Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Is the Stanley Cup run back on?!?!

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

A win? In this economy? Yes, it actually happened as the Pittsburgh Penguins took down the Washington Capitals, 4-1 to snap their seven-game skid. Hunter starts off the show by touching on why this was a great team performance and how EVERYONE chipped in. He looks at how the team got goal-scoring from everywhere (not just the top six for a change) and how that really paved the way toward a win. He then dissects Casey DeSmith's game and looks at how he was able to keep them in the game, especially during those first 5-7 minutes of the first period. Hunter also shouts out the defensive core for really stepping up when Rutta and POJ went down with injuries since that forced other players to play more minutes. After that, Hunter gives his top player performances and starts with two bottom six players. After that, he looks at how Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin led by example, plus how Jeff Petry had his best game in quite a long time. Finally, Hunter gets to the listener takeaways and touches on how Ty Smith could make his Penguins debut if some of these injuries are serious.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 “LOCKEDON15,” 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!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnNHL to learn more.Athletic GreensTo make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NHLNETWORK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Got breaking news for me? Oh, really? Okay. So what do you got? Oh, the Penguins, they won a hockey game? Oh, okay, I can break that to the listeners. Okay, sounds good. Bye.

So breaking news style here, Kevin Weeks, Pissor Penguins have won a hockey game. Yes, that is confirmed. I got the call from someone in the know. I look, check the NHL app. And yes, your Pist for Penguins have finally won a hockey game for the first time since checks notes. October 22nd, so two and a half weeks.

Okay, baby steps, of course. But no, in all seriousness, welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. And yes, we are discussing a Pittsburgh Penguins victory, a 4-1 win over the Washington Capitol. For today's episode, we're to get into everything regarding that win, how is a full-team effort, Casey dismissed performance, how the defense was able to play with both Yon Ruhta and P.O. Joseph, out what that could mean going forward if both. their injuries are a bit serious. Don't Jason Zucker's goal.

Just so many other talking points as well. The penalty kill. We get into that. So we have a lot to get to for our today's episode. And it's all coming up right after this. You're Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.

Your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. We're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can also follow the show's Twitter at Elmorestel Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. Again, as I teased in my intro, Pizzar Penguins, they get a 4-to-1 victory over the Washington Capitals to snap their 7-game losing streak.

And honestly, I think the biggest thing that we have to start with, this was a complete team performance by the Penguins. Everyone contributed, especially women defensive men, went out. Casey DeSmith was good. Poundy, kill was good. Power play, you know, Knie needs a little bit of work. 5'5. Everyone was solid. All four lines were clicking really

well. And, no, I think that is the main reason that this team was able to come away with the 4-1 win. It started out a little bit shaky. I think it was first 5 to 7 minutes. The England's route shot, 5, 6-0. They were on their heels. Capitals were getting some good chances. But after that, the Penguins, they

settled in, they survived that barrage. And for the remainder, especially that first period, they took it to the caps. They got some good chances. Darcy Kemper was able to make some nice saves before he kind of turned into a pumpkin a bit later to the game. But, you know, those 15 minutes, I was starting to feel a little more confident that they were

going to win this game. And then, you know, they get that first goal, then the second goal, then the third goal. I'm like, okay, feeling a lot more confident, but still there was a period left. And then even honestly, when the caps made it 3 to 1, I wasn't that concern. You know, in the back of your mind, you're like, you know, is this going to happen again just because of how many leads they've blown lately?

But, you know, the way the penguins were humming, especially in that third period, they were getting it to the red line and out there. They were not really turtling. They were saying aggressive, getting some chances. I almost knew that this was going to be a good night. You know, the top line was great all game. The Malkin line was humming. The Carter line was getting some good chances.

Like even the fourth line with Josh Archibald and Ryan Pailing, I thought, really bringing some shifts. And then, of course, defensively, playing without four defensively. for about half that game. And, you know, heck, they even played with three defensemen for a few shifts. They were lucky that Petrie was able to come back. If Petrie was not able to come back in that game, you would have been seeing forwards play defensemen.

