Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Let's go around the league with some signings today...

Episode Date: October 23, 2020

There was finally some news around the league today after a bunch of slow days and Hunter starts breaking it down with the loss of Dominik Simon to the Calgary Flames. Was it surprising to see Simon go to Calgary for league minimum? Should the Penguins have signed him instead of someone like Evan Rodrigues to fill a depth role? Hunter ponders that, even though Simon is great analytically with a poor shooting percentage. Besides that, Hunter breaks down the other signings that happened today with Denis Gurianov to Connor Brown, and even Dmitry Kulikov. After that, Hunter looks at some quotes from Jim Rutherford to Seth Rorabaugh from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and questions what he and his hockey operations look at when they see a player like Cody Ceci. All that, plus much more on this episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. 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 episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show is Twitter at L-O-W-N-N-Square Penguins. Happy Friday, wow, got ahead of myself there. Happy Thursday, see you all, as we are now just about to the weekend, which means we're getting closer to another Steelers Sunday and another Virginia Tech Saturday for game day.

So it's just getting good here. I did have some announcements around the league today with the canceling of the Winter Classic and the canceling of the 2021 All-Star game. was pretty expected that those would get canceled or just postponed until the following year because I think the NHL would just want to start on New Year's Day with just teams in arenas. I mean, they weren't going to put 60,000 fans at a stadium for New Year's Day. I mean, that just was not going to happen, especially with the players. And they weren't going to be congregating for an All-Star game and have a bunch of fans allowed in there.

So the right call made by the NHL there still have no idea when the season is going to start. Again, they're trying to have it be on January 1st. Is that likely at this point? Who knows? So we're just going to have to follow that as we get closer and closer to the end of this year. But in this segment, we're going to talk about some signings around the league today, including Dominic Simone, Dennis Kurayanov also got signed. Connor Brown also got signed by the centers.

We're just going to go around the league a little bit in this first segment. And in the second segment, I actually stumbled across this article by Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, where he basically talked to Jim Rutherford about the Cody Cici signing. I had not seen it until today because apparently, Jeff, aka Latang Colt on Twitter posted a screenshot of one of the lines in it from Jim Rutherford. Had no idea this was said. Shout out to Jeff for posting that.

And it made me a little bit mad online with some of Jim Rutherford's comments. We're going to talk about that in the next segment. And that might be it for today. So this is going to be a shorter show than some of the other normal, just the regular time. So, yes, Dominic Simone was signed today by the Calgary Flames, a one-year deal, 700K contract. I get that Penguins did not want to go to arbitration with Simone.

I get that Simone would probably be asking for a couple million per season with the production that he had. Even though he can't score, though I'm sure with this contract, he's probably going to be like a 40 to 50-point player. And that's just going to irk a lot of Penguins fans, I mean, including myself, I was a big fan of Dominic Simone. I know fans weren't a fan of them because, oh, well, yeah, he never scored goals. He always hit the post.

His shooting percentage was so terrible. I mean, if scoring goals were so easy, everyone would do it. So, you know, he just had a lot of bad luck. I always thought his playmaking ability was really good on this team. It was honestly probably one of their better playmakers. If you just go up and down their lineup, that's not an elite player. So I was always never too keen on them letting him go. But, I mean, even if you didn't qualify him, I mean, one year, 700K, you couldn't bring that guy back,

but you just bring back Evan Rodriguez, who I think is a worse player than Simone. I mean, that's just, that's kind of ludicrous to me. The flames are going to get a steal, I think, out of Simone. They can plug him anywhere in their lineup. He can play in the top six with Goodrow and Monaghan. Probably not going to have him because their top six is pretty nice. I mean, they have Chuck up there, too, Mikhail Backland. But, you know, they're probably just going to plug him on their bottom six.

