Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - 3/4 points is pretty dang good

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

What a game! Even though the Penguins lost, Hunter isn't feeling any bad vibes as the team played their tails off and showed that they might be a force if everyone gets back healthy. He starts with the biggest storylines of the game as this was one of the best games he's watched. He explains how this could be a game that gets new fans into it and how it was a must-watch. After that, he goes into who stood out, which includes Jake Guentzel, Danton Heinen, and a bunch of others. Hunter also touches on who the team needs more from, especially one of the new players that signed with the team this summer. All that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hey, boy, welcome to this Thursday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hooties. You know how to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

You can also follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. And remember, thank you all so much for making this episode, your first listen to the day for Thursday. Well, it'll probably be Friday morning by the time you'll listen to those. So thank you for making today's episode your first listen on Friday morning

and then I'll also have another episode later in that day as well. I think the biggest storyline, obviously the Pittsburgh Penguins lost five to floor in overtime to the Florida Panthers. One of my, I guess, like I said, the biggest storyline. What a fun game that was.

I mean, if I wanted to show someone this sport for the first time, that would be a game that I would show them. them a hundred times out of a hundred because it had literally everything you have nine goals combined so much offense you had obviously you know the fun plays with the penguins basically all crash year on casey de smith with the panther players there and then air neck broad just corrals a loose puck fires into a yawning cage um at the time i thought that should have been goal tender interference

but then i watched the replay a couple of times i'm like yeah i guess not because casey de smith was not really being interfered with there you had the penguins had eight or nine passes Power plays, the Panthers, I think, had five or six. That was also one of the bigger storylines that I'll touch on. These games at the beginning of the season are so fun and chaotic because the refs are just going to call anything and not give two flying craps about it. And I love it. I mean, I wish they would keep this up for the entire season, but you know as the season

goes on, they are going to call less and less penalties because that is how the refs, they're instructed to do this by the league. You know, they could choose to, if they want, call this many penalties in every single game. But again, as I just said, the fact of the matter is they are instructed to not call as many penalties as the season goes on because that is what the league wants them to do. Right now, the league wants them to call as many penalties as they can because the season is just starting. You're getting more fans into it. But then as it goes on, you know, as I just said that twice in 30 seconds, you all know the drill here. But it had that.

You had like 15, 16 power plays. And again, I wish they would do that because the players will adjust. I definitely saw some infractions tonight that were a little tiki-tacky. I think the hold, especially on Brian Dumlin, that was on Anthony Duclear was a bit of BS. I really don't know what they saw there. But, you know, there are also a couple penalties that I saw on the Panthers that I did not really like. I saw Sergey Bogdowski also chuck the puck out, but, you know, they're going to call that every single time. But it was fine to see the refs actually calling infractions and said,

of, you know, letting the boys play in quotation mark. So this game had that. This game had so many awesome defensive plays. There were some great saves by both goaltenders. I know a 5-4 game, you think, well, you know, the goaltenders didn't play that well. Honestly, it was the complete opposite. You know, I know DeSmith gave up five goals, but on most of those, he didn't really have a chance, you know, that Air Neckblot goal to tie the game.

Just what a rocket right there. I mean, he could only put it in one place. did so with that. The other Echblod goal to make it 4'3, I mean, everyone is just way out of position there. And then the Verhege won an overtime, especially. I believe that hit,

Jake Gensel's stick. If you go back and watch it, I didn't see it on first offense, but I checked out the replay. Gensel's trying to make a great defensive play by getting the puck up into the netting. It looks like Verhege's shot is probably going to go five hole,

but instead it defikes up, goes under the gloves side. The only place where it could have gone there, I thought to submit, had a great angle, and then the Panthers go on to win that game. And then, you know, Sergey Mirovsky, loved how Jake Gensel kind of 200 IQed them there. You know, you have that play.

This was just one of the best hockey games I've watched. You know, I put it on both the Lockdown Penguins Twitter account and on my personal Twitter account. It was just that good, and I'm so happy that we have games back now where we can just talk about them like this. And, you know, I know people are going to be upset that the Penguins lost this game. That's totally reasonable.

