Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Jeremy Roenick continues his stupidity, plus did the NHL GM's finally get the Vezina finalists correct?

Episode Date: July 18, 2020

Jeremy Roenick decided to file a lawsuit against NBC today after he was fired for inappropriate comments made about Kathryn Tappen and Hunter dives into it with his thoughts on it and why Roenick just needs to quit while he's still behind. Hunter then dives into some Penguins training camp updates, including how it seems Chad Ruhwedel has been doing good and how both goaltenders are putting on a show for Head Coach Mike Sullivan, Finally, Hunter ends the show with a listener question from Twitter user KingClarkie about an amazing hypothetical for the Penguins that likely won't come to fruition but would be crazy if it did. 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 Friday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes, follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-U-Squarendes. Happy Friday to you all. We've made it to yet another weekend as we're halfway through July. We're getting that much closer to the Stanley Cup playoffs, just about what? Two, I think it's two weeks away now for the Penguins as they'll open up against the Montreal Caneans.

The Penguins were back on the ice today for practice. But before we get into some Penguin stuff, I did. did want to touch on the Jeremy Roanick news that came out today. In case anyone is unaware of what happened with Jeremy Roanick prior to this, he was fired from NBC after making some pretty bad comments about Catherine Tappen. Basically, I'm not going to repeat them because I don't want to get fired. If you guys want to look up the comments yourself, please do. But in summary, he basically made some sexual comments about Catherine Tappen.

So now he's basically saying that what he claims, that NBC, his firing was anti-straight, discrimination. I put it as free about that. I thought he was high as shit when he said that. I cannot believe that actually came out of his mouth. He always said a lot of dumb shit when he was at NBC. This might be the dumbest thing he's ever said or the dumbest thing I've ever seen him say. And trust me, I think we've all seen him say a lot of very dumb stuff, whether he was on TV or not. It's like, no, Jeremy, this is not a anti-straight discrimination. You're just a creepy, weird. And with the news today, he's basically suing NBC sports for wrongful termination. This game, of course.

Today, basically claiming the network discriminated against him as a straight man, actually made off-color remarks on a barstool podcast. This podcast was spit in chicklets. Barstool is bad. I have no idea why he decided to go on that podcast and especially say that stuff. That was just a wrong idea from the beginning. Also, in the lawsuit, he basically alleges that NBC retaliated against him because he was an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump in 2016.

The comments are also in this article. It's on Variety.com. They have the full comments of what he said on the podcast. Like I said, I'm not going to read them on this podcast because they're just too inappropriate. But still, you know, this is not a good look for Jeremy Roenick at all. I loved Greg Weizinski's sweet.

You know, as Hall of Fame cases go, I've seen better. Jeremy Roanick has been, I think, a fringe player to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame. I know he has, what, 1,200, 1,300 overall points. he's been people been trying to get him in for a while now because he had such a long career but you know with this news today um i don't care how good he was on the ice with having 1,200 to 1,300 points i don't know if he's ever going to get in now and it's just like Jeremy i mean yeah like the well-known discrimination of straight white men i mean it's just like i really don't understand what jeremy ronick is trying to accomplish with this lawsuit

especially with saying this stuff it just really makes no sense to me i mean jeremy ronick is no stranger to saying a lot of dumb shit. I mean, this is a hockey-related thing, but you guys, remember back in 2016, right before Cindy Crosby scored the overtime winner against Tampa in game two, he had the comment, if I were Cindy Crosby right now, I would watch the work ethic that Jonathan Druan has on a nightly basis. Then, of course, Cindy Crosby goes on to score less than a minute into overtime of game two to tie the series for the Penguins against the lightning.

