At any level of any sport, you can't coach to the players that you want.

You coach to the players that you have.

Good morning to you.

Good.

Thursday morning.

I'm Dan Kowach of H.K. Pittsburgh Sports, this is Daily Shot of Penguins.

It comes your way bright and early every weekday.

If you're into football and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates, where you found this. The Penguins will be practicing today in Edmonton, Alberta at 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

One would hope that the entirety of the session will be committed to defending.

Now, there's lots of different ways to defend in the graceful sport of ice hockey.

One of them is to just be good at boxing out in your own zone, and it's generally the one

that we think about when we think about defending.

Another, and this is something that Kyle Dubas brought up on his semi-regular podcast that he does with one of the team's announcers,

and that's to make sure that pressure is being applied all over the rink.

Hard pressure, combative pressure, win the puck, win it at all costs.

And that, of course, is also accurate.

And more than anything, that would cut down on the grotesque number

of odd man breaks and flat-out breakaways

that the penguins are giving up, like candy on Halloween night.

These next two games that they're about to play to round out their Western Canada trip,

tomorrow night in Edmonton against the Oilers,

the next night in Vancouver against the Canucks,

...