Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Is this finally the end of the Jack Johnson era?

Episode Date: September 26, 2020

With the day after the Patric Hornqvist trade, Hunter touches on more of Mike Matheson and what changes he needs to make to his game so that he can be successful during his tenure in Pittsburgh. Are there too many turnovers in his game? What does he need to do in the defensive zone better? Hunter answers those after looking at some of his film through some videos on Twitter, plus is Matheson taking Jack Johnson's spot? Jim Rutherford today said Matheson would be on the third pairing if there was a game which means Johnson would be competing with Chad Ruhwedel so what's the Penguins next move there? Also, Hunter touches on how it's good that GMJR won't be too active in free agency and finishes the episode with some talk about the Stanley Cup Final. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, welcome to this late night Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow this show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Apologies for the posting about, like, you know, just late Friday night. I know just been busy with a bunch of stuff today. But, you know, I've also been watching the Stanley Cup final. What a hockey game of this is turning out to be.

But, you know, obviously we're going to talk a lot about the Matheson trade on this podcast today. And, you know, Jim Rutherford made some comments to the media today. mainly Mark Madden on his show, even though I'm not really a big Mark Madden fan. I'm just going to put that out there right now. He did have some very interesting comments about the defense and what it's potentially going to look like next year. So we're going to talk about that. Just touch on Mike Mathes in a bit and also just we're going to talk about the Stanley Cup final. So I'm also really hope you guys enjoyed the guests that I've had on these last few days.

And it's always fun to bring on Jeff from Penguins Twitter. He has a lot of really, really cool ideas. And then the other Jeff from Penn's blog, he is one of my favorite follows. not only on Penguins Twitter, but just like, you know, for Penguins media as a whole, I think he just does outstanding work for Penn's blog. And then, of course, Cam, he needs no introduction. He's been on this podcast so many times.

It's always fun talking hockey with him. So, you know, shout out to all three of them. It was an absolute blast talking about the trade and just everything involving the Penguins at this point. But so let's just get into what Jim Rutherford had to say today about Mike Matheson before, you know, we talk about just the trade as a whole. He went on Mark Madden's show. Madden basically asked him about it.

about some rumors with Marcus Pedersen and Brian Dumlin. It's not rumored that Dumlin was going to get traded. It was mostly just Rob Rossi spitballing that he could see Jim Rutherford trading Brian Dumlin. That would just be an absolute massive mistake. He is one of the best number two defensemen in hockey. Easily the second best defenseman on this team, trading him would just set back this team even more. I mean, I don't think you would probably lose some fans at that point. I mean, I even said on yesterday's episode, if they trade Brian Newman and they keep Jack Johnson going in the next season,

probably won't even watch half the games because I'm just not going to watch a team that's like honestly actively trying to lose and just waste the last few years with Sydney Crozier and that would just be absolutely putrid. But back to what I was talking about. So Martin asked if Duman and Pedersen could be traded. Jim basically said no. He said if we had a game tonight, those two and Mike Matheson would start on the left side. So read into that what you will. I'm going to say I think that means Jack Johnson is actually going to get traded. We've seen this road before. Jim Rutherford kind of talks down with Jack Johnson and then all of a sudden

Jack Johnson's in the line of and then Jim Rutherford is just talking of Jack Johnson like he's the best person in the world. So who knows at this point but he also did say during the media availability that Johnson's going to have to compete on his offside with Chad Ruehdle for that number six jobs.

So it looks like the defense is mostly set in stone. Brian Dumlin next to Crystal Tang. I mean, you're not going to touch that parry. Marcus Pedersen next to John Marino. You're not going to touch that pairing. Mike Matheson and then whoever wins out with this Ru-Edo Johnson job. Or, you know, they could maybe sign someone like Dylan DeMello in Free Agency. I'm not going to let that go, guys.

I'm just, I'm not going to let that go. So, I mean, do you really want Jack Johnson on your offside? We've seen how bad he is on his regular side. How worst do you think he can be on his offside? I'd say pretty, pretty worse, considering how badly he struggled on his regular side. So, I mean, if he doesn't win that, maybe you put him in the press box. But, I mean, you're really going to put this guy in the press box. He's making over $3 million per season.

that's probably a hard no so I really do think guys we're looking at Jack Johnson being traded here I think we've reached the end point because I mean if you're not going to play him on his regular side why in the hell are you going to have him in the lineup at all or honestly why are you going to have him on the team at all

it just does not make any sense to me Jimmy even said yesterday something's going to have to give well you've already said Mike Matheson is going to be playing on that left side in the third pairing he even said if there were a game tonight he would be right there so I mean, you're really going to have a Matheson Johnson pairing, especially when Johnson's on his offside and he just has stunk in his first two years here?

