Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Could the Penguins look to move Marino if Letang comes back?

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

There is always fun stuff to talk about during the offseason and Hunter starts the show off by touching on the latest trade rumor surrounding John Marino. Frank Seravalli put him on his "trade bait" board for the offseason as it sounds like teams may come calling again for the defenseman this offseason. Does it make sense for the Penguins to move him? What would have to happen beforehand so that a move makes sense? What are the cons to moving him? Hunter answers all of those questions before diving into what a return could look like. He touches on how his value around the league could be higher than what some fans think because certain teams value players differently. Following that, he discusses a potential forward that the Penguins could go and get: Jesse Puljujarvi. Ken Holland is said to be open to making some trades this season and Hunter proposes one that could make sense for both sides. He also goes into the pros and cons for the move (though most of it centers around why it makes sense). Finally, Hunter reviews Tristan Jarry's season and what fans should expect from him heading into 2022-23.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.Athletic GreensAthletic 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, we're basically just about at the end of another full week for this podcast. Happy 6-9 day to all those who celebrate. I'm pretty sure everyone that listens to this podcast knows what that means. It is a nice date, as everyone says. Anyways, for today's show, we're going to get into an interesting article from Frank Zaravelli today that involves John Marino. We're also going to get into a player who I think the Penguins could make a play for over the all season, not a free agent, but someone that they could get via a trade. And then we might also start, we'll continue with into the season reviews with getting into either the goalies or defense.

But I think I might do Tristan Jari for the final segment. So that's all coming up 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 Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. We're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

Follow the show's Twitter at Eleanorstall Penguins, of course. Thank you all so much for making this year first listen of the day. So let's get right into it. So Frank Zovelli dropped his first big article for the offseason for most of the teams, because there's only three teams left playing right now. And it's his trade-bate article, trade targets. He listed his top 25 for the all-season right now. Alex Debrinket leads us off.

Then Kevin Fiala, Jacob Chikrin, J.T. Miller, devil's number two overall pick. Tony DeAngelo, John Gibbs, and Tyson, Barry, Pavel Zaka, Philip Myers, Jeff Petrie. And for the Penguins, he has John Marino. And he has the scoop for it. And he says, the Penguins received a few calls on Marino ahead of the trade deadline remain focused and committed on their playoff push. The truth is, though,

Marino is not Pittsburgh's preferred choice to move on their back end. That would be Marcus Pedersen, but no team seems willing to take on Pedersen's three more years at just over $4 million, while there are teams interested in Reno and the Penguins have a real need to move money if they're going to run it back with Chris Santang of Gagney, Malkin, Brian Rust, next to Sidney Crosby.

I wish I could say I was surprised that Marino is on this, but I will say this for you all. I would think the only way Marino gets moved is if LaTang does come back because they will have that luxury to, you know, dangle him for, you know, maybe a top nine forward. I don't know, I don't think you're going to get a top line, like a first line for him,

but, you know, maybe someone that can play on your second line, play on your third line. I mean, you know, there's all the rumors with Connor Garland in Vancouver and, you know, Brock Besser at the time before, you know, everyone knew that he had his $7.5 million salary, which would have made things very complicated, I think. for the penguins. But again, you know, I think teams are going to come calling on the Reno.

He had a really good playoff run up until that mistake in game seven against the Rangers where he copped the puck away. Tamika Zabinajad, I've talked about that playing numerous times on the show. He has to either, you know, trap a puck along the boards or just send it around. You can't put that puck on a silver platter to one of the Rangers' best goal scores, to say the least. And, you know, the Penguins, they made the right move at the deadline. You know, if they kept Marino, you know, if he gets moved, you know, your right side then looks like Crystal Tang, Chad Ruehiel, and, you know, potentially Mark Friam, but usually he plays on his

offside. So, no, I don't really know if he would play on his usual side. Maybe he would. Maybe he wouldn't have, maybe he wouldn't. But, you know, he was also playing better down the stretch with Marcus Pedersen. And, you know, that turned out to be one of their best pairings in the playoffs that, you know, they were shutting down any line. that the readers were throwing at them until obviously, you know, Pedersen has helmet had his helmet