But at the end of the day, they took three out of four points. And in case anyone forgot, this team has an eight game homestand coming up at PPG-Paints Arena. And they were the best team at home last season. If I recall correctly, I want to say they were around 23 and 4 and 1 at home last season. It's somewhere around one of those crazy home statistic numbers. but I want to say they won 22 to 23 of their home games at PBH and A&A lost around three to four regulation, one or two. I have to double check that stat, but I believe it was one of the best home records in the league.

I know that for our fact. So the Penguins really have an opportunity here to bang a lot of points home. And, you know, Cindy Crosby, I think is likely going to be back for the game on Saturday against the Chicago Blackhawks. I know Mark Andre Fleury is going to be back in the building as well. I think Zach Asson Reese will return to. But these last two games have shown me that, again, another storyline from this game, this team is a lot deeper than some people are giving it credit for.

I know I put that tweet on my Twitter account that, in quotation marks, the Penguins are going to miss the playoffs this year. I mean, they keep playing like this. There's no way they're going to miss the playoffs. You know, three out of four points, I understand that some people will be a bit upset that they didn't close out this game. You know, I am a bit too. You know, eight minutes left. you're up by two goals.

No matter how short-handed you are, you should be able to close it out. I think the Panthers scored their first goal to cut that lead in half at around the seven, six-and-a-half minute mark, if I'm not mistaken. So even with that, you should be able to hold on the lead, and then Ekblad tied it with about, what, five-and-a-half, five minutes, four-and-a-half, five minutes, something like that. So you definitely wish that they would have hung on to that lead. But at the end of the day, three out of four points on one of the, I think one of the

toughest road trips of the season. Both Tampa Bay and Florida are two of the best teams in hockey. I actually, you know, if you listen to my episode coming into this season last week, I have Florida as one of my sleeper teams this season. I think they are that good. And they are going to give a lot of teams in the Atlantic a whole lot of trouble this season. But I really liked the performance from a lot of players tonight. We're going to get to that coming up in the next segment. But, you know, just to wrap this one up, you know, the game had everything you would want especially if you're a new fan tuning into this like I said great saves from the goalies

high scoring game lots of penalties great plays offensively some great defensive plays the crowd was into it that was probably the most energetic i've ever seen panthers fans at a game you know i know people are going to make the jokes that you know well they couldn't sell up a home opener and yes i did see a lot of empty seats there but the fans that were there that was an electric atmosphere In years past, you would probably see that arena with 35 to 40% Penguins fans. I think tonight it was only around 20 to 25 at that. There were a lot of Pampeters fans at that game. And, you know, good for them.

They deserve to go out and see a good team. I think Coach Quenville and Bill Zito have done a remarkable job building that team and around the core that they already had. So, you know, you have them into it. And, of course, you all ended with three on three overtime. one of the best parts about the sport. I know Aaron Rodriguez, him. Missing on that breakaway stinks,

but it was still so much fun with that end-to-end action, especially with how open the game was in that third period. It was literally a track meet, and I was surprised that the game turned into that because the penguins were so stingy defensively against the lightning, but the Panthers sure wanted to turn this into a track meet, and they accomplished that goal, and then some.

But overall, I really can't be too mad about this. loss, I don't really think any of you all should be either. We're two games in. The team is 1 in 0 and 1, 3 out of 4 points in the Metropolitan Division, and there are more reinforcements on the way. I did see Brian Russ left the game a little early. There's no update from Mike Sullivan. As of this recording, we'll have to see if he practices before the game against Chicago

on Saturday. But, you know, this could have gone a lot worse to start the season. We could have been 0-2 after this game. But the fact of the matter is the penguins have split both of them, and they've gotten three out of four points, and they will be returning home to one of the best atmospheres in the NHL in PPGP-GPN's arena. But that will do it for this segment.

Coming up in the next segment, I'm going to go over some players that I thought played really well tonight, and some players that I thought struggled tonight as well. Before we do that, though, that online is back and better than ever. All eyes are on the great eye on and his teams are back on for another football season. As always, Ben, online is your number one spot for all the pro and college football action this season.

