Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Holding on for dear life as Nick Zararis joins the show again!

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

The Pittsburgh Penguins win again! They got their fourth win in five games on Tuesday night against the New York Rangers and have now jumped to 3rd in the East Division standings. Hunter brings Nick Zararis back onto the show to discuss everything about this game, including that third period. Tristan Jarry stood on his head and Hunter breaks down just how good he's been in his last 11 starts. They then get into some Rangers talk as Kakko and Lafreniere haven't been world-beaters yet. Is Nick worried about that? They also touch on the continued great play of Kasperi Kapanen and Evgeni Malkin before going into the ESPN talk. In what ways will they have to get this TV deal right? Who should they hire to do the play-by-play and color commentary? All that, plus much more on this latest episode!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 “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% 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.IndeedWant your QUALITY short-list FAST? You need Indeed. RIGHT NOW, our listeners get a FREE SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/LockedOn 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, welcome to this Tuesday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at LL underscore Penguins.

Coming to you guys a little bit early. I love 6 o'clock starts. You know, some people who don't like it, I am a fan of it. The game is done at 8.30. That's an extra hour to do stuff, you know, whether it's playing video games or just, you know, doing stuff with your girlfriend, your kids or something like that.

You know, I know some people aren't home at the start of it, but, you know, if they did more 6 o'clock starts, sign me up, that's for sure. Penguins were able to get that. Another win, excuse me, 4-2 over the New York Rangers. That is their fourth win in five games, four-and-one, on this homestand. And joining me again after a Penguins-Ranger, series is none of the Nick

Zeraris does the Upper Bowl GM podcast, which is just, he does great work with that and does stuff for a whole bunch of other sites. He had that great Jack Eichael trade article today as well. So Nick, how are we doing, man? You know, another

game in this weird season, the Rangers are about a little bit more, a little bit less than midway through. They're still trying to find their footing. They're very inconsistent. They really struggle to carryover performances night to night. It wasn't a bad effort tonight.

They played well enough to win. It happens. Yeah, I think, you know, the story of this game was Pittsburgh crushed them in the first. Second period, it was a little more even. I thought Pittsburgh had the better of the play, and then the third period, everyone that watched the game saw what happened. The Rangers basically outshot them 14-0. And, of course, the Penguins only shot on goal was the empty neck goal.

You know, shades of 2017 game one against Nashville when the Penguins went 35 minutes, I think, without a shot. And then Jake Gensel's first one in that long beats Peckarine glove side. You know, the Rangers were coming into this series Hotneck. I think they had people were, I think they won, what, three of four, four out of five, three in a row. Three or four, yeah. Actually, I think it was three in a row. I mean, I think Rangers fans and some media were getting a bit, what's the word I'm looking for here?

You know, bullish, I guess. You know, only about four points behind Pittsburgh, you know, you sweep this two-game series in regulation, you tie them in the standings. Obviously, that didn't happen. did you think this series was like a reality check for the Rangers because this is where they're going to be at for the rest of the year, especially with Panarin, Stoner's leave of absence. Just what did you make overall? Yeah, I mean, I know Pittsburgh.

We talked about this the last time I was on the show. Pittsburgh is a veteran team that knows how to capitalize, take advantage of favorable situations. You saw it when they scored four on five. You saw it when Malkin scored that goal with like 10 seconds left in the second period. The Penguins just, they know what's, to do in these situations and the Rangers don't yet. I wouldn't say a lot of people were kind of buying into it. I mean, they beat Buffalo. They beat the devils. No disrespect to those teams,

but that's not really a real measuring stick. If you're the Rangers this year was about seeing how your younger guys developed and how they fared. At this point, it is what it is. It's less than ideal. The team hasn't been able to put together decent play because they've had decent process in a lot of their games. They're outchancing a lot of the time. They're leading and expected goals a lot of the time. They're not conceding nearly as many scoring chances as last year. So the play hasn't been horrendous. The results haven't been there. They've really had a hard time five on five scoring. The power play just hasn't really worked this year because Zabinajad's shooting prowess has dried up. He shot something ridiculous last year like 19 and a half, 18 and a half

percent, something like that. This year he's less than five percent. So obviously, if rebounded. But back to your question, yeah, this is a reality check. Everybody likes to get a little excited when people have nice games, get a nice two, three game stretch. Everyone was really happy that Trubman came back from his thumb injury. So, okay, the lineup's getting healthier. Panarans should be back relatively soon based on the murmurs we've heard.