knocked off and all of that. So again, I really only see this happening if Latang does come back. If he doesn't and the Penguins do out and maybe sign someone, then I could, you know, I could still see them moving on from Reno and getting a decent return back form because, you know, as Frank says you, you know, the contract five more years at 4.4 million. If, if you're not getting a lot of offense from that kind of player, it's, you're up a creek a little bit. You know, I, I always thought the world of his defensive ability, his zone entries per 60, his zone exits per 60, especially are some of the best on the team. But, you know, last season, you know, offensively, you know, one goal, excuse me, 25 points, 81 games, but, you know, that goal came all the way back

at the beginning of the season. You know, it's hard to believe that he only scored once last year, considering that he's had, you know, a lot more than that with his career. You know, I think he was not trying to take too many chances in the offensive zone. I think he just wanted to, you know, focus on playing defense. But, you know, that's also what Marcus Pedersen does. But he turned into Paul Coffey a little bit down the stretch and was looking like the offensive juggernaut on that pairing with when in reality, you know, it should be Marino. I think that's turning in, that turns into, you know, while we saw from Pedersen

in the offensive zone down the stretch. right now, as I'm looking at it, I don't think he will get traded, but nothing will truly surprise me just because, you know, this team is in a salary cap crunch, excuse me, as they basically are every single year under this core. You know, I know the Fenway Sports Group wants to spend their money, rightfully so they still have a prime Sidney Crosby. Jake Gensel is still Jake Gensel.

You've got to figure out what you're doing with your free agents. But as long as you have Sid playing at this level, and as long as you have a 40 goal score in Jake and you have a goalie that can give you at least a 9-20 or better season, they're going to try their very best to win. And, you know, I do think Marino is valued around the league, I think especially for someone who's so young, like him, his contract. While it's not great, I could see teams, you know, seeing it and being like, okay, you know, this is still good value for someone who's really good in his own zone.

Maybe it doesn't, you know, give you as much offense as their defenseman could. But, you know, maybe a team thinks that they could unlock that potential in him. You know, teams evaluate players differently from other teams. I would have to think that Penguins could get pretty good value back again. I would think a top nine forward, you know, and maybe a draft pick. You're probably not going to get any more than that. You know, I think you could easily get way more than a bottom six forward back for someone like Marino. So we wanted to kick off the podcast.

I'm touching on that topic today. you know it's now that we're almost to the full offseason with the Stanley Cup final coming up you're going to see a lot of silly season rumors and all this stuff I think um my friend Danny on Penguins Twitter tagged me in what Chris Johnson said today on his radio show he said as of right now he probably would not think what Tang or Malkin is coming back you know my thoughts on that I'll show that here to end the segment even though I just basically touched on the whole marino thing um still early you know we still got to July 13th. That's when free agency opens. They still have right now, 34 days. You know,

you have about five weeks to get a deal done. It's not crunch time yet, but it's getting pretty close, to say the least. So again, I'm not super worried right now, but if things keep progressing like this and I keep hearing the same things from other insiders and all that, I'm definitely going to start to get a little concerned. You know, I have it on the back of my mind right now. That's for sure. I try not to think about it too much, but, you know, let's see what the coming weeks bring. You know, all it takes people, all it takes is a simple phone call from one of the two sides that gets things moving, and then you see an insider tweet out, you know, hearing, oh, the penguins in beginning mall can really close to an extension,

they'll keep him here for the rest of his career. Hearing the penguins in Crystal Tang are very close to an extension that's going to keep him here for the rest of his career as well. You know, that can happen literally at any time of the day. So my best advice for you all, don't think too much on it, but I would have the notifications on for the top insiders, that's for sure, and the Penguin's Twitter account, to say the least. So that'll do it for this segment of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Coming up in the second segment, I'm going to have, I'm going to talk about that player that I could see the Penguins making a move for. And it's a player on a team that just got eliminated. So I'm sure you can probably figure out at least the team while you're listening to the commercial break here, but maybe not the player.

So I'm going to get to that right after this. But before we touch on that, our next partner has a product. I use literally every single day, and that's athletic greens. I started using athletic greens because, you know, I sometimes didn't have time during the day to go to work out. I wanted more energy. I wanted to optimize my immune system. I usually like taking a lot of vitamins during my day. I also wanted to see what the hype was about because I kept seeing a lot of it on social media.

