Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Could Sid be back sooner rather than later?

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Sidney Crosby is back skating but it's in an even better way now. He has 2 hands on his stick and he's shooting the puck soooooooo what gives? Hunter explains when he sees him start practicing with the team, plus when he'll likely make his regular-season debut. He also goes over what line combinations you'll see in the preseason game against Detroit and who will have to stand out to get a roster spot. Is this Brian Boyle's last chance? Hunter then goes over what Mike Sullivan said to the media on Thursday as the last preseason game will be a dress rehearsal. Is that the right move? Should the team instead be resting players? All that, plus some thoughts on Team USA and ESPN's new intermission show idea, 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. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this Thursday afternoon episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes and follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O. underscore Penguins.

And, of course, thanks for making the Locked-on Penguins podcast, your first lesson. And every day, as always, the podcast is free and available on all platforms, Spotify, Apple, Megaphone, soon to be YouTube. I was going to announce that pretty soon. Whenever that gets officially confirmed, I will tell you all, but the show will be on YouTube here fairly soon. As you all can tell, I'm not doing a recap evening episode. I think I'm just going to save that for tomorrow. I just have some stuff going on this evening, other content that I have to put out for tomorrow, and I feel like I would just, I would be doing a disservice if I just forgot to post an episode after.

So I'm going to have an episode posted before the game, as I am doing right now. In case anyone forgot, the Penguins will be in action tonight at Little Caesar's Arena, playing the Detroit Red Wings with basically all of the AHL and prospects in this lineup. Though I did want to say, after I talked about yesterday with the preseason finale against Columbus on Saturday, I predicted that this would be mainly just the AHL and the prospect guys. like I am wrong because Mike Sullivan announced earlier today that he will be playing almost all of his regulars that will be on the 23 main roster in this game. I guess it's just a tune-up to the regular season. If you all heard my episode on Wednesday, I very much disagree with that notion. I really

don't think there's any reason to play all these regulars and run the risk of them, excuse me, getting hurt. I mean, I know this player on New York is, he's going to be a regular, but he's just a bottom six player. You know, Ryan Reeves. potentially had a really serious injury last night with them, you know, quitting byfield, just suffered a fractured ankle. I think he's going to be out for the first two months or maybe more of the season. I just don't want to run the risk of that happening with a player on this team, especially with Chris a Tang.

He just had 29 minutes in the last preseason game going into this game. So I really hope he doesn't play anywhere close to that because I don't need him to be gassed already going into the regular season, despite how great his conditioning is. I just really don't see the need to play, you know, Jeff Carter, Brian Rust, Kisbury Caputin, Danton, Danton Heinen, Teddy Bluger, Brock McGinn, Brian Dumlin, John Marino, all these regulars so many minutes in this game. I really don't think it serves them too much. They'll be ready to go by the time this team kicks off the regular season in five days' time.

So I really think they should just use that to play more of the kids and the prospects and see what you have in them. and then I guess make your final cuts. If I'm guessing right now with what Mike Sullivan said today, I think you'll see a lot of the cuts tomorrow before that last preseason game because I don't really think that they're just going to want to have them there watching the last preseason game

and then just announce everything after. You know, with five days ago, I think they'll just rip the band-aid off on Friday and make a bunch of cuts. And then on Saturday, they'll have their regular season tune-up game against the Columbus Blue Jackets with almost everyone that's going to make.

the initial 23-man roster. Again, it's definitely something I didn't expect, but I guess we always have to expect the unexpected when it comes to Mike Sullivan. Some other Penguins news from Thursday, Louis Dominique has been placed on waivers. Remember everyone, waivers is different this year. It's no longer at noon Eastern.

It is at 2 o'clock Eastern time that they are announced every day. That is a change from all the prior seasons going into this one. So, Donalink, as expected, will be sent down to Wilkesbury, Casey de Smith, and Tristan Jari, will be your top two

goaltenders for this season in case somehow anyone was not expecting that. I mean, they doubled and tripled down on that after the regular season, especially with hiring, excuse me, Andy Kyoto to up their game a little bit. And it's also great news that we saw Sydney Crosby, not just skating today, but he was taking some shots at a little skating session

shooting on Louis Dominique, has two hands on that stick. So he's definitely getting there. You know, it definitely looks like that the wrist is not as bad as it was even just a week ago. So will Cindy Crosby be back to practice next week? My gut is saying yes right now, though, again, I don't expect him to play on Tuesday against Tampa or in their matchup against Florida towards the weekend,

though potentially after that I could see Cid making his return either that weekend or the following week. That's what my thinking is right now. But I think he will definitely be practicing next week in some capacity with the team. Not sure it's going to be full contact yet, but the fact that he's already should. Shooting on a goalie, two hands on the stick shows that he is much more closer to returning than some may have thought that he was going to be. I know I've seen some reports that it was going to be late October for Sade, but from what he's been doing right now, I definitely think that it's going to be at least a week or a week and a half prior to late October for when Sid will be back.

