Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - It's not going to get any easier on Saturday night...

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

The Pittsburgh Penguins came into this game without three of their top four defensemen and it went the way a lot of people expected: With a loss. The Penguins showed some promise in the first period, but then got blown out of the water in the final 40 minutes of regulation. Hunter didn't like the competitive level of most of the players on the team and even praised a fight in the third period,d which is something he almost never does. Hunter looks at how the top six struggled to generate any offense in this one, which leaves it to the bottom six...and you all saw how that went. Yes, Drew O'Connor scored, but it seems like nobody else in the bottom six wants to lately. Hunter again rips that unit as it continues to be not good enough. He also looks at the regression from Brock McGinn as he was never going to shoot 18% for the entire season. He then goes after some people who went at Mike Sullivan for this loss...as if he can push a magic button with being out three d-men, plus his starting goaltender. He points the finger at Hextall as it's past time for him to go out and do something to help this team. Finally, he gets everyone prepped for the Hurricanes on Saturday night as that promises to be a very, very tough game for the Penguins to win.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!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.

Happy Friday to 13th Penguins fans, and in typical Friday the 13th fashion, it was not good for the Penguins. They dropped this one four to one to the Winnipeg Jets. Everything that could go wrong went wrong for this one with the Penguins. In this episode, we're going to fully recap everything in this game. The good, well, very little good. The bad for the most part, the goaltending, everything from this one. Then I'll get you all ready to go for the game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday. That'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 their episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honor Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow their shows, Twitter at EnronerSore Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So the Penguins just did not have it.

In this one against the Jets on Friday night, they dropped one four to one. one to the Jets. You know, I don't know in the first period, they came out, guns and blazing. They got a couple shots on net, testing David Riddick as the period went on. They kind of started to take their foot off the gas pedal a little bit, though. The Penguins did have the edge in high danger chances, swing chances. Of course, he was about dead even though. But in terms of sworeen chances and high danger chances, the penguins did have the edge.

But after that, it was just a total garbage from the penguins. They were awful in the second and third periods, and they got what they deserved in this one. Did not have their legs, not have their toes. They didn't have anything in this one. My top six went cold, which means the bottom six has to do something,

and sure, Drew O'Connor had a nice goal, and I still want to see more of him, but other than him down there, no one played well. I think, honestly, barely anyone played well on the Penguins tonight. This was a collective team failure by the Penguins, and, you know, they got what they deserved at the end of the day. You can honestly end the episode after that.

But, you know, of course, I have to at least talk for 20 to 25 to 30 minutes here for you all. But there's a lot. It's just a lot of bad. You know, there's only so much Dustin Tokarski can do. I mean, he's a third string goal here, people. It was obviously, I think, the right call to start Tokarsky in this one. But at the end of the day, you know, how much are you really asking of him? You know, okay, didn't look that good on the first.

first goal, though the defensive coverage was pretty bad. I think he spit a couple rebounds out like a Pez dispenser, but, you know, his defense, his in zone coverage by the rest of his teammates was not good in the slightest. It was very bad, to say the least. He was playing well in the second period, keeping the Penguins in it. I should say, you know, the first, what, 17, 18 minutes of that period, it's still 1-1. Penguins are trying to get to the intermission tied at 1, see what you can do in the third period. But nope, Winnipeg scores two goals in 20 seconds to really just.

put that game out of reach. To be honest, Jans, once the Jets went up 3-1 going into the third, I had really bad vibes. You know, even when it was 2-1,

to be honest, you know, and just because how the team was playing, you know, they got blitzed in that second period. The Jets, they had 63% of the shot attempts

in that second period. They also had 70% of the screen chances, and they also had 80% of the high danger chances, and 67% of the expected goals for, you know, just, No, complete and utter domination.

I guess the thing was, you can say that, oh, yeah, this team's old. This team is stale and all that. But at the end of the day, did anyone see Marcus Pedersen being sick going into this game? No. Jeff Petrie is still out, though I don't think it's going to be too much longer. Krista Tang, still us out as well. You have three of your top four defensemen gone. Two of your bottom six forwards are out.

