Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - It's Penguins-Rangers time...

Episode Date: April 30, 2022

The Pittsburgh Penguins ended the regular season in style on Friday night as they took down the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-3. They came out like a house on fire in the first period and never let up, even though the Jackets did score three goals. Hunter starts the show by giving out a lot of praise to some of the players who have struggled lately. He starts with Evan Rodrigues and how he had his best game in a Penguin uniform in about six or eight weeks. If he can bring this level of play in the playoffs, does that transform the bottom six? Hunter then shouts out Marcus Pettersson after he got his first goal since September and how some of the D-man badly need to start contributing outside of Matheson and Letang. Hunter then looks at Evgeni Malkin's game and how this was another step in the right direction as he was knifing through guys left and right. After that, he goes into some of the negatives, and yes that includes the PK. He touches on what the Penguins need to clean up on that unit heading into the first round against the Rangers. He then pleads for Kasperi Kapanen to be scratched since he had another AWFUL outing for the Penguins. To wrap up, Hunter does a small look ahead to the series and what some of the big storylines will be for the Penguins to win the series.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!HelloFreshGo to HelloFresh.com/lockedon16 and use code lockedon16 for up to 16 free meals AND 3 free gifts.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Shady RaysEXCLUSIVELY FOR OUR LISTENERS, HEAD TO SHADYRAYS.COM AND USE CODE LOCKEDON TO GET FIFTY PERCENT OFF TWO OR MORE PAIRS OF POLARIZED SUNGLASSES. 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.

Wow, what a great last game for the Pits for Penguins, a five to three win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. They sweep the season series against Columbus. And that means a date with the New York Rangers next week in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, as a team that I think we've been knowing that the Penguins were going to face in the playoffs for the last two, three months. It came down to the wire.

Obviously, there was a chance that it could have been Penguins Panthers, but it will be Penguins Rangers. I have a full game recap episode coming up right after this drop. I'm going to get into Marcus Pedersons. amazing game of getting Malkin playing much better, Sidney Crosby, Casey de Smith, all of that plus a little look ahead to the series against the Rangers coming up on this episode

of the Locked on Penguins podcast. Your Locked on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes.

I'm going to follow me on Twitter. Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at Eleanor Square Penguins. And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So the Pittsburgh Penguins, again, they defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets. Excuse me, they sweep the season series against Columbus. And they have now won 11 straight at home against the Blue Jackets dating back to December of 2015. And they also, they won 14 of their last 16 overall games against Columbus. I mean, this is a very one.

sided rivalry, if you can even call that. But the Penguins tonight, I'm mostly fine with this performance. They came out with a house on fire. They were really pissed off, to say, at least. Coming off those two losses to Edmonton and Philadelphia, where they were flat outbursts, they were outscored 90 to 2 in those games. These first six to 10 minutes tonight, they chased JF Berube. They got some depth scoring from players that had not scored a long time.

And they were able to play some mostly clean defense the rest of the way to secure this victory. This game was really never in doubt. I mean, you know, even go, especially going into the third period when it was five to one. And even when Columbus made it five to three a little late in the third period, I'm like, there's just no way the penguins are going to blow a four goal lead in the third period. And of the team is obviously not been playing well as of late, but I'm like, all right, really here. I don't think that was going to happen, not to say the least. But, you know, it all starts with a beginning Malc and getting his 20th goal of the year.

Shout out to Gino tonight. You know, that's his 13th, 20 plus goal season. a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he only played in half a season. As, you know, for how far ahead, you know, players like Dayton Hinen and and Ever Rodriguez were at the halfway point of the season, he outscored all of them and all these other debt players and still hit 20 goals. And, you know, again, he didn't even play two-thirds of the season. So for those people, people say that Gino stinks or he's not good at 5B-5 or something, just stop.

He may not be what he once was at 5B-5, but he can still carry his own at even-strength he's going to be, I think, a problem for the Rangers in this first round series. He was really galloping, I think, tonight, probably one of his better games of the season. I think, in my opinion, heck, he put the dangles on him, almost the entire Blue Jackets team. In the second period, it was on the power play. Penguins weren't really playing on the P.P. But now, Brian Russ threads this beautiful pass to Gino, who's coming in streaking, and Mersliken just makes one hell of a save on Malkin and just flashes the lever going over the top.