I also wanted to say this before we do get some more penguin stuff. Thinking of Cary Price after we saw today what happened with him going into the player assistance program as announced. by the NHL and NHLPA. I really hope whatever he is going through. He just gets past it and he gets back to doing what we all know he's best at. That has always in times like these, your mental health and whatever you are doing with comes first. So I really wish him a speedy recovery in all aspects with that

because when he is on, there's not many goalies in this league that can do what he does. So I'm really thinking of him and his family during this difficult time. Mark I version announced that it's going to be, at least 30 days that he'll be away from the team. So the Habs won't have him for at least into November, if not longer, for this season. But again, you know, that's not the number one priority right now. The number one priority is for him to get right, and I'm really hoping that he does.

So I wanted to send that message out to Carrie Price and all of the Habs fans out there, too. And for more on that situation, you can go listen to Scott and Laura of the Lockdown Canadians podcast. They do a great job over there covering what, you know, is always a chaotic team, not just during the off-season, but during the season as well. But now, in terms of lines that you are going to see tonight for this game, Drew O'Connor is with Brian Boyle and Anthony Angelo, Dominic Simone is with Radim Zohorhornah and Valetary Pusin.

Philip Hollander with John Rudin and Casper Borghuis, Sam Poulin with Nathan Liguri and Sam Lafferty. Matheson Roodle on defense. Joseph Ricola, Al-Mari is rotating in this well, with Fadun as well. I don't really see, I guess Al-Mari and Fadun are going to be the other pairing, but at least I got the Joseph Riekela pairing right. Matheson Rweedle. I believe I got that one right as well when I was speaking about that on Wednesday's episode.

So I'll take two out of two with that, and then the other one, you know, I don't really know. I'm not really going to be paying attention too much at that pairing, but I'm glad that they're giving Drew O'Connor top pairing minutes for this game. He's definitely deserved it. He should be playing with the best of the best in this lineup. Brian Boyle, this will be another really curious case. I mean, it's unknown if he's going to play in their preseason finale against Columbus on Saturday. But, you know, this might be his last chance to show the coaching stat that he deserves to be on this team,

at least at the start of the season, because, again, when this team is healthy, I really don't think he has a spot on this team. I really think he just skates in mud whenever he plays. You can really tell that he doesn't have it anymore. And, you know, that sucks to say, obviously, because, you know, he's battled cancer and had to miss all of last season. But just, you know, by watching him skate and watching him play and, all areas of the ice. I just really don't think that he has anything left in the tank. But, you know, we'll see if he proves me wrong tonight as, you know, Drew O'Connor has the last

couple of games. Anthony Angelo on the top line, I definitely think that's kind of weird. I would have personally had one of Poulin or Nathan Legerri up there to see what they can do, playing with O'Connor. Again, Dominic Simone with Pustinen. You know, I'm excited to see that line. Those are two good playmakers, especially with Simone and then Zohorna. He's also fighting to get on to the 23-man roster as well. Hollander, Gruden, and Borkwist.

You know, that's just probably going to be an AHL line down on Wilkesbury, but also really intrigued to see how Hollander is tonight after I thought he had a good showing the previous preseason game against the Buffalo Sabres, especially when he had that screen on one of Drew O'Connor's goals. Matheson Roolittle, that's probably going to be a preview of the third pairing this year, though they are giving a lot of thought to Matheson-Marino. And, you know, as Danny Shirey writes of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports now, It's definitely an intriguing pairing, but it's also scary just because you look at the results from last season.

This comes from Danny's article. Matheson with Marino on the ice, they played 245 minutes together at EvenStraint. 48% actual goals on the ice. Expected goals for though per 602, expected goals against 2.4. So they were giving up more the other way in the offensive zone, if that makes sense. But then, you know, if you go to more data, Matheson without Marino, which I think should be the case, 505 minutes for him last year with Cody Cici or other partners. 57.5% of the actual goals when he's on the ice.