So, I mean, he's no stranger to saying some dumb-ass shit, whether, you know, it's on a podcast, whether it's on television, whether it's off the record. I'm sure he's honestly said a lot worse off the record that we just do not know about. And I don't think any of us want to know about. But overall, you know, this was a really stupid decision by Jeremy Romick to do this, you know, especially for these kind of reasons, like I just said. Do I think he's ever going to have a TV job in hockey ever again? I hope not, though, you know, some stupid company might decide to hire him. I really don't think he deserves to be hired again as a TV analyst. He always, he always was a shitty analyst and I always remember when people would say to me, you know, this was on Twitter or,

you know, even when I was back in high school, oh yeah, man, Jeremy Ronek's so funny. Oh, he says this. Oh, he says that. Oh, at least he's not Mike Milberry. He's at least he's not Keith Jones. And yeah, I mean, you know, Mike Milberry is also a really shitty analyst. Keith Jones is not that much better. I think NBC could do a lot better for the analyst's sake because, you know, Mike Milberry always defends the dirty hits. Keith Jones is also kind of a little bit of a dinosaur as well. I mean, but like, Jim, running always brought nothing to the broadcast, I thought. He would always be like this weird, creepy guy with the interviews, just like asking a lot of dumb, just creepy, weird questions. And I just, I mean, I was never into it.

I never understood why so many people liked him. It was always very, very weird to me that he had, like, a ton of fans. He was just, he was just never a good analysis. Anytime he opened his mouth and he said something like during an intermission or, you know, during like the All-Star game where he would have interview questions, Like, it would just be a cringe fast. You know, just put your head down. You put your hand over your eyes. And it's just like, oh, like, can you just please stop talking?

It wouldn't be as bad as it usually would for Mike Milbury because he would just say all the nonsense in the world, even worse than Jeremy Roanick, but still. Moronic would just say like the dumbest sort of things. You know, I think a lot of Jeremy Roanick's fans are kind of like those 18 to 26-year-old frat guys, you know, saying the same kind of fan base that Barstool has. I don't know if I've ever talked about that on this podcast before. I hate Barstool. I hate everything about it.

It's absolutely awful. That's a rant for another time. I really do not want to get into that at this point. But I do think they have kind of the same van bases. There's 18 to 26 year old frack guys who literally don't know anything about life. And those are the kind of people that would always be in your mentions if you trashed Barstool or Jamerronic. Like I said, it's just a bunch of frat dudes. And I always found that absolutely hilarious.

But yeah, Jeremy Ronick, not good today, man. I don't know what the hell you're trying to accomplish with this lawsuit and just you're just making it even worse for you. And yeah, like Greg Wiesinski said, I think definitely this, you know, as for Hall of Fame cases go, I've also seen a hell of a lot better. And just to basically wrap this all up, just this first segment officially, you know, I also really do feel bad that Catherine Tappen has been put in the situation and, you know, she continues to be in the situation with the lawsuit and everything. I think Catherine Tappen is one of the best anchors, you know, not. not only in hockey, but for sports in general. She's absolutely outstanding. You know, the way she comes across is just, it's world class. And, you know, I hate that she was put in this situation. You know, she just doesn't deserve to be going through, you know, all just this garbage. You know, like I said, she's amazing behind the booth.

And overall, you know, I'm really looking forward to her, you know, just being behind the booth on NBC for these playoff games, hearing what she has to say because, like I said, she really does an outstanding job. So I think that will wrap up this first segment of the Lockdown Penguins podcast for today. episode. I just wanted to get the Jeremy Roneck news out there and share my thoughts on it and just, you know, hopefully we don't hear from Jeremy Roneck for a long time. I think that would be best for basically everyone.

And, you know, maybe we get to now let's continue to make fun of Mike Billberry, especially now that he has a Twitter. And now his mentions are going to be absolutely blown up during the games. I cannot wait to see the takes that he is going to produce on Twitter and make so many people mad. I mean, including myself, he is just the

absolute worst on NBC. And like I said earlier, you know, hopefully for the next US TV deal they actually will bring in other analysts that know what the hell they're talking about unlike some of these old heads like Keith Jones and Mike Millberry I mean maybe you can try to pry away

Mike Johnson I'd love if they could get Ray Ferraro full time he's absolutely outstanding I love that Brian Boucher is now the number one color guy for NBC he's awesome I think he's going to continue to do a great job hopefully this gets Pierre

out and just leave Pierre is just he's he's even more weird than almost anyone I've ever seen. But yeah, that basically wraps up this segment. I just wanted to get my thoughts out on the Germanic situation. All right, so we're back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. As I said, early episode, the Penguins were back on the ice for day four of training camp today. This sounds like it was a long practice for the Penguins over an hour, almost an hour and a half.

