The Penguins look BROKEN after two AWFUL losses, can it be fixed?

The Penguins look BROKEN after two AWFUL losses, can it be fixed?

The Christmas season is upon us and you can’t say that the Penguins aren’t in the spirit because they’re giving everything away. Leads, games, points, and wins. So, let’s talk about it on the Locked On Penguins podcast. Your Locked On Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. Welcome in to the Monday edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp. You can follow me across all social media platforms at synonyonym for wet. Joined as always by the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodies. You can follow our show’s Twitter account at l_penguins. You can find us on Instagram at lockedon_penguins. We are also on Tik Tok at LockedOnpenguins. Of course, as always, we appreciate you making us part of your daily routine. Don’t forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts as well as YouTube. And if you’re following us on YouTube, which you should be, make sure to hit that notification button. That way, you can be among the first to know when we drop our daily Monday through Friday episodes. Before we begin this therapy session on a Monday morning, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. Our dear listeners, let me just give you the road map for this episode. It’s not going to be a traditional locked-on Penguins episode given the events of the weekend. The Penguins blow a 5-1 lead to the San Jose Sharks and then a three- nothing lead to the Utah Mammoth to lose six to five in overtime and then five to four in overtime against the Mammoth. There’s not going to be a ton of analysis here today. There’s not going to be a ton of X’s and O’s. There’s not going to be a ton of philosophy talk. This is, as I said before, the presenting sponsor, mostly going to be 30 or so minutes of therapy for us Penguins fans because this is embarrassing. This is unacceptable. I don’t have many more words to describe it, but I know that this is bad. I know that this is maybe not rock bottom, but we may be one more shovel away from it being rock bottom. It is an unacceptable weekend. And I will start with this. This isn’t a coaching problem. This isn’t a systems problem. It is a mentality problem. This team is mentally soft. The second something goes wrong, they crumble. It happened against San Jose. It happened against Utah. I’m not sure how you fix it, but you know what, Hunter? I’m going to let you off the leash because I know you’ve got a lot to go with, but I do know that this little snowball could very soon turn into an avalanche. Unacceptable is the word I keep coming back to. This is not okay. I don’t care how good you are, how bad you are. You cannot be giving up leads like this like they are pieces of candy. You are up five to one with less than 13 minutes to go. That should be a regulation win 100 out of a 100 times. Hell, you gave up a power play goal there. Okay, 5-2, less than six minutes to go, you’re up three goals. Should be a regulation win a 100 out of a 100 times. But when something went wrong, they crumbled because they are a mentally fragile group that doesn’t know how to respond to adversity. And you know what? They were taking it to San Jose for a good majority of that game on Saturday. They were the better team. But when something bad happened, the rest of it just went awful. And it’s on everyone. Everyone in this organization needs to eat this. Every coach needs to eat this. Every player especially needs to eat this because I will give Damuse and his staff a little bit of flack, Pat, because some of the deployment decisions make no sense. You need to stop icing Carlson Latang at the end of games. It doesn’t work. You saw what happened against Anaheim. You saw what happened here against the Sharks. It didn’t work. So, I think with him, he’s got to be a little bit better there. But I think a good majority of this it is on the players. Step up and show some freaking pride. It is embarrassing that this continues to happen on a nightly basis. At least the last week against the Ducks. 17 seconds left. All you got to do is play keep away. Skate out that win. You have a power play to end the game. Nope. 0.1 seconds left. It feels like that moment has broken this team right now. They have not responded at all since then. Today against Utah, you don’t have your best. It’s clearly obvious. We can go on natural statre. I mean, I looked on it after the game ended. They got caved in. But you know what? You had a three nothing lead going into the third period. It’s on you to change the narrative. And you know what? As soon as something bad happened in the third period, a minute in, they made it 3-1. Here you go again. And they don’t deserve any sympathy. They played like absolute crap for a majority of that game. And even though they were up 3 nothing, they had a chance to at least try and change the narrative and they didn’t come close. It is embarrassing. It is unacceptable. It’s disturbing and flat out it’s disgusting. Something needs to change here because I’m not going to sit here and accept this. I totally understand and I’m sorry to make light of your frustration because I’m right there with you. But that felt like a Stephen A bit right there with the ways you were describing it. Listen, if we don’t