You can head to the website or use a mobile device to sign up today to receive your 50% off boncum bonus on your first deposit. Don't forget to use our promo code locked on to receive that bonus. Ben online is the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports. That is bet online where the game starts. All right, welcome back here to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

Follow this show his Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. So starting on with who I thought looked great tonight. There's a lot of players that I honestly thought. Had great outings. We'll start with Danton Hinen. That's now two goals in his first two games. Jeff, if you're listening to this episode,

eight more until I get my free Kakai Bar Rikki when I go up to Youngstown, Ohio. Every time Danton Hinen scores everyone, I am going to update him on an episode of Lockdown Penguins. That is the second update. So eight more until I get my free barricu. Q in Ohio and I loved how he was able to score that goal. He set his feet, took the pass, and then just fired it.

Blocker's side on Brobrovsky had no chance on it. And, you know, again, people made his comparison to Mark Jankeowski before the season. And I know Jenkowski started it out last season really well, I think, with a goal in an assist in his first two games. And then we all know happened. He just disappeared. That's not going to happen here with Pine and I see way too many differences in their games, which leans obviously towards Heinen being the better player.

So I really liked what I saw from him. He honestly could have had one or two more goals. He was firing the puck a whole lot. Jake Gensel had nine shots on net. That is a career high. This was also his 300th game in the NHL. So congrats to Jake. And that goal on Bobrovsky, I tweeted this on my main account.

I'll share it all to you here in case none of you saw it. it reminded me so much of the 2017 game three goal to make it. I want to say four three late in the third period. Penguins are on the power play. Puck banks off the boards and then Jake Gensel banks it off for Brovsky. I know Dubinsky ended up tying him and Gensel won the game in OT with a hat trick. But it was almost the same thing except this time Gensel was behind the net, saw where Brobrovsky was, he was out of position and then banked it off his pad and in.

to give the penguins that lead. So I love how he just really outsmarted Robovsky there. And, you know, I will say, Bob played one heck of the game tonight. I know he gave up four goals, and he probably made some stupid plays along the way. But that was one of the best games I have seen Sergey Barovsky play since he was in Columbus. I mean, that contract has been a disaster for Florida ever since he signed there. I think last year he was only around 905, 906. The year of four was around 898, say, like minus 10 goals.

above expected. I think last year it was around one or two goals above expected. He has just, that's been one of the worst contracts from free agency in recent memory. So I am glad to see him turn back the clock a little bit even though I wish he wouldn't have made as many

big saves as he did because in all honesty the Penguins could have scored six or seven in this. That's how many great chances that they had. So, Bacon, Dan and the Hinden, they were excellent. Chris Lattang, that's now four points in his first two games. he's just been a rock on the blue line and continues to shut all of his haters up.

We are on the podcast, the hashtag Latang Colt going, as everyone else on Penguins Twitter does, there will never be Latang Slander here unless it's actually deserved. But these first two games, he has been a menace on the ice. I have not noticed really any bad defensive gaffs from him. He always seems to be making the right read at always the right time, and he had a couple really nice passes that led to some goals tonight. think one of the assists was on big Jeff Carter's goal, who I'll get to in a second. I also thought he was moving well on the power play, which for some reason people don't like him

up there, but he's also their best option for the top power play. So I don't really understand that point, but I thought he looked great tonight. He was smooth with the puck. His skating was top notch, great in the defensive zone. And, of course, got the two points. And speaking of, Jeff Carter, congratulations to him getting that 400th goal of. his career. And it was almost a vintage Jeff Carter goal with the Penguins. I was trying to force a pass to Brian Russ, but you know, it gets a nice little tip from one of the Panthers players and it

goes in past Bobrovsky. That was the goal that made it, I believe, two to two in this game. And that was actually their power play goal in this game. And honestly, besides that, he was not that good in this game. But, you know, I have to give him a little bit of kudos for scoring the tying goal, at least for a brief time. So congrats to him. It was nice to see Evan Rodriguez get on the score sheet with the Penguin's fourth goal, though. I wish you would have tried something else in overtime. He just really shot it right back into Bob.

I think he was trying to go five-hole. I've watched that replay a couple times before he started to record this episode. It looked like he was trying to do the five-hole, but I think he just elevated it a little too much. If he would have tried to go top cheese, I think there was room there. And it also looked like Bob was a little out of position if he wanted to do back. hand, forehand. So I wish Evan wrote would have tried something else, but, you know, at the end of the day, you'll still take a point.