I was reading Joshi's practice report on the athletic. Basically, they've been doing a lot of work in the neutral zone. That's very, very good considering, I mean, John. also hit the nail on the head in this piece. You know, the Canadians coach is Claude Julian. He does a very, very good job of clogging up the neutral zone. We all remember what happened in 2013 when the Penguins got embarrassed, one of the biggest things in that series was that the Penguins just could not get anything going.

We all know how good Tuka Rasq was in that series against the Penguins. Of course, we use like a 950, 9, 6, 977 percentage, 2 goals only allowed in four games. But another big factor was that Claude Julian system just clog the Penguins up. and didn't allow them to do anything. The Penguins were just not getting any chances really at all in that series. I mean, it also does help that Patrice Bergeron is your number one center. He's probably the best two-way player in hockey. I mean, you had a Milan Luochich was good at the time.

Brad Marshawn is still Brad Marchand. David Craigchick was still David Craigchick. Zendano Charo was much better than he is now. But still, you know, you always have to be aware of Claudioin system and how he can clog up the neutral zone at will. I'm sure Mike Sullivan is very, very, very, very, well rare of this. He's a top five coach in the NHL for a reason. So it's not really surprising that Penguins have been working a lot on the neutral zone play and practice. Also, apparently, Josh was

basically talking about the goaltending today. It sounds like Matt Murray had a really good day of camp. That's absolutely awesome. We need Matt Murray to continue having your days of camp, continue to get his game back to where it was. And hopefully in the playoffs, he shows up in 2016 and 2017 form and doesn't give up the net. That would be the best case scenario for him as he looks to, for the offseason to getting a new contract. But it also sounds like Tristan Jari had a great day of practice as well. Apparently, Josh said he basically made the save of the week. It was basically Crosby, Gensel, and Latang were just passing the puck beautifully.

And then Latang basically had a tap in, but Tristan Jari made the save. And it sounds like his teammates were pretty quite impressed with that. This might be a random one. Josh just included in this story, but apparently Chad Ruido has also had a very good start to the training camp. I mean, I guess that's good for him. I mean, he's not really going to play in the playoffs. I mean, unless Justin Shultz gets hurt again or Jack Johnson does.

I mean, I think they would probably put Chad Roodle on his offside before. They would play Yusarika. I've never understood why the penguins just do not trust Yusarikala. I mean, is he not as good as we think he is? I mean, his underlying numbers have been over 50% for a lot of this season. I mean, they're a lot better than Jack Johnson's. I mean, we don't know how bad Jack Johnson is, but still, I mean, his numbers have just been much better. But for some reason, he's been in Mike Sullivan's doghouse for, like, the last

year or two. So they would totally play Chad Ruehiel over Yuselah 110%. Even on his offside. I just, I cannot get over that. But still, it's good that Ruehito is practicing. He's doing good. Like I said, you're never going to know who's going to get hurt. Justin Schultz very well could get hurt. He has not been healthy a lot these last couple of seasons. And you know, speaking of Justin Schultz, I've talked about this a couple times. I'll touch on it again right now on this podcast. This is a big playoff for Justin Chultz. He's a UFA after this season. The Penguins are going to be looking to replace him. He is not going to be coming back to the Penguins. I think anyone that thinks he's going to be coming back to the Penguins is a little bit naive. He makes $5.5 million against the cap. Right now, he's probably

going to be looking for a little bit of a raise. I don't know why a team would give him that, especially with the injury concerns. I know he had that 2016-17 season where he was just a monster, had over 50 points that season was the Penguins' best defenseman, Sam's Chris LaTang. But, you know, this is going to be big for him if he wants to sign a long-term contract with the team, but if he plays really, really bad, I could potentially see him taking a short team on a lower cap it. But still, I don't think that would be a good idea for the Penguins to sign Justin Sulz either

way, even if he plays bad. They can go out and they can get someone cheaper you really don't need. I mean, because like, if you look at their bottom pair right now, Jack Johnson makes what, 3.25 million for the, the next three seasons after this. Justin Schultz makes 5.5. So right now, I mean, that's like almost 9 million tied up into your bottom pairing. That just cannot happen when you're a cap team like the Penguins.