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Again, that is at Athletic Greens.com, social network to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hoadies. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L.O. Earnscore Penguins. So you may have guessed the team, and yes, it is the Edmonton Oilers,

but what about the player here who I think the Penguins could go after? What would you all think of maybe Jesse Pull Yarvey in a penguin uniform next year? I've seen that floated around a little bit on the socials and I think on some sports talk radio as well. So I wanted to do some of my own research, looking to how he played with the Oilers this year and all that. You know, played 65 games, 14 goals, 36 points in those games. That's the best in his career. So far, he's also only 24 years old before this season.

His best year was 15 points, 15 goals, 25 points in 55 games last year when he played basically the entire season. This is a player that, you know, he's kind of been in Edmonton's doghouse for, you know, basically his entire Euler's career. And I think he could definitely use a fresh start. played well in the playoffs, but we'll get to the regular season here. Again, 65 games was on the ice for 5th. When he was on the ice, the Oilers had 58% of the shot attempts. That's a career high for him.

Also, 64% of the actual goals. He was only on the ice for 28 goals against this season, 5E5. That is absolutely crazy. 51 goals for his expected goals percentage, 59.7%. That is a career high for him. 56% of the scoring chance for the Oilers when he was on the ice, 58% of the high danger chances, 31 goals for 12 high danger goals against.

That comes out to 72% high danger goals for, and only shot 8.2% this year. He was an absolute menace in the offensive zone. His defensive metrics were also really solid. This is a player that I think could definitely be had, especially because Ken Holland is not good at what he does. I will always say this. I don't know if I said I've had this saying on the podcast a lot,

but I've said it to myself a whole lot. If you were an initial general manager, or at least a good one, all you're going to do is target the bad ones and see if you can make a trade. And I definitely feel like someone like Ken Holland can be had with Jesse Pooeyer, the Oilers. They're not going to stay in pack only into next season.

They know what happened when they got swept by the Colorado Avalanche. They played well against the Calgary Flames and the Los Angeles Kings. but that kind of sweep is not going to slide up in Edmonton. And honestly, you know, I would offer, you know, quite a bit for Pollyarvey, you know, definitely something like Kisbury Kappan, even though I'm higher on POJ than most, I think I would offer him in that package with Kappen and potentially a draft pick. I've seen people say they would offer a first-rout pick.

Now, I would maybe offer, you know, I know they don't have their second in this year's draft, you know, but if you can offer a second and, you know, maybe next year or something like that or, you know, a third round pick or something like that, along with a roster player like Capenden who, you could also use a change of scenery and a defensive prospect of POJ, who probably should be able to make the Oilers Blue Line next year. And I would be curious to see if Ken Holland would do that deal. Because, you know, I think in some ways, again, it does make sense. You know, he's getting a defensive prospect who, you know, the Oilers Blue Line is absolutely

cheeks. Duncan Keith is not what he once was. Darno Nurse is good, but he makes a little. lot of money. Cody C.C. is fine, but that contract is a lot. Evan Bouchard, you know, he's going to, he's going to be pretty good here, I would say, soon. But, you know, there's just, you know, Brett Cooleck, fine defensive edition of the deadline, but is he going to come back to Edmonton? Who knows? You know, I definitely think POJ could beat out at least a couple of those players on that blue line. Again, you know, moving back. And, you know, as for, again, as for

Caspera and Caputin. I mean, we all know how he struggled this year with putting the puck in the net. You know, maybe Jay Woodcroft, assuming he does sign an extension with Edmonton. And I would think he will because he led them to the conference final. And the Oilers were legit good under him. I mean, their underlying numbers well over 50% in every category, unlike under Dave Tippett, you know, they were below 50%. I mean, he really took over that team and coached them well. It really was not his fault of the team got swept. in more games by the avalanche i mean the abs are just oh excuse me oh my man they're not usually

yondering a podcast um avlans are just you know they're that freaking good so he should be back rightfully so unless the team decides to go after barry trots something like that but you know i could see them you know maybe putting capon in the top six you know could he ride shotgun to connor macdavid you know i i i would have to think just because of how dynamic macdavid is capon would get quite a bit of looks every game. You would have to think that he would bury a decent chunk of those. But, you know, if he does the same thing he did in Pittsburgh and pulls up, button hooks back, looks to pass first,

and doesn't use his blazing speed in his nice shot, then, you know, it could look bad for Evanston. But, you know, I would still take that chance if I were the Penguins and, you know, look into getting Poo-Yarvey. He's a great fit in your top nine can play with basically any of their centers. In my opinion, he's a pure right-winger. or so, you know, that would be honestly a really good record. Raquel replaced because as of right now, I do not expect Raquel to be back next year.

