Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - It's time for FSG to clean house...

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Yep Penguins fans, it's time to clean house. Hunter starts the show in an unusual way but don't worry, you all will get into it. He first looks at how embarrassing of a performance this was and how the team showed absolutely nothing from start to finish. He crushes everyone on the roster for showing no fight, energy, spirit, or anything as the Penguins looked like they didn't even want to be there. After that, he examines why the Fenway Sports Group needs to make changes NOW. Not tomorrow, not this weekend, not this week, but NOW. He analyzes how it all went wrong with Ron Hextall and how he has made the same mistakes here as in Philadelphia. He also applauds the fans for somehow sticking through that game and even making their displeasures known since they started some chants during the game. Finally, Hunter looks at what this performance means for the trade deadline as it might suit the Penguins better to just punt on this season since they won't do anything in the playoffs. He also gives his thoughts on whether the team has quit on Mike Sullivan after how lethargic they looked in this one. All that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins.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.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/NHLNETWORKFanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) 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.

Yeah, mom. Yeah, you watch the game tonight. Yeah, I know you always watch them at home, right? Yeah, oh, so you didn't like it either? Okay. Oh, you want the front office cleaned out as well. Okay. Well, I'm going to talk about that on my show today. Okay. Bye-bye. So yeah, my mom is also pretty, pretty fired up about this one. We are going to get into everything that went wrong in this 7 to 2 disgusting loss by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Where they go from here, the road ahead, just everything from this one. It'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 another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

I'm, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes, and follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at Ellen Rose for Penguins. And of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. And wow, just seven to two, a pathetic performance. As Michelle Tarion says, half the team does not care, as he says in his accent. I've never seen such a, I could quote that whole speech if I wanted to to start this one. But we have an old friend here that is going to help get through the loss tonight.

Yes, we are going to have a drink of Captain Morgan here. okay, as strong as I can remember. And yeah, that's, I think, how probably most of you all are feeling tonight. I really wish I had a clear outline for this show today. We're basically just going to be spending time crapping all over the scene because it's deserved. If you don't come out of that loss, thinking changes need to be made. I question you, I think, in this fan base. If they were up to me, I'd fire Ron Hextall and Brian Burke tonight, and I'd think about even firing Mike Sullivan.

I've long been a Mike Sullivan fan, I think, is a top five head coach in hockey. But what was that effort? There's no energy from the players. There's no effort. There's no loyalty, unless you're being loyal to bad players. There's no spirit. There's no pushback. They look like a bunch of battle droids from Star Wars attack of the clones, mindlessly shooting into the

acting like there's not a care in the world. That is what they look like. Just a bunch of AI drone or just battle droids from Star Wars, gliding around just like it's nothing with not a care in the world. And we have reached February 23rd, eight days away from the trade deadline. That's how you're playing against an Edmonton team that was not playing well coming into this game. I am sorry, the Oilers are a good team. they are not a 7-2 win better team than the Penguins.

I'm sorry, with how they have played lately, they are not. And the way that they got utterly embarrassed after that, right after that Chris Tangle, they opened up the scoring, but they were playing bad, it took some penalties that screwed them. Right after that opening minute, just a joke. And I'll quote Michelle Tarion here again from that epic rant

from a decade and a half ago at this point. Am I going to be happy about eight minutes? No, I'm not going to be happy about eight minutes. Tonight, I think Mike Sullivan could say that, except he was maybe, if I'm going to be happy about one minute, no, I'm not going to be happy about one minute. And right after that, they were outshot 14 to 3 going into the first intermission. They were being outshot 24 to 6 at one point,

you know, halfway through the third period. they had barely even 15 shots. They're getting blown out in this game, and the players are still trying to do drop passes on the power play in the offensive zone. I am sorry, I'm not a shoot-it person, but in that sort of situation, just fire the punk to the net.

Why are you looking for that perfect play? It's just, that was the single worst game of this season, probably one of the worst moments of the Sydney Crossby, beginning of Mulcanara. I know there's probably a good chunk of them and there are you know, blowing the 3-1 lead to the Rangers in 2014. Heck, you know, throughout the second half of the season in 2014-15 with Mike Johnston. But this game, it's hard to top.

I'll say that. It looked like a bunch of players that did not care in the slightest. It's embarrassing. It's disgusting. It's pathetic. It's concerning. It's whatever word you want to call it. And I'm very concerned.

I've never been this concerned about this team for as long as I've been following them. What's going on here? You know, I don't even know if a player's only closed door meeting can fix this. And I feel awful for the core. Just awful. Like, Chris Letang and I'm getting malcolm took discounts to come back. Lettang's making 6.1. Gino's making 7.1.

