Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Jim Rutherford just can't help himself

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

Cody Ceci was of course signed over the weekend by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Hunter is here to break it all down as he's going to be the number six defenseman heading into the season. What is his ceiling for just a one year contract? Is there any part of his game that can actually improve at this stage of his career? Hunter goes over that, and also explains how he would be easier to bench if he plays bad as he's on just a one-year deal and barely even making above $1M for next season. After that, Hunter talks about the rumored new jersey that's coming to the Penguins next season and why they should just stick to the regular black diagonal Pittsburgh jerseys. Having them in white just wouldn't feel right, plus could the Robo Penguin make a return at some point. Finally, Hunter pays tribute to Mike "Doc" Emrick, who announced his broadcasting retirement earlier today. 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.

You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello, everyone, welcome to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hotties. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L-I-1-Square Penguins. I hope you all had a wonderful, wonderful weekend. I'm just a great time to be Pittsburgh sports fan, especially with the Steelers going 5-0. Be sure check out Lockdowns dealers with Chris Carter.

He does an excellent job over there. And also Virginia Tech football was able to get to 3-1. My Hokies stomped Boston College. Pretty good. But before that stuff happened, we did have some news that came out this past weekend with the Penguins. And yes, everyone, Cody C.C. is now a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. And I want to vomit after saying that again. There are all the memes were going around about these last couple of weeks.

Oh, my God. The Penguins are totally going to sign Cody Cici. now Jack Johnson's gone and you know everyone just kept tweeting about it and then yes I think Jim Rutherford definitely read Penguins Twitter that everyone did not want Cody Cic and he was like you know what I'm just going to sign Cody C C C C C C just everyone off and yeah he definitely pissed everyone off C C C C C gets a one year deal worth 1.25 million for just one season we're going to go over all the angles about in this segment before going into the next segment There's been a league about a potential third jersey for the Penguins next season with the diagonal Pittsburgh making its return.

Though the rest of the jersey looks like it's pretty dog shit. So we're going to talk about that. In the next segment and then the final segment is going to be a little bit of a tribute to Mike Doc Emmerich, who of course announced his retirement earlier this morning. But let's get back to Cody C.C. I mean, I don't know what Jim Rutherford sees here. I don't really care that it's a one-year deal, $1.25 million. If he sucks, you can put him in the press box.

That's, I think, the good part about this deal, if there is a good part. I mean, this is not like a Jack Johnson situation where you're paying him 3.25 million per season to play him in your top four for a bunch and then realize that he's so bad he had to play him in the bottom six. And then, oh, yeah, he's giving you sub-replacement level results because they were never going to bench you. They just didn't want to put 3.25 million in the press box every single night. But also, they double down and triple down on him, and that's the hill they died on. I don't think they will be doing that here with Cody Cici. Why would you just double down and triple down on a player who you signed for one year, 1.25 million,

and to talk him up like he's the second coming of Jesus when he just makes that little money. I mean, this is a pure bottom pairing defenseman. You are not going to be playing him in your top four. You have Chris Littang on your top pairing, John Marino on your second pairing, and then C.C. would be on the third pairing if he beats out Trab Roodle. That's the big thing here as well, guys. I'm hoping Ruehle beats him out so C.C. doesn't really get a lot of playing time,

but I think knowing Mike Sullivan and Jim Rutherford at this point, C.C. is going to get a lot of playing time here. I mean, that's just the reality of this situation. A lot of times, everyone, the third pairing is going to be Mike Matheson and Cody Cici. It's not that good of a third pairing. I think it's better than Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz, but by how much? I mean, you're paying Mike Matheson $4.8 million for the next however many years. You have C.C. back there. I mean, that's close to $6 million for your third pairing. It's not as bad as the last one, which I think you were paying almost $8 to $9 million for your third pairing. But still, I mean, I don't understand why you couldn't just roll into with Chad Roodle.

I mean, I think Trevor Van Reeves-Dike was also out there. And before he got snatched up, that would have been a perfectly fine addition. I've talked about Troy Statcher on this podcast many times. I mean, Doug, who came on the podcast last week, talked about Justin Hull, who the Penguins could trade for from Toronto. I just really don't understand why they had to settle for Cody Cici here. He does not really bring anything to the table, especially offensively. I mean, the puck dies on his stick.