And that's just because, you know, the salary cap situation. And, you know, and if we do dig deeper here into Poo-Yarvys number, 16 total playoff games for the Oilers, 1505 minutes was on the ice, when he was on the ice, the Oilers, I could have 53% of the shot attempts, 500 in goals, so 50% for actual goals, 54% of the scoring chances, 62% of the high danger chances score, and then 75% of the actual high danger goals score had three total points at 5E5 for the Oilers in the playoffs.

So while his counting stats weren't as good as he were in the regular season, his underlines were still really solid. And that's encouraging for me, for someone who is still only 24. You know, these, these are his peak years. You know, once even a player goes, you know, to age 27 or age 28, you know, that's usually when they start going on the decline just a little bit. You know, you can still get really good years out of them, but they're not going to be as good, you know, as, you know, as they are in 24 and, you know, 22, 23 or even 25 and 26.

You know, I will always say, you know, those years, 22 to 26, those are your peak years in the NHL. After that, you're probably, it's, your stats aren't going to be as good, unless you're just a generational talent. Like Sidney, Crosby, Alex Ovech, Gade, Connor McDavid, Alston Matthews, all those kind of guys. So it would be fun. You know, I'll be curious to see if Puyarvi is indeed traded. In terms of where he is on Frank Sarajevlli's list, I'm going to go down here and see, yeah, he has him at 15. and Frank says it's a safe bet that one of Pooey RV or Yamoto will not be returning to the Oilers. Both are fan favorites, but both require new deals.

Likely both raises in Ken Holland and knowledge that Edmonton, we have to watch every dollar. He even said, am I willing to trade some assets in a deal that will make us better? Yes, I am. There you go. He's willing to do deals. This is the perfect opportunity for the payments to get younger and faster going into Sydney Crosby's twilight years, especially if they do bring back of Guinea-Malkin and Crystal Tang. These are the kind of moves that can set you, set your,

yourself up to contend again next year if you make other, you know, good changes around the margins of your roster. That is the end of this segment. And, you know, I'm curious to see, again, if the penguins are involved in this. Coming up in the next segment, we're going to touch on Tristan Jari's season review and what to expect from him moving forward. Before I get to that, don't you love a chewy, chocolatey brownie? What about a Camero Brownie with caramel swirl on top?

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All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hon. Hoides. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at Eleanor Squabangans as I'm checking the score of the Rangers, um, lightning game that looks like there is still no score with only a few minutes left in the first

period. And hoping that this is potentially the final game of the year for Madison Square Garden. So let's get to Tristan Jari's season review here. So played in 58 games. The biggest thing for him going in the next year for me, he cannot start that many games again. You know, the time is past where a goalie is starting close to 60 games a year or, you know, even 65 games a year. Heck, even a few years ago, there were goalies that were starting, you know, 68 to 70 games. And that's just, you can't do that.

Even 58 for him, I think, is too much. You can tell that he was worn down towards the end of the year. I'm not going to say, you know, Anders Lee, but it didn't. What's the road trying to say here? I'm not going to say Anders Lee, you know, did it deliberately. I do not think that was dirty at all. But I do think with how Jardy was playing down the stretch, it looked like he was more prone to getting hurt

just because of how, you know, he was looking gassed to say at least. He put up great numbers for the first half of the season and honestly the first two-thirds because he was playing really freaking good and he was actually, you know, getting decent rest. But, you know, all those starts and, you know, all the starts in the second half of the season. And I cannot speak right now. All right.

Okay. Anyways, you know, by the time the end of the regular season came, after Jari got all of those starts in the first half, when Casey DeSmith was playing really bad, you could tell that he was gassed. There we go. That was what I was trying to say. I apologize for sounding like a complete and utter buffoon for those last 15 to 20 seconds.