Put him as their third line left winger, fourth line left winger. And he's going to chip in offensively for them. And, I mean, he is good defensively as well. So it's a great signing there by the flames. We're definitely going to miss Simone here as a penguin, even though he did piss a lot of the fans off. He did have a nice Instagram message to the Penguins today. Basically, I want to thank the Pittsburgh Penguins organization for everything they did for me.

I appreciate every second of my time in there. It's a beautiful hockey town with great fans and amazing people all around. Thank you for welcoming me with open arms. That being said, I can't be any happy and more excited to become a member of the Calgary Flames organization. And, of course, he just has to add a hashtag to that. So the Dominic Simone era has officially come to an end. Again, 700K, I mean, the Penguins and Jim Rutherford should have been all over that. really need to go out and give 700K to two players who are probably worse than him and are not

as good offensively, especially as Simone. So that was definitely a bit weird to see. But some of the other signings that happened today, I mean, Demachia Kulokov went to the New Jersey Devils, won your deal, 1.15 million for that season. Kulukov's not a good defenseman. I remember I had like so many people in my mentions, I think a few years ago when I think Kulokov was being linked to the penguins and a couple, a few people were just like, oh my God, you have no what you're talking about. He's actually good. I'm like, well, he's a terrible possession player.

Doesn't bring anything to the table offensively. And oh, yeah, he's pretty shit in his own zone too. If I can just bring up his stats here real quick, let me go to his hockey reference page. I mean, his best season came in 2011-12 with the Florida Panthers. Four goals, 28 points. He has not hit 20 points, well, since 2014-14-15 with Florida. When he had three goals, 22.703 games.

After that, you know, went to Buffalo. Then, of course, was with Winnipe. for all those years. I mean, he didn't really do anything offensively with Winnipeg either. I mean, three goals, 11 points in one of his season, six points another season. Possession-wise, I mean, this has always been a player that's hovered 45, 46% possession. I mean, for his career, he's 48.8. So he doesn't really move the needle in any way.

So it's just kind of funny how did the devil sign it. But they also have a lot of cap space, so I don't really think they care. And they're probably not going to be competing for a playoff spot next season. So I'm sure they could get a team to. to send a mid-round pick for him or something like that at the trade deadline. That's really all the devils I think are doing with that deal. We also saw Dennis Gurianov signed to him trying to find that contract. Oh, so two years, 2.55 million per season.

I think that's a great deal for the stars. He was a menace in the playoffs for them. If I can go find his stats here on hockey reference. I mean, this was his first full season in the league. I mean, last year he only played 21 games. But this year, 64 games, 20 goals for for the first time. his career had 29 points in the playoffs if I can I mean 20 said all played in all games nine goals 17 points I mean this guy is the real deal he's possession wise 49.6 percent but I mean when you can

score 20 goals in a season when you can add almost 10 goals in the playoffs to get your team within two wins of winning the Stanley Cup you're going to get a nice contract he got two years there 2.5 million like I said that's a steal and if he continues to put up 20 goal seasons he is going to get paid in the next couple of years when his contract is up. There's not a doubt in my mind about that. And then there was also, I think there was one more contract that was signed today. Like I said, Connor Brown, I think they avoided arbitration with him in Ottawa. Three years, $3.6 million per season.

Remember, he came over from Toronto in that trade. I think that was the trade that sent Cody Cici from Ottawa to Toronto and Connor Brown to Ottawa, but I'll have to double check on that. But Brown's this past season in Ottawa. but 71 games played, 16 goals, 43 points for them. I mean, he was one of their bright spots. You know, I know they have Tomas Shabbat. They have Brady Kachuk, who's going to be a really good player.

And they had Anthony DeKlear who was a 20-goal score. But Brown was pretty good. This was easily the best season of his career. He had not eclipsed 40 points in a season prior to this. He still has a 20-goal season on his resume from Toronto in 2016-17. Wouldn't surprise me if he hit 20 goals next season in Ottawa, But especially because Dadov is coming over, I figure he would probably play with Dadenov a bunch in the line. I mean, you look at their NHL roster.

