Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - A very professional performance by the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight!

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

That's one way to start the season! Hunter goes into the Penguins' 6-2 thrashing of the Arizona Coyotes and starts with the goal scorers to open this episode. Yes, he took the L with Sidney Crosby scoring the first goal and not Rickard Rakell. He breaks down just how great of a pass that was from Jake Guentzel and how those two seem to be in midseason form ALREADY. He then breaks down the Jason Zucker goal & goes into how much more confident he looked as the game went on. Is this a sign of things to come for him? Where was he firing the puck from on most of his shots? After that, he praises the power play for looking really crisp, especially with the passing and the zone entries. Did anything new stick out about the unit? Even though there were a lot of positives, he does have to touch on the negatives, though there were mainly 2: The play of the 4th line and some errors from POJ. He goes over how each can correct their mistakes moving forward and what he wants to see more of. Other topics discussed: Kasperi Kapanen's growing confidence, Evgeni Malkin's masterful performance, Tristan Jarry's sharp form, and of course, YOUR LISTENER TAKEAWAYS! All of that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnNHL to learn more.Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NHLNETWORK 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.

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Locked-on Penguins podcast. It's a little bit different today. So Restream is down. That's what we use, all the Locked On hosts use. We are going to be going over to stream yard, which is what I'm using right now. I'm kind of on like a free trial. I've been on re-streaming for almost a year now. This has never happened. Of course, first night it happens. It's the regular season. But we are here recording my full game recap episode as The Penguins just absolutely trounce the Arizona Coyotes by a score. of the 6 to 2. In this episode, we're going to get into everything that transpired tonight for the Pittsburgh Penguins

go into the numbers, who I thought looked good, who I thought didn't look good, things to work on, all of that stuff. So again, remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. The show's Twitter

is at L.O. Orange War Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day on October 13th. So let's get into this. The Penguins, a 62 victory over the

coyotes. And, you know, this is a win that, you know, you expect the Penguins to win this kind of game. No offense. The Arizona coyotes are going to be one of the worst teams in the NHL this year. That is basically an AHL team that they just played. No disrespect to Clayton Keller. No disrespect to Nick Ritchie who scored a couple of goals tonight. Nick Schmaltz, Shane Gossberg, I thought it had a good game outside of that kind of a dirty hit on Havkeni Malcon. Valmalka, he was really good in net, even though he gave up six goals. No offense, though. The Coyotes, this is a team that their management, they basically want them to tank for Connor Boudard. And the Penguins took advantage to that, you know, five minutes into the game, it's already three nothing. Cindy Crosby has to get the first goal because it is Cid, after all.

Beautiful pass from Jake Gensel, by the way. I mean, that was a filthy pass right across the center of the ice and the offensive zone onto the tape of Cindy Crosby. and he buries at five-hole past Vemilke. They're able to make it 2-0 very quickly later. Jason Zulker gets his first goal of the year. I've been telling people expecting to score quite a bit this year if he can stay healthy. And I really liked Zulker's game tonight.

He was everywhere on the ice. He was lining up right above that left circle for plenty of scoring chances. I don't know if some of you all noticed that, but it was about three to four, maybe even, more than that, but he was just teeing up slap shots from that point, about 20 feet out, something like that, was really impressed with how he played. If the Penguins can get that level from Zucker for the entire season, obviously they will be better off for it.

And then the Penguins, you know, they quickly make it three to nothing. Jake Gensel, obviously, you know, he gets his first goal of the season. You know, Jake, I mean, you all knew he was going to score on opening. night, right? I mean, it's Jake Gensel, for God's sakes. You know, I feel bad that I picked Ricard Raquel to open up the scoring for the Penguins of season. I did not get it, so I'm going to put that L on my forehead. But, you know, that Gensel goal, just, you know, a total Jake Gensel kind goal. Anyway, I believe that one was on the power play. If I'm not, I'm trying to make sure I have that right in my notes, just making sure here. Yes, yeah, from Brian Rust and Cidacros,

Speaking of the power play looked really solid tonight. I love the puck movement, crisp passing. You're getting to the dirty areas of the net. The zone entries looked a lot better. Granted, I understand it's Arizona. You're going to be going up against much better penalty-killing units throughout the season. But at least for tonight, really enjoyed the power play as well, they had a couple of goals throughout this game. We'll get to a couple of them a little bit later.

But, you know, really nice goal from Jake Gensel to get his first of the season. Hopefully he does hit 50. I'll get to the penalty kill a little bit later. Malkin was able to get his first goal of the season. And wow, was he on fire tonight? That is the best, I think, I have seen Gino skate in over a year. Well before his knee surgery, I'll say that. And remember, he had a full off season to train.

