping yourself in a good position.
So when you get healthy, you can continue to move forward.
That's all we need out of you.
And now they did that.
Gina comes back tonight and it could not be at a better time because good Lord, the avalanche
are unbelievable.
44, 12 and nine on the season.
You go through their lineup.
Nathan McKinnon already has 109 points on the season.
Very natious has 80, Brock Nelson has 55, Brock Nelson also has 30 goals, Marty natious
has 30 goals.
Nathan McKinnon has 44 goals.
You go to their back end, kale McCarr is the greatest defenseman on the planet.
He's got 67 points, 48 assists, 19 goals.
Then you look in net and what do you know, both their goalies, well above 900 McKenzie
Blackwood 908, Scott Wedgewood, 918 and they've got five or six shutouts in total as a
team, but between the two of them, five shutouts.
This is a team that there aren't many weaknesses there and they just got Nazum Codry back.
That's the kicker man.
Now down the middle, McKinnon, Nelson Codry, good luck everybody else in the Western conference
playoffs.
That is going to be disgusting to go up against and this avalanche team high flying offensively,
you know it.
That just goes to show how tonight has to be simple, simple and even more simple hockey
from the penguins.
It's going to have to be ugly in some ways as well.
You're not going to go run and gun against his avalanche team.
They will make you pay literally every single sit shift.
They're one of the deepest teams in the league.
They are very potent offensively on the back end.
They are also very deep.
They're getting saves.
I don't want their power play out there.
I don't know the penguins penalty kill has been elite this season.
I don't want to out.
I don't want to go out against their top guns.
This is going to be quite the test for the penguins.
Well, here's the thing Hunter.
This might be Colorado's single singular weakness is that their power play is 29th in
the NHL.
That's still so weird.
That doesn't make any sense to me.
I still don't want to go out against.
I don't think it's an it's an it's an insane amount of talent on one unit.
But at the same time, this is a team that kills you at five on five.
They don't care if you want to go power play penalty kill whatever.
If you play this game at five on five, they're going to make you pay.
And here's the other thing.
The penguins power play is going to have to get simple.
It's going to have to have itself a night because the fifth ranked penalty kill
is the Colorado avalanche.
So this is a team that does not have a lot of weaknesses.
This is a team that is clicking on all cylinders.
The best way I can describe them right now, because you'll look at their record in the
last 10 there, seven, three, you know, in their last 10 and they have lost a couple of games
coming out of the Olympic break.
But this is a team that's just playing with its food right now.
They know what the goal is.
They know where they need to go.
They don't care about the regular season right now.
So they're playing with their food a little bit and experimenting, but you give them
an opening.
You're screwed.
100% and Dallas is trying to make a run at them for first in the central Dallas.
I think it's 15 0 and one in their last 16.
They are the hottest team in the league right now.
There's three points behind Colorado in the standings and I'm sure Colorado will want
to finish this off with a division, avoid that two, three matchup, you know, against Minnesota
because Minnesota is going to get the number three seed in that division.
For the most part outside of just wanting to win the central, they're kind of just coasting
to the end of the season.
They know they're getting in the playoffs.
They know what their big goal is.
This is also a Colorado team pad.
It's rare when they lose back to back games this season.
It's only happened a few times.
So that's something to monitor.
But again, for the penguins tonight, it's really keeping things simple, defending the net
front, obviously a lot better, making better decisions, last couple of games for a lot
of them.
I like the decisions that the penguins have made with the puck.
That really has to change tonight when you're going up against this avalanche team.
You're getting at least a guinea malking back.
That is huge.
But do you get Cindy Crosby back?
He's been skating still.
He's getting closer.
It would be kind of an underrated story pad if he makes his return in Colorado against
his best friend, Nathan McKinnon.
Don't be surprised.
We have to see if he takes line rushes during the morning skate.
It's going to be happening in the next hour and a half or so.
The penguins, they've gotten three out of six points on this road trip.
If you can split these next two, when one of them come back with five points, as I said,
going into it, that is a successful road trip to me.
If you go two, two and one, for example, something like that.
It'll be huge if you can split the next two against Colorado and then Carolina later
this week.
Because one, we know what a house of horrors, Carolina has been.
Obviously, last week, they did a nice little job of kind of trying to exercise those demons,
but you know how this team doesn't shoot outs this year.
