There's no mystery to what's happened with Eric Carlson so far this season.

It's not something that he's super comfortable talking about, but it's easy enough to get it out of him.

And I'm confident that I have.

Good morning to you. Good. Tuesday morning, I'm Dan Kovachovich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. This is

Daily Shot of Penguins. It comes your way bright and early every weekday if you're in, too.

Football and or baseball. I also offer daily shots. Steelers and pirates in the same place

that you've found this.

Your hockey team has flown to Sweden, where it'll spend the better part of the coming

week preparing for and then participating in two games against the Predators in Stockholm.

And with all due respect to Philip Forsberg and the wonderful things he's capable of doing in Nashville,

the star of the weekend is going to be playing for Pittsburgh.

And it won't be Sid, Gino, or anyone like that.

It's going to be Sweden's male athlete of the year a couple of years ago,

coronated as such by none other than the king and queen of Sweden.

And this after three Norris trophies in his NHL career

and a lifetime of representing his country on the international stage,

one that will continue in February in Italy at the Olympics. I'm not here to suggest that the only

thing that matters to Carlson is representing Sweden, but it is a really big thing. And so it was

that once he stumbled out of the start of the 2024-25 season, he'd been hurt through training

camp. You'll remember they kind of rushed him back to be ready for the beginning. That's not so much on the team.

The athlete takes a responsibility for that as well, always.

And he just never really got it going.

...