But again, like I said in the intro and like you just said, this is reality. The Rangers, although a talented team, are very inconsistent and against a team like Pittsburgh that knows what they're doing, they're going to have a hard time. Yeah, and they definitely had that hard time in the first period. Pittsburgh, I think I'll shot them 17 to 6. Of course, you know, the first Rangers, the first goal of the game was Jack Johnson because it had to be Jack Johnson scoring against the penguins. But after the penguins were just flat out dominating them in the first 10 minutes. I think the shots were like 12-4 or something like that. And then Johnson's shot goes off John Marino. John Marino was two for two on deflections tonight in case those were wondering that did not see.

Both of the Rangers' goals went off his leg and passed Tristan Jari. But after that, you know, they were able to get some big goals. You know, the Teddy Bluger one. I don't know how the Rangers let him do that. It was a regular two-on-two, I thought. And then he just drove to the net with basically no defense there. And he tucks it five-hole past Keith Kincaid, which, you know, I had no idea he was going to be starting this game going into it. I thought they would just go back to Georgiev.

And then, you know, Jake Gensel, like you said, I had that big goal. That was his eighth of the year. Kasparei Kappan. You know, I said it on my last episode. I'm not still too thorough about what they gave up for him, but the guy has 17 points in 22 games, has, I think, seven goals now. He's really finding chemistry with Havgeti Malk, and I don't think people are realizing that enough. And I was saying this other day on my podcast, Nick, every time, you know, one of these general managers,

whether it was Ray Shere or Jim Rutherford, where they go out and get a winger, they say, he's going to play with Sidney Crosby, the opposite. it happens and he just you know James Neal they said they said the same thing he plays with a guinea malkin and phil kessel play with abgeny malkin and knackisbury capon it's just it's funny how that works out that way but capon i think is really um shown up in quite a big way so one of going off of that i we were talking about it before we started recording in jack's book one of the chapters in there is about the differences between sid and gino and one of the things that jack mentioned is that sid likes playing with guys who go get the puck he

He likes playing with guys who he can give the puck to. And then if there's a 50-50 puck, someone who can go get it in the corner, get it to Sid, and start the process over again. Whereas Malkin likes to play with finishers because they don't really pass around. They like to shoot more. That line is traditionally more aggressive. They create more scoring chances. Sid likes playing with puck retrievers. So back to your point.

But going off of what you said, definitely some validity to that. where the high-end players that Pittsburgh has brought in over the years always end up gravitating towards playing more Malkins. Yeah, and Neil was kind of like that sniper that he had that reputation. He obviously had the 40-goal season. Kessel, I mean, everyone knew what kind of player he was, had a 90-point season on Malkins' wing and now Cap-in. I think at a full 82-game season, he'd be on pace for like 67 points.

That would be a career high for him. He's never even gotten close to that, I don't think, for his initial career. But it's been fun to watch him play well. I'm, if Gennie Malkin has woke up from his slumber. I talked about him on my last episode. It's safe to say, I think the Russian bears fully back, took him about 15, 16 games to get going. That kind of sucks when you don't have the training camp.

But, you know, all of a sudden, Nick, you know, the penguins, they're 10 and 4 in their last 14 games. Now they're going to get their fun with Buffalo. And I should caution myself saying that. The penguins obviously can drop games to them and play down to shitty competition. We don't know if Jack Eichol is going to be available for the foreseeable future. I saw on Elliot Freeman's 31 thoughts today, that there's whispers that he might be out longer term.

But the schedule is very favorable for the Penguins the rest of the way. If they miss the playoffs, it's their doing. You're 16 of your, what, 30 games left against the bottom two teams in the division. But, you know, other things from this game tonight, I guess before I get to the next segment, was the gold-tending. Tristan Jari, again, sensational for Pittsburgh. That is now, he is now 8 and 3 in his last 11 starts, 9-32 say percentage. He went on a 16 game heater like this last year,

which got him to the All-Star game. He was playing at that 9-25, 9-30 level. He has this level play in him. And I don't think this is the goal that he's going to be all the time. But I also don't think he's as bad as he was at 850 or whatever he was the first two weeks. But, you know, it's almost like Nick, you know, as they say in hockey, you get good defense, you get all your defenseman back and you get good goaltending. You're going to win a lot of games.