I liked Jason Zulker's game tonight. He should have had a goal in a second period. He came in on a little mini breakaway when forehand, backhand, goes off the post. Had Bob completely beat, too. And that's just been Jason Zulker's luck lately, man. I mean, these chances are just not going in for some reason. I know we're only two games in, but everyone will always wish that chance would have gone into the net. Now, if you get on to some negatives, I do have to start with this.

I saw this tweet, actually, from Adam Grets, and I'm glad he brought this up because I was noticing this too, and I wanted to bring it up on the show. The Panthers camera angle has got to be one of the worst, if not the worst, in the league. I mean, I don't know why it's so one low, but it's also way too far away. I mean, you can literally see people getting up right in front of you to. Go get a beer, go get popcorn, go to the bathroom. something like that and it just disrupts the view of the game and it honestly just reminds me of joe lewis arena where you know again people would get up right in front of you and you would not be able to see anything in the screen you know one of my favorite stories of watching a game on tv with

joe lewis arena still being around was i think i was around 14 15 years old i think the redwings were close to coming back from a four-nothing deficit against the penguins and you know my mom is just yelling at the tv to everyone sit the hell down because again the camera angle was so bad. And it's been so many seasons now that they've played in that arena. And you'd think, wow, they should fix this. But of course, they have not, which is just ridiculously annoying. But I had to complain about that a little bit and just share my frustrations with the camera angle.

I will say this. I know I had Brock on to my show this summer. What a great human being. That said, I want to see more from him the rest of the season. I know we're two games in, but he's been very invisible out there for a player that Ron Hextall gave 40 years to, 2.7. them five million per. I don't really think he's had more than one, excuse me, good scoring chance yet. That needs to turn around in a big way. We all know how good defensively he is, but I want to see more offense for him. I think he had a nice shot on goal in this game, but Barovsky had a good

save. Other than that, he just was a total no-show out there, I thought. So definitely want to see more of Brock going forward and make sure he lives up to that contract because I did like the signing at the time, but if he's going to not produce, that... we're going to have a pretty big problem on our hands. I'll say that. I think some of the other players, Sam Lafferty, I mean, he doesn't really do anything at this point. I think he's probably going to be healthy scratched on Saturday

when Zach Ashton Reese likely returns. I didn't really care for his effort tonight. I think it was actually on the Panthers goal to make it 4-3. He's the only guy that's coming over as ECBOD is going to get the puck, and he's not taking EqBlot away. He's just going right into the scrum where everyone else is, and it's like, I mean, what are you doing there? You got to have a better hockey IQ to know where the puck is and see also where that Panthers player is coming.

I think honestly, I probably had to say this backwards, but you want to make sure that no one is coming down from the point and he didn't do that, which is why Ekwad had a yawning there. If Lafferty is able to take him away there, we're probably not talking about that time goal. And yes, I understand that I don't know how the ref saw the puck. I could have sworn they were going to blow that dead. I mean, if they freaking blew the play in Nashville dead from game six of the 2017 final, how you not blow this one dead, but, you know, that's the inconsistency of NHL officials. You know, that's how they work. They're not biased towards one team or the other.

They're just inconsistent. It's been that way since the beginning of time, and it'll be that way until time just stops. Now, I don't think there's any other players that, I guess, had a bad performance per se in this game. I think I got all the good out of the way. I think before Russ got hurt, he was going towards potentially scoring a goal. I will say I want to see more of Casperi Captain, you know, for how touted he was in the preseason with how much talked up he was and all that. I don't think it's been the greatest start for him thus far.

