Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Is it too early for Mike Sullivan to be coach of the year?

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

What a win for your Pittsburgh Penguins! Mike Sullivan has everyone bought in and it showed in that 7-1 drubbing of the Maple Leafs. Hunter spends his first segment touching on Sullivan and how he may have already won the Jack Adams with how the team is playing. He then compares the Leafs to the Penguins and shares some lessons that the Leafs could learn from Pittsburgh after they got humiliated in that game. After that, Hunter goes into his top performers of the game and it has to start with Drew O'Connor. Has he fully played his way into the lineup? What about Evan Rodrigues? He scored his first goal of the season and did a great job centering Jake Guentzel. Hunter also updates the numbers on Tristan Jarry, plus shares some big updates from practice as Sidney Crosby gets closer to a return.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello and welcome to this Monday afternoon episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. And thank you all so much for making this episode of Locked-on Penguins podcast, your first listen of the day. what a win it was for your penguins on Saturday night, a 7-1 shalacking of the Toronto Maple Leafs who have a lot more questions than answers right now. But my biggest takeaway from that game,

I actually loved it that Penn 67 sent this to me because I was going to talk about this right off the rip, but I wanted to include his comment here. He says there's a lot of big wins since the last cup win in 2017, but the win against the Leafs on Saturday night would be in the top 10 since then, What a statement with the big wheels out. Let's go, Penns.

Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that comment. And you are 100% right. That is where I was going to start today. I have been watching this franchise. I would say for, what, 18 of the 23 years that I've been alive. This is definitely one of the top 10 best wins that I've ever seen. Think about the circumstances.

No Sidney Crosby. No, Evgeny Malkin. Chris LaTang test positive for COVID-19. Jeff Carter is out with COVID-19 as well. Brian Russ is week-to-week. Those are five of your best players, and you still put seven goals up on the high-flying Maple Leafs. That just goes to show how amazing of a coach Mike Sullivan is,

and he has a total buy-in from all of the players right now. It is truly fascinating to see how every player on the team knows their role. And, you know, Elliot Freeman and Jeff Merrick were touching on this on their episode, earlier today before I recorded mine you know just the differences between the Leafs and the Penguins Pittsburgh had three days off for that game and apparently

Brian Boyle spoke after the game to Emily Kaplan and he said yeah Sullivan had a plan going into this and when he told us it we were not going to let him down and that is exactly what the Penguins did with that 7 to 1 shalacking of the Leafs just a total buy-in from all the players and

you know 8 out of 10 points to start the season with these circumstances stances with all these positive COVID tests, all these injuries, the goaltending being awesome. It's something that I know I didn't see coming, and I don't think anyone else in the fan base saw coming either. It just goes to show that Sullivan is not only a top five coach in this league, but a top three coach in this league. I don't really think you can name three other coaches better than him at this point. And I think, you know, if he is able to keep managing this, which I'm sure he will be able to, he should win the Jack Adams by the end of the season. I will

fully start being Mike Sullivan for Jack Adams campaign on this podcast. It is a joke, a crime. It's pathetic that he never gets any love for it because he is one of the three best coaches in the league. And, you know, I've always voiced my frustrations over that award because it goes to the team that overachees in quotation marks or has the best goalie in quotation marks or whatever other garbage you want to use for it. But, you know, what Sullivan is doing right now is masterful. And for this alone, he should be a top. candidate for coach of the year at the end of the season. It was ridiculous that he wasn't even named a finalist at the end of last season,

considering all the injuries this team went through. They got first in the freaking division for God's sake and also had some pretty shaky goaltending at times in the regular season. In my opinion, I think the East Division was the toughest division in hockey. And the fact that there were three other coaches on there was nothing short of weird and just steeping and all that. But I'm sure, you know, once all the big guns come back, you know, the reason for him that's not going to be on the Jack Adams.

Well, he has Sidney Crosby. He has Evgeny Malkin. He has Chris Littang. He has Jeff Carter. He has Brian Russ. Whatever, whatever. But it's like, look who he did not have for the first whole month of the season. And look what he was able to do with the team.

I mean, they're like what? A point out of first place right now. They've gotten a point in their first five games of the season. And some of these teams they've had to play are really freaking good. I mean, you've had the two-time defending champions in the lightning. they stymied them in Tampa Bay. They played their butts off against the Panthers and honestly should have won that game.