Yeah, I mean, it's really important. And I've made this point in pretty much every appearance I've done everything I've written. NHL teams are used to an 82 game season. You're used to having seven months to work out your problems, to get it all together. Between the start of training camp in mid-September to mid-April when your postseason starts, there's a lot of time for teams to work out their problems. And in this abbreviated season, this 56 game season, where teams had nine days, ten days to get some semblance of a training camp.

A lot of these guys just don't have the same number of repetitions that they usually do at this point in the year. And that's especially true for goalies. And it's especially true for guys who shoot a lot. So it's really important to keep that in mind that, yeah, he started out really slow. Yari was pretty bad the first few games. They had to go to dismiss a few times. It's true everywhere.

We're seeing it all over. I'd like to make fun of Kerry Price, but Care Price isn't an 885. goaltender. We all know that. He's going to get back up above 900, but it might not be till the fall, because 56 games is not a long time. And these big scale numbers, they typically find their level over the course of an 82 game season. And that's how the rates we get, the numbers we typically get are scaled on. So when you're seeing guys with those below 900, say, percentages, those shooters, those forwards with below 5% shooting, that's part of the story that they just need more time to get going. And in this kind of season, some guys just won't. It won't come back

till the fall when they've had a full off season and a full training camp. Some guys might never get their touch back. Yeah, I agree, you know, especially with the Kerry Price thing. I mean, yeah, he's not 80 goalie, you know, just ask Penguins fans what he did to them in the return to play. You know, guy can go on a four-game heater and go like 950. That's just how goaltending is at this point. It's a very volatile position. You're seeing that right now with Jari, and it's just he he flat out won them that game in the third period. You know, the amount of high danger saves he made. Overall, if you look at the all situations from Stavtrak,

the Rangers led in high danger chances 14 to 7. They also led in their expected goals for overall 2.55 to 2.04. If you look at the scoring chances, especially in that third period, the Rangers 10-0. Even in the second period, the Rangers led 13 to 6. Overall, scoring chances for, 31 for New York 17 again for Pittsburgh on Pittsburgh

yeah they basically escaped this one um even if you look at the course seat the possession the Rangers had 57.5% um for the possession so yeah this is a game for Pittsburgh you take the two points and you move on to Buffalo um but we still have a lot more to get to

for this episode before we do that it is time to talk about rockado.com it's a family business serving auto park customers online for 20 years you can go to rock auto dot com to shop for auto and body of parts of hundreds and manufacturers. The catalog on the site is unique and very easy to navigate you and quickly see all the parts available for your vehicle and choose the brands, specifications, and prices you prefer. You can still go to the site right now and see all the parts available for your car truck and you can write Locked On and

their How Did You Hear About Us Box? No, we sent you. Amazing selection of lily low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. That is rockadoado.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter. at Hunter Hodes follow the show's Twitter at L-O underscore Penguin. So Nick, I did want to ask you about this. You know, I've had my chances, you know,

for at least six games this year to watch, you know, Capo Caco and, you know, Alexei Lafranier. And, you know, I just, I know it's still very early in their careers, but, you know, they're not living up to like that top two height that, you know, I think some would have hoped. For Lafranier's case, four goals, seven points in 23 games. If you look at some of the underlines, his possessions, 40s, 6%.

Caco, having a bit of a better year this year than last year, still not what you want to see from him. Are you a little bit concerned about them right now, or do you still want to see how they do the rest of the year and go into year two, three, and four, whatever? I'm not particularly worried yet, especially Lafrenier. He's been playing a lot with Colin Blackwell, with Kevin Rooney, with Paul D. Giuseppe. He hasn't had finishers on his line at what makes Lafriere a special. talent is his vision, his hockey sense, being able to incorporate his teammates. When you look at his on-ice shooting percentage for his team when he's on the ice,

it's like three and a half, four percent, something abysmal like that. I'm not particularly worried about Laffer Dere. And Kako, we all kind of expected a little bit too much from him last year where we thought we were getting this finished product. And he was very much a fish out of water last year at the NHL level. He obviously needed a HL time. just to get acclimated to playing on the smaller rank against people where he wasn't the best athlete on the ice, which he was a lot of the time when he was playing in the finish league.

