Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - How is Sidney Crosby 35 now?!?!

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Happy Monday! Hunter is home now and starts the show by wishing Sidney Crosby a delighted 35th birthday. He goes into some of Sid's best moments throughout his career, including when he had his teeth knocked out by Darian Hatcher and then scored the game-winner as a rookie. He also looks at how much he's grown as a player and a leader on and off the ice over his career and how Pittsburgh is just lucky to have him. He then looks at how many points he'd likely have now had David Steckel and Victor Hedman not concussed him during the peak of his career. After that, Hunter looks at some hires made by the Penguins on Monday and what they mean going forward before giving a small scoop on the Winter Classic jersey that hasn't been announced yet. Finally, he ends the show with some reverse retro talk and goes into what the Penguins could be planning for that jersey later this year.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! 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 there. Happy 8-8-8-1 day after, of course, the man, the myth, the legend, Cindy Crosby's 33th birthday. That's going to be a main topic for today's show. As my YouTube audience is aware, for those that are watching, yes, I am back in my own home. Do not have to deal with my five-year-old Mac in that kind of e-h audio, I guess. But, you know, I'm back here, you know, just better setup than where, you know, I was just, you know, I like the background here. I like recording on my PC. A lot better. But for today's show, of course, again, we're going to get into Cindy Crosby's 35th birthday, go over some of my favorite moments of Sid's career. Also going to get into some front office hires the Penguins made today. That was ever announced by Ron Hexton and Brian Burke.

And we're also getting to some Jersey talk. You know, I'll touch on a small scoop from what I'm hearing about the winter classic jersey. And then some of the reverse retro jerseys were leaked today. Are the penguins going to have one? If they are going to have one, what could be? I'll get into that a little later on in today's show as well. So it'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 Hoad. He's going to follow me on. Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows, Twitter at L.O. Arnold's Four Penguin's episode is brought to you at Bette Online.

VanLen has to cover this season with more prompts on and lines than ever before. That has been online where the game starts. So again, happy Monday to you all, August 8th. We're, you know, keep chugging along here throughout the off season. There was, you know, some decent NHL news today. You know, Lawson Krause, five-year extension, Arizona, Nicholas Raw, I believe it was a five-year extension in Las Vegas. Chris Burge's run goes back to the Boston Ruins.

David Cray-Chicke goes back to the Boston ruins. Just a whole swath of news today. You know, still nothing on some of the bigger free agents like Nazim Kodry. But, you know, perhaps, you know, more busier day than we've been accustomed to in the off season. But, you know, let's start out with the obvious here. Happy 35th birthday to Cindy Crosby. I honestly almost just refuse to believe that he's 35. You know, just, you know, time has flown.

by so quick in this area. I still remember when I was 7 to 8 and he was making his NHL debut. And that's probably one of the favorite, you know, one of my best moments of just watching this team was seeing him make his NHL debut. And it was just seeing how loud and lively Mellon Arena was. Like you knew this kid was going to be special right when he got on to the ice. You know, my favorite moment. one of my favorite moments for his rookie season,

first game against a Canadian team, and of course it was against the Montreal Canadiens, the team he grew up rooting for. They went in a shootout because of Sid, came in, absolutely deeped the living heck out of Montreal's goalie at the time, and just went, you know, forehand, backhand, roofed it past him.

And it was just, I was like, wow. You know, I wish he still did that kind of stuff today in shootouts, but, you know, that was one of the moments there that was like, oh my God, like, you know, you just, you don't teach that kind of stuff. Fast forward, you know, a little bit. The dueling hat-trick game against Ovechkin, just watching him and Ovi go at it, but, you know, Sid, every time Ovi would score, Sid would respond. That was just so epic in so many ways. Another goal that he had against the Montreal Cadians, going a bit further up in the timeline when he bats the puck out of the

bat's it in with it with his stick. I'm just like, you know, since his hand-eye coordination has always been amazing, but I, you just, you don't see that kind of stuff every day. You know, he had another similar one. I believe it was 2017, or 2017-18 against New Jersey Devils or is the season after that. You know, the Penguins hit the post on three-on-three over. I don't know, it was Crossie hit the post on the three-on-three, comes out, follows his shot, wax it like with a baseball bat, puck goes in the net,

Kincaid and it's just like, I mean, it's nuts. I mean, the fact that he's able to do that, and it looks like he's not even trying is nothing short of a miracle going back a little bit more. You know, it was, again, this is, looking, you're playing against the Flyers, you know, everyone, you know, knew the Flyer fans were just going to always hate him. And that loser that Ken Hitchcock is, remember, he was the one. that started that whole Sydney Crosby whining garbage that you probably still see today from fans who, you know, it's been 17 years.