They crushed Toronto. Sure, they lost a game to the Dallas Stars in overtime. No, excuse me, a shootout, but they honestly should have won that game as well. And then they destroy the Chicago Blackhawks who just can't seem to even get a lead at this point. I think they've actually set an initial record for the most amount of minutes to open the season

while not having a lead. But all of this has been because of Mike Sullivan. It is, and for those that wanted him, fired after this last series or honestly fired after that Montreal series. I really hope you're eating your words right now because if they were to fire this man, it would set the franchise back a long ways. He is that good at what he does. And I understand that all coaches have shelf lives.

I mean, you know, even Joel Quenble got fired in Chicago. John Tarlella was with Columbus for all those years. Mike Sullivan is one of those few coaches that can, you know, I guess outlive a shelf life because all of his players listen to him on a daily basis. You know, there's always been all those stories that, you know, the players started to tune out of coach. I mean, that happened here with Dan Balsma. That happened here with Mike Johnston, but not with Sully.

I mean, he knows how to get the best out of his players, even when a lot of his other best players are out of the lineup, and that speaks volumes to me. And in that game against Toronto, they just, outside of probably five to ten minutes in the first period, they dominated them. I was honestly just stunned up at the way they were playing. They were four checking hard. They were not giving anything back in the defensive zone. And honestly, once Toronto went down three to one in that game, I was like, yeah, it's over.

I mean, you could just tell that the Leafs were kind of checked out in that one. And again, Pittsburgh was not giving anything to them in the way of scoring chances. It's such a great brand of hockey when all of their star players were out. And the best part is it's not boring. You're not seeing that style that the Dallas stars play with, even with all of their star players in, right? You know, where they dumb it down and, you know, it's like watching your water boil for pasta when you're making a dish for dinner. Or, you know, the New Jersey Devils from the late 90s or even, you know, the New York Islanders with Barry Trotson system. I mean, I know how boring that system is.

We had to see it almost 15 times last season. But, you know, Sullivan, he runs a system similar to that, but it's actually fun to watch just because of the way the team four checks and the way they are still. able to, I guess, kind of run a track meet in a way, but, you know, not as bad as it is when all of the star players are in the lineup. It's you always defense first, and then they're just capitalizing on the opponent's mistakes, and that's exactly what Pittsburgh did against Toronto. Drew O'Connor gets two more goals, almost had a hatrick in that game. He now has three goals in his first five games.

What a find he has been, you know, just looked like an ECHL player. Last year comes up this season. looks like a completely different player and is continuing to make his push to be in the top 12 if this freaking team ever gets healthy. I keep making the mistake of saying that on Twitter. You know, I say when this team is healthy, then I get corrected out saying, you know, it should be if, because you always know it's going to be a soul for a soul, as Thanos says, in Avengers Infinity War where, you know, one player comes back, another player comes back out. But awesome game from him. He was everywhere against the Leafs, and he was very well rewarded with those two goals.

I think one of them was a deflection. Just Jack Campbell had no chance on that. I know Jason Spetso was able to come back and score the time goal for the Leaves about 30 seconds to a minute later. Mike Matheson was kind of running around in his zone a little bit. And then, you know, as soon as I kind of talked a bunch of crap on him, he comes back and scores on a nice, honestly, a beautiful wraparound. He went coast to coast on the Leafs and even elevated the puck. I think that was one of the first times I've ever seen a puck elevated on a wraparound. Usually it's only, it's still on the ice, you know, the pad doesn't get across.

But, you know, Jack Campbell's pad, I'm pretty sure, got our cross in time, but Matheson was able to somehow elevate it above the pad to make it to one. And then the floodgate started to open from that point. But, you know, overall, just with this for a segment, my biggest takeaway, what a performance from this team. That's eight out of ten points to open the season. And Mike Sullivan is doing his best coaching job of his tenure to date. And yeah, I mean, this is definitely a top 10 win that I've seen for as long as I have been watching them.

