Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Happy Trails, Matt Murray

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

Another Pittsburgh Penguins trade was announced today and we finally got the Matt Murray deal as he's been dealt to the Ottawa Senators. The Penguins got a second round pick, plus Jonathan Gruden in the deal and Hunter is here to break it all down. Was this the best the Penguins could've hoped for here? Plus, Hunter also has a message for a portion of Penguins fans who treated Murray badly over his tenure here. After that, Hunter gets into the Penguins second-round selection as they took goaltender Joel Blomqvist. What's the scouting report on him? Was it fine to take a goaltender there and not a forward or defenseman? Finally, Hunter then goes into what's next for the team as free agency draws near and talks about a potential bottom six target.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get $10 off your first order.Door DashRight now, our listeners can get $5 off and zero delivery fees on their first order of $15 or more, when you download the DoorDash app and enter code LOCKEDONNHL.RomanGo to getroman.com/lockedonnhl TODAY. If approved, you’ll get fifteen dollars off your first orderof ED treatment. 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, welcome to this Wednesday afternoon edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O. And we're Penguins. My apologies for no show yesterday. But we are back today and some big news just breaking about 15, 20 minutes ago. The Pesper Penguins have finally traded Matt Murray. He is going to the Ottawa Senators for a second round pick in the draft and a player named Jonathan Gruden.

And I do not know if he's related to Raiders head coach John Gruden. but, you know, maybe just a distant relative or something like that, but probably not. But now that that trade is finally completed, the Penguins can turn their attention to just the actual draft because I really don't think Jim Rutherford is going to make any other trades during this, I mean, unless he's trading up and down with picks. And then, you know, after the draft, they can turn their attention to maybe getting a bargain in free agency since Jim Rutherford has been talking about that the last couple of days. So in this segment, I'm going to give you guys my thoughts on the Matt Murray trade, what I think of it. and then we're going to talk about their second round pick in the next segment because they did, of course,

get a second round pick back in return for it, and then we'll just touch on some other stuff around the week in the last segment. So I was very, very happy that the Penguins were able to get a second round pick for him. It was the further you went along, it was looking like out, they might not be getting a pick at all in this draft. They may have to just keep him until free agency starts because there's just so many goaltenders available. But Pierre Lebrun did say it was really ramping up these trade talks during the last 90 minutes before it was announced because I think Jim Arthur really, really wanted a player in the second round since this draft is so deep.

I'm able to get one of four Ottawa second round picks. They had four second round picks in this year's draft, believe or not. So it's good that they were to get one of them. It's, I think, the 52nd overall selection. They're going to get a good player there. And, you know, I'm going to get my thoughts on that player coming up in the next segment. But overall, you know, this is this really, really good value. We all knew they were looking to get a first round pick.

I know I kept saying all it takes is one team to do it. but, you know, after last night, I mean, you can't get a fresh from taking this year's draft now. I was kind of hoping that Ottawa would give them like the 28th overall pick, but I think that was a little bit of wishful thinking on my part and a lot of other Penguins fans' parts. But now that Murray is gone, he's going to be playing for a while now in Ottawa. And I just want to say, thank you to Matt Murray for providing this team with some of the best playoff goaltending that I have ever seen as a fan of this team.

2016 and 2017, he was an absolute rock, regular. season. Then, of course, in the playoffs was, I think, 937 in 2017. He was closer to 930. Not as good, but still in 2017. He was just even better when coming off his injury. And, you know, the Penguins do not win those two Cups without him. You know, I've been seeing a lot of takes on Twitter today. Well, I wouldn't say a lot, but just some, you know, some people were tweeting. I'm not going to co-out these people. I just don't want to give them a lot of attention. But they're basically saying, oh, hell yeah, best news of 2020. Hell yeah. Thank God. He's gone. We can give the rain to Jari.

And it's like, you people are absolutely freaking miserable. Like, go out and have a drink. Go eat your lunch. Like, you don't need to say something so shitty like that. He was so great for this franchise. And I know he was, it was rough these last couple of years, you know, with his injury. You know, of course, his father passed away, which was very unexpected, it sounds like. And, you know, this guy's just been through a line.