So I'm not particularly worried yet. And the other thing is neither of them are getting significant power play time. They're both being stuck on the second unit. So with time, I think that'll straighten themselves out. They're not getting a ton of work in terms of just pure ice time. I mean, if you're not playing that power play one and getting that extra minute. at 30 of ice time. You're somewhere in the mid-teens, 13, 14 minutes a night. As a winger, it's hard to get a lot of counting stats. And while the counting stats aren't there,

the expected goals I'm encouraged with. And a lot of those numbers are tied to that first two, three weeks of the season where the Rangers just couldn't score at even strength at all. So when you look at the expected goals for, they're higher than the goals for. And that's typically a side that the team is playing well, but they're just not finishing their scoring chances. So to circle back and fully answer your question, not worried yet. I do think that part of the problem is just the lineup has been so jittery all year. There's been injuries, Panarin's leave of absence. There's been injuries on the back end as well, which has made it harder for the Rangers to

just create offense because if you're playing your friend Jack Johnson with Brendan Smith, they can get the puck out of their own zone, bank it off the glass and pray someone tapped it into the offensive zone. But as far as help, they're not getting a ton of it because the Rangers have been putting Fox and Lingren out there a ton, especially with their higher-end players. They're putting those two out there with Zabinajad. If there's a defensive zone start, they need to win. They're putting those guys out there in the offensive zone because they want Fox to get

those touches in the offensive zone as a distributor. So I'm not worried yet. There's time. Yeah, you know, it is still fairly young. You know, sometimes you see those jumps in like, you know, you're, three even for some players. I mean, it took a couple years, I think, for I go to fully show people that like, wow, you know, he is an elite player. Even Nathan McKinnon, I think it took to like year four, basically. You know, he took the league by storm, and now he's

a top three, top five player in the league. You know, I'm not saying, you know, left for New York, Kaka, we're going to get to that level, but, you know, there's still obviously big leaps on there could be coming for them. You know, the more I watch New York, I think, you know, the more I think they need another top four defensemen to help out, poor Adam Fox back there. Great player in the offensive zone. I mean, I always love watching him. He reminds me a bit of Chris Letang.

He's like a younger Chris LaTang, I think, a bit to me. And, you know, he just needs that partner that Latang has, like a Brian Dumlin, who his return since injury has been sensational. His skating looks all the way back. This is probably the best I've seen Brian Dumlin play since 2018. I think there's a number. I think he's played 20 regular season games in like the last three years. He just had two really.

long injuries. You have a fractured ankle this year, missed 15 games. He just hasn't been the same player since even in the return to play last year just his skating was not there. But, you know, he's the type of player that, um, Letang like needs as a partner. I think Adam Fox could use as well, you know, that that defensive presence that can, you know, cover for their mistakes. And, you know, they don't have to, you know, when Latang or Fox make a risk, you know, he's right back there just waiting to make a good defensive play. I think the Rangers could really use a player like that in their lineup. I would like to see them at some point this year try

Kandre Miller with Fox just purely because if we're not going to make the playoffs, you got to find out how pieces fit together. I think like you said, Miller, although Miller has a nice offensive touch, he's not a total klutz handling the puck. He's more of a traditional, what you would call a defensive defenseman.

He's got the big body. He's a pretty good skater. He's got a really long reach. So I'd like to see that as a potential. potential pair, but they've been pretty insistent on playing Miller with Truba, which is part of the problem because Truba just likes to shoot the puck. He doesn't like to pass the puck, and you're not creating a ton of chances. And to protect Adam Fox, you've got to give him that quality defensive partner who can cover for him when he takes risk because I love Adam Fox, but the only

weakness in his game is his mobility. He's not the fastest skater. He's not going to win a foot race to a 50-50 puck. So giving him some coverage, Lingren is fine. on a good team, Ryan Glitlingren is a third-payer defenseman. And that's fine. You need third-payer defensemen on good teams. But for the Rangers to be asking this much of him this early in his career for someone who was pretty unpolished. We're talking about someone who is considered a key or two prospect

when they got him, the Rangers got him from the Bruins organization, who played two years of hockey at the University of Minnesota, minimal HL time, something like 10, 15 games at the end of that season when they acquired him. And they just fed him to the wolves. And they've stuck it out with him. His underlines are fine. He's about even and expected goals individually.

He doesn't create a ton. What's interesting, though, is before today's game, Ryan Glenlin was somehow the Rangers leader in high danger scoring chances for. I don't know how, but according to natural statics calculation, in terms of raw high danger chances, Lingren had the most. That actually is, that's pretty surprising to me.