You know, they need to. to get a backup in there that can spell him a little bit and maybe have him start, you know, 50 to maybe 52 games. Heck, even, you know, eight last starts could do the trick. And the other goalie maybe gets 30 to 32 games. I think that would be a totally good thing for him. I mean, you know, when Jari got hurt with that injury, there were still a couple weeks left in the regular season, you know, he easily would have had, you know, 60 to 62 tart.

start something like that. Again, that's, that's too much for today's NHL. If he's at around, you know, 47 to 50, I think that's a better number for him. And, you know, despite him getting hurt at the end of the regular season, you know, still played well in the 58 games, saved almost 13 goals above expected, 9-19 total save percentage at all situations. That's above league average. And the Penguins can win with that level of goal to-tending. He is going into a contract year where if he plays at that level again and there's a chance that the penguins might not be able to afford him he will go out on the open market

and he will make a decent amount of money you know I am of the belief that you probably shouldn't pay a goalie a crap ton of money unless you know what you're going to get from him every year like an ecorsesircicesterkin like an andre vasselowski you know like a conor hella buck you know goalies like that you know those are probably the three main goleys who I would probably only break the bank or maybe Ilya Sorokin, he's going to be probably just as good. Really seeing 2.42 goals against average, expected goals against average of 2.65.

His expected, his save percentage on unblocked shots was 9.55. His expected save percentage on unblocked shots was 950. So, you know, again, he was very good this year. And, you know, again, finished tied for 10th in goals, he'd expected with Sorokin. It's pretty crazy that him and Sorokin were neck for neck this year. And I expect him to be at that level again next year. I think he's going to take what happened to him this season to Hardin.

I know it was kind of a fluke play at the end of a regular season game and garbage time. That's what hurts the most. The game was over. It was what, four to one at that time, four to two, something like four to one, four to two. And there's less than four minutes left in the third period. And, you know, Andersly just bangs into his foot and breaks it. just awful, awful timing, especially with two to two and a half weeks left in the regular season, he was on pace to, you know, half his redemption story.

And I thought he was mainly fine in game seven against the Rangers. I know I've seen the stats where that probably won't tell you that. But, you know, he was also coming. He's also obviously playing at like 50 to 60% health. The penguins were only using him in that game because they had no other choice, too. They were hoping to get through that series with Louis Deming in five games so that he could get that rest that he needed to be.

I'm sure he probably would have played in the second round against the Carolina Hurricanes who ended up being the Boston Bruins. But I thought he was solid. I thought he shut a lot of people up this year and rightfully so. His movement was awesome. He was tracking the puck very well compared to last year was playing a lot more further out compared to 2020, 2021 Andy Kyoto did some great work with him. And I think you're only going to see that continue.

for 2020 to 23. I think he deserves to be the starting gold tender on this team. What happens behind him there? That remains to be seen. I mean, Casey DeSvith, great news on him. He was back on the ice today. And that was basically only a month

since he had the surgery to repair the torn groin that he or whatever it was. I think he said it was his groin or his hip. So the fact that he's already in full equipment back on the ice. That's great news. It remains to be seen that the penguins are going to bring him back. I mean, I'm sure he'll be cheap. as a backup, but, you know, is Ron Hextall willing to bet on this tandem again after what happened

this season? I mean, sure, you don't plan for both of your goaltenders to get hurt. I mean, you can't. I mean, that's just, that's the reality situation. But, you know, is he prepared to bring to Smith back and take the chance that he's really bad in the first half? And then Jari has to start basically every game. And then he looks out he's worn out. It looks like he's worn out in 15 by the end of the year. or, you know, does he go out and sign a veteran backup during the all season? That's going to be, you know, my biggest question. I've been talking about that all offseason at this point. So great job by Tristan Jarre this season.

I basically give his year an A. You know, people can argue for a minus B plus, something like that. But, you know, my opinion, he definitely deserves an A grade. But that'll do it on this episode, fully locked on Penguins podcast. I appreciate all of you listening to this one. I'll go back with another episode on Friday. will continue the season reviews and hopefully get to some more trade targets. And I'm hopefully going to start doing some draft prep.

That is probably the one area of expertise that I do not have. I want to get more involved to do it. I want to dive into some of these prospects that could be in play for the Penguins right at the number 21 overall pick. We're going to try to potentially bring on. So people who are a lot smarter than me with the draft to say it at least, they can at least educate me. You know, I always am down to learn more about young players and that kind of stuff. And I want to hopefully share that experience with you all on this podcast.

So again, thank you all so much for listening. Appreciate everyone that continues to listen to the off season. And we'll be back with one more episode for this week tomorrow on Friday.