You know, obviously you've got the Big Cup wins up there, Game 7 against Ottawa, a couple other big time playoff series. But, you know, I guess you can probably separate the playoffs from regular season. So in terms of regular season wins, there are definitely not 10 games from as long as I've been watching them that are better than this. I mean, it was just a beautiful performance. And I did tweet out prior to this game that if the least were to lose this, it would be just like the David Ayers game. I will stand by that is absolutely pathetic how the least played in this one. Mitch Marner looked like crap. Austin Matthews couldn't do a thing.

William Nealander couldn't do anything. John Tavares is the same. It's pretty weird that old man Jason Spetsa is basically leading their offense. And then, you know, one last one before we get to the next seven, we'll touch on some of the other players from this performance. It's been two years. You know, Wayne Simmons is still kind of a scumbag. I don't really understand why he decided to fight in that situation.

It was just kind of a cheap shot, too. But you know, he's the same player he was when he was with Philadelphia. He's not going to change. So that's just who he is at this point. We all are accustomed to Wayne Simmons being an idiot whenever he plays the Penguins. Now, before you get to our next segment, does this sound familiar? You've got one device that lets you catch the game live, another that lets you stream your favorite shows, you're watching sports highlights on your phone, and you've got your neighbor's best friends login for their good stuff.

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and the best part, there's no annual contract. So get rid of the clutter and the confusion and get your TV together with DirecTV stream. You can learn more at DirectTV.com. That has DirectTV.com, compatible device-acquired. Content varies by package. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. Arscoopenguins. And another reminder, thank you all so much for making the Lockdowne Penguins podcast. Hopefully your first listen of the day. Now, going into some individual performances from this game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tristan Jari, again, spectacular. That is now four straight, really good starts from him.

And now, because, you know, you all know me. I love the underlying numbers. Trishinjari, still fourth in goals saved above expected with 5.1. Brovsky at 9. Shasturkin 6.3, Frederick Anderson, a 5.2. His goals saved above expected per 60, 1.250. That's still, I believe, top 10 league-wide. His safe percentage on unblocked shots, or his actual state percentage, I should say, it is 970.

His expected state percentage on unblocked shots, that is 943. Goals against 1.47. His expected goals against is 2.73. So the fact that he is outperforming that goes to show that he is, this has been a much better year from Tristan thus far. And he was on his angles in that game against Toronto. There were some really good chances in that first period that, you know, if he doesn't make those saves,

the game could have gone away from the Penguins a little bit just because, you know, Toronto really pushed after that spats a goal. But after Pittsburgh was able to get that Matheson goal, and then Jason Zorker's goal, which I'll talk about in a few seconds, Toronto really had no hope. So without some key saves in the first period from Tristan, this game could have been a lot different. Kudos to him.

That is now his fourth straight, really good start to open the season. And it's continuing to be more encouraging as each start goes by. I would expect him to start on Tuesday against Tampa at PVG Paints Arena. Now we'll get to Jason Zucker. Kind of a harmless little riff shot, a lot of traffic. I don't really know how Jack Campbell didn't save that. I guess he was screened. But when I've watched that replay, I think five or six times now.

Now, he still should have been able to come up with a puck. That made it 3-1. And, you know, that's his second goal of the season. You know, Jason Zucker's redemption is in full swing. I want to see him shooting the puck more. That's exactly what he did with that sequence. And he needs to keep doing that if he wants to keep scoring more. Obviously, you know, not a lot of pucks are going to come in from that distance.

I think it was around what? 40, 45 feet away. But the fact that he is committed to shooting the puck a lot more this season after having, I think, his worst shooting year last season is really good for the penguins, I would say. And I loved O'Connor's second goal of that game. I think it was what, what, nine minutes left in the second period. Just a harmless little shot. Goes in off of Toronto skating in.

You know, it honestly reminded me of, I think, Jake Gensel's goal, game four, 2017 against the Capitals, just basically banked it off to Mutualo Orlovs, skating in. And, you know, that was one of the big goals of that game for the Penguins to go up three games to one in that series. it's never a bad play in that scenario to fire the puck on net that is exactly what o'connor did and again people um i will continue to say it i think he should be in this top 12 um if everyone gets healthy he should be playing um many more games from this team this season i can't stress enough how night and day it is i know i got old takes exposed pretty bad going into the preseason where i thought he didn't really have much of a chance to make the team comes out as a great preseason i still say you know He's probably not going to do much of the legger season. And then I look like even more of an idiot when he comes out and scores three goals in five games. So he has been awesome this year. And I just, I really have nothing else to say on it just because I don't want to keep rehashing.