You know, someone that's especially like Adam Fox is not leaving that. You know, I honestly think Jacob Trubov would have, you know, close to the same as Lingren. You know, when we're getting close to the deadline, you know, I think it's a full month now, if I'm not mistaken. You know, there's obviously a lot of rumors circulating around and that stuff. You know, do you see the Rangers doing anything at the deadline? Do you see them selling off some assets, potentially before we get back to some more of this game talk? I could see them trying to get some draft selection for Brendan Smith, the third or fourth or, team's always need defenseman depth he's really affordable the rangers would probably retain half

his salary you get a third pair lefty he's pretty good at shot suppression he doesn't give you anything offensively but he's not a liability he's still a decent skater you give him ice time he won't totally implode i could see them trying to get something for johnson i could see a team very dumbly being like we'll take jack johnson for a third or a fourth round pick at the deadline and then if you wanted to say of their guys who are expiring, I think if they were going to trade Bouchnevich's restricted free agent rights, I think they would wait until the summer, and I think that would probably be part of a bigger trade. I know a lot of people want to link the Rangers to Jack Eichel because there are reports that Friedman's reported, Dreggers reported. A number of

insiders have said that the Rangers called last summer. They asked what would it cost, then Buffalo said we're not trading him right now. But as people get, as people like to speculate, as people like us who have to make content every day, trades are fun to talk about. It gives us something to talk about. Everybody plays fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball. Everyone thinks they know how to make trades. And it makes for fun conversation.

I don't think you trade someone like Buchennevich in season because either you put him into a bigger trade for someone like an Ikel or you give him an extension. So to answer your question, maybe Jack Johnson, maybe Brendan Smith, maybe Georgiev if a team really, really needs a goalie badly. But other than that, there's not a ton of stuff to work with here because a lot of the Rangers guys are either their blue chip prospects or they have no movements. If it were up to me, I'd be seeing what you can get from Chris Kreider. They already have two left wingers in Lafraner and Panarin. Crider is going to be playing third line left wing if the Rangers have a good team in a year or two. So that's what I would do, but yeah, not a ton that's movable here.

Yeah, and that's, you know, that contract is going to be something for the next however many years. It's like seven years, I think, still at this point. You know, the play of the game for me, switching gears a little bit. That shift that the penguins had in the Rangers zone with the Malkin and Kaplan and line out there. Probably the best shift I've seen from that team in four years. I think I counted by 21, I think it was like 20 passes or something. I have to go back and make sure about that. but they were just assuring the puck so beautifully

and Captain was able to cap it off with a hell of a goal. I think it was Dumlin that got the assist. I think it was. But just what a shift that was. You can really see that Malkin is filling in right now. That was one of the biggest things that needed to get right. And it has Tristletang got right. You know, they were never going to play like that forever.

People think, oh, they're just going to play like that the rest of the season. You know, they're just going to be done. You know, that's just that was. never going to happen. These two star players sure, they're a bit older, 33, 34, but they know what they're doing and they've been absolutely humongous

on these last few games for Pittsburgh, but still have a lot more to get to for this episode. We even touch on the ESPN news in the next segment with some other stuff. Before we do that, it is time to talk about bed online. It's the fastest, easiest way to bet on all your sports action. Football might be over with the NBA,

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L-O underswore penguins. It sunk that Jerry McCann was out for this game. I think he's going to be out for at least a week as he was placed on IR retroactive to March 7th, so I think he will be the earliest he can come back. It's on Sunday. Sullivan said today he's day-to-day. That lost things for them,

just because he had three goals in the five games since coming back. I was looking like a completely different player. He's always been at streaky player throughout his career. Last season, I think he had one goal in 24 games. But he was playing on Malkins' wing. Obviously, they had to put Evan Rodriguez. up there for this game. Not ideal, and they had to put, you know, Anthony Angelo back in the lineup.

Their fourth line needs such an upgrade. It's not even funny. I think if anything, if Ron Hextall doesn't want to make a swing for the fences kind of deal, you got to think that he's going to make an upgrade to the bottom six, maybe bringing Eric Stahl in. Mikhail Granlin and Nashville, you can probably pry him out of there. Those are the type of players that I could see, Hextall and Burke going after. But, you know, as much as I would love Ricard Raquel to come into the Penguins,

I just don't see it. But, you know, switching gears a little bit, Nick. So big news are for the NHL's TV rights deal today. It's been leaked and reported from Chris Johnston from Sportsnet at ESPN. It will be signing a seven-year deal for, I think, half of the TV rights for the next seven years. I think NBC is also going to get a seven-year deal. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, me speaking, I think this is great for the league.