Raquel's not, you know, he took, he's making 5. Russ is making a little bit of money, but he's been okay at times. But you have your core three, Crosby at 8.7, Let's hang at 6, Malkin at 7 for 21, 22 million. And this is the team that's being iced when they have been so freaking good this year. Are you kidding me right now? And it all just goes back to how bad this front office has butchered this team,

especially from this offseason. Again, I would fire Ron Hextall and Brian Burke tonight. Not tomorrow, not this weekend, not next week, tonight. I don't care who takes over in the interim with the trade deadline seven days away. I don't even care the deadline is a week. the way. Honestly, if you're going on this performance, they probably should just sell. And I've been very against them selling because I don't think you're going to get a lot back for the players that they can make available. Oh, you're going to sell Tris and Jari.

I don't know what team needs Tris and Jari. You're going to sell Jason Zucker. Cool. The guy makes $5.5.5 million. Are you really going to get a first on pickback for him? Probably not. But going off this game, they probably should sell. It's just, it's so... Again, I just feel so bad for the core players who have carried all the other corpses on this roster this season. They are the reason, the top six, the core in general, that this team has, you know, six, what is it? 63 points right now. They are the reason for that.

No one else. Sorry. And it, Mike Sullivan, and I'll get to him in just a second. but everything that could go wrong did. This hasn't been the same team once the new year turned. Right now I have a hard time seeing them make the playoffs. I don't care that Washington is playing bad. They're probably not going to get in anyway.

The Red Wings are surging. The Sabers had a big win tonight. The Islanders are playing a bit better. How is this team going to make the playoffs? Again, the games in the hand don't mean crap if you don't win them. I know you all come to me for answers on this show. Honor, what the heck happened? Hunter, what's going on next?

I wish I had an answer for that. I did, Yins. I wish I had an answer for what just happened tonight. That was more than laying an egg. That's not what that was. That looked like a team that quit on the management staff and that quit on their two-time cup winning head coach. The greatest coach in this franchise's history.

No disrespect to Badger Bob Johnson. Mike Sullivan is the greatest head coach in franchise history. That looked like a team that quit. And if he is fired at some point this season or during the off season, maybe I'll disagree with it a little bit. Won't be surprised. Maybe this team does need a new voice. They definitely need new management.

We're going to dive into that a lot more in the second segment, but just a joke, if you ask me. I don't know how else I could, but they even made line changes for this game. They brought a bottom beginning car capping and down. Didn't matter. What are you going to do? Move Josh Archball up to the third line.

Fine, bottom six player. Don't get me wrong, but he's not a third liner on a cup contender. No disrespect to him. You bumped Drew O'Connor up, cool. What'd that do? Jeff Carter got a goal disallowed. He didn't do a thing. Teddy Bluger hasn't scored

since NOM at this point. Bottom six ain't going to do you anything. Answers not in that room. If they want to buy it, I don't even think they should buy right now. So, yeah, it's a lot of bad vibes right now. Coming up in this second segment,

we're going to dive into the front office a little bit more. And just why this needs to be, They need to rip the band-hane out right now. But before we get to that, the midway point of the NBA season is here, and now is the perfect time to download Vandul, America's number one sportsbook, because new customers get a no-sweet first bet up to $1,000. That's bonus bets back if your first bet does not win. Just download Vandual Sportsbook app.

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Fan dual, the official sports betting partner of the NBA and locked on. All right, I'm back in this episode of Lockdown, Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. We are not going to drink from this. We're just going to pour a little bit. We're just going to have Captain on the rocks here.

Just a little bit. Okay. We are good here. Cheers, everybody. Not bad. I usually mix it with. with coke, but, you know, we're doing what we can here. I don't have coke in my house.

Anyways. So what to do you moving for? Kind of answer that in the first segment. Clean house. I'm done. You know, and if you think me saying is bad, then listen to what the fans had to say at PBG Paints Arena then I was not there.

I had a lot of, obviously, I know people, a lot of other people in the media that were. I know a lot of people, fans that were there. Sounds like it was Section 210. that was really leading the charge with the fire hexahl chance and honestly you know i could probably play that if you all if no one um listened or heard it here i will play it for you all right now okay that's a little bit of a sound like of it if you cannot hear it i do apologize but you know the fans were letting them have it fire hex tall chance multiple times throughout this uh throughout this game you know i'm

sure you know ron's no change with that in philadelphia but you know he has nuke to this team. He has screwed them in so many ways. He failed to surround the core with a good supporting cast. And that, my friends, is the main reason for why this team has been so bad this year. As Jesse Marshall even says, of the athletic. The problem for me is that this being, you know, bandied about as a side effect of getting tremendous current day value on contracts from Alkin, Latang, and Russ. This is to me an utter failure. to provide their core players with his supporting cast capable of maximizing the remaining time. One million percent, he probably said it better than I could, but we are on the same page.