But as we said in that recap, they went into to Carolina and basically said, we're not
scared of you anymore.
So that's a huge, huge improvement.
But tonight, you go into a place where the Colorado Avalanche have had themselves one hell
of a season at home this year.
They are 23, five and four.
So they do not lose at ball arena.
But you get a huge shot of adrenaline with of getting malkin coming back.
You might even get another one with Sydney Crosby.
We're recording this before noon on Monday.
So obviously the penguins are out mountain time in Denver.
So we haven't seen any updates from them.
But this is a game where you can say a lot about who you are as a team, about where you're
at as a team.
If you can go into Colorado and beat Colorado, even if it's an overtime or yes, I know a lot
of people about their older, roll their eyes when I say this, a shoot out.
That's still an impressive win because it's not a place that Colorado loses.
And you do that.
And years are going to perk up and people are going to go, maybe we should be talking
about the Pittsburgh penguins.
Yeah, I'm with you, especially if you can beat this team in a place where they've only
lost nine combined games this season, the best team in hockey.
I think you'll get more than national audience talking about them.
And it's funny.
You started to see it a little bit this morning.
I was listening to 32 thoughts and Elliott Freeman and Kyle Bukoskis and Freeman finally
started discussing Dan Mew's potentially for Jack Adams.
It's like, hey, Elliott, welcome.
You're only a few months late to the party for Dan Mew's for the Jack Adams.
But I think you'll see more people talking about that if they can find a way to win this
game, help out.
They can find a way to win both of these next couple of games.
And we're going to get into the overall week ahead coming up right after this break,
basically.
I kind of just did it for you, didn't I?
Yeah, you pretty much just did my toss to break, but I'll clean it up just a little bit
for you.
Penguins, avalanche tonight, 9.30 p.m., nationally televised game ESPN.
But if you are in the Pittsburgh area, you can also catch it on sports net Pittsburgh.
It's one of those silly games where the rest of the country will see it.
If you're in Pittsburgh, you get it here locally, but you can catch it there.
And obviously Hunter and I are going to recap that game tomorrow and anything else that
might happen between now and then.
But now we'll go to break because yes, the rundown, if you're watching us here on YouTube
says the gauntlet ends this week, we'll extrapolate on that just a little bit when we come back
right after this.
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What's up everybody?
This is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of the Lockdown podcast network and if you haven't
heard yet, we started a club and we would love for you to join.
It's called the everydayer club and one of the things that you get as a member is an
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You can check it out by tapping the everydayer club link in the show notes.
Back here on the Monday edition of Lockdown Penguins, I'm Patrick Damp, right alongside
Hunter Hoties, and alright, full disclosure here.
I created the rundown today, obviously Hunter.
He's going through it.
He's playing through an injury with the power outages and everything going on, doing the
show on his phone, actually stayed in the same place for the third segment.
He didn't decide to relocate one more time just for funsies, but I got to extrapolate
on that.
The gauntlet for me was this road trip.
This month was hard regardless, but this road trip gauntlet, right?
Carolina, Vegas, Utah, Colorado, Carolina to end it.
That's a hell of a five game swing.
Now, the rest of the month still pretty difficult because they got Carolina again in Raleigh
on Wednesday.
Then when a peg comes to town on Saturday, then Carolina comes to town on Sunday.
Then we go into next week, then it's Colorado again, then Ottawa, then Dallas, then the
Islanders, then the Red Wings.
So the month is still pretty tough to come, but so far we look at this road trip that
they have had shootout loss.
You get a point in Raleigh, kind of a big deal.
You play a pretty poor game against Vegas, you lose six to two, then you get a gutsy
win against the mammoth in Utah, four to three.
So far, you have got three of a possible six and you got two more to go.
So being able to split, like we said, would really be the ideal here.
Obviously, the perfect world would be two wins, but this week presents you with an opportunity
to start making your move, especially as you start to get healthier.
That and now you're going to be getting some home games after this because your trip ends
on Wednesday and Raleigh, you have four games this week total.
The Winnipeg game on Saturday, that's the one I think you really got to have, that Jets
Team Pat, not very good this year, they have played their way back into it mainly because
the Western Conference is an absolute joke of a conference this year.
Let's be real.