Who cares? You know, and again, I can't stress this enough. Ken Hitchcock is a freaking loser. His systems were always garbage. They slowed the game down. He was, you know, he talks about Sidney Crosby being a baby. That dude was probably one of the biggest cry babies I've ever seen behind an NHL bench. I have no respect for that guy.

Never will. And he was the one after the game when Sid, you know, had his teeth knocked out by Darren Hatcher. And Sid also had the overtime winner. He was the one that, you know, just basically told him to stop crying about it and then it's talking all that. But, you know, the game, you know, the call, you know, the game on his stick and all that stuff. And he took that goal personally because he had one heck of a celebration. I'm honestly surprised he didn't just, you know, I guess I'm not that surprised that he's. He didn't just, like, you know, give the crowd the double bird or something like that just because, you know, it's Philadelphia.

And they were booing him all night. But, you know, that was what really set the Penguins Flyers rivalry in motion for the sit era. And just what a great goal that he had there. And I'll always remember, you know, watching that with my mom and just both of us going absolutely crazy. The other one that comes to mind The Jason Spetsam moment, 2010 against the Ottawa Senators Sid just puts them into a blender behind the net, goes to work, the edge work that he can do with the Pock.

And Spetsa is doing everything possible to get the Pock off his stick, but he was just not able to do it. And Sid feeds Lutang at the point. They score the goal. right there to give them the lead. And that was the goal that ended up winning game two against Senators. Remember Pittsburgh, I lost game one against Otto.

I believe that was a, if I recall, if I recall correctly, that was a 5-4 final. In game two, you know, they were able to get that goal with, you know, just a few minutes remaining in the third period. But, you know, that's always a goal that I'll remember very fondly. obviously the overtime winner against Tampa Bay in 2016, just 90 than 30 seconds in. That was honestly the one thing that we hadn't seen from Sid yet.

He didn't have that really big clutch O.T. winner in a playoff game to just propel the Penguins up. And he was able to check that off his list and just get the Penguins right back into that series. They lost a really close game in Game 1. If he doesn't score there and the Penguins potential lose that game, they're down 02 again. And Andre Vasilevsky and a very good lightning team.

I'm not really sure. I'm a fake line mad about that. That's why that goal was just so freaking important. The goal against the Sabres when he went one on five, basically, right past O'Reilly, right past the defense, one-handed flick over Robin Lennar. Honestly, if we're talking about the goal of his career, I would say that's the best one.

Just the way he was able to knife through them. like it was nothing. It was just, you know, it's just, it was just crazy. I just couldn't believe it. You know, a goal from 2014 against Ottawa comes by when he absolutely schooled Eric Carlson, deeped the heck out of him, fed it to the front of the net, and it ended up going in. I believe that was from game two of, not 2014, excuse me,

2013, sorry, when he was able to, that was game two and the Penguins went up two games to none on Ottawa. That was just a wonderful move from Sid. But I think, you know, all those goals and all those pretty plays aside, it's just been so great to see him, you know, mature into the person he is now. You know, he is, you know, beloved by, I think, every single person in the city of Pittsburgh. He is a leader on and off the ice. I don't think anyone has had, outside of, you know, toxic fans calling him a,

baby calling him a diver and all this stuff. When you ask people who have covered the game for as long as they have, and you ask, you know, long-time fans who I think have a great respect for all the great players, you know, they will probably not say a bad thing about Sandy Crosby. And, you know, again, I know it was rough at times just because people, you know, were just hating to hate. But, you know, I think he's really grown on a lot more people over the years. and he's also just turned into a really well-rounded player.

You know, his defensive impact is also a lot better now than where it used to be. He's had, you know, multiple top 10 finishes in the Selk Award was not there this year, but, you know, in years past, you know, he's almost been a Selkie finalist, I would say a couple of those times. And he makes everyone around him better. He's the just the exact kind of player that you would want to be a captain, always goes out of his way to welcome new players to the team and stuff and just randomly gets their numbers.

And sure, you know, he's definitely kind of a hockey robot at times. He's very superstitious. But now he's, you know, he's, you know, how do I want to say this? You know, I know he's not from Pittsburgh, but, you know, I think everyone in this city, you know, thinks that he is just because, you know, he's been here for so long. And he's, you know, brought so much joy and so much happiness to so many people. in the city. And you know, you look at, you know, his 82 game point pace for every season of his career. This comes courtesy of Danny Shirey, even this past year, 98 point pace, if he would have played a full year.