I mean, that had top cheese written all over it. But he was able to make that save. That would have been 21 for Gino there. So he finishes his season, 20 goals, over 40 points, over an 82 game season. That's a 40 goal pace, 80 plus point pace. Still pretty good if you're asking me. So great game from him. I want to see more of that for Malkin in the playoffs to say the least.

Also, Marcus Pedersen. He gets on the score sheet for the first time since October. I know the Penguins' defensemen have not been good at scoring this year outside of Chris Stang and Mike Matheson. They are by far away the best offensive defenseman on the scene. Chris is obviously a bit further ahead than Mike Mathis, even though he's pretty good too. But also, the Penguins have not gotten a lot of offense from their blue line.

It's definitely been a problem. I think a lot of the times, I mean, Marino, you know, he hasn't scored also since October. I don't even remember the last time Brian Dun Moon scored a goal. Chabroletal, he has four goals. He's maybe heated up a little bit, but, you know, he still only has four. score bills. But, again, outside of Matheson and then Lattang, there's really been not much there for

the Penguins' defensemen in terms of scoring. So I will gladly take offense from another defenseman other than those two any day of the week. I'm glad it came from Pedersen. That was a nice shot to extend the Penguins lead. And then Evan Rodriguez, yes, in this economy, Evan Rodriguez gets on to the score. She gets his 19th goal of the year. And honestly, this was the most, I think, I noticed Rodriguez in.

six to eight weeks. This was a really stellar performance, I thought. He was all over the ice shooting the puck at will. This was the first half-level Iran that I think you all saw tonight. I really, you know, he honestly could have had a hat truck with some of the chances that he had. One of them, I think, at the crossbar. A couple other ones were some nice aids from Berube and then Merzleekins. You know, if he can play at this level in the playoffs,

And I understand that is a big if right now for the penguins because he has disappeared, you know, a lot down the stretch here. You know, he's probably better than any of the Rangers bottom six forwards, at least when he's playing at first half-level E-rod. Second-level E-rod, you know, there are forwards down there who are better than him. But, you know, the way he was playing tonight, really enjoyed that. And hopefully that's a confidence. We should know, again, talk about someone who badly needed a goal to go his way. You know, he just, he has been, excuse me, you know, just not been scoring. The balances have not been also going his way for anything, even playmaking,

goal scoring defensively. The fact that he got one tonight, who knows if the floodgates do open, but if they do, you know, circle this game for, you know, if he starts playing one in the playoffs, I really liked his game. That's for sure. Casey DeSmith, I also thought he played, well, I'm not really going to, well, I will say this, excuse me, the first goal I'll pin on him a little bit. You know, he paid a nice little homage to Mark Andre Fleury on that goal.

Came out of the net for no reason. The defenseman was back. I believe it was Brian Dumont. He's back there and he turns the puck over. He's able to get back in his net. He set himself up, but, you know, he still lets the puck squeak past him. And then Columbus is able to score to make it three to one at the time. And as I can hear it, you know, in other situations, he needs to just let the defenseman,

obviously, that's Duman at the time. He needs to let Doom one just play that ball. I don't want to see that in the playoffs. I don't need to get scared about the ghost of Mark Andre Fleury coming into the net. And, you know, from game four, 2014 against the Islanders, where he turns the puck over. And then Brandon Nubinsky scores, you know, wide open net with like 30 seconds, left the Penguins would have had a 3-1 lead in that series.

I know they ended up winning the series overall. But, you know, I still want a goal that can, you know, usually play the buck. You know, also I'll say this. I don't want to go to Tristan Jari coming back after what we saw last year. against New York Islanders, that was just, you know, obviously brutal. And I don't want to bring that up if I can help it. You know, the other two goals, not really going to blame him too much. He made a couple of really big saves, especially when it was five to three.

You know, Columbus had a couple of big chances after that. Jacob Warchek, I think, had one of them. He now has 25 goals against the penguin since entering the league in 2009. He's, you know, players that have played the penguin since that time. He's second with the most amount of goals against Pittsburgh. Alex Ovechkin is the only one above of Warcheck. with 31 goals. That stack comes courtesy of Bob Grove.