He thinks no. I do not think so. That would just be a really, really bad, colossal mistake. I really do think we're looking at the end of the Jack Johnson era here. And, you know, I think I'll look back on this trade a little more happier if they do, in fact, dump Jack Johnson to maybe like Ottawa or something like that or any team, honestly. But obviously, that got Penguin's Twitter into a frenzy. way to go until next season, guys. We don't even know when next season is going to be happening at this point. But still, good news. It seems like Jim Rutherford is finally starting to admit that, hey,

you know, maybe Jack Johnson's not that good. You know, he can only talk him up to the media so much. But another thing that I did find interesting that came from that media availability was that James said to Mark Mann that he does not expect to be busy during the first 48 hours of free agency after taking on two new contracts. So I think that would squash the Chris Tanna rumors. We all know those rumors came from The Athletic with Rob Rossi and Joshio. that they were thinking about going four to five years for him at four to five million per season. That would have just been a monster mistake. Put it this way, guys.

I'd much rather they take on six years of Mike Matheson at, what is his contract? Four million or something like that per season than going out and signing 31-year-old Chris Tannum to a five-year term for five million per season. Much rather do that. That's not even the debate, I don't think. The other option would just be way, way, way, way more terrible. Because at least with Matheson, he's good at what he does, and he also has his flaws.

But with Chris Tannett, he's just in decline. I mean, with Matheson, he's 26, still in the prime of his career. He is what he is at this point, but, you know, he's not just going to cost you games, like Chris Tannib would with the decline that's coming, or, you know, of course, like Jack Johnson. So I am glad that Rutherford seems to be going away from spending in free agency. I know he talked to Josh Shelley from the athletic, I think a week or two ago saying he'd like to make a couple moves to open up some cashways for free agency. Obviously, it's looking like that's not the case right now.

he even reiterated it to Mark Badden, but still really, really good news on that front. I always hate when Jim Rutherford goes out into free agency. It just, it literally does not make any sense to do that. I mean, one, because Jim Rutherford always sucks ass in free agency. And then two, you added $775,000 to your cap. And you literally said that you've wanted to dump salary and get younger. So you really haven't done any of those two things. And you added salary.

So, you know, how in the hell are you going to go out into free agency and get someone on the first two days? You're just not. You're really, really not. So again, that's really, really good news. The Jack Johnson stuff right now, sounds promising, but I'm not going to celebrate just yet. Once I see the trade that is official from all the insiders and the actual Pittsburgh Penguins official Twitter account,

then I will celebrate maybe chug a few coronas or just whatever it is in my house. And we'll be back to regularly scheduled programming on this podcast where we do not have to shit on Jack Johnson every single day. But before we end to this first step, I did want to touch on this. Jonathan Bambouli asked a great question. in Jim Rutherford last night.

This comes from Chris Mack, who does Pittsburgh Media. Bumbley asked him, how do you feel about your cap situation right now? This didn't save you money because, well, it gained $775,000 to your cap. JMJR. It saved us a hair. Well, no, it really didn't. He said, well, no, you're right. It didn't.

I'm not comfortable with it. So it's like, Jim, it really didn't save you a hair. As I just said, it added money to your cap. And if you're not comfortable with it, then why in the hell did you make the trade? It's just, Jim Rutherford just never sees it to amaze me with just his stupidity with stuff. It's just really, really weird. The stuff that comes out of his mouth, I really just do not understand it one bit. And like I was saying on last next episode in case you guys didn't, listen, you know,

it's just almost like Jim Rutherford is throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. That's just basically his basis for every single move. It's just can basically put it perfectly. It's like basically putting a band-aid on stuff and just like, you know, okay, this is fine now, but then you're just going to make this trade, and then you're going to make this trade, And it's just a spiral of events. And it's just like, buddy, Jim, you don't want to make all these trades. Like, we all know the problems with this team.

The third pairing was absolute dog shit. Now you're going to start a young goaltender. The third-line center situation, it looks like you're short up with Jared McCann coming back and being fine. But the biggest problem was your third pairing. It looks like you've mostly addressed it. You're going to put Mike Matheson down there. I think you should be fine in a third-paring role.