He has failed. The general manager and the president of hockey operations, and honestly, no offense, I don't even know what Brian Burke does for this franchise. If someone can please tell me what he does, I would be forever grateful for that. I legitimately have no clue what the hell he does for this team. He just speaks sometimes. whatever. It doesn't really, again, no.

The right job to Mario for that. He's an icon, but I don't know what he was thinking with that decision. I don't know what he was thinking to hire these two clowns. I understand he took the money and dipped. Good for him. He's had a hell of a career. Has five total Stanley Cups. But man, he botched those two hires badly.

I would love to see what this team would look like right now if they would have went and hired Chris McFarlane from the Colorado Lange. took the interim tag off, Patrick Alvine, would have been real interested to see where the team would be right now. But this offseason, changing the defense when that was not even really the need at all. Jeff Petrie, fine player,

but he's been perfectly average this season, which is not good enough. He also makes too much money. You're trading John Marino, which is fine in a vacuum, but you're getting back a player who can even be on the team right now because of salary cap problems.

And speaking of that, oh yeah, you screwed yourself with a salary cap because you overpaid for players who no other GM would overpay for. I'm sorry, what GM was going to give Kisperi Kappanin $3.2 million after the season he had in 2021, 2021, 2022?

What GM was going to do that? And not that. For two years, he still signed for next year. What GM was going to give Jeff Carter a two-year extension halfway through a season because he was playing okay. The guy's 38 years old.

He shot. What GM was going to give Brock McGinn a four-year term at $2.75 million. And oh, yeah, he's still signed for two more years after this. And I mean, no disrespect to Josh Archibald because I thought he had a perfectly fine first half of the season before he got hurt. But what GM was making him the first signing of the off-season?

What are we doing here? It's just like almost all the moves. I could even say all the news. You can even argue that that he made to help the court after he did such a great job of bringing all them back, have backfired in such a massive way that I didn't think it was possible. And yet he has the audacity to speak to the media just a few weeks ago and say, well, yeah, I like my team on paper,

but when I'm an ice, I don't. How do you like this team on paper? Brock again, 24 straight games now without a point. A point. Jeff Carter, if he had scored tonight, that would have been his second or third, even strength goal of the season. Because very captain hasn't done anything in a while.

Teddy Bluger can't score. Like, there's no way you can like your team on paper. I understand you're not going to throw some of these guys under the bus. But, geez, man. It's just like it seems like he's refused to see that these are problems. And it's the same stuff that Flyers fans warned me and other people who cover the team. When Haran Hextall was hired, they said, you're getting someone who is patient to a fault, doesn't see anything as problems, and lets it right out, it doesn't know when to make changes. You're seeing that right now, exactly how it happened on the other side of the state.

I thought he would learn from that. That's why I was maybe a little more bullish on the hire compared to others. He hasn't. He hasn't learned a thing from that. Heck, he even got so bad. He almost drove Malkin out of town because he was being, you know,

he was not budging with contract negotiations. It led to Malkins agent J.P. Berry saying they were going to free agency before they had to get a deal done in the 11th hour. He prioritized signing Jeff Carter. of all people before everyone else. He then signed Brian Ross after that, which, you know, no disrespect to Brian Ross.

I think he's a good player, and he's been great for a long time. But that's the player you're going after next? It's just decision after decision, after decision. You can even go back the year before. The decision to protect Teddy Blugher and Jeff Carter in the expansive draft over Jerry McCann and Brandon Tannib

still looms large today. Where are the team be with a third line of Jared McCann on it? And maybe Evan Rodriguez and maybe Brandon Taneff. They wouldn't be right here in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. Nope.

If they had Rickel, if they had done that, got Ricard Raquel done everything else they did this offseason even, right? But made a decision, a better decision in the expansion draft, And Han-McCann right now, and TANF, and Rodriguez, because those three would combine for basically the same money

that the McGinn-Carter-Captain line does, this team will be top three in the Metro. But Haxall's roster evaluation has been piss poor, and he is the main culprit for this. He needs to be fired. I don't care at this point. I don't care of the deadlines next week. How can you, as Fenway Sports Group,

a ownership group that is so heavily invested in analytics, an ownership group that reportedly asked Hextol to write out his future plans for the penguins, who then said, oh, it's all in my head, I can't articulate it. I articulate it, excuse me. How do you not have had another of this guy? He didn't even hire him in the first place. It's just something needs to change. Someone needs to pay for this.

and in my opinion it should be the front office. You want to argue a coaching change as well? Sure, maybe we'll get to that in this next segment here when I talk about what's to do for the trade deadline. But, man, time's up, Ron. That's it. There's a month and a half left in this season. At this point, I don't even know if they're going to make the playoffs.

I don't care when it happens. It needs to happen. I would do it tonight. You have no time to wait around than my scores through. This is your team that you bought from Mary Lemieux and Ron Berkel. Let's see how much you care about this team.