I saw that on Twitter, so I figured I would share that here with you all. You know, all and although, you know, you look at the underlying numbers at 5B5, 54% of the Penguins at even strength, 54% of the scoring chances, 63% of the high danger chances, 57% of the expected goals for the outscored

the jackets 5-1 at 5-5. That's most important. I know they had a couple of power play goals. I mean, they're basically garbage time goals, the penalty kill probably needs to do a little bit better right there. There's been some failed clearing attempts that I did not like. I'm going to touch on that a little later on in the show. But when you're not scoring a team at 5 to 1 in even strength,

you are doing something right to say the least. So touch on some of the goals scores. I'll get to a couple of the other ones. A little later on in the episode. But, you know, again, overall, strong performance from the Penguins. It was a game that they needed to win. Well, I shouldn't say needed to win, but it's a game that they needed to play much better.

I said this five-game stretch was going to be big for me. They won three out of the five games. The other two games were pretty ugly. But at least, you know, in over half of them, Penguins played much better hockey. They're going to get a few nights off now. Rest their legs. It's going to come back.

It looks like from what I've been told and what a couple other people from Penguins' Twitter I've been told, it looks like it's going to be Tuesday for game one, again, at Madison Square Garden for Penguins Rangers, but has not been officially announced yet. Dave Von, R, I believe, was the first reporter, you know, poked around a little bit as well. Looks like it is going to be Tuesday for you all.

So I figured I would leave you all with that update coming up here in the next segment. Now, before we get to the next segment, we're going to touch on the penalty cone a couple other things. Summer is coming. And with summer, you're going to need some food on the go. Enter Bill Pard. They're the perfect snack take with you on family vacations. throw them in your bags, in your kids' backpacks. Make sure that everyone has a bar so you are filled with your summer adventures.

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Use promo code locked 15 and get 15% off your order. That's promo code locked 15 for 15% off at built.com. All right. We're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honor Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow this show. You's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins.

So let's get us some talk about the penalty kill tonight. Things I liked, the first three penalty kills at least, they were getting their clears right. But in the last two, you know, too many instances for me that the penguins, you know, two to three to four attempts, they're not getting out of the zone. You have to get those pucks out, especially when you're going to play the New York Rangers in the first round who have arguably, well, yeah, arguably the league's best power play.

Chris Kreider has been a menace on that unit. Obviously, how Timmy Peneer can do what he does, Adam Foxx, because of Benajat, so many great players on that unit, you know, how they play those last couple of power plays. That's not going to be good enough. winning face-offs. I don't think the penguins did well enough to win those face-offs in those situations. I know some people think, you know, those kind of, I guess that stat is overrated in terms of face-off winning percentage.

But, you know, when you have Teddy Bluegar out there and other players such as Jeff Carter, maybe you have Cindy Crosby killing penalties at times, you got to win those face-offs and get the puck back and you just got to clear it out. And again, too many times tonight, two to three to four attempts. As I just said, the penguins were not getting the puck out. And that led to two of the jackets, three goals tonight. Bjork Trin had one of them. Nice shot top cheese.

Voracek had the other one. It looked like it was deflected off, I think, a penguin stick. Not just a bad bounce, I think, for Casey to Smith. Again, so the penguins have to be better there. They had one of the best penalty kills in the league this year. That definitely, I think, fueled a lot of their success. I mean, it was a really bad unit last year. Shout out to Mike Belichie for getting that turned around.

But, you know, I still want to see some more work to be done going into the playoffs, get those clearing temps fixed, start winning some more faceoffs, getting more lanes to block some shots. And I think, you know, if the Penguins are able to win that special team's battle against the Rangers power play, and Pittsburgh's power play also heats up maybe a little bit, even though that unit's been bad. That can be a big turning point that could allow the Penguins to win that series.

So I want to talk about that to start this second segment of the show. You know, just a couple of things I just did not really like in terms of there. Other stuff that I noticed tonight, Sidney Crosby, he had another great game, par for the course, I think, at this point. He didn't really, obviously he didn't score, but he's still playing well defensively. Playmaking, it's always been there. And it's another 15, 16 trade season that he's at a point per game. He continues to just be a ridiculous player.

If he's not on your top five ballot for the horror trophy, for anyone that's on the PHWA listening to this, I think you're doing it wrong to say at least. spectacular season for the Penguins captain. He was a one-man wrecking crew. Again tonight and just again for this entire season, to say the least. Other goal scores, Brian Boyle, he got his 11th goal of the year. And, you know, I think right now, even if Jason Zucker is good to go, and we'll see, I don't know if the team's off tomorrow yet.