But you got to get that sick spot right. If it's a Chad Ruehdle, it's fine. It's a better defensive third-parren. than Justin Shultz and Jack Johnson. But if you're going to trot out Jack Johnson on there for third pairing minutes on his offside with Mike Matheson, that's not going to be a good time. It's going to make the fan base pretty upset,

and you're probably going to have people that are just not going to spend time watching, especially if Jack Johnson is still going to be getting meaningful minutes on this hockey team. It would just not make any sense at all. But that's honestly the story of Jim Rutherford's tenure. A lot of his moves just really do not make any sense at all. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. you guys are having a really, really good Friday. Hope you guys are having a really, really good

weekend if you guys are listening to this on Saturday or Sunday or whatnot. In this segment, we're just going to touch on some media comments that came for Patrick Hornquist today and Mike Mathis and Colton Cavier. This onequist quote really, really hit hard. This was a sad one. Basically, Matt Venzel tweeted it out. He does really good coverage for the Post Gazette. Hornquist said, when I found out Pittsburgh didn't want me and Florida wanted me, it was an easy choice. That hits hard right there. You know, he basically just admitted that, you know, when a team doesn't want you in a team that does, you're just going to go to the team that does. And he also said he was blindsided by the trade. Hell, I honestly was a blindsided when I first saw the rumor.

I thought they were going to wait a year to trade Patrick Harnquist. But I mean, I did say this on the episode yesterday. I mean, it makes sense to trade him. He makes $5.3 million against the salary cap. He signed for what, three to four more years. He's into his early 30s now. This is when the body starts to break down. And for a player like that, that takes a beating every single night, every single shift. It's understandable why you would want to get out of that contract now just because, you know, we all know he hasn't stayed relatively healthy these last couple of seasons.

The concussion issues are well documented. I did think he had a really, really good season this past season when he was healthy. But as he just gets older and older further into that contract, it just becomes an overpayment. I'm glad they got out of it when they could. I just wish, you know, maybe it could have been for someone that's not Mike Matheson, who is signed for six more years

at 4. whatever million per season. and then Colton Xavier, who's basically just a throw. And honestly, I think Florida was just like, hey, do you guys want to take this player off our books? We're trying to send some money. And Jim Arthur was like, oh, okay, I guess I'll do it, whatever. But yeah, I mean, I have no problem moving Hornquist. It's just going to sting for a while just because of how great he was here with all of his moments,

how respected he was in the locker room. What a great player he was off the ice and just everything around his game and just as a person. It's just really going to sting for a while. And hey, you know, if I'm Hornquist and I get to spend like the last three to four years, potentially of my career down in Florida after winning two Stanley Cups. I'd do it. I mean, it's sunny year-round. It's warm you there.

You're around. I know Florida has a bunch of really, really odd people. I hope you guys saw this story. Someone called the cops on a Tampa Bay fan because he was yelling, shoot at the TV when Stan Coast was coming in on a two-on-one, and he actually ended up scoring on that play. And it was a false alarm. It's just, you know, that's just a typical Florida story.

But, okay, I'm getting just away from myself at this point, but still. I mean, it's a great place. to spend the rest of your hockey days there, especially if you're getting older and he's won two Stanley Cup. So, I mean, like I said, I'd do it. I wouldn't even bat. And I did not doing it. But anyways, we'll just get to some quotes by Mike Mathes.

And he basically said on getting traded to the Penguins. I'm excited to play for hockey town like Pittsburgh. I wish the season was starting tomorrow. It's tough to get news like this and then have to wait a couple months to get on the ice with everyone. Mike, you might be waiting a little longer than a couple months. Who knows when the Penguins are going to be playing in the next season? It may not even start until January at this point. You also had a lot of kind words to say about.

Sidney Crosby, as does basically any player that gets traded here. It was my favorite player growing up. It's pretty impressive to be on the ice with a guy like that. I'm going to go against him every chance I get. There's no better practice than playing against the best player in the world. He also had a couple comments saying he felt his play was going downhill in Florida. He just literally wasn't fitting in. He's hoping this could be a nice change of scenery.

I'm really hoping that Todd Weirden can work with him and just fine-tune his game a bit. You know, I saw Jay Fresh Hockey who just great work for his website. I just absolutely love the work that he does. He put out some video clips of watching Matheson. And, you know, the biggest issue, just like he said in the tweet, was the turnovers. You know, I watched those clips a few times. And, you know, who just fired the puck like randomly, just not even really caring where it goes. It was just, it was a lot of those players were just really, really careless.