Expected goals 4 per 62.2, expected goals for per 62. So he had more expected goals for in the offensive zone than what he gave back in the defensive zone. I think that should be the case. And I also don't fault them for trying this pairing again. I just think that they need to tread very carefully because the underlying numbers paint a very scary picture with this pairing after all the minutes that they spent together last season. And I'm not going to give the rest of Danny's article away, excuse me, go to D.K. Pittsburgh Sports and check out all of his thoughts on that situation.

But, you know, I share the same sentiment. I think Matheson should be away from him. And, you know, we'll get to see how that pairing does, you know, him and Ruiedel tonight. Because if that's the one that really stands out, I think Mike Sullivan is going to have a hard time breaking that one up, you know, while riding the top four of Dumlin-Littang Pedersen-Marino, because I think that's where the balance needs to be with this defense.

At least in my opinion, and yes, we'll get another shot at seeing Pio Joseph with Yuso, Rikala as well. Weakul will be paired on his offside on that one. Special teams units. The first power play, Mike Matheson with Pustinen, Simone, O'Connor, and Angelo. Love that O'Connor is getting top powerplay time. We'll really be curious to see when the pens do get a powerplay tonight, how he moves the puck on that unit.

Second power play unit, Pio Joseph, Yusel, Sanpulan, Radim Zohorna and Nathan Ligari. So both units are fine. I would probably prefer Anthony Angelo on the second unit and maybe put someone like Poulin or Ligari on the top unit because they are both pure finishers. But at the end of the day, it is a preseason game. I'm not really reading too much into it

when all of the AHA guys and prospects are playing in it. But that'll do it for this segment of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Coming up the next one, I'm going to go over some thoughts on what Team USA did today with announcing their first three players on the team and why it's just, you know, they're already off to a bad start. We're also going to go over.

Some comments that I saw from the ESPN's media call about how they're going to try to grow the game on their intermission reports in the studio show and why I think that's just kind of not really the way to go about it and a whole bunch of other stuff. Before we do that, though, I do want to tell you all that Bet Online is back and better than ever. All eyes are on the Gridiron and his teams are back

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brands. Just download the app and use promo code hockey to get up to you 50 cents a gallon cashback on your first tank. All right. So we're back here on this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodeys. We're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hode. all the shows to her at L.O. underscore Pangons. And again, thank you all so much for making this episode, your first listen of the day wherever you get podcasts. So there was some interesting stuff. I'm going to start with ESPN stuff because I really don't understand this.

So ESPN held their conference call with Chris Chelyos and Mark Messier. They will be on their studio team going up against Wayne Gretzky and Rick Tocke. One of the things that Steve Levy said, I think he's going to be hosting the show and doing a lot of play-by-play. Levy says he would love to smash the format. that NBC used by breaking down fewer run-of-the-mill plays and sharing more stories from Chelyos and Messier and Melrose, we want to have a good time. Okay.

I really don't understand that. You know, as Jayfresh says, I have this exact take. I don't know why you would not want to attract new fans. Good analysis from likable and interesting people that are in your studio, but you're going to try to attract new fans by having people tell stories from 30 to 35 years ago or even, you know, 2025 from people that they've never even heard of because most of these intermission shows, they're not geared towards all these, you know, 50 to 60 year old boomers, right? They're not even probably geared towards all these four-year-olds, you know, who grew up

watching Mario and Wayne and all these other great players in the 90s. No, they are geared towards people, you know, kind of in, you know, my age, you know, 23, 24, upwards of 25 through 28, maybe to 30. I think that's probably your target audience for these shows. I really don't think most of these people are going to care what happened in the back in the 90s when everyone was just headhunting. And obviously you had the 1999 devils with all their trapping and stuff. I really don't think people are going to care about these stories.

I would much rather have analysts break down some key plays and explain why this happened as opposed to just telling dumb stories for the sake of telling stories. Because I think much like NBC's intermission, people are going to mute it or turn it off and then only come back to the game when the game is on. I think they should try to do what TNT did last week when they, they made their preseason debut, you know, when Rick Tock, it was demonstrating just funny stuff when he was just getting crushed at what he would do. See, that stuff is funny, I think.

