Tommy Novak

You know? Like, it's not, it, it's not everybody I can talk to like this, you know, Louie, so I appreciate you.

I mean, you know, a, a man that shares the same, uh, enthusiasm for a guy like Tommy Novak, I'm, um, that, that's, that's a good time for me.

So, um-

To me-

... he's like, like...

Y- you got, listen, you gotta hear me talk about, like, if you think I get excited for this, you gotta hear me talk about, like, old Sens prospects that never made it.

Like, Tommy Novak to me is like, man, if Rudolf Balcer's ever actually made it into the NHL, oh my God.

Yeah.

And we'll talk about the bottom six forwards who we think are roster locks coming up here in the second segment.

But to start things off, Pat, the top six forwards who we obviously know that are going to be on the roster: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Brian Rust, Rickard Rakell, Tommy Novak, and Igor Chervyakov.

That is my projected top six for this upcoming season.

I know this is your projected top six as well.

He is a proven top six forward, but he is absolutely a reliable two-way forward if you need to move him down should you get somebody, whether it's a surprise, whether someone like Robertson, who we'll talk about later, has a breakout campaign.

Or if you just go out and get somebody later on the season, you know you can move him down.

I think the other thing that's nice about that is the same thing can be said for Tommy Novak.

Yeah.

Untradeable.

Tommy Novak, I guess, would be tradeable.

I don't know what that would get you.

Sure feels like the Penguins value him more than other teams might.

Now he has to perform over the next couple of weeks.

a pretty high level but i think the door is open for a player like andre kuzmenko to potentially start the season next to sydney crosby and brian rust those two guys know how to set up goal scorers at a very high level and that is one way that you can almost guarantee that kuzmenko is going to get looks early in the season whether or not he buries it remains to be seen that's a different story and that could potentially tell us how long he's going to stay on that top line but to get him opportunities and to give him a chance to immediately make an impact whether that is to become a piece for a penguins team that's going to try to make the playoffs and go on a run or just to get his uh his trade value up potentially on a one-year deal become a valuable piece around the trade deadline regardless of which direction the season goes i think starting kuzmenko with crosby and rust is a good way to start the second line this one remains the same igor chinakov on the left tommy novak who has a freshly minted contract in the middle and evgeny malkin on the right actually now that i look at this all three of them are on freshly minted contracts tommy novak's doesn't kick in until the beginning of next season but regardless a pretty pretty nice off season for this trio and i think that's going to roll into the beginning of the year as they start off where they finished last year this is a perfect line for evgeny malkin entering what could be his final season he spoke very highly of Tommy Novak.

And Tommy Novak, when you look at him, he is a pure center.

He's not a guy that's going to be flashy.

He's not a guy that's going to light the lamp every single night.

And while, yes, you might want to switch some things up to get Kuzmenko on the first line, you don't really need to tinker with Chinnikov, Novak, and Malkin.

This is the first time that they get to go into a season together because Chinnikov joined midway through last year.

I think that the coaching staff goes back to what worked for Evgeny Malkin last year, which is starting him on the wing alongside Tommy Novak, who he's been highly complimentary of ever since he came over at the trade deadline two seasons ago.

Ricard, Raquel, Sidney Crosby, and Rust.

Next one is Yegor Chinnikov, Tommy Novak, Evgeny Malkin.

Again, exactly what we would expect.

And then it gets interesting, doesn't it?