They're going to realize that next season when Shultz walks. Is Jack Johnson going to be here next season? Who knows? So they honestly, the Penguins can be looking at an entire new third pairing next season. And I pray to God that the NHL gives every team a buyout option. That would be incredible. He'd be like, yep, see you, Jack Johnson. but, I mean, is that likely?

Probably not. And, you know, also, who knows? If Justin Schultz does struggle in the playoffs and he's still looking a step slow, I would not be surprised if Mike Sullivan said, you know what? I'm yanking you. I'm putting Chaud Ruehito in, who was pretty good during the time that he was able to play in the season when a lot of defensemen were hurt. That's basically it for the summary of training camp for day four.

I love to this quote in Josh's article. Speaking of the article, if you guys want to read the rest of it, please subscribe to the Athletic. It's absolutely outstanding. This quote, though, from the article is awesome, though, from Sullivan. We're going to get a lot of eight o'clock games, guys. We're going to be the third game of the day. My best guess is that the ice isn't going to be very good.

It also doesn't help that it'll be August and it'll be very, very hot. There has been a massive heat wave that has stretched across my state this week. It's going to continue into next week. I think it's going to be almost 95, 96 every day. It's probably hotter in Toronto than it normally is right now as well. So, yeah, I would not be surprised if the ice up there, like Sullivan says, is going to be really, really shitty. It's never as good in the summer as it is during the fall or winter.

I mean, that's just a fact. You know, the heat and the humidity just plays such a big role for the ice. But also, to wrap up this segment, I did want to talk about the Vesna trophy finalists were announced today. The NHLGMs, they actually got it right. This was one I very much agreed with. So Conor Heliluk is one of the finalists. I think, honestly, he should win the Vezna. Tuka Rask is another finalist.

I think he should come in second. And then Andre Basilevsky. gets the third nod. Vasilevsky, he's been a Vesna finalist for ever since he came into the league. It's basically, Tukaras, he was just absolutely awesome this year. He was second overall in say percentage with a 929, also led the NHL and goals against average with a 2.12. This would also be, for Andre Vaskolski, if he's able to win the Vesna again, which I really don't think he deserves to, Connor Hullabuck should win it, like I said. He would be the first back-to-back Vesna winner since Martin Roder, which he did from 2006 through 2008.

His also, his 35 wins led the NHL. I know Wins is a very shitty stack to use for a goaltender. But, you know, had to include it to appease the wins crowd, even though there's just so many better, high, high, danger, save percentage, low danger, medium danger, state percentages. There's just so many better statistics to use for goaltenders than the Wins one. But, you know, I mean, Hullabuck was just so good for the Jets this season. He legit carried the Jets to the play.

playoffs on his back. I mean, he played in 58 games. He almost had 2,000 saves this season, had six shutouts, 2.57 goals against average, 922 save percentage. Also ranked first with 26.7 goals saved above average. That's according to evolving hockey. This also, these stats come courtesy of ESPN and Greg Regions season article. Yeah, I mean, Connor Hellebuck deserves the Vesna. If he does not win the Vesna this year, just abolish the voting. I mean, come on. He just, he has to win this. Like I said, like the Jets were just so awful

this season. They were so banged up basically all the time. I mean, they lost four of their six defensemen from the last season. Their forwards were not up to par as they normally are. Patrick Lone was not the same as we're used to seeing from him. And I think the Flames could very

well be on upset alert if Connor Hellibuck brings his A game. They just won't even need to score that much on the flames. If Connor Hellebuck is just an absolute tank. So for the finalists, if I were to vote on this for the NHL board ceremony, you would go, Conor Hellebuk, Tuka Rask, and then Ando O'Dar Vassi, sorry Vasilevsky, you are one of the best goaltenders in the league,

but you are not going to win back to back this season. And Tuka Rask, you are also absolutely awesome this season. And I know your team is most likely going to win the president's trophy if the season had not been paused, but this is Connor Hellebuck's trophy to lose. All right, so we're back on this episode of Locked on Penguins. a short little segment here. There was a mailbag question that came in earlier this week. I was saving it for today's episode because King Clark is one of my favorite people on