And for Penguins fans who just treat him like absolute shit on his way out and just, honestly through his time here just because he took Mark Andre Fleury's job. It's insulting. It was very, very embarrassing to see you people are better than that. I don't know if any of you those people listen to this podcast. If you do, I'm sorry I'm calling you guys out. But, you know, just be better than that, people. That just goes for everyone that just treated Matt Murray like absolute garbage

got his time here and just said whatever they wanted to say about him. I mean, you can be thankful for the Cups that he helped win this team. and, you know, and also say that we, it's also the right decision to turn the keys to Tristan Jari because he's the cheaper option and Matt Marie is probably going to be getting five to six million per for however the next many years. And you can give him like a nice happy trails or whatever, but you just don't have to be an ass of that and say, oh yeah, like best news of 2020, thank God he's gone just because you're still mad that he took Mark Andre Fleurie's job.

I will never understand these people in this fan base that are still mad that he took Mark Andre Fleury's job. You know what Mark Andre Florey should have done in 2016, 2017? Hey, maybe he should have played better so that Matt Murray didn't take his job. Maybe that's what he should have done. See, people that are just still butt hurt that he took Florey's job, get over it. It's three to four years old. Just stop it already. I'm sorry, I'm getting a little bit heated about this, but I'm just tired of people in this Penguins fan base that have continued to treat Matt Murray like absolute garbage throughout his time here. And, you know, I'm sure Murray knew about it because I'm sure he read this stuff on social media since he does have a Twitter account and an Instagram and all that.

But I just want to say, Matt, you know, from me and I think a lot of other Penguins fans that also listen to this podcast and from Penguins Twitter, thank you so much for your contributions to this team. They do not win those two Stanley Cups without you, those two shutouts in game five and game six of the 2017 Stanley Cup final. That's arguably the best goaltending I've ever seen for as long as I've rooted for this team. I know you, You can look at Game 7 with Mark Andre Fleury in 2009. You can look at Game 7 from 2017 with Mark Andre Fleury, just blanking the Capitals or the Penguins I thought were outplayed that game.

But, you know, when it mattered most, Matt Murray was there. And, you know, that Game 5 in Game 6, he just slammed the door shut on the Predators. I thought Nashville played very, very well in those two games, and he was equally up to the task and just really helped the Penguins win those two cups. So from the bottom of my heart, Matt, if you ever somehow listen to this podcast, which, you know, probably won't.

Thank you so much for your contributions to this team. You are an absolute rock in net. Wish you the best of luck in Ottawa. I know it's probably going to be a bit rough there for those first couple years since, you know, they're rebuilding right now. And honestly, they don't really have a team going into next year. I think they still have only like three forward signed overall. But still, thank you so much, Matt. You were an absolute rock.

And, you know, one thing that I always liked about him is, you know, after losses where he would talk to the media, he would always take ownership for his poor play. Like, yeah, you know, I got to have that. He just never seemed to be happy with his play. And that's a trait that I like in any player for any sport. You know, you're still, like, trying to critique your game. You're still trying to, like, find stuff to improve with your game. And even after he pitched a shot out, he would be like, yeah, you know,

I still got to find ways to do this better. Or, you know, it didn't matter if it was that. And it didn't matter if he gave up four goals on 13 shots, something like that. You know, he would take ownership for it. He would say that he absolutely sucked during the game, and he would work on it to improve going into the next game. So that's just another thing that I really liked. about Matt Murray.

And, you know, I'll just close with this. I just wish he was able to go to a better situation that's not in Ottawa just because Ottawa was just going to be so bad for however many years. I just don't trust Pierre Dorian to get the senators out of, like, the funk that they're in or just this big rebuild that they've undergone. I mean, I don't think they have any players now from that 2017 team that play the penguins on their team now. That's just crazy to think about as is just three years later.

But, you know, those are just my overall thoughts on the trade. Can't wait to see who the penguins are going to get with the second rounder as it's going to be a pretty pretty good player, I would say. But before we do get to our next segment, it is time to talk about writing holiday's book, Live of the Stoics. From the best-selling authors of the Daily Stoic, comes the ultimate Stoicsome guide to success, resilience in virtue to accept what you cannot control and adapt to what you can. If a philosophy sworese seems across the country are successfully adapting, lies with the Stoics, the art of living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius is available now wherever books are sold. And we also cannot forget about Roman talking about erectile dysfunction isn't easy. Usually we just brush it off or blame ourselves saying things like I lost my mojo or we avoid it altogether with excuses like I had a long day at work or sorry honey, I'm just not feeling it. But with Roman, it is easy to talk about with a real healthcare professional who can prescribe real medication.