He was fully healthy coming into this. He didn't have any procedure done to do his knee or anything. And, you know, I think you're seeing a different version of him right now. And I know it might be silly to say that after one game. But I tweeted this on my Twitter account tonight. And I'll say it again on this show. I think he's going to make a lot of people look foolish this season. He had a lot of people talk crap about him during the off season about how they,

oh, they should have signed Vincent Trocheck or Andrew Kopp. They should let him walk because he's not. He's just a powerplay specialist now. he's definitely not a power play specialist now, especially after the numbers that I saw him put up tonight, according to natural stratarch at 5E5, they were on the ice for at least 10 minutes of ice time at 5E5. And 17 shot attempts for,

five shot attempts against 77% shot attempts for 60, the Malkin Zucker Rust line. that led every single line on the Penguins tonight. Going even further, one goal for, one goal against, even further, 88% of the expected goals that also led the team tonight. A little further, 11 scoring chances for when Gino was on ice with his line, two scoring chances against. But I've heard he's washed at 5B5, according to people from this offseason.

So he was a menace all over the ice. It was truly remarkable to watch him skate and get his goal. Nice backhand shot across a lot of traffic. I know Nick Berlansky said he thinks he's going to score 100 points this year. Based on how he played through one game, I definitely think he has a chance, at least right now. Hopefully he doesn't get hurt or anything. But he keeps up that level. Could definitely see him at least getting 90 points this season.

and if not getting into 100. I love the story that Rob Rossi ran of the athletic this morning where, you know, Gino was basically saying to himself, yeah, I feel like I could get 90, but, you know, why not more? Why not 100? And, you know, I think he's definitely saying that to himself after night. So the numbers were great for him and his line and the eye test definitely back

a really nice goal. And his legs were galloping all night long. Thank God he didn't get hurt on that Shane Gossus bear hit late in the first period. Just a really ugly hit from Dastasbear, you know, definitely targeting the knee area for him. I believe that was a surgically repair knee, if I'm not mistaken. Just, I don't want to see that, you know. For someone who, you know, has been banged up a lot recently, you know, Gino's really lucky that that didn't turn out a lot worse for him. And obviously, he didn't leave the game and he was able to finish everything out.

But again, you know, thankfully, thankfully he was able to because, you know, that knee bends a certain way. you know, he's out for, you know, a good bit. So don't like those kind of hits. I'm glad he was okay. And I'm glad that he was really able to go beast mode tonight. Brian Russ also gets his first goal of the season. Loved how he was just, you know, crap talking that coyotes player when he was standing down on him because that game was starting to get chippy a little bit.

And then to end it on the sixth goal, Gisbury Capitan, because of course, Gisbury Capon has to score when he gets his first goal. the season. What a rip that was, by the way. But overall, I thought this was a very good performance from the Penguins tonight against a not good Arizona Coyote's team. Numbers-wise, the Penguins had 59% of the shot attempt score at 5E-5. They also had 72% of the scoring chances, 78% of the high danger chances, 75% of the expected goals. And they also outscored the Coyotes 4-0. at 5V5, the only two goals that they gave up, were on the power play. Well, penalty kill.

Excuse me, penalty kill for the Penguins power play for the coyotes. And I'll get into that a little later on for the show. So going through each of the goal scores, that was really cool. Nice to see so many players get points tonight. Cindy Crosby is officially above Alex Ovechka now in terms of total points to start, not just the season, but overall the capitals also lost tonight. But overall, as we switched to our second segment here, very professional performance, you know, some people were saying that this was a trap game.

I understood that. But for the first game of the regular season, I didn't really believe in it just because you got to start out the season. Well, maybe if this was a game in January, February, something like that. But this is the first game of the season. They were going to go balls to the wall. And they absolutely did that when they were three to nothing. I know the game kind of got a little bit boring in the second period

just because the penguins were kind of taking the foot off the gas pedal. It's hard when you're up three goals. You're going up against a team that you're way better than to keep playing like that through 60 minutes. The adrenaline wears off. But they're able to get that fourth goal to make it 4-1. I know the coyotes were able to make it 4-2, but they were able to keep their composure going, play good at 5E-5, and they're able to get the result tonight to get to 1-0. Coming up in this and the second segment, we're going to get into some special teams talk.

notably the PK, that's the main thing that I did not like tonight. That's probably one of the only negative things that I'm going to say during this episode. So I'm going to get into what I saw about that and what I want the Penguins to work on moving forward with that unit. But before I get to that, ban on line.net is your number one source for football football betting info this season. You can find all the latest player developments, team matchups, news, podcasts, and in-depth articles and analysis on every team you can find. And as always, Ben-on-Line Remainter, continue a source for all your scores foraging. information with live betting and up-to-the-minute scores for every sport out there.

It's the fastest and easiest way to check out on all your favorite games and events, including MLB, M&A, boxing, golf. You can head to bed online or use your phone to learn more. That is better online where the game starts. All right, I'm back in this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honor Hodeys. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Honor Hodees. Follow the shows Twitter at L.O. or Squared Penguins.

And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first list in the day. I do apologize for it being a little bit different tonight just because the restream is not working. It's actually down for the entire network. Again, first time this has happened, you all get to hear that wonderful intro and everything again tomorrow. So now on to some things that I guess I didn't like from this performance, even though there really wasn't many. The penalty kill. What they did tonight on the PK was basically what they did against the Rangers. A lot of players were being left wide open in the middle of the ice.

not aggressive enough coming up to the point to pressure whoever was up there. Whether it was Clayton Keller, Shane Gosses, spare quarterbacking at Nick Schmaltz at the corner, she's not good enough and not enough good pressure. You know, the coyotes, they had 28 power play goals in 82 games last year. And no, I'm not kidding. Like, that is a legitimate stat. You all can go look it up for yourselves. That's basically what, a quarter of their games ahead of power play goal, maybe a little bit

more if my math is right. you know, you're giving up two good powerplay goals to them, and when they're expected to be one of the worst teams in the league this season. That's unacceptable. Sorry. I mean, I know it's game one. They'll have a lot to work on throughout the season, but I don't want to be seeing that throughout the year.

They're going to be going up against much better power plays. Washington's one is usually men, even though they start of the season, that's not that good. The Rangers usually have a good power play. The Minnesota Wild usually have a good power play. Colorado Avlands, you know, they're only going to play them twice as well. In the East, you know, they'll play Toronto, who usually. has a good one. Tampa Bay, Florida, Carolina. That's not going to work against those teams. And I think the penguins, they know that. They're going to have to clean some stuff up.

The second Nick Rich Eagle was the one I think that really irked me the most. He's able to get the puck, you know, streaking down the center of the defensive zone for the penguins. And he gets it. No one's in sight. He just has Tristan Jard to beat. Nice day, beats him for four to, for to make it for two but it's like okay where is where's the pressure on richie you know no one is in front of the net trying to break up the play or anything like that they're just out in no man's land doing whatever um i'm sure mike volucci is going to notice that on film he's going to work on it with the team but what i saw tonight it's not good enough and it needs to be better to say the least um that was the only two goals that they swore again were on the penguins pique even the first one

They were not clearing the puck enough. I think that was another trend that I saw tonight. Another one that we saw during the playoffs against the Rangers, not enough clears. They would just kind of try to, we'll try to get it out a little bit, but they're soft clearing attempts. And even against a team like the coyotes, it's not going to work.

And you saw that tonight. The coyotes are able to get two goals courtesy of Nick Ritchie. Overall, I'm not super mad about it, but it's something that I still want to get cleaned up. as we start the season here. Other negatives, I guess, if you want to call them that. POJ, I guess, was fine. Didn't really stand out too much to me.

There are a couple of zone breakouts that he was having trouble with that he should not be having at the NH level when he was going around the net, has the puck cleanly, and being pressured only a little bit, but he's not able to exit the zone cleanly, and it turns into Arizona really pressuring him, and then they take the puck from him in the defensive zone. That can't be happening at the initial level, especially with Ty Smith, basically ready to go down in the AHL. He's going to get more of a look.

I obviously understand that. But from a one game simple size, still want to see more from him overall. He was also like bottom five in average game score tonight, I'm pretty sure for the Penguins along with the fourth line. And that's actually what I'm going to get to next if I can find a tweet here for the average game scores. Yeah, the bottom five, Brock McGinn, Ryan Paling, P.O.J. Josh Archibald, Jan Ruta. Actually, no, Jan Ruta was, he bottom five, but mostly his stuff was positive. The bottom four that had mostly a negative impact was Archibald, P.O.J, Ryan Paling and Brock McGinn. The fourth line, I know it's one game as well, but it's really not that good of a line, people. Yes, they're missing Teddy Bluger. Very understandable. He's going to help that fourth line a lot. whenever he does come back from what I saw tonight though you know paling okay you know he's fine Brock McGinn playing without his center yeah not much there archibald didn't really notice him too much but you know he also didn't make a lot of negative plays so I can't really complain but you know

when you're like the only line that is in the bottom five of average game score um and that kind of lines up to what I was watching with the eye test um that's definitely maybe something that needs to be better for as long as a um blue girl is out and if you go to you go to natural satire to look at more of the underlying numbers for that. Only 40% shot attempts for per 60. They were the only line below 50% tonight. 54% of the expected goals, though, so that's not bad, 60% of the scoring chances. But in terms of being out attempted, they were the only line below 50% with that.

Again, one game. Maybe they'll be better against Tampa Bay. But, you know, those are, I guess, the only three main negatives that I took out. of this game. Everyone else I thought was truly spectacular. I'm going to get some more of that here coming up in this final segment. And I'm going to get into some listener takeaways that you all had. We can get into that coming up right after this commercial break.

All right, I'm back on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hoddes. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You're going to also follow the shows Twitter at L.O.R.S. We're going to talk about it. I think I've basically touched almost everyone that I really noticed tonight, though I will say the third line I thought was pretty decent. Jeff Carter had some good chances.

Dayton Hinen actually attempted a backhander tonight, which I don't think I've really ever seen him do in a penguin uniform. He usually always shoots with his forehand. So it's a pretty rare sight to see him shoot on that backhand. I think he could have scored two goals tonight. I thought he was really impressive. Getting back to Kisbury captain really liked his game. He actually did not button hook a lot tonight.

That's progress. We'll do a little little bit of a golf clap for that. He had some really nice passes to bring some scoring chances along. And he had that wicked release for that sixth goal courtesy. I believe that pass was from Jason Zucker. I was able to fire that top cheese. More of that from Kaepinan this year. Please.

I think this goal could really help him give him some confidence. Nice to see him do some work on the PK as well. I guess that's like the one main thing I liked about the BK tonight. It was on, I believe it was the coyote's fifth power play in the third period, four two games. And Capitan, he's putting some pressure at the point. And then he's pinning the puck along the board. So the couple of other coyotes players and a couple of other Penguins players

come over to really just freeze the puck. And he's killing 20, 25, 30 seconds. More of that, please, from Capon. Maybe the score more of the short-handed schooling chances will come from him. but more of plays like that when he's just killing the play right up against the point where, you know, the opposition is not able to do anything. I thought he played a really good game, whether it was at 55, second power play, first or second penalty kill a unit. That's a performance to build off of, in my opinion, for Kaepinan.

Ricardo Raquel thought he also had some nice chances tonight. Wish he would have had that goal, but, you know, beggars can't be choosers. Jeff Petrie thought he also had a nice game. first one with Marcus Pedersen so there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve he did make a couple of plays tonight in the offensive zone where I was like

I did not ever see John Marino do that I think a couple of times he just absolutely digged an Arizona player and that led to a couple of good scoring chances I'm like man I wish Marino once I wish Marino did that once

when he was a member of the Penguins Jan Ruta solid debut as well you know didn't really stand out like too much but you know he's also kind of a defensive defenseman you know he didn't really do anything in the negative way chris let tang steady as ever thunderous check um late in the third period i mean that was the hit of the game and you know i know a lot of people love physical hockey you know i like a good heavy every now and then that is a hit i definitely liked

he just absolutely laid the boom on that coyotes player and it's always a good time when both crosbie and malk can score um i believe i have this stat here here from Bob Grove. And this is a ridiculous stat with how good the penguins are when both Crosby and Malkin score. They are 96 and 9 and 4 when they both score in the same game. 96 wins 13 total losses. Is that good?

My sources can confirm that that is very, very good. And last but not least, last thing I want to take away from this, Tristan Jari, solid, I didn't really give up any bad goals, looked aggressive, and that made a couple of nice saves. That's a performance to build off of as well coming off that injury. Had a little injury scare when Marcus Pedersen took a penalty by cross-checking a coyote's player into him. It wasn't even a cross-check. The coyotes player just ran into him. Thank God that Jari has not heard.

That would have been a very bad time for him to suffer the injury. Now getting into the post-game takeaways to end the show tonight. if I can get these here. Love Nick Horwatt's reaction here. Is this a new Western Conference rival? I'm glad that you brought this up, Nick, because, man, that game was getting chippy in the third period. I did not expect that.

I mean, I know Arizona's not that good, but, you know, they were really taking it to the pen. I wouldn't say really taking it to the penguins, but, you know, they were making the game a bit nasty with them, you know, getting into some scrums. They were chirping the penguins from the bench. and on the ice. I saw Sid was going at them from the bench.

I'm pretty sure Jake told the whole coyote's bench to F off as he was going back to the bench. No, I'm not going to say that word, but for most of the people that listen to the show, I think you all know what I mean. Definitely some big hits that were thrown. These two teams did not like each other, at least fortunate. And I know they only play each other one more time this season, but definitely a really chippy game, to say the least. Joe Frick says, and he is awesome.

He is part of the Around the 4-1-2 podcast. I believe he hosts their fantasy football show. He says so much more movement on the powerplay. Petrie doesn't stink as much as everyone thought. Outscored the Steelers. Yes, the Penguin scored more touchdowns in this game than the Pittsburgh Steelers did against the Buffalo Bills last week. That is a cause for celebration right there.

Yeah. Love the movement on the power play. Passing looked really crisp, able to get to the high danger chances. No problems with the zone entries. That's been a big. problem when the power play's been struggling, really enjoyed watching that unit tonight. If that can keep up for the rest of the year, that will be really good as well. Jeff Kirby, we're winning the cup.

Hey, you know, Rome wasn't built in one day, as they say. Josh Banks, nobody got hurt, as far as you know at the time of this tweeting. Yes, you know, I know the penguin's injury curse knows no bounds. They were a couple of scares tonight, one of which was with Brian Dumlin, took a shot right off the hand like that. I don't know how he came back right away. I mean, he was gone for 30 seconds and came back in. I'm like, whew, thought that was a broken hand or something. I think Jeff Petrie went on to the ice ones.

I'm like, he's okay, at least from what we know right now. Hopefully, there were no injuries suffered in this game. Alan T. Yoder, who was at the game, he said, PowerPlay looked and felt different than last year until the third period. I really liked what I saw before that. Yeah, Alan, again, you know, you're not the first person to notice the powerplay looked a lot different. As a lot of other listeners have said, the movement looked great. And as I was saying, they were actually getting to the high danger areas and they were finishing their chances as well. Yep. Awesome to see Zulker get one. Absolutely. You know, he keeps that up and stays healthy. He's going to pot a lot of goals for this team this year. I mean, you know, his usual career average is 20, 23 goals per eight two games. That's when he was at when he was in Minnesota and he was healthy. I mean, that kind of carried over to Pittsburgh in his first season here. This is a good player. He just has to stay healthy. And I'm really hoping that he can. Never thought I'd see a Crosby for,

first goal of the season. And yes, that is a great fun fact, Alan. Thank you for pointing that out. That is the first time he scored the first goal of the penguin season, I believe, throughout his tenure here. At least as far as I can remember, Alan, as well. You probably are right on this. I do not remember the last time he ever scored the first goal of the season

for the Penguins. Yeah, I know the penalty kill was not good either. I wouldn't say Arizona is a dirty team, Alan, but they were definitely, some of their hits tonight were a bit questionable, getting a bit chippy in the third period because they were mad that they were losing, whatever. You know, that team's going to lose a lot of games this season. That's whatever to me.

And why did Arizona want to poke the big Russian bear at the end of the first period? Yes, I agree that Gino looked fantastic tonight. I think he's on a mission this season. He's on a mission to really prove a lot of people wrong. That crap talked him during the offseason, and that was a big first step. as well. I think I hit on basically everything about this game tonight. At the end of the day, really solid opening night win for this team. Nothing, no, too flashy about it or anything like that,

but it was a game that they needed to win against a bottom-tier team. The big three picked up where they left off from last year. Zuckroon Kaplan were really good. Power play was great. Tristan Jolly looked confident in net. P.K. A little bit to work on fourth line in POJ. I want to see them be better as the season goes on. But overall, very professional performance tonight from the Penguins. They control the game at 5E5 and all situations.

And they will definitely need to do that on Saturday when the Tampa Lightning come to town. Again, I will be there for that game. I'm so stoked to go back to PPJ Paints Arena. I will have a full preview episode for that game sometime on Friday, whether it's before the lightning play against the Blue Jackets or after. And yes, the Lightning, they will be coming to Pittsburgh on a back-to-back. I would assume they will not start Vasilevsky on Friday and think he will go on Saturday against the Penguins.

They'll probably start their backup on Friday. So again, that does it for this episode. Let me know what you all think about this game down in the comments on YouTube or you can DM me on social media and stuff. But again, thank you all so much for listening. And I'll be back with another episode on Friday.