Same things I've said probably 500 times in the last week. Brian Boyle gets his second goal of the season. That was a rocket of a shot. I'm trying to remember who that pass was. I think it was from Dom Simone, if I'm not mistaken. And he just fired that. I think Gloveside on the, I think Hutchinson was in the net just because Jack Campbell got pulled. Hutchinson really had no chance on that.

As I see Boyle get rewarded for another strong game. You know, I've definitely been wrong on him to start the season. I did not think he would have two goals in the team's first five games. But, you know, he's a player that everyone can root for, especially with, you know, what he's been through throughout his career. So it's nice to see him play some really good hockey. Marcus Pedersen, he gets his first goal of the season. And he continues to shut. people up in this fan base and that makes me obviously very happy just because I have been a

very big supporter of his throughout the years. I do not want him traded over the offseason. I still do not want him traded when POJ comes up full time or when another defenseman inevitably comes up at some point. He is too important to this team and you're continuing to see how great he is with John Marino. Speaking of Marino, another master role performance from him. He played on the top pairing with Brian Dumlin because Krista Tang had COVID. did not look out of place at all through five games. This is the best that we have seen him play since his rookie season. He's skating, his vision, play on the offensive zone, play in the defensive zone.

It's night and day from what we all saw last season, and a lot of it does have to do with playing with his usual partner in Marcus Pedersen. So I want to keep seeing it. And even though he wasn't with Pedersen during this game, playing with Dumlin, I didn't really see any miscues between the two. It looked like they had been playing with each. other for three to four years if you ask me but you know playing on the top parry and it's not something you want to see for a full season but you know in a little bit of a short spell with chrys that's

hanging out due to being sick um it's not the worst thing in the road you want to see what this guy can do he's only in his third season in the league he didn't have that good of a year last year throw him out to even more of the wolves and see how he there's and i definitely think he passed that first test on saturday against toronto lastly ever Rodriguez he gets of his first goal of the season just to rocket of a shot from above the right wing circle on the power play. I know no one's used to see you can play on the top power play. I know I'm not, but he's really stepped up his game with all of these centers out. And he is also pushing for a top 12 spot.

You know, with the emergence of O'Connor, with Boyle playing well, with Simone playing really well. I just, I don't know what his spot is if this team gets healthy. Do you put him in the lineup? I mean, Drew O'Connor might have to come out. Dominic Simone might have to come out, and I would take them right now over Rodriguez, but that's not to say that Evan has been playing bad because he hasn't. I mean, he's actually been pretty reliable this season. It's just such a tough call for Mike Sullivan because this team is so deep.

So I'm not really sure what the right answer is there, but all he can do is continue to play well and make his case to be in the lineup on an every-night basis, and he is certainly doing that right now. I thought he was fine with Jake Gensel and Dayton Hinen. And obviously you don't want him playing there for 20 to 30 games. But, you know, in 1 to 2, it's not going to be the end of the world. And again, I thought he was just fine. I don't really think I could point to a single player actually being bad for the whole game.

And this one, and, you know, I saw this point made on Twitter by a couple people. And I think I've talked about this coming into this season. I'll say this again for some of the new listeners. It is so refreshing to not. have a player on this team that will drag them down on a nightly basis. It's so nice to not have the corpse of Jack Johnson, playing 15, 16 minutes a night at, you know, negative value for the team. Same with Eric Goodbranson.