laugh, we’re going to go insane here because this weekend has been absolutely horrific for the Penguins, but to your point, I I’m not make I’m not going to make any excuses here, and I know this is going to come off as sounding like I’m making an excuse against Utah. If you’ve watched hockey for any period of time, you knew that that three nothing lead was paper thin. They got a lot of puck luck against Utah to get to a three nothing lead. The first goal goes in off a skate. The second goal somehow trickles behind Vamela. The third goal, great goal by Ben Kindle. Awesome decision-making on his part on that breakaway. But the majority of that game, they were the they were the worst team. Utah was taking it to him. Sergey Murash was holding the fort as best as he could. What makes San Jose the worst of the bunch is that for 55 minutes, they weren’t just beating San Jose. They were dominating San Jose did not look like they belonged in the same league, let alone in that game for 55 minutes. And you give up one late power play goal and you fold like a lawn chair you buy at the Dollar Tree. It’s just absolutely unacceptable. And to your point, it’s pride. That’s what it comes back to for me is pride. It’s, you have heard me say this, dear listener, on this show a million times. It’s the National Hockey League. I know that this is a Penguins centric podcast. I know that we are Penguins analysts. I know that we are Penguins fans. And that means that the Penguins to us are always the protagonist. They’re always the main character. and we’re going to analyze it from that perspective. But I’ve always said it’s the NHL. The other team on the other side is always trying to win as well. As much as you may say, “Oh, this team’s tanking. This team’s rebuilding.” Whatever. They’re playing to win, too. And a lot of losses this season, I have come on this show and said, “Listen, did the Penguins play great?” No. But they played an NHL opponent, and sometimes an NHL opponent is going to beat you. this weekend. They beat themselves. Plain and simple. They beat themselves because like you said, 3 nothing going into the third period against Utah. All that you have to do is hold on. You got to make a couple of adjustments. You’ve got to put a little bit of energy toward it and you can win this game because Sergey Murishav was playing one hell of a game. If there is one player from the Utah game that doesn’t deserve any smoke, it is Sergey Murish. He did just about everything in his power to keep them in that game and win that game and they failed him. I will give you another one actually and I know he had a bad turnover in overtime. It was not good. Ben Kindle played his ass off all game. One of his best games of the season. You have to include him there. The breakaway was great. His playmaking was off the charts once again. He continues to be such a great player for this hockey team. So I will give him mostly a pass as well. Again, the the turnover in overtime was not good to say the least because, you know, Utah had the puck right after and never gave the puck back because Murave allowed that howler. Let’s be real, Pat. That needed to be a save. But he was great in 40 minutes. I will give him that. He was absolutely spectacular. Hell, you and I were texting for a while. If he were if he was going to keep this up, you and I were going to have a conversation about, you know, should they keep him up and figure out what to do with Sheilov/Skinner. But, you know, in the third period, he along with the rest of the team crumbled. So, just not good enough there. And you’re right, you need to play for pride. You need to show some fight, show some effort. There needs to be a closed doors meeting something. And the veteran leadership of this team needs to step up because this is completely unacceptable. Sid, in overtime these last two games, man. Oh my god. That’s some of the worst hockey I think I have seen Crosby play throughout his career. got absolutely dusted by John Clingberg. Don’t really know what he was doing there. And then in this overtime today, too, got dusted. His his play also needs to be a bit better. And I don’t use this word lightly. I have hardly ever used this word on this show. They are playing like a bunch of losers right now. And that needs to change fast. You’re right. And let’s keep that going in the second segment. What has to change? Can it be fixed? How do you fix it? Is it even possible? We’re gonna keep this conversation going right here on the Locked On Penguins podcast. So stick with us. We’ll be back right after this. But we’ve got a sponsor to tell you about here in the first break and that is Indeed. Welcome back to the show Indeed. You just realized your business needs to hire someone yesterday. So how can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites. Indeed sponsored jobs put your post at the top of the page and helps you reach the right candidates faster. As I have said, when Indeed has been a sponsor on this show, while I may not have been in the position of needing to hire someone, I have certainly been someone who is on the job hunt. And my full-time job, I found it thanks to Indeed. It also got me plenty of interviews, plenty of emails, plenty of things to help me find the job that I need. Indeed, it’s an absolutely fantastic service. So, I highly