Heck, I think I was watching the post game interview on TNT with Paul Bisnett and Cindy Crosby and all the game. And they were basically saying, the coaches were basically saying, has anyone ever played defense before in minor league hockey or like Bansom Peewee hockey? that's how desperate they were at that time. I think even Jeff Carter was taking some shifts, or a couple shifts as a defenseman. They would have been really up a creek

if Patriot was not able to come back. But he was able to, and the penguins were able to finish off that game with four defensemen. You know, them keeping eight to nine defensemen for the start of the season, I think that's going to pay huge dividends, especially if both POJ and Chabar, if both P. If both P.O.J. and Yon Ruta aren't able to play,

going forward. They're still being evaluated right now. According to Mike Sullivan, that could be the way to Ty Smith being called up. Obviously, Chavez-Reedel is there. He'll slot in. But, you know, Ty Smith, Mark Friedman, you know, those couple of guys that are down in Wilkesbury right now. But again, just really happy with the overall team performance night. Jason Zucker gets things started with his goal. Very fluky goal. But you know what I say to that? It's kind of karma for the Penguins just because they got royally screwed against the Cracken with two of their goals, basically almost going off skates and in.

So this is kind of like the hockey guides giving it back. And I think also the Penguins, even before that, the game against Boston, a couple games before that, they were not getting the bounces even in the game against Buffalo. So, you know, they got rewarded with that goal. Brock McGinn was able to get his first goal in quite a long time. I'm going to touch on him a little later on in the episode, especially when I give my overall player performances. That'll be the next segment.

But that was a nice goal that he scored. And then Jeff Petrie had an absolute rocket to make it 3-0. And then Jake Gensel was able to get the empty netter with only a few minutes remaining. And Brombegin, he is the first bottom six player to score a goal in the Penguin's last eight games other than Josh Archibald. They have badly needed depth scoring. And I'm glad that he was able to provide that. the defensive scoring that's also dried up a little bit as a late it's mainly just been the top six it's

been doing everything but petri was able to get that blast from about 55 60 feet something like that and he was able to make the capitals pay really nice screen also from brian rust and then also i'll say in goal casey de smith i thought he was very steady made some good saves at the start of those first five to seven minutes was very surprised that he started tonight i definitely did not think he was going to get the start. I don't think Sullivan has been asked why he started. I guess they just wanted to change things out. Maybe it was just one of the massive changes that he wanted to make overall. I don't know if that means Tristan's going to go back to back on Friday and Saturday. I would assume they would probably go back to back because Tristan, he was backing up on the bench.

I don't know if he was sick, but also if he was sick, why would he be on the bench? Just a very interesting decision but you know it was a little bit of a gamble from sullivan but it paid off you know he made some nice saves even in the second period when the team started build that lead kept them he preserved that lead then the third period also made some strong saves the one that he allowed from marcus yohans i kind of more blame um on brian dune than anything it's probably one that dismiss would want back just because it went five hole but it was also i think a pretty good shot um so again overall really nice team performance and i probably said that seven thousand times. The penalty kill was rock solid and you're really starting to see that turn slowly

but surely. I've talked about this on some of my episodes in the past few days. If that can really get kicking into high gear, I think a lot of the problems that the payments have had for the last two to two and a half weeks, they get corrected because you're not giving up a goal per game on your PK. And I understand the capitals are banged up. There were three of their top six forwards. Their top two defensemen, their power play doesn't look nearly as good. But still, the fact that the were able to easily kill off those penalties and hardly give up any quality chances. And it was the same thing against Seattle to, you know, very good games from that unit. It's, you know, it's a process.

It's your building blocks here. So, you know, I want to see that continued going forward. They'll have a much, much tougher opponent on Friday in terms of playing on the power play because Toronto's power play is usually really, really good. But they really liked how that performance was from the PKK. Obviously, of course, they got their shorthanded goal. That's the Penguins first short-handed goal against Washington. since February 25th, 2021, Brandon Tanev, old friend, got that one.

So that wraps up this first segment of the episode. Just wanted to go into how great of a win this was. It was just for the team and how everyone contributed. It just wasn't, you know, it wasn't just, excuse me, three to four players. That's the reason they won the game or it wasn't just because, you know, the goalie saved it or something like that. It was truly because, you know, everyone played a sound. game and you know they stuck to the process and they were rewarded with that to say the least so that wraps at this first segment coming up in the second segment we're going to get into some individual

player performances who i thought really stood out to me tonight and then the final segment we're to get into some listener takeaways as well now before we get to that our next partner has a product i use literally every day i start taking athletic greens because you know sometimes didn't have time in the morning. I want a better gut health. Sometimes I don't have the energy in the morning just to, you know, get out of bed and stuff. But, you know, now that I've been on it for the last few weeks, I absolutely love it. I know it doesn't taste like it's super healthy. And it's kind of like a mild tropical taste. But I still actually look forward to it each morning. So what is this stuff? With one delicious scoop of athletic greens, you're resorting 75 high-quality vitamins,

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Apologies about that. So individual players-wise who I thought released out to me tonight, I'm actually going to start with one of the bottom six players, Jeff Carter. I know I've harbored on him a lot recently. hasn't played well in a lot of games. Tonight was not one of those. I thought he was one of their better players on the ice.