I think Demetriu, Philipovich, basically put, it was a replay back out of the series against Columbus, and they passed the puck to Cici, wide open, like, net in front of him, like the goaltenders right there, shoots it like 50 feet wide of the net, and it's like, oh my God,

can't wait to see that happen with a C.C. and a penguin's uniform. But, I mean, his offensive numbers are just not very good at all, like I said. He doesn't drive possession defensively. He's not that good. And he just really can't get the puck out of his, own zone. He's not good moving the puck into the offensive zone. It's just a very, very puzzling

signing, I would say, and Jim out of the further course has to talk him out. Yeah, he fits our system well, and it's like, Jim, I really don't think he fits your system at all. I mean, you guys want to be speed and skill. You want defense him that can move the puck and can be active in the offensive zone. He's not like that. That's just not who Cody Cici is at this point in his career. And by signing him, it just like makes your defense worse. So I really don't understand why they had to do And now you're just wasting more cap space on just not so good players. You know, Sean Gentile wrote in The Athletic this past weekend with Rob Rossi. They just had like a big roundtable reaction to the signing.

And Sean basically hit the nail on the head here. I'm just going to read you guys this paragraph. A win now club that's now using almost $5 million in cabspace on Jack Johnson, Cody C's seen Nick Bukstad. You throw in Yusole's contract and you're around $6 million on two guys who aren't even here anymore in Bukestead and Johnson. Another in Rekalo, who the coach teams to have no use for, and another who probably makes you worse than a cheap.

in-house replacement. You can do a whole lot with $6 million, a whole lot. And he's absolutely right. You could sign Taylor Hall if you wanted to. You could have went out and signed Craig Smith and Yusper Foss if you wanted to with the contracts. They had. Craig Smith 3.1, yesper Foss, too. That's $5.1 million for two really good players that would remake your third line. But instead, you have to eat half a Bukstad salary. You had to buy out Johnson because no one wanted his corpse. You still don't even know why they had to sign Johnson in the first place. You're paying Cody Cici to play for your team when he's not good. And then you have Yus O'Reco will be signed for a million, and he's not even going to be hitting the ice probably

next season if the Pengman's defense is fully healthy for the entire season. So it's just Jim Rutherford continues to just take L after L after L. I mean, I'm at the point now where my grade for his offseason is down to like almost a D. I'm not a C-minus right now. You can easily make a case for an F. I mean, if you said that to me, I wouldn't care. I mean, I wouldn't her blame you for saying that. I mean, like I said, for me, it's around a C minus a D right now. It's just not been that good. I really don't understand what he's doing with this. I still think they're a better team right now than they were after the series against Montreal. But, I mean, signing Cody Cici. I mean, I know there's not a lot of other options available right now.

I mean, Travis Hamannick, I mean, even would be a better option, but would he be taking a million or something for one year? Who knows, he also may not want to leave the West Coast because I think he has a lot of family out there. I think Rutherford actually said to the media, or it was in the press release when they signed, they're like, yeah, C.C.'s kind of a guy that, you know, we were kind of waiting to sign, or, you know, he was one of those guys that went under the radar. It's like, yeah, he went under the radar because he sucks. He does not bring anything to your lineup. You can play Chad Rueedle, and he makes 700K a year, and he's better defensively, and he's better offensively, and he can actually move the puck up the ice. And let's be real, guys. Cody Cici is not worse than Jack Johnson, and Jack Johnson is probably 100 times worse than, CC, but CC is still not a good player. I mean, he was never a good player in Ottawa. Even in Toronto last year, I think they were playing him way too much during their games. I think he was getting like 20 minutes in night with Morgan Riley. So that's ridiculous. I think in a best case scenario from them, they're going to try to play him 10 to 12 minutes in night. If Todd Reardon can somehow work magic for him defensively and make him at least serviceable, that would be the best case

scenario. I mean, we saw what that happened maybe with Eric Good Branson, but he had a really good tenure with the penguins, especially in the playoffs where he was actually looking like he could carry the puck up the ice. Like I said, that's best case scenario. I don't think it's likely that it's going to happen. But at the end of the day, it is a one-year term. It's $1.25 million. But I still wouldn't have done it.

It's still a bad signing. And also, you can stick him to the bench if need be. I really don't think Mike Sullivan is going to hesitate to put C.C. on the bench if he struggles valley, it's not going to be like a Jack Johnson situation where he just can get it to continue to play. and just basically fuck that chicken to his grave. Apologies for the language, but that's basically what he did with Johnson. But those are my thoughts on it, you know, just a terrible signing,

even though it's only one year and $1.2 million. And, you know, hopefully Chad Roodle beats him out because if he does, the defense looks a lot better going into next season. But before we do get to our next seven, where we can talk about this new Penguin Jersey potentially for next season, it is time to talk about Bill Bar. There's 18 amazing flavors, six new flavors, a couple of them, lemon almond cheesecake, carrot cake, apple almond crisp. They still have the 12 original flavors, double chocolate, orange, toffee, almond, coconut,

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You go to billbar.com and use promo code locked on, and you'll get 20% off your next order. That's promo code locked on for 20% off at BiltBar.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of Locked on Penguins podcast. So earlier today, it looks like there's going to be like a new jersey, I think, for a lot of teams going in the next season. It's like a reverse retro jerseys. They've been leaked by an eBay seller. So if this is real, and I'm not really sure if it is, I think it was leaked by an Indonesian eBay seller. I'm watching on the website right now, Aesthetics, who they do a great job with.