Penguins' Twitter. He also wanted me to answer this question on the podcast. This is a long and interesting one, so just bear with me here. He asked, when the Penguins win the first overall pick, when they lose to Montreal, they draft Lefren Year, and they signed Taylor Hall in Free Agency for a reduced cost to try to win the Cup next season, which of the Penguins now, league best group of less wings, switches to the right, or alternatively, do they run four deep and have a first-line left wing on all four lines? King Clarkie, that is a hell of a question,

even though it is very, very unlikely that any of that happens. But, you know, let's play around with it. So basically my thoughts on this situation is, I think one of the left wings might have to switch to the right. So on the first one, you literally could go, Jake Gensel with Sidney Crosby and Taylor Hall. Tell me, That's not disgusting. I mean, no offense to whoever the other right winger would be, you know,

Patrick Hornquist, if they want to put Patrick Hornquist on there, if they re-sign Connor Sherry, which I think is very likely to happen. I think he is going to come back. You're not going to put Connor Sherry off there. It's going to, hey,

Gensel Crosby, Taylor Hall first line, which is absolutely not be fair. And then you could literally put, okay, then you can have Jason Zucker as your other left winger, and then have of Gennie Malkin, of course,

as the second line center, and then maybe you can put Alexis Lefrenier on the right side, or you could also put Rust on that side and then bump Lefranier down to the third line with Jared McCann. So I think, honestly, that might be the way to do it. You can have, like I said, Gensel with Crosby and Hall, so that's two of the left wingers and then have Zucker with Malkin and Rust, and then the Penguins team would just be so deep that Alexis Lafranier, the number one overall pick, would be on the third line next two.

you Jared McCann. The Penguins would have that luxury. They would not even need to play him top six pairing minutes as he gets his feet wet in the league. They can just play him with McCann and then Patrick Hornquist as he's going to be back here next season. And then for the fourth line, you know, who knows what they would do? I mean, I'm guessing Asson Rees Blue Gratinev with Evan Rodriguez and Connor Sherry as your extras. But that's also if they re-sign Connor Sherry. If they don't resign Connor Sherry, Simone and Evan Rodriguez are likely your extras. So, I mean, what a hypothetical that is from King Clarkie. It would absolutely be hilarious if the penguins were somehow able to pull that off.

That is mostly fantasy land talk. Really, really, really, really do not think that Alexis Lefrenier is going to do the penguins if they lose to Montreal. I also don't think that it's likely the penguins will to lose to Montreal. I think the Penguins are going to win that series in three to four games. I don't think it goes to five. We'll be having an official preview of that series coming up in all different phases. We're going to do three episodes pretty soon of a special crossover. with the locked on Canadians hosts.

Of course, that's Scott and Laura. I think that's going to be coming not next week, but the week after. I think it's going to be spread over a few days. I think it'll be like an hour long, but we'll put it into 20 minutes segments on this podcast for three times a week. And then, you know, I'm also in the process of getting Jesse Marshall on the podcast at some point. I think that's going to be coming next week. He's going to preview the series, talk about some keys to the series for the Penguins. Also try to get Josh on.

There's a couple other media members. I'm working on getting on here to preview this series and just preview the cup run as a whole for the Penguins and ask some other questions as well that do not have to do with the Penguins. I'll just, I'll leave it at that. But I think I may do it for this episode of Locked-on Penguins. I hope you all have had a wonderful week. I know we haven't gotten back to every day yet. I apologize this week for not getting it back to it.

There's a couple situations that arose up. Next week, I'm going to try for every day, even though I am going to be on a socially distanced beach trip with my immediate family. we're literally just bringing food down to a beach house and we're just sitting six feet apart on the beach and we're just going out. We're not going out or anything. That would just be foolish. That would be stupid. You know, I'm not one of those idiots. That's just going to bars and being like, oh my God, you know, let's just, you know, COVID's over because it's just not close to being over. But anyways, like I said, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode

of Locked on Penguins. Keep it right here. We'll have more episodes coming next week talking about penguins training camp, getting closer to previewing the series against the HABs. And Much more content is also coming. So stay tuned for that. Have a great weekend, everyone, and I will see you all on Monday for another episode.