You know, definitely part of it is not having any Malkin there. You know, also Cindy Crosby not being there. But for how good he was during camp and the preseason, you would have thought that he'd be playing best. better than he is right now. I think he took a couple penalties tonight. He can't be doing that as one of the team's best players when Sid and Gino are not playing. So I want to see more from him moving forward. And I think you will, especially when Sid likely comes back on Saturday. But I think that I'll do it for this segment. There's really no more other positive plays from

players or negative plays from players that I think came out of this game. Coming up in the next segment, I'm going to touch on the gold-hanging decision from Mike Sullivan and why. It was definitely an interesting a case, that's for sure. Before we do that, though, why should you choose to spend 30%, 50% or even 100% more for the same parts of the chain store car dealership? Rock Auto is the family business during do-it-yourselfers for over 20 years. The prices are reliable low for every customer. They have everything you can need from brake parts, tail lamps, mortal oil, and even new carpet. You can go to rockado.com right now and see all the parts available for your car truck, and you can write locked on in their how-do-hearbreadice box so they know we send you.

Amazing selection, reliable, low prices, all the parts of car ever need. That is rockado.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast here. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow those shows Twitter as well at L.O. underscore Penguins. It was definitely a curious choice to start. De Sith tonight, I was 100% certain they were going to go back to Trishinjari,

but I think this could be the start of Mike Sullivan doing a little bit of a platoon. this season, I guess he wants to give Jari a bit more rest than what he had last year. But, you know, DeSmith was also getting a decent amount of starts last year, I thought, too. I don't think it was a 50-50 split. I think it was more 65, 35 in favor of Jari. But I think, you know, potentially this year, Sullivan might lean, you know, 55, 45, 65, 60, 40. But I think he's definitely giving DeSmith every chance out there to be the guy. And I'm sure he's going to give that chance

to Tristan Jari as well. I think he just wants to see who was going to step up more at the beginning of the season. If it were up to me, I would have started Jari tonight because he was fantastic against the lightning. And I think he definitely would have had a couple of those saves that DeSmith allowed just because DeSmith is a shorter goalie and not as big of a goalie as Jari as that.

He doesn't take up as much of the net as Tristan does and Tristan can also make himself bigger in the net as well. And especially going up against some really good Florida shooters, you know, with Barcov and Huberto and Bertrano and Verhagi and Duclair and Eklad Weiger, so many others. I think it was just a curious decision from Mike to start to Smith. If I had a guess, I think you will see Tristan Jardy start against the Blackhawks on Saturday. But, you know, could there be a platoon?

You know, I think we're definitely starting towards that right now. I think you're going to see a 1A, 1B situation here. at least for the first couple weeks, you know, maybe three weeks, about a month of the season to see if someone can really, I guess, what's the word for it? A couple words. Separate themselves from the other.

I think that's my best way of saying it. As for injury updates, nothing really for Mike Matheson. He's still day-to-day. They recall POJ, but then they decided to play Mark Friedman, and he got kind of bossed around on one of the goals that Flores score. I think it was the New Claire one.

That just bounced off, I think, Mark Friedman's, I think it was a stick or just his stomach. And then I really don't know what Freeman was doing there, but it's definitely where they was playing on his offside when you have POJ right there ready to step in. So definitely about that was a little bit of a questionable lineup decision from Mike. Maybe we'll see POJ in the next game. Who knows? But I wanted to point that one out as well.

Overall, though, everyone, it's hard to not be pleased with the start from your Pittsburgh Penguins. One and O and won three out of four points. They come home for eight straight games starting on Saturday with Mark Andre Fleury's return to Pittsburgh as a Chicago. Blackcawks are not a good team. I mean, their defense is putrid. Seth Jones is ridiculously overrated. And I know the Penguins have had their troubles beating Chicago, whether it's at PB2PT Paints Arena or at the United Center in Chicago.

But I still think this is a game. They should win. It's Mike Lang night. Sid's going to be back. I mean, everything is pointing to the Penguins winning this game, I would think. But I guess we'll have to see what happens for Friday's episode. I will have a full preview of that game

and what you can expect as well as a couple other things that I'm planning for that episode. So thank you all so much for listening to this one. I also wanted to shout out everyone that listened to the last episode. It is the most downloaded episode that I have had, excuse me, that the podcast has had since the playoff series against the New York Islanders. I shouldn't say that.

I think it's actually since the Brock McGinn episode, and then before that, the playoff series and, you know, Josh Getsoff's episode in there as well. So I very much appreciate a lot of you listeners coming back and to all the new ones. Welcome. You're going to be in for a wild ride this season. That's for sure. So, again, thank you all so much for listening to this one, and we will do another one of these on Friday.