It's more exposure, which they desperately need. the only big thing is you've got to make sure that you're actually showcasing the sport with not only good play-by-play people but good analysts as well oh absolutely and it's an opportunity to start fresh NBC has had the NHL package for 10 years now they signed that original contract back in 2011 before that there was the versus network if you're old enough to remember the versus network like Hunter and I was not a particularly well stock channel there was a lot of live events and then empty talking head shows.

And it's just a matter of how seriously ESPN wants to take this. Is it going to be like how ESPN treats soccer where it's only on ESPN plus and all of their soccer content is behind that paywall? Or is hockey going to be on ESPN or ESPN 2 every single week, once or twice a week? Because that's part of this conversation about growing the game that I have pretty much everyone when we talk about hockey. We want to see the marquee players featured. We don't want to see the Detroit Red Wings play the Chicago Blackhawks at 5 o'clock on a Wednesday.

We would like to see the Vegas Golden Knights playing the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday in the only time slot where as many eyes as possible get to watch Austin Matthews play Mark Stone at the same time. As for talent, they're going to throw probably something similar to what ESPN does with soccer, where they have their ESPN FC show, which is just like an hour-long studio talking head show, like what NFL Live is for football, for soccer. I'm assuming that'll be on ESPN Plus. I doubt any ESPN will take anything out of their regular scheduled block programming

to put an hour-long or half-hour-long NHL show on. Possibly ESPN 2. You could do a 30-minute show on ESPN 2 every day instead of doing a rerun of PTI or around the horn at the 6 o'clock window while sports center is on main ESPN. But game-wise, ESPN does a great job with their in-game presentation. They're college football, their college basketball. As bad as the broadcasting is for their Major League Baseball package,

the camera work, the production value is very high. ESPN is the most powerful entity in sports for a reason. They know what they're doing. Now, it's a matter of how serious they take this and what kind of efforts they put in it. I mean, I saw a lot of people making the joke of, well, if ESPN's going to buy the NHL, you know, they're going to have their talking head shows do. It's not sponsored content because the NHL isn't paying for it, but because the NHL is now a partner with ESPN, ESPN is going to hand a little sheet of paper to Max Kellerman and Stephen A.

Smith, and they're going to talk about Connor McDavid versus Austin Matthews, like it's Kawhi Leonard versus LeBron James. And while I think that'd be very funny, I do want hockey to get a little bit of respect. Like, not to be a please like my sport guy, but to be like, these are some of the most amazing athletes in the world playing one of the most awesome sports to watch. And especially ESPN getting Stanley Cup finals, they're getting half of the seven, is an enormous deal because ESPN for all of the money they spend on everything. The only thing they have the finals for are college sports. They don't get the World Series. They don't get the Super Bowl.

They don't get the NBA finals. The NBA finals are on ABC. This is a big deal for them. I think they'll take this seriously. but at the same time I do worry that this might drift into the campy territory where it's kind of like when ESPN does UFC content and you can tell the on-air analysts don't really know anything about UFC but because they're a partner with the UFC they have to talk about it yeah I mean I just yeah I agree with you I do hope they do take this seriously um you know I saw your joke on your Twitter just please don't hire someone like Barry Melrose to do all the color commentary um people will hope for John Butch That's a hard pass too. I never really cared for him with his hockey stuff. You know, maybe someone like Linda Cohn in the studio. I think she would do a great job.

Some people said I think A.J. Malesco from NBC. Yeah. My number one guy, Nick, is Mike Johnson, if they can pry him from TSN. I think he's their number two, number three guy. I mean, that's a slam dunk. I think a lot of people obviously want Gary Thorn back. He's a bit older, but I think it would be a lot of fun to see him back calling hockey games. Steve Levy would also do a great job. He's always been. been, you know, very proponent with hockey.

But then, you know, I guess we'll shift it to NBC a little bit. You know, I wonder how many games they're going to get. I guess maybe they'll get games on the weekends. Is this maybe going to push them to have some different analysts in their studio now that it's like, they probably like, wow, you know, ESPN stepped up and they're probably going to maybe have some better analysts than we do. We'll see if they can step their game up a little bit. Yeah, definitely, because one of the frustrations, a lot of people our age have who do

this. We do, whether we're writing, we're podcasting, we're content creating. We see that people our age, who are doing this stuff mostly for free, just to build a portfolio, we make better stuff than what gets on air on regional sports networks right now. You and I could do a better intermission show than what I was on during the Rangers and Penguins game today, because we're talking about the actual game. We're going to go look at the heat map. All right, there was a scoring chance. from this exact spot on the ice. What does that tell you about where the defense is alive? What does that tell you about where the forward support was?