Obviously, it's Sunday to practice. One day to practice if the game is on Tuesday. You know, we'll see if Zucker is ready to go for those practices. but if he is still, I would play Brian Boyle in the playoffs. And I'll tell you why. He's been a much better player lately than someone like Casperi Caput, who had another dreadful game tonight. Boyle had a nice deflection on that goal to make it 5 to 1.

You know, his 200-foot game has never been better, at least right now. I know some are definitely concerned about his foot speed. And, you know, I still am. But, you know, I also was thinking for a while that this team is still better when Capitan is in the lineup just because he's more of a threat offensively. You know, it hasn't been that way lately. That's for sure. And tonight, you know, Capon just had another terrible game.

You know, it was 5 to 2, late in the third period. The game is basically over. And, you know, they probably should have been a call on the Jackets player that I think it was a tripper hooked him. And then Capitin comes back, five seconds later, hooks that same Jackets player based on the power play. And it's like, you can't be making those mistakes. in the playoffs. Sorry. I mean, you can't. And he has just been a liability this entire season.

Honestly, they should try to maybe recall Drew O'Connor or redeems the horn. I think they are probably better options than him at this point. He has been killing them all year long. I know he's not going to be back, you know, after the season. And I hate piling on people because, you know, it's just, you know, I'm sure he's trying his ass off out there. But he's just not. having it. He's just not it right now. And Penguins, he need to recognize that. And he needs to be a healthy scratch to start this series. You know, again, I trust Brian Boyle a lot more right now to give the Penguins more offense than captain. He's just, you know, in all three zones. Just what a fall from grace he's been, you know, just from last season going into this year. You know, we had 40 points last year.

10 of those girls, I know he was riding a decently high shooting percentage. But, you know, just, I don't know, man. I didn't see this coming. I thought he was going to have a big year, especially coming off that last season. But again, you know, it's been anything but that lately. What's happening.

He needs to be out starting game one. That's for sure. And then, you know, just, and then overall defensively, I thought, tonight on the Penguins, they did limit Columbus to 10 high danger chances. Five in the third period, definitely not when I want to see there.

They only limited them to one in the first period. that's when the penguins came out with a house on fire. Four in the second period and then five in the third. Against the team like the Rangers, the penguins again, they're going to have to cut down on that moving forward. I will 100% stand by that and die on that hill. I think that wraps up the second segment of the show. Coming up in the final segment,

we're going to do a quick little look ahead to next week and just my quick thoughts on a penguin's ranger series. Before we get to that, though, Betonline.net is your number one source for all your betting stats and sports info. You can find all the latest sports developments with league reviews and news, including this year's basketball playoffs and the start of the major league baseball season. Bet online is your continued source for all your sports wagering information, from live betting to playoffs, e-sports, and more.

You can head to the website today. Reusional device to remember more about the trends in action. That is Ben Online where the game starts. So now it looks like I am, it's funny. I'm looking at Twitter to see who the Steelers took. and I took a defensive tackle from Texas A&M. So I'm going to be curious to see how that goes. Anyway, so quick thoughts on Penguins Rangers here.

This is going to be a dog fight. I've been saying that all year. Obviously, right now how I'm feeling probably would take the Rangers in a series just because the Penguins have not been playing well. These last three to three weeks, but let me stress this for you all. if the penguins can come out and play at the level that they play from November to March, going into April, when that was obviously when it was bad, the penguins can take the Rangers. I would 100% believe and stand by that.

Now, if the penguins come out and they play the way they've been playing the last three weeks and they get burned on the rush and in transition and all that, they will lose in either a sweep or in five games. It will be a very short series, especially going up against a goaltender who is in their heads. That said, I would love to see the Penguins win that series because I want to be insufferable on social media and all that. I want the Penguins, honestly,

this is my full take here. Hang that GIF or that video of Shasturkin, for those are on YouTube doing this, doing that hand motion to the Penguins, Mark Freeman, whoever it was. I want the Penguins to hang that in their locker room and look at it every day after, practice going into the games because that's what he thinks of them going into this series.