I think if Matheson can clean up that part of that game, and I definitely think it's coachable, and I think Todd Reardon can coach that up, I think you could be looking at a much different Mike Matheson than we. saw in Florida. I really, really do think that he has the offensive instincts. He can carry the puck into the offensive zone with precision. He has a really good breakout pass. He's really good at moving the puck from the defensive zone. He's just got to clean up those turnovers. We saw that chart yesterday, ranked 187 out of 200 defensemen, which is like the turnover ratio or like the turnover numbers among defensemen. Just really, really poor numbers from him this past season. But like I said, if he can clean that up, we could be looking at a much different and much improved Mike Matheson.

And then having him on the third pair, especially not anchored to Jack Johnson, I'm going to be feeling a lot better about this trade if they can get Jack Johnson off this team. It'll look a lot better. I think it'll please the fans a bit. It'll actually say like, hey, you know, maybe Jim Rutherford knows what he's doing at times. But, you know, he still throws a lot of shit at the wall and hopes it sticks. But he's got to get out of this Jack Johnson contract at first. Maybe look at a team like Ottawa in that situation. Maybe send Matt Murray there.

Ottawa's looking for a goaltender. Craig Anderson is not going to be returning there. send Matt Murray there and maybe ask the senators to take Jack Johnson with them. They're not even at the ceiling. I don't even think they're at the cap floor right now. They barely have anyone signed going into next season so I could really see Jim Rutherford calling Pierre Dore and saying, hey, you know, you have a goal we need right here and maybe you could take this contract off our books and get him some playing time,

even though you guys are really not going to be good next season. And besides, that's a guy I would target anyway, Pierre Dori, and I don't really think he's that good of a general manager. I think he would see something in Jack Johnson. So we'll see. That would be a dream scenario, I think, for the Penguins and getting out of the Johnson contract. But Colton, Cavier also talked a little bit to the media today. You know, heck of a team, he said, heck of an organization.

I can't wait to be a part of it. He's like, I'm also excited because you look at the team and instantly you go, okay, it's a Stanley Cup contender. Okay, Colton, you know, let's get Jack Johnson off the team. Okay, I think that's the last time I'm going to talk about Jack Johnson on this episode. Today I've locked on Penguins. But, you know, get Jack Johnson off the team, and then I think they can become a Stanley Cup contender. But you know, I'm curious to see what his role is going to be here. If I had a guess right now, opening day lineup, probably going to be the right wing next to McCann.

I don't really know what you're going to do on the left wing. Maybe you put Simone there. I mean, McCann has been dying for new linemates. We all know just how bad Patrick Marlow was next to him. And then Patrick Hornquist really wasn't fitting in all that line either. So, you know, maybe you can try Xavier and McCann out together. I don't think they played together down in Florida. I still need to double check that.

But, and then, like I said, if you bring back Dominic, You can just put Simone there on the left wing. I think that would be a perfectly fine third line because I don't really think they're going to break out the Zach Asson, Reese, Tadley Blue DeBrand and Tannavine, which is how good they are. Suppressing thoughts. And, oh, yeah, they can contribute offensively as well. So, I mean, I think that's probably where Xavier is going to start,

but they also may add a Ford and free agency, but it might not be until later. We all know Jim Rutherford said today they're not going to be spending money at the start of free agency due to, you know, their cap concerns and they still need to get out of a couple contracts like Matt Murray and, of course, you know, of the player that I've been mentioning all podcasts long. But I think that will do it for this segment of the podcast.

We're going to talk about the Stanley Cup final in the next segment. But first, it's time to talk about Bhop Bar. There's six new amazing flavors. Cookies and cream caramel, all, brownie, apple, almond, crisper. Three of them, the bars are covered in 100% chocolate. They're soft and easy to chew. You can lose or maintain weight while indulging in a delicious treat. The bowers are low calorie, low sugar, high protein, and high fiber.

One of my favorite flavors is still the peanut butter one, 19 grams of protein, 180 calories, set 5 grams of sugar, 5 grams of neck carbs. They've reset the promo code for this relaunch. You can go to BiltBar.com and use promo code locked on. You get $10 off your next order. That's promo code locked on for $10 off at Biltbar.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. So I'm currently watching this game four of the Stanley Cup final.