Oh, and yeah, your all-star goalie from last year is a start right now. And I don't think he's coming back for the next couple of weeks with a growing injury. So they were already up a creek heading into this game, and it got worse when before the game, Sullivan announced, or the Penguins announced, excuse me, that Pedersen is outdated day with illness. It's probably the one I've been dealing with for the last 10 to 11 days, this stupid cough or such cold that will not go away for whatever reason.

Yeah, we just got some snow here in Western Pennsylvania. But my God, he probably does have the same thing that I have, to be honest. And it's actually at the point where Sullivan, you know, didn't rule him out for Saturday, but said, like, yeah, it's day to day. You know, it's, you know, we'll have to see how he feels for that game against the hurricane. So, you know, going into this one, I thought it was going to go one or two ways. They were going to squeak out, you know, win, 2-1, 3-2, something like that, or they were going to get blown out. The latter obviously happened and the penguins got what they deserved.

You know, you want to make things look even bleaker here. If I can actually just copy that real quick. Excuse me. There we go. I want to make things even bleaker here for you all. A whole lot of UGLI ugly in terms of the hockey stats scores, the game score with Dom Luchiskin and Data from Natural Stattrane. Brian Dumlin and Mark Friedman were at the bottom.

So Dumlin, after having the best game of his season, goes down to the bottom. And yes, funny enough, Dumont and Friedman were on the top hearing. You guys could go on Mike Sullivan for that. That's understandable. I would not have done, I would not have chosen Doomlin and Friedman. to be on my top hearing. That's, that's for sure.

But anyone I think that's really going out Sullivan for this loss, I don't think can see the fours for the trees. What do you expect him to do with the cards that he has been dealt right now? The bottom six weeks, three of his best defensemen are hurt. His goalie is hurt. I know people can sit here and say to me, well, they won games last year without four or five of their forwards in the lineup at a time. And yeah, I get that, but this is also a different season.

You know, I mean, sometimes you don't get. the same results. You know, the top six was cold again tonight. The bottom six is not going to be able to help you out most nights because it is not constructed in a way to do that. The bottom six is constructed in any way to play low event hockey to not allow anything at either end so that the scorers or the big money players on the top six go out and score the goals for you and win the games. That is how Ron Hextall constructed this team. It's flawed, it's stupid, and it's not working out halfway through the season. We are officially at the halfway point right now.

41 games to go. This is a very large sample size. If Ron Hextall can't see what needs to be done, he needs to be shown the door. In his past time for this general manager to come out of hibernation, where those grizzly bears are in Alaska, under the snow, January weather, negative degrees, and all that stuff,

where they're, you know, they're reserved for the winter. They stocked up on their fat reserves and stuff. And then in the spring, they can go out and eat more because they'll be hungry. You know, that's where Ron Hextel is right now. He's out in Alaska, hybridating with grizzly bears. Right. I mean, but the funny thing is he needs to be out here, not hybridating, even though it's cold. Funny thing.

And he needs to be going out here in making moves to help this team win. At the end of the day, that is what needs to happen. Yeah, okay, they don't have cap space. Yeah, there are some guys injured. But you know what? The best GMs in the league find a way year after year after year. Julian Brisbane. Even Don Sweeney in Boston.