The year before that, 91, 2019, 204, 2018, 19, 103. Remember when during those couple years they had a concussion in 2011-12? He had a 137 point pace over an 82 game regular season. He honestly could have hit 150 that season. It would have been close had he been fully healthy. That is how good Sid was during those peak years. Even 2012-13 when he was a bit banged up. 127 point base, 2010-11, 132 point pace.

Those three years, what could have been for the penguin? I mean, he just lost so many games from the peak of his career. I mean, he's at 1,400 points right now, right? He would be well over 1,600 points by now had he not missed a good chunk of those times. Honestly, he would, I don't think he would have hit 2K. I don't think he's going to do that now. I think right now, if he didn't miss a lot of that time during those years, he'd be over 1,600 right now.

he probably would finish with, I wouldn't say he's going to hit, he would hit 2K, but he would be awfully close to hitting 2K points. Maybe 1800, you know, a little over that, maybe 1900 or something like that. But, you know, he would, it would be close. You know, yeah, I don't think he would hit 2K. I think it's a little weird there. You know, maybe not even 1900, but I would say definitely would, I think, end his career with, you know, over 1750, 8,000.

1800 points just because, you know, how much, you know, he lost in the prime man's career. Also lost a good chunk of heart trophies and all that stuff. But, you know, just what a career he's had. One of the five greatest players to ever play for, I almost just screwed that up. One of the five greatest players to ever play in NHL, the second best player to ever play for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Happy 35th, Sid.

hope you have many, many more, and hopefully Penguins will be able to get one more Stanley Cup for you before you retire. And also, I will say this, go check out Josh Yoey's article on The Athletic. He had a wonderful story on Sid and you know what he's meant to the city over this, you know, almost 20 years at this point. So again, happy birthday, you said, and, you know, can't wait to hopefully see many more moments from yours over the career. And for all the listeners out there, what are your favorite Sydney Clause moments? Put them in the chat. I'm sure I probably missed well over 100 plus something Cid moments.

But if I miss something glaring, you know, just let me know. But just mainly let me know what your favorite Cid moments are. And if you don't listen on YouTube, you can just DM me on social media and then all that stuff. But come be up. And then in the second segment, we're going to get into the front office hires that Pinguins did make on Monday. But before I get to that, our next partner has a product I use literally every single day. I started taking athletic greens because, you know, didn't have time, sometimes in the morning, wanted better gut health, wanted more energy, all that stuff.

With one delicious scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food, sourced, superfoods, and probiotics to help you start your day right. The special band of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging, all of those things. It costs you less than $3 a day to get it. You're investing in your health, and it's cheaper than your cold-blue habit. It's also cheaper than getting all the different supplements yourself. It's lifestyle-friendly, whether you eat keto, vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free.

It contains less than one gram of sugar. Athletic Greens also have 7,000-5-star reviews recommended by many professional athletes. Right now, it's time to read through. claim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutritional. It's just one scoop and a cup of water every day. And that's it. There's no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. To make it easy, athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting

vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com, such an angel network. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash ancho network to take ownership over your health and make up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember follow me on Twitter. Hunter Hodes.

Follow the show's Twitter at Eleanorst for Penguins. And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So earlier today, around 11 o'clock on Monday morning, got the email right in front of me. So Penguins, they were able to make a few moves to their hockey operation staff, was announced by Ron Hextall. Chris Butler is a new player development coach, former annual defenseman, Greg Pattern, is a professional scout.

and Garrett Peters is a global crossover scout. So Butler, he's going to work closely with Trevor Daly, who's the hockey operations advisor. He's going to help develop the defensive prospects in the organization down in Wilkesbury down in their junior teams and all that. He's also going to report to Tom Costa Pallos, who's the team's director of player development. He spent the last season as an amateur scout with the Arizona Coyotes.

Greg Pattern, for all you, you know, NHL fans out there that don't just follow the penguins. I'm sure most of you listeners follow the league outside of Pittsburgh. Most of his career was spent with the Ducks, with the Dallas Stars. They're very good defensive defenseman on him. So he's going to be a scout based out in California. He's going to basically scout Western Conference teams. Again, he was in the NHL for about 10 years.

