Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00What's your thought on the scene in Pittsburgh with sports?
00:08I went to PPG Saturday night and the Penguins won a shootout.
00:11They're awful, but they won the game against the Sharks.
00:13They blew a lead.
00:15But the one thing I noticed was they're still selling out every game at PPG and the team's
00:19not even worth really, they're not worth watching.
00:23They're a bad team like they were in the 80s, but the fans go to every game.
00:28It's the scene down there and the Steelers atmosphere around that stadium, those tailgates
00:34and the throng of people walking into that stadium is like nothing I've ever seen.
00:39It is an unbelievable fan experience and fan base in Pittsburgh.
00:44Would you agree with all that?
00:46I do.
00:47I think that you throw in the Pirates too for as bad as they've been over the last three
00:50decades and still to get decent crowds at PNC Park, it's a great place to watch a game
00:55for anybody who's ever been there.
00:57It's the perfect place for visiting fans to come for a great weekend, to see their
01:01team in the best ballpark in the majors and enjoy the downtown Pittsburgh life.
01:08And I think that's contributed to the attendance, but a lot, it's mostly Pirates fans and they
01:12still do it.
01:13The one thing I came away from over the last 10 days or so, Scott, regards to the Penguins
01:19situation is this idea that they missed their opportunity to tear it down and build it back
01:24up.
01:25That's all nonsense.
01:26That's all you have to do.
01:27You don't have to look any further than the top of the division in the Capitals.
01:30The Capitals still have all their old guys, Carlson, they still have Ovi, they've got
01:36Tom Wilson, they've even got players that are older that are on injured reserve and
01:42not contributing.
01:44They didn't get younger in Washington.
01:48They just didn't bring in a lot of bad players.
01:50It's really that simple.
01:51You don't have to strip it to the bolts in order to continue rebuilding on the fly.
01:56The Penguins just did a horrible job of it.
01:59And it's not just the previous general manager.
02:01It's the one who's currently in place, who signed Carlson, who extended a failing goaltender.
02:08They've made a lot of mistakes and it's not about the fact that they're paying Sidney
02:13Crosby and Evgeny Malkin below market rates to stay.
02:17It's about what they've done around those guys.
02:20And what they've done around those guys, Scott, is fail.
02:24They have no talent at all, none whatsoever.
02:27They have Carlson, Malkin, Crosby, and Letang, and Letang wasn't playing on Saturday.
02:34And I was watching and I sat there and I said to the people around me, I said, they literally
02:39have no one.
02:40I mean, they have no one with any talent whatsoever on the team.
02:44I mean, I guess I'll give you rust and Connor looks like he has potential to be a player,
02:50but he hasn't been around long enough to get that credit from me.
02:54I just think they look terrible.
02:56They blew a lead, as I mentioned, and they somehow found a way to win, but they don't
03:00win that often.
03:01They're an easy pushover.
03:02In fact, Friday night, I said they would lose by three goals in Columbus.
03:07Sure enough, they lost by four.
03:09I mean, they're just not a good team.
03:11Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
03:13I mean, bringing Carlson, paying him $11.5 million and then seeing the efforts he puts
03:18out there.
03:19Is he skilled?
03:20We know he's skilled.
03:21You don't score as many points in the NHL as he has without being super skilled, but
03:26he gets, he gets, he's a turnstile on defense and it's been, you saw that in multiple games
03:32this season where he just did not put in the appropriate effort defensively and every now
03:38and then he'll contribute offensively, but he's not contributing at the rate he once
03:42did.
03:43You don't make up for the goals that you're giving up if you're contributing offensively
03:50at a much lower rate than you used to.
03:53They've made a series of terrible decisions and it wasn't, the decision to keep LaTang,
03:58Malkin and Crosby was not one of the terrible decisions.
04:01It was everything they did around it.
04:03My wife would say it started with letting Marc-Andre Fleury go.
04:07She loves Marc-Andre.
04:08But I think it's really, it's really escalated probably since, since 2020 or 2021.
04:16Once Rutherford left the GM job, that's been an absolute mess.