recommend them. Now, you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 sponsored job credit. Just go to indeed.com/lockedon right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this very podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. We’re back here on the Monday edition of Locked On Penguins. I’m Patrick Damp right alongside Hunter Hodies. And again, sitting your traditional episode of Locked On Penguins. We’re not going to go over plays. We’re not going to go over moments. We are going to talk about them, but it’s not going to be for analysis. It’s going to be just to talk this out because it’s been rough. It’s been really rough. And I want to add one thing to kind of put this in a little bit of perspective. And I know that you’re going to disagree. I know that our listeners are going to shake their heads at me, but I really want to put the last week into context against Dallas. Let’s start with the Dallas game. It’s a genuinely great team in Dallas. You’re not the first team, nor are you going to be the last team that gives up a lead to them and loses to them. That is a Stanley Cup contender, a bonafide top team in the NHL. Was it good? No, it was not good. You got to finish the game out. You got to get the points, but at the same time, great team in Dallas. Anaheim, everything you said was correct about 17 seconds, power play, play keepaway, but at the same time, you get that goofy ass bounce off of Carlson’s glove. And there is not a coaching maneuver. There is not an effort. There is not anything that that saves you from a weird bounce. Yes, it shouldn’t have gotten to that point, but hey, things happen. Then against the Habs, you no show. You can’t no-show after those two games. They just did not show up for the Montreal game from start to finish. They did not put forth a good effort. We went over San Jose. You crumble when one thing goes bad. Utah, you don’t play well, but you jump out to a three nothing lead and then you blow it at the first sign of trouble. That’s unacceptable. So, I look at it this way, Hunter. I have it on the rundown as our third point, but this is where I want to start. It is time for Dan Muse to hurt some feelings. It is time for Dan Muse to assert himself. This is his moment. Whether it’s benching a veteran, I’m looking at you, Chris Latang. He has been absolutely awful for the last week and that hurts me to say because I have defended Chris Latang for years, but the last week plus, he has validated his haters complaints by a multitude of a thousand. And if I’m him, this is what I’m going to throw to you about, Hunter. The line of Ben Kindle, Ruter McGroy, and Justin Brazo should be your first line. Sorry, Sid. Sorry, Rust. Sorry, Raquel. I love all three of those players, but guess what? That’s the only line that has given you anything for this this past weekend. And it’s time to reward them and tell tell the old guys, you want that spot back, go out and earn it. Well, that’s the nuclear option. And hey, the way that the Kindle line is playing, it doesn’t matter who is on his, you know, left and right. I hear you. Just because Ben Kindle, he was the best forward on the ice for the Penguins today. And I don’t really think it was close. So, if you want to do that, sure, be my guest. Brian Rust, I know the process hasn’t been there, but at least he’s been producing pet. I I can say that for him this season. I’m not really sure what change you’re going to make on that top line if you’re going to move Raquel down, but you know, they got to figure something out, man. I mean, I I hear you on the top line with regards to Leang. Can they bench him? Yeah. Will they? No. I I there’s no way they’re actually going to do it. I would be very surprised. But does his play deserve a a game off? Absolutely. He’s been flat out awful for the last week or two. And you know me, man. It hurts me to say as well, Chris Latang has been one of my favorite Penguins throughout his entire career. I have defended him from a lot of people who have said for 15 plus years, oh, he’s washed. He’s overrated. And now all of those takes that these people have had for 15 plus years, they feel like, oh, we’re vindicated because he’s now playing bad. No, you’re not vindicated for that. He’s just now old and father time comes for us all. He’s not the player that he used to be. That’s the fact. like he’s playing in too many high leverage situations and you can’t keep doing that. I know Brett Kuak hasn’t played yet. Do you try him with Laten? I mean, I wrote about this for the hockey news. Kooak throughout his career has been a very solid defensive player. I’m not trying to crap on Ryan Shay too much, but do you give that a try? Again, I don’t expect Latang to be scratched. Should he? at least for a game probably just with the way that he’s playing. But if you’re not going to do that, give him a different partner in Brett Koulak and I guess see how that goes. You’re not going to move Wther Spoon and Carlson. The bottom pair kind of is what it is. You waved Matt Dumbo, which was the right call by the way. He’s been really bad. Connor Clifton is what he is. Ryan Graves is what he is. I guess if you want to give Jackson Ivan a look, go for it. Be my guest. I mean, he’s shown a couple flashes at times, but that’s really it. So, if you want to look at that, sure. At the