If you notice on the McGinn goal, when the Penguins were short-handed, only up one-nothing at the time. The way he was able to pick up off that pass at the point, get it to McGinn on the opposite side, who then was able to squeak that puck, past Kemp, a goal that the Penguins just have not been getting at all

during these last 6 to 7 games. Really nice play by the game. the veteran. And, you know, I think that's the main reason why Sullivan likes having him on the PK. I know he's, you know, out of position at times. He's one of the slower players at times as well. But when he's making plays like that, when he's being aggressive at the point, picking off that pass, getting it to the other side of the ice to let him again do his thing. You know, I think that what I'm trying to say is, you know, that that is kind of like the main reason why Sullivan puts him on the PK. I also think they see him as a defensively responsible center.

Outside of that, I thought he was playing really well at 5E5, was getting some decent scoring chances, was responsible in his own zone too. I want to see Carter hopefully build off this performance and not see him turn into a ghost like he was before he got hurt. But a step in the right direction for Carter, and we're actually going to keep it here in the bottom six. Brock McGinn, I touched on a little earlier on in this episode.

That, I think, was his best game of a penguin this season. kind of game, that is why he is getting paid $2.75 million. I haven't said that a lot this season, or actually haven't said that at all, just because he's very inconsistent, kind of labeled him as a passenger. Tonight, he was anything. But that was very aggressive for checking-wise, was getting plenty of chances to score in the offensive zone. Got a little bit of a lucky bounce on that short-handed goal.

Yes, but, you know, when you're a player who only has one goal in a team's first 11 to 12 games, you need a bounce like that. and he was able to get his second one on the season. Maybe he's able, maybe that's able to, you know, kickstart him a little bit, get him back to, you know, the level that he was at in his final year in Carolina in the first half of last season. Maybe I'm being a little more, maybe I'm having some wishful thinking with that,

but still really enjoyed his performance. That was a big goal for the Penguins at a time where they really needed it. And that was also their first short-handed goal of the season. So outside of those two in the bottom six, we'll go up to the top six now. People are going to harp on the guinea malkin say, oh, yeah, played a bad first five, ten minutes, blah, blah, blah, blah, turning the puck over. Okay, yeah, he turned the puck over a couple times, whatever. Other than that, those final 50 minutes, he was fantastic. I know he missed an empty net towards the late stages of the third period.

I believe the Penguins were up three, nothing at that time. That was before the Marcus Johansson goal. But other than that, you know, he was galloping all night, was skating really well defensively after those first five to seven minutes, wasn't really turning the puck over at all. I thought he played one of his better games in the season. I know he didn't score, but I thought he played very well, and I hope you all saw that too.

Cindy Crosby, again, if there's a player that's really going to lead the penguins out of this, it is going to be Sid, and they were really following his lead tonight. I don't know why Sid has such a, like a, that's the way I'm looking for. Just a, like, he's just, he hates Martin Fedivarii for some reason. I don't know. I know he basically slammed him against the board just the November 14th of last season. Tonight he's cross-checking him a bunch. I don't know if he like spat in his cereal or something like that.

He just does not like him for some reason. But, you know, he was also, the puck was, you know, following his stick all night. he was making things happen on the top line, really enjoyed his performance. Two already touched on Casey to Smith. He was very sharp. It was definitely a bit of a gamble or a risk for Mike Sullivan to start him.

But I definitely think he is glad that he did, to say the least. Just making sure I got everything here on my notes. I thought Jeff Petrie had a really good performance too. This was probably his best performance in the last several games. Even outside the goal, he was defending hard. you know, driving offense in the offensive zone, was not really taking any penalties,

which was good. That's been a big issue for him for the start of this season as well. And when he's playing that sound game that you saw tonight, he is at his best. So really enjoyed that game from Petrie. And honestly, I think I'm going to shout out almost every defenseman as a whole. I thought all six of them, well, all six before the two went down, played really well.