I mean, it's really just Brady Kachuk, Evgeny Dadnov, Connor Brown, Colin White, and that's basically it. They really do not have a lot of NHL players on that roster. That is going to be a very long rebuild for the Ottawa Senators. But it's good that they got him, Sime, avoided arbitration because he probably could have commanded a lot more in arbitration. I don't really think there was any other. and national news today. I have all of the insiders notifications on still, and it's been like almost a month since free agency ended with,

you know, Purebren, Darren Dregor, Elliot Friedman. Frank Sillardt. I had his on, but I ended up turning them off. We already talked about the Chris Russell, the Edmonton Oilers barfed all over themselves with that. But yeah, that was basically it for news around the league today. I mean, oh, we also did one more. Jake, Furchanan, two years, 2.5 million per season for him. I think the Canucks are going to want more out of Ruchanan.

he just hasn't been able to put it all together with them. He struggled offensively. Definitely struggled a bunch in the playoffs. I mean, they probably see him as one of their top nine wingers, but to this point, he just has not played like it. So, I mean, they're giving him two years here to see how he's going to do it, especially at only two and a half million per season. We'll see what he can do.

But like I said, that's basically the news from around the league today, especially with Dominic Simone going over to the Calgary Frames. But before we do get to our next segment where we can do a little more Cody CC talk before I'm probably done talking about CC for a long time. It's time to talk about rockato.com. It's a family business serving on our customers online for 20 years. You go to rockado.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. They have everything from engine control modules and brake parks to tail lamps, motor oil, and even new carpet. Whether it's for your

classic or daily driver, you can get everything you need in a few easy clicks to deliver directly to your door. Best of all, prices at rock auto.com are always reliable and the same for professionals and do it yourselves. Why should you spend up to twice as much for the same parts? You can go to rockado.com right now and see all the parts available for your car truck and you can write Locked On and there are how did you hear about us box so they know he sent you. Amazing selection of live below prices. All the parts of car will ever need. That is rock auto.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast.

So for this segment, like I said, we're just going to talk about, you know, this Cody C.C. article that I saw from Seth Rua Blah and how I saw some quotes in here. Well, like I said, Jeff put one of the quotes on there from the article that I just did not like from Jim. Rob the bird. So let's just get on into, you know, one of the first quotes in this article that Seth when Seth was talking to Jim, Jim says probably the best way to say it is that it's a reset year for Cici in a few ways for a guy like him. I guess it depends on who you talk to him, what kind of year he had Toronto. He had a decent year in Toronto based on what we look at. I mean, I don't know what you're looking at when you think Cody Cici had a decent year in Toronto when he was playing 20 minutes a night, which is way too much for him. And he's just getting caved in

night and night out. I mean, Jim, offensively, 56 games. a single goal in eight points and the puck just seems to die on his stick. That's after a season with Ottawa where he had one of his better offensive seasons, seven goals, 26 points and 74 games. And that's still, I mean, I don't like to look at plus minus a lot. I think it's a useless staff. But when you're minus 22, that's, that's pretty freaking bad. Again, guys, I think plus minus is a pretty bad stat. But when you're minus 22, even on a really awful Ottawa team, that's just pretty embarrassing to me. But you know, like I said, especially from this season, in Toronto when he got traded after Ottawa, it's like, buddy, Jim, I don't know what you're looking

at if you think he had a decent season. Even his possession, 49.6%. I mean, Toronto drives possession better than most teams in this league. I mean, before that in Ottawa was 44, 45, 43, 44 for four consecutive seasons. That's just utterly terrible. I get that you wanted to be a reset year for him. You're not really going to be paying him a lot of money. You can easily just put him in the press box if he plays like shit. But to say that he had a decent year in Toronto based on what you look at, I mean, what film are you looking at? I mean, that's just, I think that's just a flat-out lie.

