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Mailchimp your marketing with the number one AI-powered email marketing and automation platform. Intuit Mailchimp. Number one based on publicly available data on competitors, customers, plans vary. SMS available as add-ons, visit mailchimp.com. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the tip of the iceberg podcast, your home. For Pittsburgh, Penguins, News and Analysis, you can find us on YouTube at tip of the iceberg. Make sure you like, share, and subscribe with our channel, or you can find us anywhere. You get your podcast from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Well, they have a successful road trip, and they come home even at two and two on the season. We'll talk about some of the major storylines that cropped up over the past couple of days, including the biggest storyline of the season getting even more interesting, which is between the pipes. Who is playing goalie for the Pittsburgh Penguins for the foreseeable future? That is certainly in question plus the bottom six off to a hot start. Did Kyle Dubas actually hit the right buttons this off season when rebuilding that unit? And then, of course, we'll finish it off with our weekly pens poll. Let's get started. And before we get started with obviously the goal tending being the biggest question surrounding the Pittsburgh Penguins going into week two of the season, I thought the Penguins had a pretty good road trip, right? They go two and one first road trip of the season. Last time we recorded was immediately after that six to nothing blowout loss in the home opener. I thought they settled down well, and I thought they played some pretty good hockey in all three games, not just the two wins that they got in Detroit and Montreal. I thought they played well on Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Overall, two and one on that road trip and kind of back to center for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they return home. You'll take a two and one on that road trip because the Leafs are just good. The Leafs are just a really good regular season team. And again, no knock against Joel Blomquist, but it was a shock to see him go into that game. And I don't think the expectations for the Penguins were super high. I mean, they're not going to be most of the season, but you're starting your third string, essentially. Your third string goalie against one of the highest scoring offenses in the league. I mean, what exactly did you expect, especially whenever you are a new team, mostly still learning the ropes of each other? But you're right, even with that said, they still played pretty well and that game still started off pretty good. And don't let the power play get hot. That's another thing that's been rolling in the proper direction. It's a good start to the year on that road trip of Montreal, Toronto, and forgetting the first one, but you take that. Detroit, yeah, Detroit. Yeah, you take that though. You take that couple home openers in there with the vibes are much higher than a normal game of Detroit or a normal game in Toronto. Go in there and you don't clean up shop, but you do pretty well. And that's a good way to start the season, especially after just the poor, poor start against New York. Yeah, and the one thing, and again, four games into the season, this is not enough for us to say, that's what the Penguins are going to be this year. Three of those four games, I'd say they got off to the better start. I feel like they've at least dictated pace of play in three of the four first periods so far. And that's including the New York Rangers period where I thought they looked good. They despite being down one to nothing through the majority of it up until that last five minutes, I thought they outplayed the New York Rangers. Now again, the rest of the night, they did not outplay the Rangers, but I think that followed suit in not Detroit. I thought Detroit came out like a house fire than the Penguins settled in, but that's how they came out against Toronto. That's how they came out last night against the Montreal Canadiens as well. So a nice little change of pace for the Pittsburgh Penguins getting off to fast starts instead of warming up to the action like they've done in previous seasons. But let's move over and talk a little bit about this goal tending question because we knew coming into the season that this was going to be one of the biggest question marks surrounding this team all year long. I didn't expect an answer in the first week of the season. But it feels like there's more questions now than there were six days ago when they dropped the puck against the New York Rangers. Jari gets blown up in the season opener. Joel Blunkfist, who everybody expected to start that second game due to Alex Nodelkovich's injury, he starts, makes his NHL debut, plays well and gets the victory. And then like you mentioned, surprisingly gets the start in game three on Hockey Night in Canada in Toronto, plays well again. You know, makes a couple of 10 bell saves there were a couple of rookie mistakes. But like I said yesterday on the power rankings, more 10 bell saves than there were rookie mistakes and you're never going to be mad with that split. The last one there sparked a lot of debate was Mike Sullivan riding the hot hand. Was he just trying to get more of a look