And I will even include Brian New morning back. And I understand people. are going to tell me, well, you know, look what happened on that goal by Marcus Johanson. And yeah, I will blame Dumlin for that just because that was just, I think, too lazy, too passive, I think is the better word for it. Johansson's coming down the seam a little bit. Dumlin's right there. He's got lifted stick or just get in the way of that pass.

He cannot let that get through. He also had a clearing attempt that failed right before that. I believe it was Nick Jensen that kept it in his own. He just has to be a little more aggressive in that situation. Other than that, though, I think he was having a really solid night playing with Ruta. and then playing in the top four after Ruta got hurt. I'm really hoping that those kind of performances can continue for Duman. Obviously, you don't want to see him on the ice for more goals against and stuff.

But I thought that was an encouraging performance overall from Dooland. I mean, also that Yohansen goal, the game was almost over at that point anyway. If not, if not already, over. I don't think they were going to give up three goals in the final, excuse me, eight minutes to tie it or something like that. But I will shout out basically the entire defensive core for their performances, and I will even include Dumlin in that as well. I think I basically have all the player performances that really jumped out to me.

I thought the fourth one overall was good too. I thought Archibald had a strong game. He was forechecking well. Paling had a couple of strong chances. I really can't think of anyone that was really bad tonight, I guess. And I guess that goes with, you know, when you get that big team win and it's 4 to 1 and when you're controlling most of the play for the entire game, you know, I don't think a lot of your players are going to look bad. And I'll even throw, I guess we'll do coaches. Mike Sullivan, his team was very, you know, calm, composed, poised tonight.

I credit him for, you know, putting, you know, a lineup out there that gives the team the best chance to win and being open to making adjustments. I know some have kind of gone at him a little bit just because he hasn't really been making changes. And, you know, I was one of them. I think he was way too passive with making some changes during the losing streak. But the fact that they did tonight and they paid dividends, you know, I will give him credit for that as well. So those are my individual player performances that I think really stood out to me tonight. And again, I will also eat crow on some of the players that have not been that good this year, but, you know, played well tonight after I've, you know, kind of gone at them a little bit on this podcast while I cover this team.

Now, for the final segment of this episode, we're going to get into the listener takeaway segment, always one of my favorites. So stick around for that coming up right after these messages. All right, I'm back in this episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honour Hodes. We're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can also follow the shows Twitter at Elmorest for Penguins. and of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the So let's get right back in to the listener takeaway segment here.

And there's some good ones here. I know Sam Alves, you asked me, what were the expected goals tonight? Actually, I did not go over the data that much, but mostly it was good for the Penguins, Sam. Penguins only had 46% of the shot attempts for CFA 55B5, but scoring chance-wise, they lost that battle too, but when you look at high danger, it was 50-50. expected goals was 51, 52% actually, and then obviously, you know, actual goals were 66%. If you go to all situations, it was a bit closer. The Penguins were about 50-50 against scoring chances.

They had 52% of the high danger chances, 57% of the expected goals, and they were about 50-50 and shot attempts as well. So they lost a little bit of the battle with the underlying numbers, but they did lead in expected goals. Jake, if I mispronounce your name, Jake, I really apologize. I think it's Mathini because I usually, the Cardinals, the St. Louis Cardinals used to be managed by Mike Mathini. So I think I got her last name right. If I did not, I sincerely apologize.

You asked us Holland to become the go-to call. He looked defensively responsible tonight, especially with a big block earlier in the game. Jake, I'm glad that you noticed that, and I'm honestly surprised I did not mention that previously for today's episode. I'm glad you brought that up. that block by Hollander was awesome. It was a big blast.

It looks like it was coming from the point from the Capitol's defenseman. And you saw the way the Penguins players on the bench reacted to that block, right? They were banging their sticks on there. Like, you know, way to go, kid. That's the way you sacrifice the body. And all that. I saw Mike Sullivan was giving him some nice round of applause.

You know, he keeps doing that kind of stuff. And, you know, he also plays well defensively. I thought he was also forechecking well. Yeah, Jake, I definitely think he could be a go-to call up. You know, he's been a player that. And of course, Little Tea, the big puppy wants to come in here and celebrate the win high body. I know it's been, it was a good win. You watch the game with me.