So I don't really know what Jim Rutherberg in his hockey operation staff look at when they think that C.C. had a decent year in Toronto. So that's just kind of odd to me. Another quote here was, I mean, he says he kills penalties pretty well. Again, guys, in case you guys don't know my opinion on penalty killing, I think almost any player can kill penalties in the NHL. You don't need a penalty-killing specialist on your team. We've grown past the need for that in the NFL.

I mean, we've seen Sidney Crosby go out there and kill penalties these last few years. And he does a pretty good job at it. I think he's assisted on a few shorthanded goals during his time out there. I think they've actually put out him and Gensel out there for a bunch of minutes, especially in this last season, if I can recall correctly, I have to see how many minutes he spent on the PK for the Penguins. but I want to say it was more than he usually does. So you don't really need to say, oh, he kills penalties for us

because, I mean, I think any decent player at 5V5 can do that. Another thing here that he said, well, I mean, he was just continuing the quote. Depending on the system, we feel that he can change his game a little bit. When we looked at it with our system, we feel putting him in the right situation to succeed. To succeed, he can do well. He can help us. So, I mean, again, don't really know how he fits in your system, considering it's a speed and skill system, especially with defensemen

that need to be mobile, that need to move the puck. He's not good at either of those things, and especially he's not good in his own zone. So this is going to be pretty interesting to see if I and a bunch of others will eat crow on this. But here is the big kicker that really got me mad when Jeff posted this screenshot. This is well from Seth Rolbaugh,

through the lens of advanced analytics available to anyone with access to the internet. CC had a very poor 2019-20 season. The penguins maintain their own metrics, which are kept and remain in house. Those figures are weighed in on any potential transaction, but they aren't the ultimate deciding factor in any decision. I agree that they shouldn't be the deciding factor in the ultimate decision to sign a player. I mean, you've got to look at just his all nice play with the video and everything,

and you can look at the numbers. But if the video and the numbers are telling you he's bad, you probably shouldn't sign him. So here's the quote. So Jim says you can't just go off analytics. We do use them, director of hockey research, Sam Ventura, does a great job for us for it. But we use different checkpoints. And we have a very good hockey operations department. people that have been around a long time that look at these players, that's how we judge the players.

So basically what you're telling me is that Sam Ventura likely tells Jim not to do this because advanced analytics are poor. But Jim's like, nah, we got a good hockey operations department. That's how we judge the players. We have people that have been around the game a long time that look at these players. Again, I just want to be like in some of their meetings, whether it's like Zoom or just getting together. And just seeing what they're saying about a player like Cody's easy. Like what are his strengths to you guys? I would just love to know that, especially after like watching the video.

I just want to have like a video film session with them and just be like, okay, so what do you like about his game? What do you think his weaknesses are? What do you think he can improve upon here with getting with Todd Reard and everything like that? I just would love to know the answers to those questions because I honestly have no idea what they watch on film if they think he actually had a good season. And if there is really room for improvement here, it's almost just sounds like it's like a Jack Johnson situation. though I know it's not, it's not a five-year term for 3.25 million. He's probably more likely to get benched than Jack Johnson because they weren't ever going to put Johnson's salary in the press box.

I know Sullivan did it once for a playoff game, but then he was like, nah, you know, I'll just put Jack to back in, even though he was just spot out stinking. But still, I think if C-C is making a lot of mistakes during some games, Mike Sullivan would not hesitate to put him in the press box just because it's $1.25 million on your salary cap. and you just put Chad Ruehdo in there who makes, what, 500K less than him. So I don't really think it's that big of a deal.

So that was just kind of an annoying quote to read. I mean, he basically finishes off the piece, though. Well, Rutherford talks to Seth. We have other guys that can play. Zach Trotman can play the right side. We like the way he plays. I mean, I don't really think Zach Trottman's very good. I think he's honestly a career.