end of the day, nothing about this is acceptable. I know some people have said, Pat, oh, fire someone on the coaching staff. They are not going to fire anyone on the coaching staff. I would bet a lot of money that they would not. I’ve seen people say, make a trade. They did just make a trade with Tristan Jarry. But if you want them to make another trade, something like that, okay, sure, that’s I think totally fair and valid. But I know that there needs to be a closed doors meeting and there needs to be some sort of Michelle Tyrion type rant here. Am I going to be happy to play 40 48 50 55 minutes? No, I’m not going to be happy to play for that many minutes because you you keep blowing leads. And you said for the Dallas game, you know that that stuff happens. You’re playing a Stars team that’s a Stanley Cup contender. Okay, you move on. Against the Ducks, unacceptable. Well, I know part of it was fluky. Not good enough. The habs, that’s how you respond. Gross. And then these last two, you have big leads like that and you just fold like a lawn chair. It’s this is the culture that you’re creating for some of your young players. Needs to change, man. Everything about it needs to change. And the veteran leadership especially needs to step the hell up here and say something. That’s the biggest thing is we have for years on this show or wherever else we have talked Penguins have gone to the mat for this leadership. And this doesn’t negate anything that they’ve done in their career. They’re not suddenly tarnishing their own legacies because their legacies are so set in stone that future generations are going to find the fossils of it and still not be able to move it because of how good they have been over the past two decades. But the problem is is that is also self- serving in that they have been this good for this long. We before the season what did we say? We understand with where this team is in its franchise moment right now, you can lose games. It’s fine if you lose games. We almost expect it because they’re in the middle of a retooling, which means the phrase you texted to me that I absolutely love now this team is going to have a bunch of Jags, just a guy, because that is where they are right now. But don’t play like this. Compete. Be in games. If you lose a hard-fought one, again, the Dallas game. You’re playing a genuinely great team and they decide to be genuinely great in the last five minutes. You are not the first team that’s going to happen to. You’re not the last team it’s going to happen to, but be in the game. This past weekend was the opposite of that. You can’t fold like this. And you brought up Muse along with hurting some feelings of some veterans. You’re right. We’re recording this not long after the game, so I haven’t seen any of his comments. But if he does anything other than go to the mic and not go nuclear on this team, he’s doing it wrong. Because you can go out there and say, “Oh, you know, we we played well for the most part, but we got to clean some things up and you know, we got to look ourselves.” No, you have to go out there and say, “This team sucked. They were terrible. They blew it. It’s unacceptable because they need like it I this is going to be so self- serving for me in this show. There’s a reason I don’t go nuclear very often. There’s a reason I don’t have episodes like this very often because if I do it all the time, it loses any and all credibility. I can’t react to every loss and every game with, “Oh my god, they stock fire. Everybody trade everybody. This is terrible.” blah blah because then people are going to go, “What the hell does he even do here?” For Dan Muse, he doesn’t seem like the blowup type. And that’s fine, but eventually you have to press that button. Eventually, you have to do something that perks everybody’s ears up. And even if it’s not going to the press conference and calling your team out, it’s what I started this segment with. It’s walking into practice on Monday and going, “Let you’re on the fourth pair.” or hey uh Ben Rutker Justin first line first line duties and everybody goes oh he’s not kidding around anymore because something has to happen to shake them out of this slumber and if there’s one other thing that they can do and we’re going to talk about this to close the show out there are some players down on the farm that need an opportunity and as much as we have been saying we got to be patient. It just might be time. So stick with us. We’re going to talk about that when we come back right after this. We’ve got one more sponsor to get to though, and that is FanDuel. NFL Sundays, they move fast. 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I think it’s time for Vill Kovvenin to go back to the AHL. And it’s not even because I think he’s playing poorly. Then again, just about everybody in a Penguin sweater has been playing poorly for the last week. It just feels like he needs a reset. It feels like he’s just a little bit of a step behind. Whether it’s shots, decision- making, I think he just needs a confidence boost. He just needs to go to the AHL for a week or two, really cook down there, get his swagger back, and come back to the NHL. And you know who I would bring up at this moment? Boo and Mama. Because 99 times out of 100, I think the whole, oh, they got to get a tough guy in to really mix things up and and get this team going. 