Most recently, a member of the Ducks organization last year. he ended up announcing his retirement at the end of this past season. He was actually the captain of the San Diego goals, which is the Ducks affiliate team. But, you know, he had a very nice career for the last decade, you know, played almost 300 NHL games. And, you know, he played for more teams than just Anaheim Dallas, you know, San Jose, Colorado, Minnesota, Montreal. You know, again, he didn't really score that much, you know, only five goals. 44 points, but he was known for usually being really good at shutting teams down in the defense zone. As for Peters, he's going to be scouting amateur players in North America and Europe.

Prior to joining Pittsburgh, he was an amateur scout for five seasons with the Blues. Of course, one that Stanley Cup in 2019 with him. He's on their hockey operations department. And he has also served as a scout in the QMJ HL. So congratulations to all three for first. join the Pitts for Penguins, I figured I would get into that a little bit to start out this second segment. It also looks like the Penguins are looking for a data engineer. So if you know anyone that potentially wants to work for the team, that's, you know, good with,

you know, data and all that, you know, go on. I believe it's teamwork online. You can apply through that. I think that's their final analytics person that the Penguins want to hire. Now, switching gears a little bit here. We're going to get into one of the Jersey topics I had planned for today. I'll get into the other one from the final segment of today's show. But the first one involves the Winter Classic jersey. I'm sure everyone I know is aware that the Penguins are going to be playing, the Boston Ruins, January of next year, almost just, you know,

oh wow, I almost just screwed up the Red Sox. I almost said TD Guarded in my accident. No, it's Fenway Park. Very obvious why the two teams are going to play. You know, Fenway Sports Group, one is Boston Red Sox, you know, the Pittsburgh Penguins. It's a very easy thing to do there. And I'm sure a lot of you are wondering, what's the Jersey going to be?

You know, when are they going to announce it? You know, I probably think the announcement's going to be maybe towards training camp sometime during the season. I do have a small scoop for you all with that. For what I've been told by a couple people, the Penguins logo is not going to be on the, you know, like the crest, you know, of the jersey. It's not going to be there. I know Taylor Haas of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports ran a story about a month ago, and she spoke to Kevin Acklin who said they are going to be throwing it way, way back. I, you know, I fully believe him with that because, you know, I was also told that it is going to be a massive throwback jersey.

I think it's going to be something that, you know, the fans have not seen for a very long time. I don't know what color it is. I don't know what it's going to say on it. All I know is that it's not going to include the penguin logo on it, and I don't think it's going to have penguins spelled out on like the center crest. That's at least from what I was told. So I wanted to put that out there. You know, maybe they'll bring back a baby blue or something like that.

I don't know. I think, you know, someone was in my DMs saying that it could, be, you know, that old throwback, Pittsburgh Pirates hockey jersey that was seen back, I think, in, oh, is it like the 20s and the 30s or something like that? I don't know. I know Acklin said that they picked out something that they think the fans are going to really enjoy. I'm curious to see, you know, the Penguins winner classic jerseys and just their outside jerseys overall have definitely been hit or miss over the years.

You know, I was never a fan of Labua jerseys. stand by that. I absolutely hate them. You know, bad luck aside, I just don't think they look good. I don't. You know, for a city that, you know, has their teams basically doing black and gold, I mean, for all of them, especially the Sears and the Pirates, you know, why are you like just putting out blue jersey? I know they've worn them in the past, but they have never looked good to me. You know, I think I would kind of be a little annoyed if they were to do like a blue diagonal or something like that, or just a blue jersey in general.

I think it has to be something black and gold from a throwback way back when. But again, from what I've been told, sounds like it's going to be a jersey that does not have the Penguins logo on it in the middle or just the Penguins spelled out in the middle. Hopefully I don't take the L on that. That's just from what I've heard. So don't shoot Messenger. But I just figured I would give that.

I'm confident enough of putting that small scoop. for you all out there coming up in the final segment i'm going to get into the reverse retro stuff and what i think could be that reverse retro 2.0 jersey for the penguins outside coming up right after i get into um built bar which is you know everyone's favorite bar if you haven't tried built par puffs yet you're depriving yourself of one of life's greatest choice and guess what there's a new flavor ready it's delicious indulgent in cookie dough covered in chocolate that's right Billet has done it again. The cookie dough chunk puffs have a light and chewy texture.