You know, that engages the listener. It makes them laugh and all that. It helps the game by also breaking down what went wrong with a goal or what went right for a play during a game. And I feel like ESPN is doing a little disservice to themselves by saying that they're just going to tell all these stories and go off-brained bit by not breaking down plays during the game that we are all watching again. I don't need one of these or both of these media outlets

to show highlights of the game we are watching. That was the biggest thing I think I hated about NBC when they were on their run of the rights deal with the NHL because whenever we would just go back to intermission, it would just be, oh, let's take a look at what just happened. It's like, we all just watched what happened. Why don't you tell us why this happened? And they would never have someone go to a screen

and actually show us what. happened with the play. I know Chris Chelyo said after, we want to have a lot of fun. That's the key. Everyone has to have fun and have the viewers enjoy watching us. And that's fine. Everyone wants you all to have fun, but we also want to learn more about the game from some of the greatest players to ever play the game. We don't need to just hear stories about what happened in the 1980s and the 1990s because that is irrelevant to where the game of hockey is right now. I mean, you don't see people headhunting every shift. You don't see all these one-nothing, two-one games on a nightly basis. The scoring is way up from some of those days.

There's so much more talent in the league now than there was back in those days. And, you know, you should be talking about that and showcasing that rather than just telling stories. You know, Chelyos also said to see, leave, you've got your hands full. I'll tell you that with me and Messier. Okay, you know, whatever. Let's just hope that they both know what the hell they're talking about when it comes to the game of hockey in 2021. Because from what I saw from Mark Messier earlier in the summer when he was talking about the Rangers with all the moves that they, made. I'm not really sure he gets it because he was just loving the Ryan Reeves acquisition and

Sammy Blaze and Barclay Goodrow and all this stuff. So he's definitely someone that still loves Sam Paper in his team. So I can't wait to hopefully hear him defend all these little bottom six grinders who take stupid penalties on the top guys. And honestly, this is the perfect timing to say this. I just got this text from Nick Zeraris, who is a guest on the podcast. I'm actually going to have him on here probably at some point pretty soon. He sent me that tweet that I have been talking about on the show as I record this. He goes, this is going to be a Walmart inside the NBA, isn't it? And I'm like, that is a great comparison. You know, they were talking about that on that conference call. I saw this series of tweets from one of the NHL reporters, how they want it to be just like

inside the NBA, which is the gold standard for a studio intermission or halftime show. The only thing is it's not going to be anything close to that because no one is going to care about these stories from 25 to 30 years ago. Everyone wants it to be fun, but not in that way, fun. wanted to share my thoughts on that. It is nice that, you know, the people that ESPN said they don't really see it as a competition with TNT, they see it as partners. So it looks like they will be working together a bit with some of their studio shows, even though, I mean, deep down, it is a competition. You know, one hired Mark Messier for their studio show, the other one hired Wayne Frickin Gretzky. So they can say that they see it as a partnership all they want. It is definitely

a competition deep down. They're just not going to say as such. But I just wanted to share my thoughts on that because I really think ESPN has an opportunity here to have a really good studio show but if you're just going to waste on stuff that no one's really going to care about I don't think anyone is going to take the time to watch it just like everyone either muted or turned off the intermission with NBC and then only came back to when the game started so we will see on that from coming up in the next segment I'm going to go over some thoughts on team USA today and why they could be going backwards with a couple of these announcements well really only one major announcement. But before we do get to that, you can save time and money when using Rock Auto.

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Ride below prices, all the parts of car, we're ever in need. Visit rock auto.com. All right, welcome back 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's Twitter at L-O-1score Penguins. So a lot of the IHF had the official announcements today for the top three players that are on each country.

hockey rosters for the Winter Olympics. It's, you know, the general manager picks the top of you that are 100% going to be on the team. Team USA's was announced today. You know, Austin Matthews, okay, you know, there's that gift where, you know, I think it's that wrestling meme where, you know, his eyebrow raises. It's like, okay, you know, that's good. You know, Patrick Kane, it's like, okay, his mouth starts to open and then, you know, his eyebrows raise even more.

And then you get to Seth Jones, and then he just gasped and then just falls back. I assure everyone that listens to this knows what meme I am talking about is all over Twitter. I think it's like a series of memes or something like that. But yes, Patrick Kane, Austin Matthews, and Seth Jones have been selected to Team USA's hockey roster as the first three players. And, you know, the first two, that's fine. Kane and Matthews are two of the best players in the league. I have no problem with that.