What does that tell you about where your passing options are? All of that kind of stuff, which is the X and O's of hockey, which for some reason doesn't get talked about the way X's and O's do in football, which is something I've never understood. I just want to see hockey given the same level of seriousness. And to your point about the analysts, as much as I understand why producers and networks and shows, show directors like the marquee names.

They like having the Keith Jones. They like having the Patrick Sharp, who I like. I like Patrick Sharp. I think he does a good job in studio. At the same time, I think your audience is better served by having people who aren't looking at this in just layman's terms of, well, they've been really hard on the forecheck. So I think they've got to come out. They got to throw some hits.

They got to get off their heels, that kind of talk. Whereas I think there's a lot of room for constructive hockey discourse that just isn't explored because there's just no there's no interest in it from a production side of it the resources are there you can find a game recap on YouTube that someone in college or high school made

that'll give you everything you need to know in 30 seconds in a way that four highlights that on the 11 o'clock sports center won't it's just a matter of how serious and how much work you want to put into this yeah and the big thing you know to bring this game you know into this for almost

like the entire game tonight when I was watching on NBCSN, they're just showing the hits up at the top of the screen. It's like, I don't really think anyone cares about the hits stat anymore. You know, show us some like advanced numbers on there. It's just like all game, you know, and I like Brian Boucher's commentary.

He's obviously got up to NBC's number one color commentator for a reason. He's leagues better than Pierre McGuire. I mean, everyone else that has to offer. But, you know, he's in there talking about hits. John Foresland is doing the same thing. Who is a great play-by-play guy? He's probably a top play-by-play guy. the league right now. But I just don't understand

why everyone's so fascination at the physical aspect. It's just like, you know, show us the stats. Just show us all the other stuff that like the game has to show it, yes. That's the stuff for the casual people who are flicking the channels. It's easy to sell hits. It's easy to

get eyeballs on, you know, two grown men hitting each other at full speed in a corner for a 50-50 puck. I understand that that's who all of these broadcast are geared toward. That's the main reason you don't see a prevalence of advanced statistics on most broadcasts. I have noticed SportsNet using them a little bit in their broadcast this year.

I know they've shown some of Dom's work. I know they've shown some of Micah's work. They've shown some of the evolving Wild Twins work on their broadcast because their hot broadcast is solely dedicated to hockey. It is not a regional sports network. It is not an ESPN and NBC. Sportsnet thing is hockey. And they are going to cover hockey better than anyone else's

because that's all they care. about and it's what all their resources are tied up in. So it's why you see more advanced statistic stuff and you don't see hits. It's why they've had shots on goal on their scorebug for two years now. It's why you see that they keep track of who's on the ice for more than 40 seconds at a time with a little ticker that goes underneath the shots on goal. All of the stuff that makes a broadcast better, Sportsnet is the model. TSN does a very good job.

I just prefer Sportsnet. Yeah, I do think Sportsnet is better. you know, wherever the Penguins have played on the team in Canada, you know, when it's not like this sort of season, I will always pull up these Sportsnet broadcast over the 18T Sports Network, 18T Sportsnet for Pittsburgh, you know, I love Steve Mears, but I can't listen to Bob Erie over like someone like Jim Hughes and Craig Simpson. It's just like, it's just, it doesn't compare.

That's the thing. So I'm really hoping ESPN nailed this, you know, to wrap this all up, though, Nick. Just for the rest of the season, give me your thoughts on old friend, David Quinn, just because I know you seem to love that guy on Twitter as the head coach. What do you see the Rangers doing for the rest of the year? And when do you see them making that

ascension to being that playoff team? Quinn, Quinn's a Ra-Rong guy. He's a get the guys going, motivator. He's not an ex as a nose guy. You can tell the dramatic difference, just the changing the

assistance from last year to this year, swapping out Lindy rough for Jacques Martin. You can see. They're playing an entirely different defensive system. It's a lot more responsible. There's a lot less collapsing. It's stronger. He's a raw, raw guy. I understand the appeal of that. These are younger guys. They need to be pushed. They need to be prodded. You need to get the most out of them. But at the same time, the situational awareness, the strategy, mental toughness, all those things that come from coaching, they're just not there with this guy. And I understand the whole point of hiring a college coach for a team that was going to be so young was that this guy knows what to do with 20 and 21 year olds. But at the same time, it is worth pointing out he didn't really win anything at