You know, I know this was only his second NHL game, but I agree with you. I thought he played well. I know he was only on the fourth line, but I will gladly take that performance from him any day of the week. And I do think that he could be getting, I'm not sure. I'm not so sure on a lot of like meaningful. meaningful games, but I do think he's going to get a little bit of a look here until Teddy Bluger is ready to go. They can't even call him. They can't even activate him right now just because of the RAC situation. So they have some new way to do with that. But I definitely think he's going

to be, if he's sent down it, I think he probably will be at some point. When this team inevitably has more injuries to the forwards, I do think, Jake, yes, he is going to be one of the main call-ups that you will see him, Drew O'Connor, Sanpulani's already up. So I definitely. I definitely. definitely agree with that. And yes, Michael Spencer, it is Ty Smith time if these injuries are serious. Even I think if they're only day-to-day, you still got to call someone up because even if you put Choward Wheatel in, you only have 5B. So is that Mark Friedman that comes up? Is that Ty Smith just because he makes a little more money? I don't know. But if both are hurt, you know, for day-to-day or if both are week-to-week or something like that, hopefully not. I do think it is going to be Ty Smith-time.

I would be really excited, obviously, to see him just because I think he deserved to make this team out of camp. But, yes, I do think we might be seeing Ty Smith here. Sooner rather than later, do not be surprised if you see a call-up or two tomorrow before the game against Toronto. Greg McCann 12 says the aggressiveness of the caps worked in the Penguins favor, and it felt like the second goal McGinn had was a turning point, bringing momentum up north this weekend.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that, Greg. I think that McGinn goal really turned the time. the game of the Penguins' favorite because at that point it was still won nothing. Yes, the Penguins are playing well, but, you know, goals can happen at any point from any distance. They needed to get that second goal, especially in a short-handed situation when the PK has been trying to battle back to, you know, being a top-five, top-10 unit in the league. That was a massive goal for the Penguins. So, and I definitely agree that. I think it was a big momentum shifter in the game. And yeah, the Capitals were being pretty aggressive tonight. You know, that, Ovecgini hit on Ruta,

that gave me some shades of Sidney Crosby on chemo teaming in back in 2009, if I recall correctly, when Coonitz just absolutely walloped him. And I remember Sid was talked about that on the podcast a few years ago, and he just said it's one of the biggest hits he's ever seen. I got very Coonitz-Teman-in-in-in-vive from that Ovechkin Ruta hit. And I hope that Ruta is okay. Clean hit. You know, Ovechkin, he's done that throughout his career.

He's always, he hasn't really, I don't think he's lived on the edge, but he's a player that he's not afraid to throw the body around. That's for sure. And then the Connor Sherry play. That was just a dangerous play. I don't like, it looked like a little mini version of the Jacob Trubo of Chicken Wing, to be honest.

Then the Conor Sherry play don't know what. Oh, yeah, that's right. No, sorry. I just talked about the Conner Sherry play. I meant the Garnet Halfway play when he just randomly crushed at Chris Laetang after hitting him. I guess a fourth liner is going to do fourth liner things. Don't know what that play was.

But, you know, the Capitals. they're always aggressive when they play the penguins the penguins they're usually aggressive back i'm not surprised with some of the chippiness that we saw in this game and then finally allan teoters says soft goals are not sometimes you need that to get things going hopefully injuries on defense are bad yeah and 100% ellen when you're on a seven game losing streak you will take that kind of goal every day of your life i mean i don't care if it goes off someone's skate i don't care if it goes off someone's chest. I don't care if it goes on someone's, but you will take that goal that Jason scored every day of the week. And the Penguins, they were able to get the win. And at least for now,

maybe the Cup runs back on. Who knows? But just I can't understate just how big a game that was for the Penguins and just how big that win was. So that wraps up this episode of the Locked Up Penguins podcast. Let me know if you think I missed anything. Did I miss any the performances that you all saw them. I missed anything important from the game. I don't really think I did just because, of course, I watched and I took my notes and stuff. So, again, really appreciate you all listening to this one. And again, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

What did you think about the game? You can DM me on social media and stuff. You know, really would love to get your thoughts on that. For Thursday's episode, it'll be a full game preview of the game on Friday against Toronto. And then Friday will be a game recap episode of that game. then we'll be previewing the game on Saturday night in Montreal against the Canadian. So, you know, y'all can go to bed happy tonight. Y'all can wake up happy tomorrow.

And then the Penguins of another big game on Friday up north in Toronto. So again, thank you so much for listening. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day on Wednesday. And I'll talk to you all sometime on Thursday.