Chris Kunitz

The only player that's ever

played better with Crosby is what? Chris Kunitz?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, Sidney Crosby's a prime example.

You know, it was Pascal Dupuis and Chris Kunitz that ended up being his, like, line mates for a long time.

They didn't just put the two best players together or the three best players and said, "Go figure this out." Like, it, it ...

I think there's a good chance, but I'm, I'm denying it because 80 percent's a lot.

you know,

we all know how great Chris Kunitz was on that top line.

I just think he's been such a great fit throughout camp and preseason.

He just seems to be fired up to be with the Penguins after, you know, obviously the trade request in Toronto.

Give me 25 plus goals from Nick Robertson this year.

Again, might sound nuts, but that's the beauty of this segment.

I mean, I do think the jersey number aside, it's a good comparison for Robertson because the biggest hallmark of Chris Kunitz's game was effort.

He was the hardest working guy outside of Sidney Crosby.

Happy birthday to Craig Janey, who played in 38 games in the 1998-1999 season, scoring four goals and 22 points.

And to Chris Kunitz, who played in all 82 games in the 2017-2018 season.

He scored 13 goals and had 29 points.

Thank you for listening to The Daily Strike for Saturday, September 26, 2026.

I'd push back on that one at the end there, by the way, just as an aside.

I think JG Pajot was pretty clearly screening him on that one, the Kunitz goal.

How dare you bring that up? But what say you about Eric Carlson?

I could see people feeling that way, and I could see a world where Eric Carlson, neither Jersey retirement nor Ring of Honor, but I think he will definitely get one of the two.

But Dustin Penner was a big part of the championship team.

Kunitz, you know, played great.

You know, it was a great compliment to Taimou and Danny McDonald.

So... you know, those guys, you need a deep team.

And just, you know, for comparison sake, and I'm not saying he's going to be this.

It could put you in mind of a Kunitz-type player where you never dreamed it would really work out on the top line and become something there.

Maybe it will.

The skill was evident on the breakaway, and I think he could effectively kill penalties for you and produce those type of opportunities over the course of an 84-game season.

You know, I was responsible for bringing Brenda Moore drafting slave and bring install ronnie francis brought ajo smetz mccaff he drafted and but at the end of the day you need somebody to get it across the finish line and eric talusi did that or eric tulsky did that and in pittsburgh's case I didn't have anything to do with Sid coming there, with Malcolm coming there, with Fleury coming.

All those players, you know, Letang, Kunitz, guys like that.

And there were people that went ahead of me that built the foundation to win Stanley Cups in 16 and 17.

And I thought it was really important.

... to keep him out of the Hall of Fame because voters were so stupid that they ranked him fourth in a year when he should have been one.

And then number two, yes, it's true, he didn't play for the Canadian Olympic team, but it's insane to ding him for the fact that he got snubbed because Sidney Crosby wanted to bring his buddy Chris Kunitz with him.

Yeah.

Like, that's nuts, and, like, yeah, I get why you can make that into a coherent case, but it's only a coherent case because people that weren't Claude Giroux made unbelievably stupid and wrong-headed decisions.