this stuff. Basically, if this were real, they would be bringing back the diagonal Pittsburgh jerseys, but it's in white. And to me, guys, that's a hard pass. I much prefer them in black. We all know, we've all seen the Snoop Dog video if you're a Penguins fan and just him riding on the bicycle, and it's just absolutely gorgeous. But these would be in white. The diagonal Pittsburgh is still badass, but, and then at the kind of on each side of the jersey, there's the penguin logo. And it's just a regular penguin logo from like of course when cindy crosby came into the league you've seen that one on his jersey for the last 15 years and i would have preferred to see the robo penguin on there i miss that one a lot you could have put that one on the shoulder crest and had the diagonal pittsburgh i think that would have been absolutely badass but i mean i just really you gotta put it in white i just don't get it you know put it in black that that's how it just looks so much better that way that's the authentic version of it you really don't need to have it in white. I've seen a lot of reactions already, a lot of Penguins fans from my Twitter that I follow don't seem to be too happy about it. I've retweeted onto my

Twitter to add a couple of my thoughts as well. And basically, according to aesthetics, this is like a fourth jersey. It's been described to them as throwbacks with a twist. They said they've been told that they will be part of a line called the reversed retro series and these new designs fit that bill. So I guess because it was in black, they're just going to reverse it and put it in white. Again, I don't really think anyone asked for that though. And I also So Adidas, I think, has apparently designed these. Well, you know, that makes sense because Adidas is really not good designing any NHL jerseys, if you ask me. But you can easily see why it's the reverse retro.

Like I said, white, black. But, I mean, I really don't even understand why you need to do a reverse retro anyway. Just bring the retro one back, the regular one, and just do it. I mean, it's really not that hard. Just bring back the black diagonal Pittsburgh jersey. And, oh, yeah, it would make a lot of money. People would pay out of their asses to get that kind of jerse. jersey. It would be that freaking good. I know some people would say, oh yeah, like it's a rip-off

of the New York Rangers. We don't want to be like the New York Rangers. I don't give a shit about that. I really, really don't. You want to say it's a rip-off the New York Rangers? Cool. You know what, how that. It's still a gorgeous jersey. So many people would buy it. And I think at some point it's going to be time to bring back the Robo Penguin. They got to bring it back at some point. A lot of people loved it. I know a lot of people don't like it as well. I'm personally in the fan of it. I think it's one of their better jerseys. And oh yeah, you better believe that that would sell a lot of jerseys as well. I mean, I definitely believe that. But I guess to wrap this up, I mean, I'm not really surprised the NHL or the Adidas is doing these little reverse retro things.

It's on brand for them. I would have just preferred that they would have brought back the original one and just make it maybe a little bit different. You know, just have the diagonal Pittsburgh one and put the robo penguin on each side of the crest on the shoulder. And that's it. That's all you need to do. Everyone I think will be pretty happy with that. For the people that don't like the diagonal Pittsburgh in the black jerseys. You people are weird and you have bad takes probably about everything. So that's all I think I'll say about that. And before we do get to the next segment, it's going to be a shorter episode today.

Cody C.C., his number is going to be number four, according to the Pittsburgh Penguins' Twitter account. So he's going to channel his inner Justin Schultz from last season probably and just stink in both zones. I'm never going to get tired of trashing Cody Cici. But hey, if he ends up playing well, I'll eat all the crow. And I'm sure a lot of people that have been analyzing the signing, you know, when it comes you know, Chad, Jesse Marshall, Josh Yoey, Rob Rossi, Sean Gentilly, all the people from Penguins

Twitter that are trashing it. I'm sure they would all eat crow too if he does end up playing well and looks like Eric Good Branson for like half a season where, you know, play good defensively. His possession was very good. And offensively, he was actually scoring, which, you know, he was really never doing in his career prior to coming to Pittsburgh. So we'll see. CCC's still 26, but, you know, that's all I'll say about that. And coming up in the next segment, we'll do a little bit of a tribute to Mike, Doc Emrick, who announced his retirement today. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

So, yeah, definitely a very big surprise, you know, waking up this morning at around 8 a.m. and seeing that New York Post article. I can't remember the author's name who wrote it. I think it came out around 6 a.m. You know, that Doc Emrick was announcing his retirement after 50 years of calling NHL games. His replacement, I'm guessing, is going to be Kenny Albert. I would go, John Forsland, because I don't think Forsland was, was he fired from Carolina? I'm not honestly sure, but I know he's not there anymore.