He's built a heck of a team this season. It's past time for this GM to do something to help out the head. coach because right now the coach he's playing the only cards that he has really you know he's just a poor man's poker player at a table being dealt the hand that he has and he's losing money except right now he's losing hockey games that's that's the reality of the situation guys and i know it didn't get any prettier tonight i know the hot takes are hot especially on social media but i'm not going to get too fired up about this one just because of you know who's in who's out right now and how Mike Sullivan just, he's been dealt a really bad hand all year

because this roster, I think, is very flawed construction-wise. At least that's just how I see it. Coming up in the second segment, I'm going to get into some individual players who I think need to be a lot better heading into Saturdays game and then in the segment, we'll just touch quickly as well on the Carolina game. But before we get to that, if you're looking for a delicious treat but don't want all that fat and calories, then you've got to try a bill bar. We just got through this holidays, and I know my goal is to eat a little healthy

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healthy, only 130 calories and 4 grams of sugar with a whopping 17 grams of protein. If you're close to a Sam's Club or your nearest Walmart, you can go grab a 13 bar box with our hit flavors, brownie batter, and churro. You can definitely thank me later with that one. Right. I'm back in this episode of the Lockdown Pemones podcast. I am your host, Honor Hodes. Murdoos, follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at Ellen Shoehaw Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So other individual player performances,

I just, for some reason, maybe I'm talking too fast. I apologize. Other individual player performances that I did not really care for tonight. I've already touched on Jimlin and Freeman. I would not have that as my top pairing tomorrow if Marcus Pedersen can't play. That is just a very foolish decision by Sully. Again, I know he's being dealt a really crappy hand right now,

but put POJ up there. I mean, that's just common sense. I don't think Freeman should be up there. But that's just me as well. I think Ricardo Raquel had a very uncharacteristically bad night. He missed a couple golden chances throughout this game that he could have buried. Jason Zucker also struggled as well, though. I will say this about Zucker.

If you all know me and you've been listening to this podcast for the last few weeks, some months, even the last couple years, I'm not a big fan of fighting. Never have been. I don't like it. I don't think it's good for the game. I think it's stupid. I think it's useless.

just I will say I liked what Zucker did tonight by fighting Brendan Dillon. That's probably one of the only times I would say this, because he looked like the only player on the ice who actually gave a crap. He dropped the gloves. He was trying to get his team into it. You know, Mike Sullivan even spoke it this week. How Zucker's always trying to get the team into the fight. He's like, you know, just the perfect locker room guy, but he's also great on the ice, too,

just because his production this year has been awesome. I know what he was doing there. I applaud him for it. It's just, you know, they should respond with a couple of nice shifts. I'll say that. but after that, just a lot of total other garbage, I would say, by the Penguins. They gave up that four-fold shifley and, you know, that was curtains.

But I liked what he did, you know, again, I don't like the fighting just because of the concussion lawsuit. And with Chris Pronger and Mark Samard and all these other players over the years have gotten concussions from fighting and all that. It's not for me. And again, you can see the stats decline every year with fighting. But again, I'll eat my words with this one and say that, you know, I appreciate it what Zucker did.

and I like that they're trying to get a team fired up, even though the team was playing like total crap. You know, again, Markell was not that good. I thought Sid, kind of meh tonight. Jake was the same way. I hopefully they'll respond on this hour tonight, but tonight definitely not good enough to say, at least if you go down to the floor of mines here,

if I can find it. You know, Denzel Crosby, Rust, they had 56% of their shot attempts at 5 on 5, but only 44% of the scoring chances and then expected goals, decent, though, 60%, but in terms of scoring chances, you know, not a lot there for them. You know, they're going to have to be a lot better on Saturday against the hurricanes. Other players, Ty Smith, I think this was probably one of his worst games as a penguin.

He looked really bad on that fourth goal from Shifley. That was Shifley second of the game, of course. But he just kind of got ragged all around in the defensive zone, had a bad turnover, and just, you know, wasn't able to recover. And the thing with Smith is, you know, I said this on my Thursday episode, and earlier this week as well. You know, the tools are there. He's a very flashy player.

Good offensive instincts. Good first pass. He really carry the puck up in the zone. Okay, in transition needs some work, but where he really needs the most work is his defensive game. That was the big knock on him coming out of the draft from New Jersey, coming over in the John Marino trade, was at defensive work. Tau Reardon obviously is going to have, I think, more time with him for work on that.