But, I mean, Seth Jones over Adam Fox, who just won the Norris Trophy, Charlie McAvoy, who's one of the premier defensemen in hockey, heck, Jeff Petrie, Ryan McDonough, Jacob Slavin. I mean, it's just, I don't trust Stan Bowman. to build this team the way it needs to be built just because he's such a dinosaur. But I should have also known that this was coming because he just paid Seth Jones 9.5 million per year on one of the biggest overpays of the offseason and also gave up a whole lot to get him. But it's still hilarious to see him be picked as the top defenseman. And you know damn well, peeps, that he will be playing either top pairing or second pairing minutes

on this team without a doubt. That's just the way it's going to go. even though I could probably name at least eight defensemen better than Seth Jones. I mean, you know, a couple of my buddies were texting me this morning and say, well, you probably can't do that. I'm like, well, I mean, it's pretty easy. Again, Charlie McAvoy, Adam Fox, Jacob Slavin, Jeff Petrie, John Carlson, Quinn Hughes, Zach Wrenski, Brett Pesci, and I would probably put Ryan McDonough up there as well.

I would take all of those defensemen. Heck, you can honestly have a case for Brian Dumlin being a better choice for team USA than Seth Jones at this point. I think if Jones plays on the USA, it should be only third pairing minutes. But again, I really hope that they don't bungle this roster the way that the last regime did with the Royal Cup of hockey, where you're seeing just an abdilcator playing third line minutes. Jack and Eric Johnson were on the team for some apparent reason. They put Brandon Dubinsky on there to try to do this grit in toughness garbage, and then they just still got blown out by Canada. It almost got me to, I think, to a point where I was hate watching them because it was so

bad to watch. I really did not understand it. I'm really hoping that Stan Bowman does not make the same mistakes, but, you know, what we saw today was Seth Jones. He is well on his way to doing that. He is honestly a bad GM at this point. I also have to say, go read Josh Yoey's article on Mike Sullivan and on the Athletic. I think that posted this morning where he had a really great interview with him and just they touched on a whole lot. And I think the fact of the matter is, you know, Sullivan still believes in this team. I mean, he's not going to say that he wouldn't do that. You know, he is the head coach of the team. He's going to hype them up as much as he can, but he keeps saying they can still contend. The biggest reason he says it's about the core. He says in the article,

this is the greatest core I've ever been around. I know these guys. I know how driven they are. I know how about their commitment level and how badly they want to get it done to win a fourth championship. I just have faith in this team because I have so much faith in that group of guys. I absolutely know that we can still contend. This was, I think, the one I'm about to talk about before we do end the show, was about the latest playoff series because the Penguins have been 5 and 15 ever since that playoff series lost to the Washington Capitals in 2018, excuse me. Sullivan says, I take these losses very hard.

I take it personally. This past year really stung. It stung a lot, to be honest with you, more than anything. I felt bad for these players. Every year is different, the journey from start to finish. We had to deal with so much adversity with the injuries and with COVID. We won the division. But to see it come together, then losing the first round, it was just very disappointing.

I take nothing away from New York. That's a great hockey team. But yes, that one stung a little more. So I'll be curious to see what changes he makes, you know, with some tactics or other things going into the season. But I will always say that Mike Sullivan is a top five coach in hockey and is arguably the greatest coach in this franchise's history. I think with one more run, he will cement himself as the greatest coach in this franchise history above Badger Bob. But again, check out a full article on The Athletic when Josh does a sit down with, head coach Mike Sullivan. That'll do it though for this episode of the lockdown Penguins podcast.

I appreciate all of you listening to this one. We'll have another one of these tomorrow going into the weekend as we'll recap the Penguins preseason game against the Detroit Wed Wing. See who played well. See who didn't play well. See if there's some cuts yet. And then after that we are rocking and rolling next week, everyone. The regular season for the Pittsburgh Penguins starts in just five freaking days. I am so excited to be doing this on an everyday basis again. so keep those notifications on. You can find the show wherever you get podcasts. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow those shows Twitter at Lola underscore Penguins. And we'll also have Jesse Marshall on the show on Monday as well for a full preview for this season.

But again, thank you all so much for listening to this one, and we'll do another one of these on Friday.