at Joel Blunkfist before Nodelkovich comes back, let the kid get a little bit more of NHL reps under his belt? Or was it that he trusted Jari less after that blown up first game? Well, Elliot Friedman of 32 Thoughts and Sportsnet weighed in on this yesterday on his episode saying quote, "I think the Penguins at times have considered their options here. They've talked to other teams about Jari, obviously nothing has happened, but it has occurred," as Friedman said. Then he went on to speculate that they want to see Tristan Jari be more dependable in net. And I think that is something everybody can agree with. But with all of that speculation, with all of those questions, Jari comes out last night, has an opportunity for a response, pens get the six to three win in a game where Jari sometimes looked a little uneven. What have you thought of this saga so far? It seems like a lot of drama. It seems like the drama is only going to increase from here. But what did you think of the saga so far? And what do you make of Jari's response last night in the win over Montreal? Welcome to another regular Pittsburgh Penguin season where there might be goalie controversy. Yes. Just run-of-the-mill, run-of-the-mill stuff. That being said, what you read there, and there was still more to it from Elliot Friedman where he alluded to, and I think we could have all seen this coming last season, the Penguins aren't going to be upset if Tristan Jari is a little uncomfortable with his position as starter. If he's a little uneasy that maybe there's something in the works, and to take it even further, Josh, you always mentioned that there seems to be just an open competition. Just an open competition to have to start the regular season as nuts, especially for that position. But when it's three, two and a half, maybe two reliable names in terms of you've had reliability interest in Jari before, and can be NHL caliber. You were clearly relying on, you were clearly relying on Alex and Delac with you last year. Now Blumquist is coming up and showing himself, maybe he's the NHL name that isn't quite there yet, but you're showing your confidence in him early, and you might have to play him a few more times. The saga now turns to our team's going to call about Jari if that option is still out there, because that's going to be the center of attention too. The saga is going to be how everyone plays, yes, because the Penguins need wins, they need a good goaltender, but also it's going to turn into... It's plausible that teams carry three goalies in the NHL these days. I don't think the Penguins want to do that. Not with these three specific options, not with big money interest in Jari, not with Alex and Delacovich as your likely starter, and not with the graduating prospect that you want to see on the ice. You want to see him playing. So while certain teams can get away with it, the Penguins can't, they're not in that situation. So the trade talk is going to get louder, it just is. And especially the way Friedman said they may have danged them out there a couple of times. I think Josh here we said straight up, just no one called back, and I don't blame them, but that will be something to keep an eye on. The saga is going to be centered around how well are those three playing, and also who's calling, is anyone calling, and who's willing to take it? That's a big contract still. Yeah, I mean, those are kind of like the questions for the Penguins right now. Will Jari be traded? That's the biggest one that is kind of on everybody's mind. The answer to that question has yet to be answered because nobody is firmly saying, "Yeah, he's on the trade block," but there are people saying, "Yeah, he's been floated out there," and there just hasn't been much of a response. Now again, his performance changes that question, changes that answer. How will Nadellkovich perform when he returns? Because it's not a guarantee that he comes back from this lower body injury, and all of a sudden he is in peak form or in form of what he was last year, when he went eight, three, and one to close out the year. And then the last question is the one that has really kind of cropped up in this past week where, yeah, everybody is excited about Blancfist. Everybody was excited about Blancfist, but now that you've seen him at the NHL level, now that the lights don't seem to be too bright for the young NetMinder, is he ready for more of an opportunity? And you mentioned the three goalie situation. That's potentially one of the answers to my next question, which is how do you get him more opportunities? Because Nadellkovich was on the road trip with the Penguins. He was practicing in the morning skate as everybody that was in attendance was saying there's three goal tenders on the ice right now. How long does that persist when and if Alex Nadellkovich comes back onto the roster? At first and foremost, they have 23 active players. They have two players on the injured reserve to bring somebody back. They'd have to send somebody down. Are you going to go with one extra forward and one extra defenseman? Or are you going to keep three goal tenders like this? It's a, it's a situation in which the Pittsburgh Penguins seem to be getting more questions, but at the same time, you can't be upset if one of those questions is due to the fact that your young goaltender appears to be more ready than most