But you saw some of those issues tonight with Smith. with his defensive work, just not good enough again. It's only been a few, it's still only, it hasn't, I don't even think it's been 10 games yet with him. He's probably going, he's going to be fine, I think. But tonight, definitely not one of his finest performances, to say the least. You know, outside of Drew O'Connor, I think the rest of the bottom six, well, actually, pardon me.

Also, Drew O'Connor and Cusbury, Capon, because it was a very nice pass on the Penguins'Lone's goal tonight. Also, congratulations to Cappy for 100 career assist. very nice job outside of those two the rest of the bottom six absolutely stunk tonight and that has been part for the course game after game after game and i'll keep saying it when the top six is not doing a goddamn thing bottom six is not going to be up is not going to be up to the challenge to help you out it's just it's not okay yeah true o'connor got a goal tonight where are the other goals coming from his better captain's playing better but you know he's still not scoring a lot of goals for you

danton heinen he hasn't heard his name since october tennie bluger has one goal this year and yeah i get that bluger's a very good pk guy i get that he's very good with his in zone draws defensively and all that stuff but you know is it really that hard to ask for more than one goal from your fourth line center i mean come on here people i mean that's that's not good enough Jeff Carter, half of his goals this season are basically empty knitters. So that's not good. Excuse me. That's not good enough either.

And, you know, Brock McGinn, I praised him a lot this season because he has been better than expected. But over his last 10 games, it's been a struggle. In his last 10 games, stats right here for you. One goal, zero assists. This is over 100 plus minutes of ice time at 5E5. 29% expected goals for a percentage. I tried to warn people who were drinking some of that Kool-Aid on social media and stuff. You're telling me, oh, yeah, again, he's going to keep up this pace for the rest of the season.

No, he's not. You know, you can, you know, ride the wind while it's going. You know, it's a legendary poison song. You know, I'm a big 80s rock guy. Ride the wind by poison off their album, Flesh and Blood. You know, great, great song, great band. obviously using them as a reference here again you can ride the wind for it but was that ever going to stay for a native two games for a full season no no and even close if you thought that i mean

you kind of set yourself up to fail by that one last 10 games he's only scored one goal it was bound to come down you know that's just that's the nature of being a bottom six player and then it's going again that falls on the general manager for not getting a good enough bottom six that can help spell the top six when they have bad games. And I know the entire team's tongue tonight. I know they are very banged up with three of their four best defensemen out and their starting goaltender is out. But, you know, it will be nice if one game, one game,

the bottom six could really carry this team to a win and not just have one goal from Drew O'Connor and then, you know, another game. Oh, we get one occasional one, because they're a captain. Or, you know, oh, okay, Brockman, the game goes on a heater. you know, in a stretch where no one else is scoring either. Again, it's just, it's not good enough. I'll say it again, it is past time for the general manager to make a change. It just, it has to happen.

It's just not good enough right now. And if this team is serious about winning a cup, Ron Hextall showed that he was all in. He was all in. This offseason, sign back the guys. Okay? Are you doing anything to help them right now? No, you're sleeping during games.

You're not checking your phone. It's time to do something. The swashers right now, even when all those guys are back, it's not good enough. It hasn't been good enough all year. They've seen it in flashes. Had a great two months where they roll it over the league, but the same issue still persisted.

They're persisting even more. worse right now, to say it at least. That would do it for the second segment, though. Coming up to the final segment, I'm going to get you all ready for the game against the Carolina Hurricanes. But before we get to that, my wonderful Ben Online,

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And if you love sports podcasts, you can find those up online as well. We're always the fastest and easiest way to get your bidding info. You can head to the website today or to use your motorways or more. That has been online where the game starts. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter at Lawrence of Penguins.

And of course, thank you so much for making this your first listen of the day. So Saturday, it's not going to get any easier. You're going down to Raleigh to play the Carolina Hurricanes. It's about 1030 right now that I'm recording this. you know, they're on the plan right now, probably. Casey DeSmith is going to get the start tomorrow. I just don't see a way the Penguins win this game with how they looked on Friday against a Jets team that I'm not even fully sold on, but they looked very good.