Where is the ownership group? Why are they not here watching? Where's John Henry? Where's Tom Warner? Probably watching the Red Sox in spring training or Liverpool in England, all their other teams. But maybe they should start paying attention

to the hockey team here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'll leave you all with that. coming up to end the show, we're going to get into trade deadline plans. If Mike Sullivan should be fired, all that's coming up right after this commercial date. All right, I'm back in this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Honour Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow this show's Twitter at Eleanorstapangling's.

And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. I swear Captain Morgan's hitting a little bit. So, try deadline. You'll be all be listening to this probably about a week away at this point from the deadline. Honestly, they should probably just punt this year. They're not doing anything when they think it in the playoffs. This team's not going to go up and beat Boston. They're not going to go beat Carolina.

I'd punt probably. Maybe they'll buy. It's that going to do for you? Nothing. Nothing at all, honestly. I'd punt. I'd cut your losses. Again, I'd clean out the front office.

I'd punt this year. Let some guys walk in the off season and get that cap flexibility. Spending to make the team better. Washington's doing it. They traded Demetreirol, Auburn, and Hathaway today. They know they're not going to do anything this year. Brian McClellan made a really tough decision. And that's with Alex Ovechkin being back.

And I'm sure they know how hard it is to do that. because they want to try to get a vet's kind of other cup, but they're going to still try to go win this summer. It's the Capitals. If I'm the Penguins, I'm punting. I don't know if I'm fully selling, but I'm punting.

I just don't know if it's in their best interest to buy right now. Unless you go on this 4-year winning streak here, you go beat St. Louis in Tampa Bay twice and Nashville. What's the point? I just don't see one. So, I'm punting. You want to sell off Jason Zucker Cool

I don't think you're going to get a massive haul for him You want to sell off Tristanjari Okay Don't really know what Playoff he needs a goalie right now You want to sell off Brian Jimlin Okay Probably not going to get much back for him anyway

You want to sell off Gisbury captain Okay Cool Get some cat flexibility I know Frank Zerdale I was talking about that today Where he was saying that

The Penguins want to try to open up some cap going into the deadline and just in general heading into next season. Okay, we can do that. But in terms of this team being a buyer, I don't see it at all. I don't think that's happening. So that's what I have right now for the deadline. As for Mike Sullivan, look,

I'm on the fence about it. I would not be surprised. Maybe a little bit. But most of my heart tells me I wouldn't be surprised if a coaching change is made in short order at some point. team just looked like they quit on him. And that's, that's not, that's not right. He deserves a lot more respect than that.

And I know he's, he's shuffled this season. You don't have to tell me that. His stubbornness of the third line has been terrible. His stubbornness of Brian Duelan on the top pairing has been terrible. He got badly exposed tonight against the Oilers. But sometimes the team needs another new voice. I mean, he's been the coach of this team since late 2015. I'm 25 now.

I was 18 when he was hired. Most coaches do not last that long. And I know he would be out of a job very quickly. It's honestly very similar to Mike Tomlin in this town. If he were fired by those dealers, he would have a job in five minutes. Obviously, Mike Sullivan has had a little more success than Mike Tomlin has. But same thing applies. They're both two at the very best of their craft.

But sometimes a change needs to be made. there and I wouldn't be surprised that it happens. I don't think I'd welcome it. I'm placing the blame at other parts of this organization by a lot of times in these instances

the coach is the scapegoat and I just don't know if he's going to survive this. Maybe he is if a new general manager comes in here in a new front office I've heard that ownership very much likes Mike Sullivan. They gave him that extension of the offseason,

but how much is that going to matter if a new management group comes in? So that's where I am on that. That's where I am on the trade deadline. And I think that's really all I have to say for this episode, Yins. This is one of the lowest points of the Sydney Crosswood-Den-Malking era.

I know a lot of people out there that don't like this team are probably celebrating this. Oh, the demise of the Penguins is finally here. Yeah, it is right now. You know what? This team won three Stanley Cups during this. era.

This is probably the greatest era of hockey this town has ever seen. Sorry, and I know how great the Lemieux-Yager era was, but it didn't, it didn't produce this. This is, this has just been so much fun. It sucks, obviously, what's happening, but, you know, just got to remember the good old times and remember what all these core players have brought to this city. Or be going to be tough times, I think, ahead for the rest of the season. sometimes right now, but if this team can make the right moves for the rest of the season and during the off season,

there's no reason to think that they can't come back stronger next year and potentially build a cup contender. I will stand on that for sure. So that's going to do it from this episode, the Longtime Engel Penguins podcast. Really appreciate all of you listening, even though it's just 26 to 30 minutes of me ranting at this point.

Cheers to you all. and I'll be back with another episode on Friday. We'll preview the weekend's Slate of Games against the Blues and the Lightning. I'll talk to you all that.