anticipated coming into the season. Oh, yeah, he's clearly ready in his two games. I mean, love that hockey reference has the quality start stat. He's two quality starts and two starts. Tristan's already had zero in two starts. They didn't give him a quality start for last night. Let's look at, look at, because two of those three goals, I will say, he probably wants to have back. But at the same time, I thought he settled in well in that third period, especially when he made, I mean, he wasn't tested as much. The Penguins settled in as a team well and played good defensive hockey, but nine saves on knives, shots in the third. I thought the team and in Jari specifically played pretty well with that lead. Now again, if I was ranking the four starts this season, it'd probably go Blancfist, Blancfist, Jari last night, then obviously Jari on the opener. So I would say Blancfist has had the better of the two performances, but I still would have given Jari a quality start, but I think it also leans into the fact that shots versus goals allowed in safe percentage. I think he had an under 900 safe percentage last night. Yeah. And I don't know how the quality starts thing is tabulated. It could be any number of things. It might even literally just be a programmer at hockey reference just going, "Yes or no, bam." You know, I don't know how it works. I do think it's an interesting stat that they use and that they, that I like looking at, especially for goalies because it's tough to nail down, you know, wins in the NHL for a goalie can mean something, but let's be honest sometimes, like in the Oilers or the Avalanche case, they outscore their problems. The Penguins managed to do that last night because they did have a two-nothing lead and I think this is probably where Jari lost it. Let, let in three in a row. Regardless of how the team looked in front of them, you lose your lead in that, that quickly of a span, that will pull away from, you know, your quote-unquote quality start. Yeah, and here's what hockey reference has is how they determine whether or not a goal tender has a quality start. It starts with a save percentage greater than the average save percentage for the year or at least an 88.5% save percentage on nights with 20 or fewer shots, which is never going to happen for the Penguins because they just allow too many shots. So his save percentage was lower last night than the average save percentage on the young season, hence the reason he did not get a quality start. But again, I think he responded well, especially after getting punched in the face early, which that first goal, you just have to be able to be over there, right? I mean, you have to be able to track the puck. I'm not going to say it could be two things at the same time. It's not all on Jari. He should attract the puck better. But also Ryan Shea, I know Slavkowski is a big guy. You got at the very least given effort to get him out of Jari's line of vision. But, you know, at the end of the day, you look at these goal tenders. And one week in, like I said at the beginning of this, I didn't expect there to be answers. I certainly didn't expect there to be more questions for games into the season. And that's just where we stand. No kidding. It's going to be fascinating to see it going forward. It really is. If Jari can find some rhythm, then yeah, you got to ride your hot. And it is going to be a lot of riding hot hands this year. If you have one A, one B, or maybe just two, one B's in terms of Jari and Adelkovich, because again, neither are really stuck out. It's true to form starters. I mean, Adelkovich did at the end of last season, but you need to see that over the full season. And it was a reclamation project first, really. Let's be honest with Adelkovich last year, it was a reclamation. And then in those last 13 games, he proved why he should be the starter or A starter in the NHL. And Tristan Jari, on the other hand, completely lost his job. If in back-to-back and in the meaningless game 82, you're not playing your two-time all-star, I don't know what else to do for you. Yeah. I mean, describing him as a two-time all-star makes it sting a little bit less than describing him as your $5 million goaltender for the next four years. Exactly. And it's the way we had to look at Matt Murray forever. You still had to describe him as a two-time cup champion, even when things were starting to fall apart. You have to go back and look at it, but I don't think Matt Murray fell off as much as Tristan Jari has. I mean, it's in the time since, after the trade, yes. Yeah. But that last year was- Before the trade. I remember that last year being just brutal on him. I think he got hurt. His dad tragically passed away. It was a tough year for him, and the fans were not happy with him. They're all those weird, made-up rumors going around about seeing him in public and stuff. Yeah. It was just a tough year, and regardless of what you think of Jari now, the better move for the Penguins at the time was probably getting rid of Murray. But man, looking at Jari now, and you just have to look at him as two-time all-star, know that that ability still can be there. Yeah. It just got to find it. Yeah. I was going to say, if you're going to play the hindsight card, let's just go all the way back to the expansion draft and protect that Hall of Fame goaltender that went on to win a