99 times out of 100, it’s dumb. It’s just lazy. It’s it’s pandering to the lowest common denominator. But right now, with everything we’ve talked about, the lack of effort, the lack of pride, you name it, Amama is a guy who is going to play every single shift like it’s the last one he’s ever going to get because it very well could be. And eventually, you need that guy to just go out, put someone into the fifth row, and have this team go, “All right, let’s go. We got to get back in this.” I hear you. I mean, he’ll show some effort. He’ll show some fight. He’s never afraid to get physical along the boards. I mean, heck, when he was up here earlier this season, he was close to scoring a goal, especially in that game against Philadelphia. He was a lot of fun to watch. Why not? At least for a game or two or three. If you want to keep it going, Avery Hayes is also playing really well down there right now. If you want to wave a veteran player, that also works to bring in a potential younger piece from Wilsbury. I hear you. I really do. So if you want to do something like that, that’s okay as well. And again, you said something in the last segment that really resonated with me as well, because it’s rare when I come on here, and I’m also nuclear. I pride myself on being very objective, very level-headed. I’m not the hottake person that just comes on here and says, “Oh, after every loss, oh, these guys are terrible. There’s no effort or any of this.” But when I see a trend like this happening, it’s hard to not go nuclear and call this out for what it is. And it’s a team that’s playing soft, that is mentally fragile, and you eventually have to play for pride and actually show some fight at some point. So, I wanted to get that off my chest. And the thing is, what makes it so frustrating is that you see the capabilities that this team has. You see that when they’re on, they’re capable of being a good team and they play and dominate teams for long stretches, but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty and when one bad thing happens, no matter what, it snowballs and they are unable to get their confidence back. I don’t know what the answer to getting that back is, but all I know is that they need to find it and find it quickly because again, like everything about that, I’ve just never seen something like this before. Even during the latestage Mike Sullivan era and if you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know, I was ready to move on from him. But they didn’t do this at the end of the Mike Sullivan era. They were able to hold on to four goal leads with 12 minutes to go. They were able to at least hold on to most three-goal leads in the third period. They weren’t coughing up six on five goals like free pieces of candy. They were able to do that. But especially this week in sixon- situations, they’re making all the wrong reads. They are puck watching way too much. And again, I’ll throw Dan Muse, you know, a little bit of scrutiny here because he needs to be better with some of his personnel decisions in those situations. Again, I’m trying not to go really off on the coaches, but they still need to eat some of it because they’re not getting the most out of the players, but also at the same time, a lot of this is on the players because they’re not playing to their full capabilities. I know that might sound weird to everyone towards the end of this episode, but as I said earlier, everyone needs to eat this. And what you said there, I can build off of for myself is part of the reason on this show, especially last two years when we were having the constant conversations about Mike Sullivan, that I was hesitant to go towards it is exactly what you said. The coaches can only do so much. The players have to play. And when you’re at the professional level, you’re at the top level, a coach is essentially nothing more than a manager. Like we can talk X’s and O’s. We can talk strategy. We can talk whatever. When you’re the when you’re in the NHL, you have played just about every system there is to play in hockey. You’ve been in every situation there is to be in hockey. You don’t have you it is rare that you have a coach come in and unlock something or do something new that no one has ever seen before. It’s a pretty simple game at its core. The best coaches are able to figure things out like chemistry, like motivation, etc., etc. They’re better at management than they are actual coaching. And I don’t mean that in a negative way because it’s the tiptop of the sport. You don’t need somebody there to really just put it all together. You need someone there who knows what buttons to push and when. But like you said, the part of this that Muse has to wear, and it’s also something that I will give him credit for that I noticed in the Utah game. He started giving the kid line more more playing time because they were playing well. He was telling that line, “Go do your thing. You were playing well enough. So, you’re going to keep getting shifts.” Now, he needs to, as we said in the last segment, take that a step further. That line needs to start getting It’s sinker swim time because people go, and I know we’ve said it on this show, we don’t want to spoil their development. We don’t want to rush them, but at this point, one, they have said that they have