I know they didn't renew his contract, but I wasn't sure if he was fired or not. So that's a big loss for the Hurricanes Regional Network Theory. As I think, Foresland is one of the best announcers in hockey, and he should be replacing Doc Damrick. But like I said, really wouldn't be surprised if it's Kenny Albert. I think he's a great announcer too. You really can't go wrong without the one, but I would still win. Forzlin, but, you know, just keep Brian Boucher with the number one team kick Pierre-Riguire down to the number two list.

Or, you know, just give rid of Pierre-Maguire altogether because ESPN is going to going to be coming for part of those NHL rights. I think this is the last season of NBC's deal as the rights holder with the NHL. That's going to be a very interesting topic to talk about as we get into next year. I'll be talking about this on my podcast.

ESPN, I think, is going to make a run to get these rights back. And you know, bring Gary Thorne back. A lot of you would be signed up for that. I mean, you have the show with potentially John Butchergross, Linda Cohn. I mean, you can bring other people. I mean, I think Fox may potentially, looking at getting the

NHL rights, but, you know, that's a discussion for the day. Let's just get to Doc Embrick. He's easily in my top three hockey announcers of all time. He's probably in my top two, if we're being honest here, you know, up with Mike Lang, of course, is just a godsend as well. And, you know, I tweeted this morning, and I'll add a story to it afterwards. You know, I said, one of the best things about Doc calling the sport was that someone could be watching for the first time and he could hook them right in and have them understand the game. It's just not going to be the same. And, you know, my backstory from that is, yeah, I remember my uncle finally tuned to and do a hockey game for the first time in 2016, first time in probably like 30 years. And it was the 2016 Stanley Cup final with the Penguins and the Sharks.

And he said when he heard Doc Emmerich's voice and just how he was explaining the game, he felt like after each game, he understood the sport more and more. And that was, like I said, that was the first time he watched hockey in 20 to 30 years since, I mean, he grew up a Rangers fan back in like the 80s and all that. So, you know, so you know, like, that's just the power that dog. had just his way to explain the game to newcomers who had never watched the sport for or who had never watched the sport for 20 to 30 years and then they could just come in and listen to him just talk about the game it's second to none and I know a lot of people watched hockey games that just wanted to hear doc and I mean like I said my uncle was one of them so I mean I'm going to miss hearing his calls I mean you know that's the Chris Coonitz one was just unreal the one

that sent the penguins to the Stanley Cup final in 2017 that was just a peak doc demrick moment you've all seen the adam henrique one the the max talbot ones from 2009 and you know but most most of all he just seemed like such a genuine kind caring person you know reading these stories on twitter today it was absolutely awesome to see just how great of a human doc was i think josh yoey posted this um on his twitter today i'm trying to load up a tweet right now okay just got it you know he said he mailed a pirate's mask to doc gemrick this summer and he wrote a letter back to him basically saying so good of you to send this mask bucks open in st louis god help us and then he finishes please send on to the mask mask craftsman as ever doc that is a legendary

signature closing line as ever doc like i've honestly never seen someone say as ever and then put their name but you know doc was just that way he's just a great human being i know i'll probably never get the chance to meet him i will always wish that i would you have a chance to meet him But, you know, I'll also miss from those broadcasts, you know, that those legendary pirates references, even when the pirates were so bad, because of course he's a dired pirates fan, he would always sneak in a pirates reference during every broadcast, especially when he's broadcasting in Pittsburgh in the spring in the spring because the pirates are just starting off their season. Penguins usually play well into June. I mean, of course, they did in 2016 and 17. So whenever he was calling the Eastern Conference finals or the Stanley Cup final during those two years, every broadcast you hear of Pirates reference. And it was just brilliant.

And of course, I mean, how can I forget just all the verbs that he would use to just describe what's going on in the sport, you know, with moving the puck off the ice? You know, a word like skittered is one he would use virtually all the time, pitchforked up the ice. I mean, Corrid is another one. Collared he would use all the time. Galloped, drubbed. I mean, I could go on forever. All the verbs that he would use to describe what's going on in the sport was just outstanding. There's never going to be another Doc Emrick, like I said.

one of the two best hockey announcers, in my opinion, of all time. It's a massive loss for NBC. It's a massive loss for the sport. It's just not going to be the same. Hearing games on NBC without him, hearing the Stanley Cup presentation without him, all of it. You know, it's a very sad day for the sport.

But, you know, what a career he had, 50 years calling games, and I'm going to miss him quite a lot. So I think on that note, we'll end this episode of Locked on Penguins podcast. I know it was a bit short, but we'll be back with another episode tomorrow. Thank you guys so much for listening. Hope you guys have a great rest of your night. I have fun watching some Monday night football.

There's the Mandalorian trailer coming out tonight for Star Wars. If you guys are big Star Wars fans, I think it's the second trailer that they're doing. So stay tuned for that. And have a great rest of your night, and I will talk to you all tomorrow.