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One more time, get-Roman.com slash locked-on NHL. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockedon Penguins podcast, and the Penguins just made their pick in the second round. They did get a goalie, so that was definitely a bit of a surprise. I thought they would definitely go forward to defense. Benzman, but Joel Blumquist, I have no idea who that is. Apparently, I've been, I guess I read a little bit before I started recording here. He was projected to go around 80th, 85th overall, something like that. I mean, I guess it's not too surprising that they picked a goalie because

there's not many in the system. I mean, I know there, Tristan Jari, of course, is the starter Casey dismissed as the backup. Larmi is going to be playing in the H.L. I guess they wanted someone else that they could develop and maybe groom for the future, whether that's in five or six years or something like that, I have no idea. I still would have preferred that they went forward to defensemen, best player available and just maybe have someone available in the next couple years or something like that.

I know King Clarkie, I'm just going to give a shout out to him. He had been looking at a couple people today. Brett Barbar, Brock Faber, Dmitri, Ovidchenikov. I probably mispronounce that last name pretty badly, so I apologize there. But yeah, I mean, I probably would have went forwarder defensemen to get a player up here in the next couple years just because, I mean, the window here is closing

and you want to be excited about someone when Cindy Crawlesby and Guinea-Mulk and retire. But, you know, they'll probably do that in the next pick in the third round. You can still get a pretty good player there, I would think. Catherine Silverman on Twitter, who, please, everyone needs to follow her. She does a lot of stuff about prospects.

Her Twitter is Kat M. Silverman. She said she thinks that's got the potential to be the goaltender outside of Escarov, who would, of course, last night. This year, that surprises people the most. He's been absolutely stellar, thrust into an unexpected starting situation in Liga already this fall. Apparently, he started, I mean, he saved about 15 of 16 shots in their last game.

So he's off to good start starting. Like I said, he's not going to be here for a while, you know, four to five years. But, I mean, Jim Rutherberg could also trade him just like they did with Philip Gustafson to the Ottawa senators in that Derek Brassar trade, which turned out to be pretty bad, even though I would do that trade 100 times over again, because, who would expect Eric Brassar to be that bad after coming over from Ottawa and when he was playing really, really well. But still, I mean, I'm glad they added a goalie to the system, but I still would have liked to see them go best player available for a Florida defense.

And I fully expect them to do that with their next pick in the third round and then whatever picks they have in the fourth, fifth, sixth round or whatever. So yeah, I mean, not too many thoughts on this pick. I'm sure people are going to go crazy on Penguin's Twitter. Oh, why do they pick a goalie? Why did they pick a goalie? He's not going to be like the franchise player in however many years. It's just, it's not that serious. So, you know, it sounds like it's a fine pick.

I'm reading the scouting report from the Penguins Twitter right now. It's from a red line scouting report. They said he has a long, lean, flexible net minors build, one of the most athletically gifted net minors in this class. Very good movement, both in a controlled manner in all four directions, and his fast from down to up shows excellent reflexes. So that all seems awesome. I can't wait to see how he does in training camp.

Can't wait to see how he does for the rest of his season over in Europe right now. He's also, I think he's also 18. So, yeah, he's pretty young. He has a long way to go. before he gets up to the major leagues, but still, I don't mind the pick. I think it's perfectly fine. But also for the second round, how is the second round still happening? This started at 1130.

It is now 125 p.m. Eastern time of this recording, and we are still in the second round of this draft. It's like we're averaging five minutes per pick for whatever reason. I just do not understand. Everyone needs to just pick up the pace. This needs to start going like rapid fire like the NFL draft does on day three, where you're just getting picks every 15 seconds, every 20 seconds or whatever, it's like that. And I think they do rounds four through seven on day three for the NFL, and it's over in like three hours. So at this point, we still have like, what is it, five more rounds to go or something like that, rounds three through seven.

We're going to be here all the way until nine o'clock if this just keeps happening. So hopefully NHL General Managers wake up a little bit, start making their picks more faster. We did have another trade that was announced besides than Matt Murray, one that just happened. And that was old friend Nick Benino being traded from the Nashville Predators to the Minnesota Wild for Lod. Luke Coonan and a couple picks. At first I thought this was a really bad trade for Minnesota, but then when I looked at Jay Fresh's analytics basically for Benino, I did not realize just how good Benino has been these last couple of seasons.