But I think you win that one, you win another one of these big ones and you get a point
in another game.
I think five out of eight points is what you should be looking for this week, in my opinion.
If you want to say four, sure, I'll give you that, but I'm looking for five out of eight
points, especially just because the race, it's so close this time of year.
That's also why I didn't want Pat to go solo today.
We're in the playoff race, Davey, these are fun games, we got to talk about them together.
But again, I would say five out of eight points, you split these next two, beat Winnipeg and
then maybe get a point against Caroline on Sunday, something like that for five out of eight
points.
That's what I'm looking for this week.
I'm really curious to see how the next two Carolina games go because let's be real.
We talked about it after the game last week.
We have never seen Carolina Pittsburgh really be a quote unquote rivalry.
It's been a divisional rivalry in the sense that just like they're always battling with
one another for spots in the Metro, but there was never really bad blood after the last
game, man, that this suddenly feels like it could be a powder keg because we talked about
all the controversies in the Carolina game from last week.
They're going to play them two more times in less than a week and there could be some
bad blood there and I really do think looking back at the game in Raleigh last week.
I stand by what I said with the penguins kind of punked them.
The penguins had them responding to every little thing.
They had them getting involved in every little scrum and Rod Brindamore's temper tantrum
kind of turned the game against the penguins with the officiating, but if you're a player
on the penguins roster, you look back at that game and go, we get under their skin pretty
easily.
So we do that again and we go in a little bit healthier with Evgeny Malkin, maybe Sidney
Crosby.
This is a team we could beat.
Yeah.
I mean, you look at that last game.
I was it was pretty even Carolina had the first 10 minutes.
The next 30 and then Carolina had the final 20 over on other penguins tied at late, but
they were getting bulldoze throughout that entire third period.
They got a couple obviously nice six on five goals, just steal a point there and yeah,
it stinks that you couldn't win that game in overtime on the power plane, but you'll
still take that point anytime you get it.
But you're going to be a bit healthier.
I think Sid is going to be back by at least one of those games, Pat, hopefully too.
Again, I have to see if he returns tonight in Denver against the avalanche.
Justin Brazil.
On him, he also participated in the last morning skate.
He is getting closer.
So all of a sudden, your forward group is getting almost fully healthy.
Sam Zerard is still day to day.
You're getting close to being healthier, but yeah, I do think the penguin showed in that
game against Carolina that they're not afraid of them, even though Carolina is the best
team in this division and that they can play with the canes this year.
I said that after this second game through two games this year, the penguins have shown
me they can skate with them and they can play with the hurricane.
Instead, it's not been the case for the last few seasons.
It is the case though this season.
I don't know how we would survive a seven game series between these two teams in the playoffs.
If we get it, I would sure like to see it, but you know, these two games, I think, are
going to be pretty fiery overall.
Really exciting week here.
I mean, the end of the road trip from hell, get a homestand, get some other big games to
end the month.
It's going to be a non-stop big action.
I did want to say before we end the show, a couple of shout outs because we didn't get
to this in the first segment.
Tommy Novak, big goal, 15 on the season.
He has been awesome.
Anthony Manta has now tied his career high in goals with 25.
And then Brian Russ, man, big game player once again.
He is awesome.
Last one, Ryan Shay was spectacular last game.
No disagreement on any of that, especially Brian Russ.
The guy continues to be worth his weight in gold as a Pittsburgh penguin.
But real quick before we close it out, just so everybody's got it in front of them.
9.30 p.m. tonight against Colorado Avalanche, 7 o'clock on Wednesday against the Carolina
Hurricanes.
That ends the road trip.
And then a rare two days off for the Pittsburgh penguins this month.
They will be off Thursday and Friday, then a weekend back-to-back Winnipeg at 1 p.m.
on Saturday, Carolina at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
Hunter and I are going to be here to get you set for it all to recap all of it and keep
you nice and updated and ready to go for what is shaping up to be one hell of a photo
finish to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
And we hope the Pittsburgh penguins are one of the teams that crosses the tape.
But that is going to do it for the Monday edition of the Locked On Penguins podcast.
We always appreciate you joining us here as we get closer and closer to the Stanley Cup
playoffs.
But for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Damp.
Thank you as always for tuning in and we will be back on Tuesday.

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins
