Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Are the Penguins any closer with Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin?

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

After a small vacation, Hunter is back with a fresh episode on the Pittsburgh Penguins and as always, there's something to talk about. He starts the show with the latest Penguins rumors after Elliotte Friedman went on the Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday and touched on the latest with Letang, Malkin, and even Fleury. Is there a chance that Fleury makes a return? Hunter looks at that and brings up the only way in which that would work. He then gets to the latest with Malkin, which doesn't sound good. If a deal can't be reached, who will replace him? How much money will the team have? Is it worth it to do 3 X $7.5-$8M per for? Is it looking more likely for Letang? After that, Hunter gives his NHL Awards Ballot and how more writers need to watch the league as a whole and then evaluates Chad Ruhwedel's special season. All that, plus much more coming up 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 “LOCKED15,” 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!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.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode for this podcast. Yes, I am back from vacation. Apologies for no episode on Monday. Was enjoying a nice day on the beach. I thought I was going to have time for one. I'll apologize on that. Again, that will not be the case before.

We will be five days a week until free agency and the draft. A lot to get to for today's episode. We're going to go into the initial awards on what my ballots would have been if I did have a vote on the PHWA. Also get to the latest Penguins News. Elliot Freeman went on the Pat McAfee show today with some updates on Chris Lutang and and Gany Malkin also had a tidbit of Mark Andre Fleury. So we're going to get it into that and potentially do a season review for one of the other Penguins defensemen.

Hinton, it looks like it's going to be one of the bottom pairing defenders. So we're going to get into all of that coming up here right after this drop. You're Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I am your host, Hunter Hodes. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can also follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O. Arnold School Penguins, and of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So, you know, a lot has happened since, you know, I last talked to you all on Friday. This is going to like a final, a Colorado up to me.

to one on the lightning. I think everyone knew the lightning. We're not going to go away quietly, right? You know, I made this comparison on social media last night when I was still down in Florida. You know, they're like Michael Myers in the Halloween movies. You know, when you think you have them dead, he comes right back out and says, surprise, I'm still alive. So that's basically the lightning at this point, a very good performance from them. If Andre Masselowski is able to figure this out, and Darcy Kemper potentially continues his struggles, you know, this could go sideways in hurry for the avalanche. I so like the abs right now in this series that they've been playing very well. They're overall, they're 14 and 3, 317 playoff games, but they're going to have to

find that other level in game four to potentially take this back three games to one and then potentially end it in game five. Otherwise, let's get into the big penguins news of the day. And so I've never seen Elliot Friedman go on the Pat McAfee show. He usually brings on Mike Rupp in other sports, Ian Rappap, of course, Sean's Karenia of the Athletic. But, you know, this is the first time I think that Freeman has ever come on. And obviously, Pat McAfee, for those that don't know,

he is from Pittsburgh, born and raised. A. Yenzer, he is a diehard Penguins fan, likes the Pirates too, I'm sure has some ties to the Steelers, even though he never played for the Steelers. but you know he's always love hockey um has always said city crosbie's the best player and the history of the league even though you know doubt five but i won't go number one um but he did bring free men on and he discussed some penguins topics and you know one of the first one i'll get to before we touch on the latang and malk and stuff is that it sounds like there is a chance

that flurry may return to the penguins you know potentially to back of the up Tristan Jari. And I have touched on this during the all season. I haven't touched on this in a while, so I'll relay those thoughts again here. The only way I would take Flurry back is if it's like a one to two year deal for like two to two point five million per. Otherwise, if he's asking for three, three and a half, four, forget it. I mean, he really was not good this season for both Chicago and Minnesota. Jari is the future. I think at this point, he's, had a better season than Fleury. And, you know, I also think if, if Flurry were to return, you know, that's a lot of

added pressure on the starting goaltender. Like, wow, I have a franchise icon behind me that basically everyone wants to see playing. And, you know, even though I'm the number one guy and I just had a great year, you know, some players falter in those situations. Some players overcome it and they have great years. but, you know, do you want to take that risk that Zari could falter? I mean, you know, sure, Flurry is a good stopgap option, excuse me, but, you know, again, it all comes down to the money.

I'm sure they could agree to a one to two-year term. But this guy is coming off a massive contract, I think, with Vegas and everyone where he was getting, what, $7.5 million or something like that? You know, how much of a pay cut is he willing to take? That is my question with that. again, I would personally go after someone like Baden Holby. I think you can get him for cheaper than $2 million a year, potentially maybe like 1 to 1.5 for like a year or something like that,

just because his play has obviously tapered off a lot throughout his career. I just think, you know, the past is the past with a lot of these things. I don't know. You know, would like 80% of the fan base love it? Sure. You know, a lot of people my age grew up with Flurry because, you know, he was the first, you know, one of the first core, you know, to come through here, you know, then, then Sid got drafted, then Gino, obviously, then Latang and Kunitz and all those guys. But, you know, I still think

Flurry deserves a chance to start probably somewhere. And I'm sure he could take a deal on like a middling team, you know, say, I'll throw a team out there, Buffalo or something like that. You know, the Sabres are looking to be better next year. They had a really nice end of the season. They have a lot of goal-thending questions, I think. I could definitely see them being one of the teams that potentially goes after him and they will have more money to throw at him. I mean, this is a Sabres team, but I don't even think it's reached the salary floor at this point. So, you know, overall, I would welcome it if the price is right, but I also think that there's too many, you know, there's other goaltenders out there that can do what he does a bit better.

And to be frank, you can probably get them for a bit cheaper. Now getting to the Malkin and the Littang stuff, I'll start with Malkin. It sounds like they've agreed on term, and that is three years. For those that I don't know, Cindy Crosby's contract, his is up in three years. So they're thinking, which is the obvious right here, which I'm about to say, they want to tie Malkin and Crosby's careers together. They want them to go out at the same time. But the biggest hiccup right now, it seems to be, is the money.

I do not know what the penguins are offering him. I do also do not know what Malkin is asking. We'll play a little bit of a hypothetical here. Say Malkin's asking for 7.5 to 8. You know, do you do it? I would kind of say no. You know, I think the sweet spot for him is 6.5 to 7. I don't think right now with how he played Lashon,

He was still a very good player. I don't think he is worth $7.5 to $8 million. Could you have to stomach it and maybe give in a little bit? Sure. But I feel like for $8 million, are you going to get that kind of value for the next few years? For someone's 505, that's fine, but could potentially decline even more.

Obviously, his bread and butter, he's great on the power play, you know, was a pointer game player this year. but, you know, do you expect that to continue for the next three years? And again, I love the player. I want them to bring him back. I think there's probably no one else on the free agent market that can do what he does. But, you know, sometimes you may have to say no if the demand is a bit much. And that's what it sounds like Ron Hechdoll is doing right now.

It sounds like he's playing hardball with him, even though I'm sure he would probably have, you know, what's the one he would have no problem going out and signing Vince and Trotach to like a five times six like a six times six and a half seven million dollar contract that's a player that's not even going to come close to doing what againy Malkin does on a nightly basis

and also it just seems like a total Ron Hicksall move to be honest with you so I definitely think there are limits with Malkin's asking price it definitely does not sound good right now as we are almost three weeks away from NHL free agency opening, but I also don't think it's, you know, the kiss of death that's someone making it out to be. There's still time. Again, the news is not great, but, you know, it's all a matter of can the two sides get close enough where, you know, maybe one has to give

a little bit more than the other. That's the big thing I'm looking for. You know, sure, Nazim Kodry is out there to sign free agency, but did the penguins want to pony up 8.5 to 9 million to pay him. That's the big hacker there. J.T. Miller is going to be available. Do the penguins have the assets to acquire him? Probably not. Even though he would be a great replacement for Malkin, I just don't think the penguins

would have, you know, what Vancouver would want in a trade. And then lastly, Friedman said, it sounds like the penguins in Latang, there are about a million to about a 1.1 to 1.2 million apart. So 1 to 1.2 mil. That's not bad. you know, the updates are continuing to get better with Latang than they are with Malkin, which again, I think shows that Latang is the biggest priority and that, you know, they want to get him out of the way before circling back to Malkin, you know, and really,

I think, diving deep into that negotiation. I've honestly kind of changed my tune at this point. In my opinion, I think it's more likely that Latang comes back and Gino walks. that's just that's my pure speculation right now it's my opinion could both be back sure could the opposite happen sure could none of them be back sure but right now my gut is telling me that I think they find a way to get letang done but you know with all these updates with all these bad updates on a beginning of Alkin I just I'm not really feeling

super confident um in it so that wraps up this first segment of Locked on Penguins podcast coming up in the second segment we're going to get to the HL Awards tonight where a couple of penguins finished in regards to the respective awards, and you know what my top three to top five ballots would have been. But before we get to that, you know how our friends at Billet are always coming out with amazing new flavors. Well, this time, Billet has surely outdone themselves with their new mud pie flavor. And for the first time ever, Bill is introducing the new mud pie flavor in both mud pie bar

and mud pie puff. Not sure what mud pie tastes like? Well, if you're a chocolate fan, you better sit down for this. The new mud pie bar is rich whipped cream and chocolate mouse, excuse me, smothered in 100% real chocolate and topped with cookies and cream crumble. You've got to try the mud pie as soon as not possible and need to hurry because the mud pie bar and the puff. They're only available for a limited time. You can visit belt.com to taste this deliciousness for yourself. And you can also go to built.com and use promo code locked 15 and get 15% off your order.

That's promo code lock 15 for 15% off at belt.com. All right. I'm back here on this episode of the lockdown. Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hoad. He's going to follow me on Twitter. Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L.O. Armstrongswear Penguins. So the annual awards were tonight. There really weren't too many surprises. Outside of Sidney Crosby, not even getting a single vote for the Hart Trophy. I'm fine that he wasn't a finalist. I'm fine that, you know, he didn't get like one third place though or something. But you're telling me that he didn't finish top 10 to top 15 in the

league after he just had one of the best seasons in his career. Let's dive into the numbers a little bit here. 31 goals, 84 points in 69 games. Last year at 62 points, 55 games. He was well over a point a game yet again. Last year, this is the funny thing. He finishes four in the Hart Trophy vote last year after 62 points in 55 games, plays basically a full season, 84 points in 69 games and does not even get top 10 to top 15 in the heart. What are we doing here? I understand that that vote was probably the hardest vote of all the awards. Trust me. You know, my ballot, I honestly would have had Shasturkin winning it. I think he was the most valuable player in the NHL issue without him in that kind of season. The Roongers probably

do not even make the playoffs. He would have been my number one. I would have had Matthews at two. I would have had probably McDavid at three. And then I would have had Johnny Goodrow at four, and I would have had a Roman Yossi at five. And I'm going to get to Roman Yossi in just a sec because he would have been my Norris trophy winner if I had a ballot. But it's just, and this goes to show that, you know,

all the NHL writers, the PHWA, you know, they vote on most of these awards outside of the, Jack Adams and the The Vesna. The Vezna is voted on by the general managers. I think the Jack Adams is voted on by a bunch of broadcasters. I'm probably missing another award or two. But most of these awards are voted on by the writers

who cover the various teams. We're on a league, you know, media members and all that. But this just goes to show that I think a lot of these writers just don't watch any other initial games outside of their own team. Because we can look at the Hart Trophy. I'll read you all the last. list. Matthews McDavid-David-Chasturkin, Goodrow, Hubert. That's your top five. I'm fine with that.

Rosie's at six. Nope. Kirill Caprisov, Kalma Carr. Leon Dreisettel, that's fine. Alex Ovechkin had a great year. Stephen Stamcoast gets six fifth place votes. Barcoff gets a fourth and a fifth place. Jason Robertson gets three fifth place votes. J. Teamler gets one. Matthew Kuch gets one. What are we doing here? I mean, a lot of those players do not have anything close to the level of season. That city cross. as we did, he dominated in basically, you know, every underlying number out there. And you're telling me he can't finish top 15 in the heart. He's finishing below guys, such as, again, you know,

Miller, Matthew Kachukh, Jason Robertson, Steven Stamco, Sasha Barkall, all these are great players. But, you know, I think people really need to take an account just how great Sid was this year. Probably one of his best seasons of his career. So that was definitely surprising to say to least, again, that would have been my top five for the heart. The Calder Trophy, I would have had more cyber winning. That's not even, I think, a question for me. At this point, you know, he was just incredible. You know, I would have Robertson right up there to Michael Bunsey.

That probably would have been my top three. That's for sure. Probably would have had Jeremy Sleam in at four. And, well, actually, I'm probably being stupid right now. Zegris would have been my two Bunting would have been up there probably three swimming at four

and then I'll come back I just had it in my brain and it's just like totally screwing that up for me but you know for the Vezna you know the GMs vote on this but you know they got to write 29 of them of 32

voted for Igor Shosturkin how in the heck did that guy not win unanimously is beyond me The other three first place votes went to Frederick Anderson, Andre Vasselovsky, I mean, did Lou LaMorello vote for Sorokin? Did Julian Breisball vote for Andre Vasselvesk? Did Don Weddell vote for Frederick Anderson? I don't understand why people have to be so petty here. He should have won unanimously. Now, the Norris is interesting. You know, for that ballot, my mind would have been maybe a little bit different from others. I would have had Yosei, winning it. I mean, he put up Paul coffee-like numbers this year, but one of the best defensives, one of the best seasons by a defenseman I've ever seen for as long as I've been watching the sport. Oh, well over 90 points was a juggernaut in the offensive zone.

Great defensive metrics. It is weird that he had more first place votes than Cal McCar, but still lost. That's all I'm going to say. I don't understand that. I would have had Yosie won, Macar II, Fox 3, McAvoy 4, and I would have had Latang 5. That's maybe a bit being biased here, but it's funny because Victor Hedman, you know, he finished top three in the Norris voting, but he had a better season this year than he did last year when he won the award, and I think that was just, you know, getting him his Norris trophy. And again, I just, I think a lot of these writers just do not watch a lot of other hockey. I've always had that take for as long as I've been watching the NHShell Awards.

You know, Hedman was a lot better this year. And, you know, probably deserved to finish in the top five, you can certainly argue with. But, you know, again, you know, I would have had him outside my top five. I would have had Yossi, Macar, Fox, McAvoy, Latang. Now, Chris Oth Tang did finish seventh in the Norris Trophy voting. Congratulations to him, 18th 4th place votes, 19th, 5th place votes. I know there's a segment of the fans are going to be mad about that.

Ignore them. They're wrong. At the end of the day, they're wrong. Have them look up the numbers. He deserved finishing in the top seven for that. I would have had him in my top five for my ballot. Ted Lindsay,

that's voted on by the players. Austin Matthews won that. Congratulations to him. And Matthews really cleaned up the awards tonight. You know, he also won the rocket, won the heart. You know, again, I personally probably,

I would have had Shasturkin winning that one, but at the end of the day, I don't have a vote. And then I saw the GM of the Year award was what the finalists, I think, were announced. Joe Sackettuk, Julian Brisbaw, very true to deserve him, and Chris Derry. And it's like, wow, you know, Chris Dore made a bunch of mean moves over the offseason. As a few good moves of the trade deadline, and all of a sudden, he's in, you know, consideration for GM of year, which is just hilarious. So I can't wait to see if potentially if he doubles down during this all season. Because his offseason moves didn't work. You know, he just had a god-tier goal-taining performance from the best goaltender in the league, we'll argue the best

golden in the league, an amazing power play. And, you know, that's basically it. But yeah, I guess that's, you know, up for consideration for being the GM of the year at this point. But that wraps up this segment for the NHL. awards. You know, mostly everyone's ballots that I saw, well, some I saw were fine. Others, I'm just like, man, like, people are just showing their butts. You know, that's the PG version. I will say that. People are really showing their butts out there with, I think, how little, you know, they watch the sport as writers around the league. Again, that's just my take on that. Coming up in the next segment, we're going to get into Chad Roodle's season review for the penguins.

As we continue, we're almost done with that, to say the least here. You know, we only have a couple more defensemen and then some of the other players that were called up during the season. And then we will basically be done with that. And we're going to really start prepping up for the draft. I'm starting to get more into it here. I've been doing a little bit of some standard reports, you know, watching a little bit of some of their highlights and stuff. I definitely have a couple of players that I think could be in play here for the Penguins. My good buddy Jason J. underscore A155 has been helping put together a scouting list for me as well to see how it compares.

And we're going to get into that coming up here in the next week or two. But again, Chabar-Reedle season review, that's 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 Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L-1-N-Square penguin. So let's get to Chad Roodle's season review here. If I can just make sure I got the numbers up. And I did full 78 games played almost 1,100 minutes.

There was a hiccup there at 5B5. When he was on ice, the penguin said close to 54% of the shot attempts. 50% of the actual goals score, 56.3% of the expected goals. That is the second best of his career. Scoring chances wise, 54.8%. that's almost as good as where it was last year. High danger-wise, 57% of those chances.

That's one of the best marks for his career. 50% of high-danger actual goals for. I don't think enough people talk about him enough for how good he was this season. Always reliable as a number five, number six defenseman. And, you know, he was ready for this going into the season. I openly wrote about this, you know, when I was doing some work for full press hockey, you know, and one of the topics I wanted to dive into was, you know, the battle between Mark Freeman and Chattar-Reedle, who should win that number one spot?

And, you know, in my view, it was a slam dunk that Boreadle should win, especially with how his underlines were coming into this year, you know, plus 50% in shot attempts, plus 50% in scoring chances, high danger chances, you know, defensively, you know, expected goals against first 60, one of the best, you know, numbers on the team, I believe the top three among all penguins, defensemen, high danger chances against. He was not on the ice for a lot of those either. you know, he was just a rock. And the fact that the penguins are only paying him,

not even a million, to have those great numbers, it's a miracle in my eye. He was so freaking good this year. And, you know, he was a perfect compliment to him like Mathis, because you all know, Matheson is a total chaos player. He, you know, great offensively, defensively,

he'll have his screw-ups, all that jazz. but, you know, Rueel, you know, he was always covering up for his mistakes when he would make them. And, you know, he was just that steady partner that I think Matheson has been missing in his screen. That's why that pairing just worked so good together. And, you know, sure, Ruehiel didn't bring a lot of offense, you know, or counting stats to the table-wise. But, you know, he still scored a few timely goals and the team needed him to. I mean, he was getting a lot better at jumping into the rushes a lot more this season. You know, there was probably, you know, two to four goals where, you know, he came down for.

from the blue line. No one really saw him. And he was able to bury the puck, you know, from 10 to 15 feet out. I think the biggest one that I remember was when the Penguins, they were down 4-2 to the Flyers, and that was Cindy Crosby's 500th goal. And the Penguins, they make it 4-3. 30 seconds later where Roodle comes down that pointed spot from the point, 10-15 feet out, buries the tying goal. That was, I think, actually his first goal of the season. Penguins then win the game in overtime five to four and it was just like wow you know if he can continue to do that i mean then it opens up you know more opportunities here for him to be good in the offensive zone but you know he was always good at the breakout carrying the puck up the ice defensively in his own zone was never really pinned

in there did not really make a lot of mistakes he's always been a very serviceable player um i remember you know i had joshioi on here and you know i think when jacques martin was one of the assistant coaches, he always raved about Rue. He'll say, you know, it's a shame that this guy's not in the lineup all the time. You know, you guys don't know what you're missing when, even though he's being scratched. And, you know, I think we can all see that now, especially with how he played in these 78 games during the regular season. I mean, he was absolutely spectacular for this team, one of their best defensemen this

year. And, you know, it's fine that he's doing this in a bottom pairing role. Could he play on the second pairing? Sure. Is he a top pairing guy? Absolutely not. played in all seven playoff games this year. You know, got a little bit, you know, hemmed in,

42% of the shot attempts for the penguins. But, you know, four goals for, two goals against, you know, that's a very good number. 50% of the expected goals, scoring chances-wise, only 46% of those, 52% of the high-danger chances and only when he was, he was on the ice for one high-danger goal again. So it mixed bag there, but still, you know,

most of those numbers, I would say the majority of those numbers are better, you know, than the other. others. I really cannot say enough good things about this player. I would give him a solid A-minus the season. Honestly, I'll probably give him an A. I expect him to contribute yet again for this team next season. I expect him to put up similar numbers to the ones I discussed earlier on in the show. He's going to be a serviceable player for years to come. And if he continues to sign those cheap contracts, the Penguins will continue to have a bargain on their third pairing. Because you know, those are the kind of moves. That championship team.

need to make, especially when they spend up to the salary cap year after year after year, you have to find your depth guys for cheap and they have to, you know, be at least serviceable and Riedel was at least all that and more. Can't be thrilled, can't be more thrilled, excuse me, with the season that you had. So that will do it for Tuesday's episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast of another episode for you all on Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday of this week. We're getting close to the end of the regular season, three weeks of the way, total free agency, only a couple weeks away from the draft.

We're still pumping our cons in here. You know, keep it right here on Lockdown Penguins. I got everything about this team coming for you throughout the off season. Before you know, it's going to be opening night. And I hope to see some of you all there in Pittsburgh next year. I will 100% be there for a game to hopefully meet a few of you all. And maybe I'll buy you all a drink and something like that. But again, thank you all so much for listening.

I really appreciate it. And you can follow me on Twitter, Hunter Hodes, follow the shows, where I lower us for penguins. And until next time, I'll talk to you all soon.