Vesna. Because, I mean, at the end of the day, it was him or Matt Murray. The Matt Murray experiment lasted less than three years before he was traded. And I like Jonathan Gruden, but you traded him for a fourth liner at best. Yeah. And now you're sitting here with Tristan Jari, and you have not won a playoff series with him, and part of that is because of him. I mean, one playoff series, the Islanders series. I don't put the Rangers series on him at all. But regardless, it's going to be- I mean, everybody knew this was going to be a straight line to watch all season long. But the first week is certainly provided a lot of sparks. Behind every perfect stay at Hilton, there's a person doing that little bit extra. So Hilton does a little bit extra for that person. Named the number one place to work in the world by a great place to work and fortune magazine, Hilton has created a supportive, inclusive culture that values progression. So as your interests and skills change, there are thousands of locations to choose and roles that can grow with you. Hilton, every job makes the stay. Apply to the world's number one workplace today at jobs.hilton.com. What's 2FA security on Kraken? Let's say I'm captaining my soccer team, and we're up by a goal against, I don't know. Soda Springs FC, do we relax? No way. Time to create an extra line of defense and protect that lead. That's like 2FA on Kraken. A surefire way to keep what you already have. Safe and sound. Go to Kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not in decimal advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U.S. and U.S. territory customers by Payward Interactive Inc. PWI, DBA Kraken. U.P.W.I.S. Disclosures at Kraken.com/legal/disclosures. Let's move over and quickly update before we talk about the bottom six. A quick update on the Iron Penguin award. Typically, it takes a while for us to start losing names. It takes a while for us to lose multiple names. But this year, it just seems like Mike Sullivan is experimenting. Those competitions that we saw in training camp have carried over to the regular season, and they're just kind of switching guys out, substituting guys in and out of the lineup. And because of that, we're starting at 18 last week. We're down to 15. Yes, Pauli Arvey was at a healthy scratch on Saturday. He is now eliminated from contention. Rutger McGrordi was a healthy scratch on Monday. We'll talk about that in our final segment. He is out of the running. And then Jack St. Ivani, another questionable one, scratched on Monday. He is out of the running as well. So down to 15 players, we'll keep an eye on this as the season progresses. But early returns on the new bottom six. That's what I want to get into next. Because again, we talked about goal setting. That was a huge question. The bottom six and the power play were the next questions. We're not going to talk about the power play much today, but it's looked good to this point. The bottom six, however, stole the show at Bell Center last night in Montreal. The Penguin scored 14 goals on their three game road trip over the weekend. Four of those goals coming exclusively from the bottom six. And the penguins now this season are two and O when the bottom six registers at least one goal. Horwatt, do you think this is sustainable for the penguins' new found bottom six? One sure hopes. It's tough to say if it's sustainable this early because, I mean, the way you mentioned the Iron Penguin guys, you know, healthy scratches, it's still an experimental phase, it feels like. I mean, we've still yet to see, like, Lazock and get into the lineup. We're still yet to see what Anthony Beauvilla actually looks like in a bottom six role, if that's where he is destined to go eventually. So I don't know if it's sustainable, but it is definitely successful to start the year and is definitely proving to be a needed commodity considering when they score they win. Who could have figured that? Who could have thunk it? It'll be fascinating, actually. I'm really interested to see how it can progress and continue getting better. I don't know if I have really too much to say about it other than this is what the penguins have needed. This bottom six that can score a little bit and contribute. It's going to be big for them going forward. I mean, Lars Ehler took that game over at one point yesterday, too, last night. It's without doubt. I mean, Crosby wasn't playing his best stuff. He still hasn't been explosive yet this year, but having someone like Lars Ehler that can let the bottom six and scoring last year wasn't a high hill to climb, but he did, and seeing him take a game over. You need guys that can do that in your bottom six. That's just what you need. On days where, I mean, Malkin's been great all season so far. But on days where, let's say, Malkin has an off night and Crosby happens to also have another off night. You're going to need your bottom six to do something. It's what the penguins thrived on in 15, 16, and 17. That's why they were so successful. That's why they were so good is because they had a third line and sometimes a fourth line that can chip in and help. And that will be the key for them going forward. It was, yeah, I don't know if it's sustainable yet because there still needs, it still kind of needs to solidify. But it's molding in the right direction. Yeah, I'm not going to go as far as to say it's