I guess that helps that I just don't watch a lot of Predators hockey. But, you know, I think it was just this past season. He ranks in the 91% for even strength offense, even straight defense, 89%. PK, 92%, shooting 99%. primary assist per 60 minutes 67% his goals for 6090% expected goals against 89% goals for 64%

he only really struggles on the power play but I mean he hardly gets any power play time so I mean I did not know that Benino has been that good with Nashville like I said that just goes to show you guys how much I watch the National Predators it's not much at all so I do think Billy Garron has been crushing this draft

you know I think that trade is good for them now even though I was a little bit skeptical about it at first They got Marco Rossi last night. That could be the steal of this draft from what I've been reading. He's a bit small, but he has really, really good hands. Looks to me like a pure goal score is also really good with his playmaking ability. He's going to be, I think, in that Minnesota lineup pretty, pretty soon, if not this season, in my opinion. So yeah, he's just, he's been killing this draft.

He did really, really well at that trade. I understand it from a Nashville's perspective. They want to change things up. I mean, there were rumors yesterday that they were considering trading Matt Duchain and was like, Wow, didn't they just sign him to a seven-year, $56 million contract? He's getting $8 million per. So they won out of that already. That's a yikes right there.

But also last night, I was watching the draft, and it was like, Craig Button, can you please stop screaming at me? I'm sure you guys that listened to this podcast were thinking that too if you were watching the draft. But he was just like yelling at the TV, screaming at the top of his lungs. And it's like, man, you just sound like a mom yelling at a eight-year-old toddler for just like doing something to his sister and it's just like can you please stop well you don't need to yell at the top of your lungs it just just really does not make any sense at all like we can hear you

perfectly fine in your normal voice crag and then of course you know pierre maguire he doesn't really add much anyway he just talks about toughness and grit and all that because he's so against advanced stats and analytics it's really weird to hear pierre talk about advanced stats and analytics because he really does not know anything about it he just relies on his extensive hockey knowledge about players going back to their pee-wee days. It's kind of creepy at times. And he just really doesn't provide anything to the broadcast, I don't think. Though, it was nice seeing Bob McKenzie back there.

He was also touching on some of the latest NHL rumors. Looks like Henrik Longquist is going to the Washington Capitals when Free Agent Frenzy opens in about 48 hours. That's gross. It's going to be really, really weird to see. But, you know, hopefully the Penguins can keep racking up wins against him because they basically broke him in 2016. He has not played the Penguins very well ever since that game 5 in 2016

when the Penguins just put up a six burger on him in the playoffs. But anywho, before we get to our next commercial break, we're going to talk about what's next for the team after the Matt Murray trade. There's been a couple quotes coming out about Jonathan Gruden, who I'm still convinced is related to Raiders head coach John Gruden. And as I know Penguin's Twitter was just being really, really funny with just the John Gruden grifts. Wes Crosby apparently has been talking to him from his Twitter about his game.

He goes, I think I'm just a two-way forward that likes to get in front of the net. I like to go to the dirty areas. A very high-compete player can score. I can hit, just be effective anywhere on me. So he sounds a lot like Patrick Hornquist, though, you know, playing up to Patrick Hornquist's ability is probably not going to happen for him. I really don't even see him getting up to the Penguins by the time his career is over, but, you know, that's just me speaking on that.

So who knows really what happens. But, you know, then he just had the quote where he's just very excited to play for the organization. There's just a top-nosh organization, a bunch of Stanley Cups. You have Crosby Malkin. It's awesome. I'm so excited to join the organization, just all that stuff. Every player has to say when they join the Penguins. But that's it for this segment. Now we have to talk about DoorDash, which we never-ending laundry cycles in the coming emails.

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Right now, guys, you can get $5 off in zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more when you dial the DoorDash app and enter code on. NHL. That's $5 off your order and zero delivery fees when you download DoorDash app in the app store and enter code Locked On NHL. Don't forget, guys, that's code Lockdown NHL for $5 off your order with DoorDash. All right, so we're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. And so, you know, what's next for this team besides the draft? We obviously know they're not going to be big players in free agency. They're going to be looking, I think, for bargain kind of deal is maybe like a one-year deal worth one or two million per season or something like that.