BU as the head coach, even though he had superstar talent like Jack Eichel, Charlie McAvoy, that kind of thing. Rangers this year, they'll probably finish six in the east, maybe fifth, if they catch someone sleeping or if someone has a bad injury. They're better than Buffalo. They're better than the Devils. They're not better than the Flyers, Pittsburgh, Washington, the Islanders. They won't be an embarrassment the rest of the way, but they're not going to be particularly good. As for when they should be good, this summer is the telltale sign. They're going to have, if they give all of their restricted pre-agents one-year deals, they're going to have about $7 million in cap space left over where you could go out and get pretty much

anything in a trade or in free agency. The Eichel thing, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think the Rangers make sense as a landing spot for Eichel. Nugent Hopkins will be there. I don't know if you're going to throw a bag at Newgen Hopkins for well-knowing you have to give Zabinajat a contract in a year after this summer. So as for when the Rangers could be good. They could be a playoff team as soon as next year.

But more than likely, there'll be a fringe team if they are in the mix next year. And as much as it pains me to say it, it's probably two years from now when they're actually a bona fide, like, this team could win a round or two in the playoffs. Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, I've always said this year, they're probably a year or two way, more so I think two years away with it so they can spend money. As for Pittsburgh, you know, like I said, 10 and 4 in their last 14, the fun games are hopefully the fun games are still to come. They play Buffalo later this week, Thursday, and Saturday. two, there are only four road games of the month before coming home. I think they play The Devils a lot coming up.

Buffalo again. I think later this month they still play Boston six times, but they're done playing a lot of this tough stretch is finally over for Pittsburgh. They only play the Islanders two more times. They only play the Flyers three more times. The Capitals, two more times. The Rangers, two more times as well. So now they get their fun with two of the bottom teams in the division.

And it looks like every team is deciding to get three points tonight in the East Division because everyone just likes to go to overtime. But, yeah, I have the Penguins still getting in the playoffs. I said second before. If they can win 12 of those 16 games against Buffalo, New Jersey combined, maybe even more, they might get first place if they do well in their other games. The path to first place is actually right there. You know, everyone keeps asking, well, why are the Islanders in first place?

They're 6-0 against Buffalo people. I mean, you take those games away, and it's even four and two. I don't even think they're in first place, two of those regulation losses. or even if it's somehow three and three, they're not in first place. That just goes to show how bad Buffalo has been this year. So I think that I'll do it though for this episode of the Lockdown on Penguins podcast. Nick, where can everyone find your work at? My Twitter is where you'll find most of my written work at Nick Zararis, Z-A-R-A-R-I-S on Twitter.

The blog, Gotham S-N has pretty much everything, Rangers, Knicks, Islanders, Mets, Yankees, everything New York Sports taking care of there, as we get closer to the NFL draft. there'll be stuff for that. NHL-wise, yeah, there too. You can find my Ranger stuff. Wrote an Ikel blog that went out on Tuesday. Wrote a blog last week about the similarities between the Rangers and the Vegas Golden Knights

in terms of how they like to create their offense. Upper Bowl GM podcast, pretty much every day. Not every single day, but pretty much every single day. Every single sport I'll talk about, did an episode yesterday, about teams at the trade deadline, an episode today was about why teams trading superstar players always lose the trade. When you go back to recent NHL history, you looked at it, whether you want to talk about Phil Kessel, Patrick Rediret, Eric Carlson, Mark Stone, whoever you want to talk about the team

trading the star pretty much always loses and loses pretty resoundingly. So the vibe of the podcast is the fan who watches their favorite team and just has to think to themselves, what the hell is my general manager or my coach doing? I'm not a professional. I'm not a professional hockey coach. I'm not a professional general manager. And even I could tell you, Jack Johnson is not worth $1 million a year. Jack Johnson should be getting paid in college credit. Yeah, and as all Penguins fans can tell you, yes, he should be getting paid on to play college hockey and not NHL hockey. Though, of course, you know, he gets his first goal tonight and his first goal, basically since NOM.

at this point. But like I said, that'll do it for this episode of a Locked-on Penguins podcast, a bit of a longer one, but still, very much appreciate Nick coming on, and I'll probably do this again. For the last two games against the Rangers, I'm not even really sure when these two teams play again. I think it's sometime in April or early May. But thank you guys so much for listening.

I'll be back tomorrow with another episode with a Locked-on Penguins podcast, so I'll talk to you all then.