He's got the same number of goals right now this season as Kevin Hayes, is Noel

Chari, is Blake Lazotte.

He's got half the goals of Connor Dewar, Tommy Novak.

You're going to hear me talk about Yeager Chinikov in a way that he probably doesn't deserve today.

Good morning. Good Tuesday morning. I'm Dan Kovachovich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Penguins. It comes to you bright and early every

weekday if you're into football and or baseball. I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates that I hope

you'll check out today more than usual because I'm having a theme running through all three. I don't do this very often,

but it's trying to capture the spirit of the thing, to borrow from a slap shot,

of how all three teams navigated through the calendar year 2025 that we're about to turn a page on.

And the Penguins could, in my mind anyway, turn the page with a nice little hat trick

of positives to exemplify a year of what I see as very real progress for the franchise.

One, Justin Berzo's actual hat trick, a couple nights ago in Chicago, made for a fine way

to maybe begin snapping out of a dull December.

Two, they could really achieve something in that specific lane by taking care of the conference leading hurricanes

tonight here at PPG paints arena.

That's a 708 p.m. face off.

I'll be there covering it.

And third, Chinikov.

Yeah, now this is how these transactions are supposed to go.

And this is where I always draw the line at criticizing the huge stockpile of draft picks that Kyle Dubas has amassed over these past couple of years.

Because this is where they should be going, not necessarily into having a hundred new prospects every summer.

...