You know, I know Sam Lafferty's not that good, but he's nowhere near that level. They don't have a Mark Jenkowski dragging down a line on an every-night basis. Every player that's playing right now brings positive value to the team, and that's only going to get better if this team ever gets healthy. Yes, I understand that I probably said that five times in 18 minutes. You could probably all start a drinking game for that. But it's just everyone knows their role, and they have identified the players that can bring a positive contribution

to the team without having to overpay for some bad debt players. But I wanted to point that out before we do get to our next segment. It is really just a breath of fresh air in that regard. Coming up in the next segment, we're going to go over some practice. notes from today and just, you know, look ahead to tomorrow night's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Before we do that, though, did you know that Bilbar has many delicious flavors? There is something for everyone. When you talk to the Bill Bar fan, they are definitely passionate about their favorites. If you don't know the flavors, you're always missing out with orange,

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Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Some practice notes to go over today. Full team participate in practice. Evgeny Malkin and Brian Russ skated before. It seems like Gino is really ramping up his skating, taking a lot of shots during these sessions. He looks primed to hopefully come back in early December. I don't know how... I know the timeline was December. I just don't know what it was Christmas time, mid-December, early December. No, but the fact that he's skating right I think could point to him being back in the early portions of the month,

but you know who knows on that. Brian Russ also great to see him back out on the ice after being declared week to week by Mike Sullivan about a week ago. Though the big news today, Sidney Crosby, again, a full participant in Penguin's practice. And Mike Sullivan even said after the session that his increased participation indicates that he's getting closer to your return. I'm not ready to say if he is going to be playing tomorrow, I think it's probably a bit too early to see that.

We'll see if he takes line rushes at the morning skate, see what kind of drills he does. But it sounds like, you know, he was doing some face-offs. I think that was one of the main things that he said he had not done. And Mike DeFabo said this while being at practice, you know, he had not taken four such as stick lifts, battling in face-offs. And there was a segment of practice with live five-on-five action, including face-offs. And for line rushes, Sid did participate a little bit, was with Jason Zucker and Danton, the other ones. Jake Gensel and Rodriguez, Kasperi Kampinen. Dominic Simone, Brian Boyle, Sam Lafferty,

Zach Aston-Reese, Teddy Bluger, and Brock McGinn. But I think Sid was also skating between Drew O'Connor and Dayton-Hinen for some other line rushes as well. So I think he kind of just came in and out for those. Again, not sure if he's going to play tomorrow, but it looks like potentially sometime this week we will see Sid back. If it's not tomorrow, definitely a higher chance that it's on Thursday against the flames, but it also could be on the week.

weekend too. But at least, you know, the fact that the captain is getting closer, great sign that we'll be able to get one of the three guys back. Chris LaTang was not at practice. There was some hope from people in the organization. It sounded like that it was going to be a false positive. It was not. It was a full-tested positive and he will be isolated from the team. I think it's what, 10 days or something like that. So he will not be playing tomorrow and I would be very surprised if he played on Thursday. I don't think there's any way he's going to play there as well. Hopefully we get a speedy recovery from Tangra because he is a player that this team could not afford to lose for a long period of time.

They will play Tampa Bay on Tuesday. I'm sure the lightning will be looking for a bit of revenge just because of the way they played on opening night against Pittsburgh. There was just nothing going from them in that game, but I think you will see a much different Lightning team. We all know how great they are forward. I know they lost a lot of their bottom six, but their top six is still awesome.

Victor Headman looks like a different player this year. And obviously, And Andre Vasselowski is the best goaltender in the world, and they do have a great coach in John Cooper. I'm looking forward to watching that. Hopefully, Sid will be back for it. I'll be crossing my fingers that the captain makes his debut, and I'm sure, you know, John Cooper may be crossing his fingers. He did say after opening night that the only thing that was missing was Sid playing.

So I'm sure he's hoping a little bit that he plays, but also maybe not because it would drive up the odds of his team winning if Sid is not in the lineup. But that would do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I appreciate all of you listening to this one, 3 and 2 to start the season. Game 6 tomorrow night from PBG Paints Arena

against Tampa Lighting. Then they will have the Calgary Flames come to PBG on Thursday before a Saturday mashup against New Jersey Devils and then they will actually have five days off until November 4th. So that'll be a fun time on this podcast. We'll probably have some guests on during that point.

So for tomorrow's episode, you can look for that after the game. I will record a full game recap and then Wednesday. Probably have a preview for that game against the flames. I'm going to try to do a maybe a little crossover with Jess Belmosto have locked on flames. And then Thursday, full game recap for you all.

And then Friday, we will have a preview episode for the Penguins' first metropolitan game of the season against the New Jersey Devils. So that is the week ahead for this show. I hope you all are looking forward to it. And I can't wait to talk to you all about tomorrow night's game after it happens. So I'll talk to you all then.