It dawns on me that maybe we're all thrown off by the possible forward lines for this team.

By fixating on Tommy Novak.

Good morning to you.

Good.

Hear me out on this, okay?

Good Monday morning to you.

I'm Dan Kovachvich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Penguins.

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and Pirates in the same place that you found this. See, here's the thing. I understand there

are moves to be made. I understand that Kyle Dubus isn't entering the 2026-27 NHL season with in particular the number of forwards that he's carrying right now.

I can leave defense for another day.

There are just too many forwards here, flat out.

So if I start there and then I migrate across to, okay, there isn't going to be

some super seismic trade, at least not one that's going to affect the top six, then I'm continuing

with the top line of Sidney Crosby between Ricard Raquel and Brian Rust. From there, and this is where Novak

handicaps me, because I go, okay, well, Novak is still here, and Yvgeny Malkin's not a center

anymore, so you have to find somebody to play between Gino and Yeager Cienikov, and I don't know who

else that would be if it wasn't Novak,

back off a little bit, and it maybe becomes a little bit clearer.

I could see a setting in which Gino would return to playing center, and he'd be between the two Russians, not just Chinakov, but now also

...