They run in their mouths. He's inside their head. He thinks they're inside. He thinks, obviously, that, you know, Schisturkin's in the penguin's head and all that stuff. That's bulletin board material. And I would love that. That is the main reason I want to see the Penguins win this series because I want to see what social media does if they do. And, you know, I will be 100% insufferable If the penguins do win that, just because of that gift, to say the least. But it's going to be electric. Obviously, again, the special teams are going to play a huge part in this series slowing down the Rangers power play. Can the Penguins power play come out if it's really bad funk?

It's like a two-for-30 funk right now. 5V-5. Can the Penguins stop these self-inflicted wounds against the Rangers? You know, in those four games this year, the Penguins got burned in transition on the rush and had a lot of these unenforced errors that didn't happen in the first matchup, but the Rangers adjusted, and they won the last three games because the Penguins, you know, they couldn't adjust to what the Rangers were doing. Now, Mike Sullivan will have a full season's worth of tape to go over to adjust to what the Rangers

did in those three games. I'm really curious to see what Mike Sullivan decides to do tactics-wise against Gerard Golan's team. You know, honestly, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for the Penguins to play excuse me, I guess low event hockey, if that's the word to use. And I know that's not good for, I guess, a fan's perspective or even casual fans' perspective, but that might be the Penguins' best way to winning this series. You're not going to win a lot of five to four games against the Rangers. They're going to be two to one.

They're going to be three to two, maybe even won nothing for what we saw in the first game. But the Penguins, they've had experience winning those games. You know, for a lot of this season, I know in the month of April, they didn't have experience winning those games. But we'll see. Can the penguins take what is there? And they're not trying to be like the Harlem Globetrotters. And just, you know, they're getting traffic in front of Strzok.

And I think that's probably going to be the biggest key in the series. Fire the puck on net. Don't look for the perfect play to beat this guy. They were doing that a lot in those four matchups this year. And the penguins can, again, just get the traffic in front. And they cannot see the puck. and just fire anything and everything to the net. They're going to get bounces and they're going to put pucks in the back of the net

unless the guy just plays like God. And I know he's had an amazing season. He's going to win the Vezna Trophy. But, you know, players like this, I know they can be beaten. We've seen it happen every year in playoffs. We're hot goalies. You know, even though they play well, they still get beaten. So we'll have to see with that.

It's going to be an amazing series, I think. Who knows what happens? I'm going to enjoy this no matter what. It could be the last series that we have Cindy Crosby of Guinea-Malkin and Chris Lange, all in a penguin's uniform. I totally get that. And even if they lose, and, you know, I predict that I think to happen at this point. No, I'm just going to be grateful for 16 amazing seasons in a row for playoff hockey with

Chris Lange of Indian Malkin and Cindy Crosby. Just what a run it's been. I hope all of you enjoy it. It's the best time of the year. The regular season is over. And again, I also just want to say this. thank you to you guys you list you the listeners for tuning into another season of this show no regular season wise it's been three full seasons um without you all um there is no locked on payments um i will

i will stand by that obviously just a amazing season with just the growth of this podcast has been through the roof the listenership you know i go on chartable and i see where it's at you know the subscribers on YouTube, the reviews I get, you know, with all you people talking to me, my DMs or, you know, just with cat-friendly stuff or, you know, comments on YouTube and all that. I very much appreciate it all. But, you know, let's see if the Penguins got one more run in them. A lot of content coming away. We're going to have a bonus episode on Saturday with Tara Haas of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports.

And then Monday, we're going to have a crossover special to preview the Penguins Rangers series. And, you know, throughout the series, we're going to have some special guests coming on. I believe Rachel Knowns is going to come on from the hockey writers. I'm going to have Nick Zeraraas, some reoccurring Rangers guests. So really excited to have them come back on and analyze the series. And, you know, as the thing when said on social media, they're ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple. That's a throwback from Colby Armstrong.

No, no, I think that was, yeah, that was the interview. I think that Sid had on the podcast. I don't know. I'm not really okay. That's fit in check. Let's wait up. that was the text message you got you know way to take a bite out of the big apple um that was what maryolea lemieux uh sent to sid all these years ago and colby armstrong was just freaking out

about it so that there's a fun fact for you all there but again thank you all so much for listening it's going to be a dandy um great win tonight by the penguins and we'll see what happens it's playoff time guys um thank you all so much we'll be back on saturday with a bonus up is over taylor