They're not going to be going out there. And, of course, signing Chris Tanna, which we saw them rumored to do. He's going to go somewhere and get a lot of money, honestly, just way too much money than he's going to, that this team can afford, to be honest. But, you know, someone caught my eye yesterday and also Jeff from Pensbog, who was just on the podcast the other day as well, he tweeted about it. He put up his hockey biz chart. Arizona decided not to qualify Vinie Hino-Hin Astroza.

and I think that's a player that the Penguins could definitely be looking at in free agency. I think he fits a third-line role pretty good for this team. You can also play him on the fourth line. He's gotten better defensively over these last couple of seasons. You look at his chart, his isolated 5V-5 impact this past season. His offense went down a bit, but also, as Jeff tweeted, he was shooting 3.8% last season. That was his shooting percentage.

From the year prior, it was 10.5%, which I think is a career high, but I'm not to double check that. But his overall shooting percentage for his career is 7.5%. So, yeah, his offense definitely took a dip down there last year. But also, you know, you're playing in Arizona, and I don't really think he had that good of linemates on his line. And he'll definitely have better linemates here, whether it's on the fourth line to start the season with Aston Reese being out with Bluger and Tenev,

or, you know, he can play on the third line with Jared McKannan, potentially Colton-Sivier. But, like I said, his defensive impact also went up a lot these last couple of seasons. You always want to be, you know, when you look at the isolated 5V5, impact for these hockey vis charts. You want to be in a negative percentile for defense. In 2017-18, he was plus 4 percent, 2018-19, minus 1.7, and then last year, minus 5.9.

So, yeah, he's definitely gotten much better defensively. He's only been in the league for a few years now. He's 26 years old. But, I mean, last year, guys, 2018-19 season, it was his best season of his career. 16 goals, 39 points in 72 games for the coyotes. This past year, five goals, 22 points in 68 games.

I think it's probably somewhere in the middle for what he can do for the Penguins, maybe 10 goals, 15 assists. That's fine in a bottom six role, especially with Jared McCann as his third line center. I would definitely look into the Penguins signing, Vinnie Hinesh. I think he would be a really good candidate for the bottom six. You can probably get them for cheap. Like I said, one to two-year deal, a couple million per season. The Penguins have that salary cap space.

They're not going to be bringing back Dominic Simone. I shared my thoughts on that a couple days ago. I kind of disagree with it, but I also kind of see where they're coming from. with it because they don't want Simone to take them to arbitration and then the arbitrator just give them a number that just puts them over the cap. He's also fine possession-wise. I know this year he's at 49.5%, which isn't that good, but last year before that, 51% with Arizona and the year before that was Chicago, 54.5%. He also had seven goals and 25 points that year. So he puts up good numbers for a bottom six winger or center. He's listed in center, but I think he's played wing

in Arizona and Chicago and he would definitely play a wing here in Pittsburgh. But he's also a right-handed shot, which is great too. So I would definitely really look into this one if I were Jim Rutherford. Other areas for the team, if they want, I've been talking about this a lot on the podcast, they can go after a right-handed shot over Chad Riedel. Though my guy Dylan Tamelo was just snapped up to Winnipeg four years, three million per season, so 12 million overall for him. I mean, that's a great deal for him. He played outstanding hockey in Winnipeg on the top pairing when a lot of their defense won for her. So he definitely earned that. The Penguins were not going to be paying that price with their cap situation. But still, I don't know. There's not

just a lot of good options. They might be just forced to roll with child Ruehdle, and I'm not really too mad about that just because I think they can get away with it. But, you know, if there's an opportunity to upgrade it, and there's definitely going to be an opportunity to upgrade it during the season, I think Jim Rutherford is definitely going to want to do that. But that will do it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I appreciate you guys listening to this one.

We're going to be back another episode tomorrow, the day before Free Agent Frenzy, and then Friday, the big day with Free Agent Frenzy, as a lot of teams are going to be overpaying for players. Do not I expect the Penguins to be active on that. day, Jim Rutherford said as such, they just do not have the cap space unless they move out Brian Russ or Brain and Tanner or something like that, but, you know, please don't because I really don't see the need to do that. And that goes for either player, by the way. So thank you guys

so much for listening to this episode and we will be back with another episode tomorrow. Talk to you all then.