Real cookie dough chunks and, of course, they're covered in 100% real chocolate. All the joys of eating cookie dough without the hassle of actually making it. Plus, it is healthy for you. They only have 160 calories and they have a whopping 15 grams of protein in them. You can run to build.com to snag a box for you and the family. It'll be the perfect treat. Or you can find a really good hiding place and just hoard them for yourself. You go to Billet.com.

You put a code lock 15 and get 15% off your order. That's promo code to lock 15. for 15% off at builds.com. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. We're going to follow me on Twitter on our hodies. Follow this show. It was Twitter at hello underscore penguins.

So I did see today, ice edicts, which they are very reliable when it comes to jerseys and all that stuff. They were able to leak out some of the reverse retro jerseys. in a video and then they put them out on their social media. And it looks like the Canucks are going to pay tribute to their pre-edential franchise with a 1962 Johnny Canuck on it. The Islander is going to be bringing back their fisherman logo, which is very, I mean, that's a great logo.

Tambay, they're going to be bringing back their 1997, third jersey, which is, there's a little bit of blue on it, but I always like that when the devil's going to be bringing back Kansas City Scouts jersey. Sharks are bringing back the California Golden Seals jersey, which is almost looked like a Seattle Supersonics jersey for my NBA fans out there. He also had one of the Oilers, the Black Cox and a couple other teams. Nothing on the Penguins in there. I've heard from someone what the jersey could be.

I'm not fully confident to report it just yet. If it does pan out, I will say that I think most of the fame base will like it. Which leaves me to believe, which leaves me to this, you know, in my opinion, I think the reverse retro, if the penguins are getting one, and I'm sure they are, I think it should be the brobo penguin. I know that's a very controversial topic within the penguins community, but I absolutely love that jersey. Just the way it looks, you know, the way, you can just, you see it so cleanly on the ice. That's honestly one of their best uniforms that this franchise has ever worn.

And I know for a fact that Mariel Lemieux was not a fan of that jersey for multiple reasons. But with new ownership, maybe they're pushing for it. You know, maybe they're able to get something done. You know, because it is a reverse retro jersey. You know, that's going to, I think, be the big question of how do you make one that, you know, is maybe, I shouldn't say as good as the original, but close to as good. You know, I don't think doing one in white would make any sense. I think that would just look gross.

maybe you can do one with, you know, a little bit of black and also a good amount of gold. I think that would also be good too. But, you know, I just, the only thing, again, that I don't want for this one either, I just don't want another blue jersey. But just just bring back the robot pen, which has not been worn in, you know, over a decade and a half at this point, it would be so much fun to see them wear. I remember I even put out a tweet. Now, I think this was like several months ago, and I was just like, man, look how clean this is.

And if I can find that here in my DMs that I was sending to my buddy. So for my YouTube audience, this is what I have right here. So it's, it's Sid with the jersey on. And it's just, it looks so freaking clean. I just, oh, I just. my mouth water is just looking at it because I want that jersey back so freaking bad. But again, as soon as I potentially get more confirmation on that, you all be the first to know. I'm just, I'm not fully comfortable yet running it because I don't have the full

conversation that I need for it. But, no, it would be interesting to see, you know, when that jersey is announced, you know, it might be during the season, it might be training camp. I'm not really sure, you know. sometimes they don't announce them. I think honestly the last reverse red show jersey they announced was, I believe it was during the year. I don't think they announced it prior to the season.

And, you know, I know some people didn't like that one. It was the knockoff Pittsburgh Diagonal, the white version of it. I thought it was fine. I think it was one of the better jerseys that they produced in the last handful years, you know, a hell of a lot better than that stupid, just mustard jersey that they wore in the playoff. I don't know whose idea that was to wear that third jersey in the playoffs against the Islanders. but just a really funny decision, I think to say at least. Obviously, I know they brought back the original Pittsburgh diagonal,

which is awesome in its own right. But if they can bring back the Robo Penguin, I think I will have gotten every wish that I've ever made almost when it comes to this team. I've already seen the championships. I've seen Sid and Geno and Latang do their things and so many other stuff. But if they can bring back the Robo Penguin and I can see Sid and all them wear it, at least once. I will be a very happy camper, say it at least. But that would do it for this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much from listening. Again, you know,

this is definitely the time of year where there's, you know, not a lot out there. But, you know, it's my job and my duty to bring you all content every time I come, you know, my voice comes to your airwaves. I don't want to ever come on you and say, well, there's nothing to talk about. There's always things to talk about when it comes to this team. My next episode for the show will be on Wednesday. So I will talk to all that. I hope you have a great Monday and Tuesday.