some designs on getting back to the Stanley Cup playoffs. If that’s the case, you got to start acting like it. Yeah. And if that line is the only line giving you anything, you elevate them and you use that as a message to the older guys that if you want to get back in that position, you have to go out there and earn it. You have to go out there and outplay them. I look at this roster and we can end with this because we don’t want to go too long today because we don’t want to stew in this misery any longer than we have to. I have defended this player quite a bit on this show since he became a Penguin. I have seen enough of Kevin Hayes. I listen I do still think he has good vision, good puck protection. He makes the right decisions or at least did quite a bit. But this past weekend, it was more than apparent that his foot speed’s a problem. He was behind plays. Offense fell apart when he had the puck on his stick because he wasn’t able to keep up with the play. Listen, guy put up a hell of a career. Guy is a very solid player, but he just can’t keep up anymore. And if there’s a veteran that you might have to wave, say it’s him. I hear you. I really do. I mean, when he was on the second line, and I’ll be quick here so we can end this, but when he was on the second line, that line wasn’t getting anything. And I was saying on the even on the show, I was saying it to Kelsey, who I work with, and a few other friends I text with during games. Justin Brazo was just getting totally cooked with him out there. Now that he’s being centered by Ben Kendall, what’s been going on? Brazo had two goals today, and he was also give him, I guess, a little bit of a pass as well because I do think he played fairly well on a fourth line role against San Jose. I thought Hayes was fine, but that’s really it today. He wasn’t good. I think when Evani Malin especially comes back, I think Hayes comes out of the lineup and he should come out of the lineup. It’s it’s time if you want to if you don’t wave him, for example, Pat, and you have him around as a 13th forward, okay, whatever. But I would be okay with them waving him. I know that he’s very popular in that room. I know a lot of the younger guys, I know other the other veterans like him, but there isn’t really much that should be off the table right now when it comes to this team. And I want to end with this. I don’t think this team sucks. I don’t think this team is really bad because bad teams and teams that suck don’t get out to these type of leads and dominate teams for the stretches that they have dominated these teams. What this is, in my opinion, is a team that when push comes to shove, they’re playing like losers when something goes wrong and it’s a mentality and it’s fragile. If you fix that, I do think some of this is reversible. But they need to find an answer to that because we’ve seen them dominate these teams a lot this season. what no matter if it’s at the power play or at five on five, but until this mentality is fixed, this is going to keep happening as crazy as that sounds because I’ve never seen something like this before. So, I’m going to end with that. I would agree. And I’m just going to add one quick thing on top of that. And this might kind of fly in the face of what you said, but what the hell, I’ll say it anyway. There’s also the possibility that this is kind of what we expected this team to be. We knew that there were going to be peaks. We knew that there were going to be valleys. We knew it was going to be a journey. We knew it was going to be a season where you weren’t really going to get a good feel for them. But like you said, as we have said after a couple of losses this season, what’s ailing them is fixable. It’s not a fatal flaw. The more I look at this team, the more I watch this team, I see the bones of a competitive, potentially good team. They just have to put it all together for 60 full minutes, find some resolve, and who knows, maybe going into 2026, we’re talking about this team getting back on track. Or maybe we’re dreaming about a high draft pick. We will see what happens in due time. But that is going to do it for this Monday edition of Locked on Penguins. Hunter and I will be back on Tuesday to get you set for Tristan Jarry and the Edmonton Oilers. But for now, for Hunter Hodies, I am Patrick Damp. Thank you for hanging with us after a tough weekend and we will talk to you on Tuesday.

The Penguins blew not one, but two multi-goal third-period leads this weekend, and they look absolutely broken, so can it be fixed? Patrick and Hunter are bringing you a different kind of Locked On Penguins show this Monday because the Penguins choked away a 5-1 lead to the San Jose Sharks and followed it up with choking away a 3-0 lead to the Utah Mammoth. The episode begins by exploring the question of what went wrong. Is it coaching, is it mental, is it talent? What is leading this team to surrender so many wins? (0:00) Then, it’s time to explore yet another question: Can this be fixed? How can Dan Muse, the veteran leadership, and Kyle Dubas go about fixing this problem? (12:07) Finally, it’s time to do some spitballing. Are there players to be called up? What about demoted? Should Dan Muse go nuclear on this team? All of that gets discussed in the final segment. (23:56)

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