going to be an unmitigated success all season. But do I think that what I'm seeing so far is sustainable? Yeah, because I think they've gotten contributions from everywhere. Last night, it was Lars Ehler. All the games that yes, the pooly RV has played in. He has been noticeably a very good piece for the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don't think Drew O'Connor has played his best hockey. He's down in that unit right now. So I think there's more to come from him. And I think that you also have good players that haven't really gotten a lot of opportunities or are sitting right now. I mean, Rucker McGurdy, we all expect to continue to grow. Valteri Pustinan has yet to play a regular season game AHL or NHL this season. I would expect that he has a good year coming up. And then you have those young guys in the minors that you're expecting big things from. Guys like Billy Covenin and Vasily Pannemara whenever he comes back from the injury. So these are all players. I mean, you can toss in Avery Hayes. I think already has two goals and two games down at the AHL level. He's a name that you could potentially see coming up and making an impact at certain points. But it's not as much those guys because I think there's a lot of talent there. And I think they're deep when it comes to options. So if somebody falls off, there's going to be somebody else kind of chomping at their heels to get in the lineup and get some minutes. I think it's the pillars, the people that aren't going to be taken out of the lineup that have been playing very well. I would like to what I've seen from Kevin Hayes and it's not like, well, his legs are going to go. His legs aren't there. I mean, he is, he is not flew to foot. That is not anything that we have ever had to worry about. But he makes the right decisions. He makes smart plays with the puck and he's been finishing. And I think that that's something that you could see potentially continuing. Nolachari, if he can stay healthy, he looks night and day different than he did last year. He's still doing all the things that he did right. But he's also making better plays in the offensive zone. He's also playing a bit more physical. I mean, he had the subway sandwich of the game. I'm going to call it that. I don't care what Edgar Snyder says. It's the subway sandwich of the game. He wrecked a dude yesterday. And I just love the way that that bottom six is playing. And you mentioned Lars Eller. I mean, he had himself a night and all of the speculation. Sorry, Lars, it's on me. All of the speculation of, well, he's on the last year of his contract. He's probably one of the most tradable assets the Penguins have. Maybe they trade him before the season or the more serious conversation that we had, the more kind of nuts and bolts in the lineup conversation we had. Oh, he's better off as a fourth line center. So far, and I'm take out yesterday's game because I understand coming off the heels of a two goal game. It's easy to make these statements, but take out yesterday's game. I think he's played very well with the puck delineating where it goes, running the offensive zone whenever he's on the ice. I thought he set up Magrorty on several opportunities throughout the first handful of games. I thought he has played well and played well off of. Yes, a pull yarvy. Lars Eller has just gotten off to a really good start to the season. And it might be, you know, carry over from that Olympic qualifier where he led his home country as captain, scored the winning goal that got them into the Olympics for 2026. He might just be feeding off of that energy and off of that excitement, but it's working really well for the Penguins. And there still might be some speculation that, hey, listen, if the Penguins team wise goes south this year, Lars Eller is a guy that is probably on the chopping block simply because of his value when it comes to his 200 foot game, but he certainly had himself a good start this season and had himself a terrific night in Montreal. Great start to the year. Yeah, it's that speculation won't go away. Winter lose, I feel like, because in my head, I always start rolling through, you know, whenever we start thinking you're talking about trades. I start thinking of hockey trades. All right, who's a good player on this team that can be dealt out for another good player? Maybe the change of scenery stuff. I mean, it's the way I thought of a Carter Kellall of last year. Might be the way I look at Lars Eller this year. Just you're right. The most moveable asset the Penguins have right now. Yeah. Sure, he's a little older, but final year of his deal for 20, 30 some games. Well, how many teams are going to take his age into consideration, really, especially if he's performing at a good enough level to fit into someone's bottom six. So, you know, I wouldn't let that speculation go away because, you know, hockey trades are always possible. And if you look at just the amount of centers the Penguins have, the entire fourth line can play center. You want to move one of them up to fill that role? Go for it. You have multiple centers in the AHL that can reasonably handle the NHL schedule. And that includes, you would mention, uh, Ponomara. There's also Sam Poulan. If you wanted to give Jonathan Grudin a long look, you could. There's plenty of names that the Penguins can fill into center if they end up, you know, you know. Giving into the speculation of trading Lars Ehler. Again, at the moment, probably just want to see what he can do for the full season. Yeah. But on that, huh, I don't know about full season, but you're not going to trade him until you see what your team is looking like in January. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the speculation won't really pick up until all the trade speculation does. At this point, October, November, there's nothing. Maybe you'll hear whispers of players unhappy in their situation by December, but. Yeah, if Edmonton continues to look like Edmonton looks, then you can start looking at trades for them to where it's going to provide a spark. But like most teams, you got to wait till Christmas until you actually see trade speculation right up. Yeah, for sure. And, but regardless, it's always important to keep notes of who could be on, who could be in that conversation. Heck, we've talked about Jari already in the same sort of situation in this episode. Uh, Lars Ella can be added to that list and then names will filter from there and that'll happen across the league. So it's an exciting year for the penguins if they can, if they can have a bottom six that rolls and maybe there's hockey trades to be made. Yeah, there's a reason that we started this out though with early returns. We're not simply saying that Kyle Dubas hit a home run. We're saying, all right, it looks like he's seeing the ball out of the hand well, right? It looks like he certainly set the penguins up for success. Early returns are good. How does that continue? And hopefully it continues well. I feel like it looks like it's sustainable, but again, players go on goalless droughts. And if the right player goes on the goalless drought at the right time, it could bring down an entire unit. But as of right now, first four games in that has been a success for the Pittsburgh penguins. ♪ ♪ Listen in. ♪ Starbucks. 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The question we asked yesterday for a weekly Penns poll was, whenever that happens, whenever Blake Lozot comes back from injury, gets taken off of injured reserve and rejoins the Penguins lineup, who would you send down? Because the Penguins are going to have a decision to make here. I put three of the options that they have. They really only have four or five options that are realistic, that they could send down to create that roster spot for Lozot. Rucker McGrury barely, barely won this poll at 49%. Valteri Pustinan had 47. For a long time, Yesa Poliarvi had zero. He finished with 1%. So I'm curious as to who actually voted for Poliarvi. And that was after the game, a game in which Poliarvi looked great in. So I'm curious as to who voted for Poliarvi. But 1% say Yesa Poliarvi should be sent down and then 3% go to other. Horwatt of these three, or maybe there's a fourth one that I'm not thinking of as a genuine option. But of these three, who do you think you would send down if you were Kyle Dubas in this situation? I'd be Rucker McGrury. It wouldn't be for long. I don't think it's tough to jump from college straight to the NHL and have a rhythm. He's got to find a little bit of something. He's got to cook with a little something, I guess. He needs to still mold into professional hockey a little bit. I wasn't surprised he got a healthy scratch for Poliarvi. Like I said, it's experimental period for the Penguins. This whole month of October might be experiments between Goldie's bottom six, maybe even defense depending on how that continues to look atrocious. Or at least for certain areas. But yeah, I'm not shocked that McGrury got the healthy scratch and I wouldn't be surprised to see him get sent down too. Because they want him playing. They want him playing somewhere. So they're going to put him on the ice in the AHL if that's where he goes. And it'll be just a matter of keeping an eye on him from there and it'll be a see you soon for no doubt. So yeah, it goes to McGrury. I mean, unless he had to come in and light the world on fire in his first two games essentially for me to really feel like he deserved to be staying at the NHL level, especially as guys get healthy, especially as his bottom six takes off a little bit more. He can be a piece of that bottom six this year, no doubt. But for the moment with blank was on still needing his turn to the experiment, just at the moment, it's his, you know, his domino to fall. Yeah, and I think the big thing here is the fact that he's waivers exempt. And I think that's why you look at this and say, listen, Pustinen is the guy that I feel like they're more willing and again, this is just speculation on my part. But I feel like they're more willing to lose Pustinen than, than they're leading on. Like, yes, I would rather not lose Pustinen to waivers. And I think they're not as concerned because I feel like Billy Koivanen kind of projects to be a guy that could just fill Pustinen's role. I feel like Panamara could potentially be that as well. So now that they have kind of players in similar moles, they're like, well, you don't want to. Let's, let's get that straight. They don't want to lose Pustinen for nothing. But I think that that makes them a little bit less worried about putting him on waivers eventually. But I, I still think that it's McGrory for the reasons that you said. I mean, he needs to be