H.L. defenseman, he's not really good at moving the Pock. He was always out of position in the games that I remember watching last season. Just when he was up here, it just was not. I mean, y'all said we like where P.O. Joseph is at in his development. We like Cam Lee, the guys we signed out of Western Michigan. So we have a group of guys now that we are comfortable with. And, you know, I'm not disagreeing with that.

I would honestly rather have P.O. Joseph or Cam Lee come up rather than Zach Trotman, because I really just don't think Trotman brings anything to the table. I think I remember they were actually playing Trotman on the left side and benching Yuso Rikola because Rikola must have, like, killed Mike Sullivan's dog or something. I think that was when Marino and Dumlin were hurt. and then they put Jack Johnson up on the top pair with Chris LaTang and then I think it was Pedersen with Schultz on the second pair and then because they did not like Yuselriko for whatever reason

they put Zach Trotman on his offside next to Chad Roodle yeah it didn't really go well that's just that's the best way to put it just because Trotman was just awful on his offside so I'm honestly really hoping that we don't see Zach Trotman up here on this team this season just because he's not that good that's really all I have to say about that for this segment you know we're going to see just how Cody CCC plays you know hopefully it's not nearly as bad as Jack Johnson. I wouldn't expect it to be, but I still expect it to be really not that good. But before we do get to our next segment, it is time to talk about

Bilko. There's plenty of walls that I have to break down every day to just get my day going. I'm sure for you guys, it's the same way. Whether it's a mental or physical wall, you can break through it with go every day. You can put in your briefcase for the most focused presentation ever. You can put it in your pocket to get through the day. It's five-hour energy without the same crash feeling plus it's natural, so it's better for the body. It's like drinking a month. It's Monster drink with a third of the caffeine and better results. There's three delicious flavors. Peanut butter, honey, chocolate coconut, chocolate mint.

It combines energy gel with collagen protein. Collagen protein is fast absorbing, so it gets into my system fast, plus it's easy on the stomach. There's an offer. You go to bilco.com and use promo code locked, and you'll get 20% off your next order. That is promo code locked for 20% off at bilko.com. Let's go. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. There really is not much talk about for this segment, though.

I did see something on the Penguins official Twitter account yesterday that I guess I'll get to. The Penguins, I hosted a virtual orientation seminar for their 2020 draft picks, which, you know, was pretty cool. They brought Sullivan in, Brian Russ, Tishanjari, and more team staff. They were just on hand to introduce the prospects to the Penguins organization. A couple of quotes from Mike Sullivan. This one, this is a cool quote. As Vince Lombardi said, if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence. That's what we try to do in Pittsburgh each and every day.

and you can ask Rusty, you can ask Jars, we push them hard every day. He continues, we push them hard because we know they're capable of more. Our standards are high in Pittsburgh. Our standards are high in Wilkesbury. We're looking for guys that can thrive in that environment, that embrace the competition, and that embrace that daily endeavor. So that quote from Vince Lombardi, that makes you almost want to run through a wall. Honestly, like, hearing anything from Mike Sullivan just wants to make me run through a brick roll.

He just has that commanding, booming voice in the locker room that not a lot of coaches can, And mimic, I think is the best word for it. But anyways, I think that might be it for this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Though I did want to give you guys a heads up on what's coming for this podcast. So we'll have another episode coming tomorrow. So that'll conclude the five episodes a week for this week. Then next week we'll have five episodes for you guys. And then it's going to change for the month of November.

So starting on November 1st, we're going to be doing three episodes a week for the whole month of November, just because, I mean, it's basically dead around here in the age of all season. and that'll continue until training camps are announced and training camps start, which is when we will go back to five episodes a week, and then we'll continue that as the preseason comes, and then when the regular season comes, we'll just be doing that all the way into next June or July whenever the next season ends. So I just wanted to give you guys a heads up on that.

I really do appreciate each and every one of you listening to this podcast, each and every day, even though there is just literally nothing to talk about right now when it comes to the penguin. But with that said, we will have another episode coming for you guys tomorrow and I will talk to you all then. Hope you have a great rest of your day.