What a game this has turned out to be 3-3 right now in the third period. Yanni Gord tied the game up late in the second period. but Dallas, they started out the game pretty freaking slow, but they've turned it on a bit. They need to win this game. You lose this game to Tampa, go down three games to one. I'm sorry, you're not going to win the Stanley Cup. You're not beating the Sanford Bay team three times in a row.

I know, yeah, people will say, well, you know, the Blue Jackets swept them last season, virtually the same team, guys. Tampa Bay is on a mission right now. They've hardly lost any playoff games to begin with. I think their record right now, if I'm trying to guess 12 and 4 going into the Stanley Cup final, I think right now they're 14 and 5.

So yeah, they are not losing many games right now. I believe that is the record right now for this down-like-a-final going off the top of my head. But yeah, they are just a team on a mission. It's a big revenge tour. They will not lose three games in row to this Dallas-Stars team. I would have a hard time believing that they would. But so I'm excited to watch the end of this. I mean, tonight, guys, I cheered for a Corey Perry goal.

That is how my 2020 is going. I hope you guys cheered for the Corey Perry goal as well. because, you know, I want this series to go six or seven games. I picked the Lightning and Seven. I'd like for this series to go seven games. I think a lot of these playoffs series during these playoffs have just been not that good. It's not, I just, it's been pretty competitive, but like we really haven't seen like amazing, amazing series.

Like that, that's my big thing. And this one has not lived up to the hype so far. We all know how good Tampa Bay is and how they've just been shutting down Dallas's top line and Haskinin and Klingberg are just getting hemmed in their own zone when Tampa Bay's top line is coming in. but I mean I do want to see more of Dallas I'm really hoping they can win this game and tie up the series so we at least get

six games of this downly cut final but you know for on Tampa side it's so much fun to watch Braden Point he is something else he's going to be a top 10 player in this league very soon if not already Victor Hedman what more can I say about him I'm going to go on record and say he's the best defenseman with Eric Carlson's since Nick

Lidstrom those are the two best defensemen of this last decade because Nick Lichdron of course retired right at the start of the decade. But yeah, I mean, they are, he's just, Victor Hedman is just incredible. You know, I think he's only a couple goals away from tying Paul Coffey's record of 12 goals. I think that's the most goals by a defenseman in Stanley Cup playoffs history. So I'm really hoping maybe he can get there, but I really don't think he is with just a few games remaining. But, you know, who knows at this point?

I also find out where, you know, Stephen Stamberkos comes back for basically a period and a half, scores a goal, gets her and then misses the next game because he basically re-injured himself or he's just still injured, you know? that's god shit right there good shit for step and samco's that he was able to score a goal and then you know just come right back out of the lineup but in all seriousness i do hope he gets healthy soon i've been reading that it's kind of a core muscle injury it sounds like maybe a hernia for him that he keeps battling you know those those injuries they're they're no joke so you know i'm really hoping that samkos can get back healthy soon cooper didn't rule him out for the rest of this series but you know i'd be surprised i think if we saw him especially because there's a back-to-back on saturday night game five

will be that night. And you know, if Tampa can win this game, there's a real chance that they could be hoisting the Stanley Cup on Saturday night. And then with that, the NHL season would be finished. And then we can just get to the chaos that is going to happen during this offseason. So I think that will basically do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Really hope you guys, enjoy listening to it.

We'll be back with five episodes next week with more Penguins content. I'm sure Jim Rutherford may have something up his sleeve. Who knows at this point? But I don't update you guys on, you know, just what we're going to be doing going board. So five episodes a week until the draft and free agency and then after that so after these next couple of weeks, we're going to go down I think to three episodes a week

just because it'll be full offseason mode and not a lot is probably going to happen after the first couple days of free agency and then the draft. So I just wanted to update you guys on what's going to be coming for this show. Moving forward, we're still going to try to have some more guests on coming up as we get closer to free agency to preview what's potentially going

to happen for the penguins and know if we could potentially see some trades coming as well you know, because like I said, Jim Rutherford always has something up his sleeve. So that'll do it for this episode. Really hope you guys enjoy listening to it. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Have a great weekend.

Go Steelers. Also, go Virginia Tech. My college opens up their college football season. This weekend, finally. I'm just, it's just been way too long. So, like I said, just watch a lot of football, watch Stanley Cup Final, and we will be back next week with more episodes for the Lockdown on Penguins podcast. to you then.