I'll say that. Top Six looks good, and I think the Penguins would have behoved them to play a little more of the defensive first game, especially with all those great players out. I think they just tried to open it up a little too much against the Jets, and I think they paid the price, especially late in the second period, when the Jets scored two holes in 22 seconds. tomorrow, they're going to have to really dumb it down against the canes. And I know that's easier to said than done.

The canes are, they're good at what they do. They fire a lot of pucks at you. They just had 62 shots against the devils earlier this week. They had almost, what, 70 against the National Predators two weeks ago. Basically, they are very good at what they do. And, you know, the penguins, they're going to have to be ready for it. Because this time, Sebastian Alho is back. I don't know if Max Petruetti is playing.

He came out of the game on Thursday with an injury. I mean, but if he's playing, it gets even worse. Frederick Anderson is starting, I think, for the Cains. That's going to be probably the toughest game of the season for the Penguins to win as of late. You're probably going to need a legacy game, I wouldn't say a legacy game, but you're going to need the top six to really carry you in this one, because I don't trust the bottom six to do anything against Carolinas at all. The hurricanes are very deep.

Defensively, they're great. They get great goaltending. They're well-coached. This is going to be a really tough game for Pittsburgh to win, even to just get a point. to be honest, I think you're also going to need to see Casey DeSmith have a very good game as well. You know, he's obviously going to be pretty fired up after what happened last, his last storm Tuesday where he got pulled just basically 10 minutes into the game. He's going to need to be real good.

You know, last time against the Hurricanes, I thought he played okay, but he still out a couple of goals that, you know, just were not that good. You know, through the first two periods, you only allowed one goal against the gains. he actually was making us a lot of dazzling saves. He'll need to do that in this one, but I also think he'll need to just be able to close it out this time of the penguins will need to find their legs, find their toes, just find another gear to their game, really. It's just, it's not good enough right now.

And again, I know the injuries are really bad, and I know Mike Sullivan's been dealt a really bad hand, but, you know, sometimes you've got to play that hand and do it the best of the penguins. You know, they need a result right now because, you know, the Islanders are right behind them. I know the Penguins have two games in hand on them, but that only matters if you win those games in hand.

If you don't win those games in hand, you know, if the founders keep winning, you know, the Penguins will find themselves really quickly out of the playoffs and right now, you know, it's looking a bit dicey. We're at the halfway point in the season, Yens. It's put up or shut up time. Got up having these kinds of performances. I understand the entire team was off tonight,

and I don't think the entire team will be off tomorrow, even though they always suck on the second half of back to max. I'm pretty sure again. Only second half with back-to-back they've won this year against the Chicago Blackhawks, which is not saying much because the Blackhawks are one of the worst teams in the league. But they're really going to have to put together a full 60

if they're going to want to beat the Hurricanes on Saturday. Short shifts, playing a tight defensive game. Hurricanes are going to get down to business and fire everything out to Smith just because he had a bad start. But if the Penguins can weather that early storm and keep a lot of their attempts and their shots on goal to the outside

and they're able to cash in or maybe Freddie Anderson being a bit rusty coming back. I think the Penguins potentially could score the upset win here but I don't think it's the result that I'm expecting say it least. But again that'll do it for this one. I really appreciate all of you listening to this episode

Locked on Penguins podcast. I'll have another episode for you all on Monday where we recap the game against the Keynes and then get you all ready to go for the game against the Anaheim Ducks. Right now, tickets for that game are not that bad. be honest, the tickets for the game on Friday were ridiculous, like 76 per ticket, up in like the biggest nosebleed in PBG. I'm like, geez, cheese, cheese. But again,

that would do it for this one. Really appreciate I'll be listening. I'll be back with you all on Monday. Have a great weekend.