playing. You're not going to get better. You're not going to improve. You're not going to acclimate to the professional game, as you mentioned, by sitting in the press box. You have to be playing at some, some point. And again, it's not like the penguins bottom six has been performing poorly. Right now you have Drew O'Connor in the bottom six who was a top six top line guy last year in the National Hockey League. He scored 16 goals. Are you going to put in McGrory over that guy? Pull your V, honestly, should not be taken out of the lineup for the foreseeable future, the way that he's playing. So you can't put McGrory in for him and you're setting him up for failure if you put him on the fourth line. That's just, it's, again, he's not a guy that can't play that style. But it's not the style that best fits him. So you need him in the top nine. And as of right now, there's just nowhere for him to fit. So at that point, you have to get him some playing time and you have to send him down to the AHL. It's not what I want to see happen because I think that he earned that spot in the start of the season. I think that he played exceptionally well in the preseason and he got better as the preseason went on, which is why he earned that opening night roster spot. But there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen right now. And we mentioned it when talking about the bottom six. There are still players that have yet to get that opportunity. Posten, and hasn't been in the lineup, Lizotte, coming back from concussion. McGrory got that three game sample size that it seems like all young players get those three games before they're taken out of the lineup. I mean, it happened to Gruden. It happened to pull in on two different occasions. Now it happened to McGrory. Do I think that they send him down immediately? No. But I do think that he's going to be the domino to fall as you mentioned. Yeah, I think he put it perfectly. He's the domino to fall once Lizotte comes back. And honestly, it might even have to be before that because if, no, if never mind, excuse me, because if Madelkovich comes back, Blancfist is the one that gets sent down in return. So when Lizotte comes back, I think it is McGrory. Tell you what, whenever that never all lineups are healthy and things are put together, the Penguins could have two teams in their organization with pretty stellar lineups. I just pulled up the Wilkesbury lineup. Yeah. I mean, I believe one in one over the weekend, but they'd lost seven to six in the opener and didn't start Mershev, which don't worry about it. Mershev came in, had a really good game the next day, got the pens to win. Third star of the game. So I mean, aside from Jimmy Huntington being the first line center on the Wilkesbury script. Listen, he played well. Yeah. He played well over the weekend. And honestly, I thought he looked pretty decent at training camp and in preseason. I mean, he didn't look good enough to where I'd say, yeah, let's put him in the NHL, especially considering how many centers are above him. But as an AHL guy, I like Jimmy Huntington. It's early returns. Oh, yeah. It's just fascinating looking at this lineup and seeing how many guys have NHL projections or have already played at least a game in the NHL. I am seeing three in the four group that either have a plate, pretty much aren't NHL, but just aren't going to make the NHL. And I'm getting them. It could be too. If Jimmy Huntington, like you said, does stuff. Otherwise, I mean, there's a lot of hurdles to climb for him to do stuff at center. Exactly. So it's tough, but I'm just looking at the lineup and that goes for the, for the most part, goes for the defense as well. This is a fascinating team. This is a fascinating organization right now. Too many cooks in the kitchen is a good problem to have, but also let's see it turn into success. Let's see it turn into wins at both levels. The Penguins wanted to build a successful age of organization looking at this lineup. It should be. Yeah. I mean, name value and on paper is great. You got to see it translate, though. That's been an issue. I mean, if you go back in the Crosby era, look at the early 2010s name value, those teams, phenomenal. Guess what happened in the playoffs? Nothing. Nothing. And that was a big issue. So we'll see how it all plays out. I think that we can all agree that the NHL team is more exciting than it has been in multiple seasons. So you have to give credit to both Kyle Dubas and the actual general manager of that team, which is Jason Spets of the assistant general manager of the Penguins. And obviously the entire hockey ops staff because they all have a hand in that. But, you know, it's early in the season. Both teams have gotten some wins. Both teams have suffered some losses, but there's going to be plenty of storylines to follow. None more pressing and none more interesting than the Penguins goaltending situation at the National Hockey League level. That is going to be something that we're going to continue to likely cover and talk about on these episodes. But thank you guys so much for tuning into this one. Remember, you can find us on YouTube at tip of the iceberg. Make sure you like. Make sure you subscribe. Tell all of your friends or you can find us anywhere you get your podcast from. We'll see you guys next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
