Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Let's talk more about that third line...

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

There was some Penguins news that came in over the weekend and Hunter is back on Locked On Penguins to break it all down. Chad Ruhwedel signed a one-year contract extension that will keep him on the team for a couple more seasons. Is he good enough to play a full season as the number 6 defenseman or should the team look to upgrade over him? Hunter ponders that, plus also talks about Evgeni Malkin being awarded the team MVP by the players again. Hunter also goes into some comments from Jim Rutherford to Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and how there could be some major changes coming to the third line. Finally, Hunter touches on the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and how they've been not that exciting so far. 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 everyone and welcome to a Monday evening episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodeys. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Hope you all had a great weekend. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode with Jesse Marshall, where we broke down the trade and everything surrounding Casperi Captain and what his expectations were for

captain going into the season. And, you know, if he expects maybe 20 goals, 25 assists for him or perhaps even more, and also got to pick his brain on what else could happen in this offseason. And it's sure to be a crazy offseason for the season. Pittsburgh Penguins, but we had some news over the weekend that we're going to touch on in this first segment with Chad Roodle getting extended for a year and also Kenny Malkin getting the team MVP award. We're going to touch on that. In the next segment, Mike Defabo of the Pittsburgh Post Exit published an interview with Jim Rutherford where he touched on, you know, what is left for him

to do this offseason. There's a couple things in there that I thought was interesting, especially about the third line. We all know the goalie situation. I'm not really going to touch on that because it's just been talked about so many times, but the third line situation was interesting. and also there are some rumors about Jared McCann over the weekend Elliot Freeman's 31 thoughts, so I'll touch on that too. And then in the last segment, we're just going to go around and talk about this, take around on the Stanley Cup playoffs and how these four series so far have just absolutely sucked. So in case you guys do not see over the weekend, Chabrewoodle, who had, I think, one year left on his contract.

I think that going into this next season was the final year on his contract, he was extended for another year. I think his average is $750,000. It's somewhere around there. less than a million. But yeah, I mean, it's basically the league minimum. Yeah, I mean, that's a good signing for the Penguins. Chad Ruehiel, we know what he can do. He's a good, number seven, number eight defensemen.

He can move the puck up the ice pretty good. He should have been in the lineup over Justin Schultz during that Montreal series, but you know, Mike Sullivan decided to take that to his grave, and now they're basically just bad-mouting Schultz on the way out. It doesn't really look good that they continue to bad-mouth Schultz on the way out, but yet there's been crickets for Jack Johnson. I just, I find that very, very interesting to me, I guess when we had Josh Yoey on,

he talked about how apparently the team was just not happy with Schultz's demeanor, I guess, and just competitive integrity or something like that going into the bubble. It's something like that. But yeah, they just weren't happy with Justin Schultz. So, yeah, Chabrohiel signed $750,000 for another season. So now he's under contract for two more seasons. I think he's a player that he can give you at least 40 to 50 games during a season

if you have a defense that goes down. I honestly don't really see a problem with him being the number six defenseman full-time. Though, would I like an upgrade over him? Yeah, I would. I mean, I think Jim Arthurford realizes that he's probably going to go out and get a defenseman to play over Chai Rulwito, so Ruehito does not have to play a full 82 games. Not that he probably doesn't think he can, but, you know, so maybe someone like Dylan

de Mello, I think is a better option than Chiruido on your bottom pairing. And Dylan DeMello would also come jim. I'm actually writing about him for one of the sites that I write for right now. And he was just, he was rock solid during that Winnipeg Jets series. against the Calgary Flames and the qualifying round, and he would just be an outstanding fit for this team. But, you know, to go back to Chad Roo-Weedle, you know, just a very good depth signing.

I remember just, like, reading a lot during the season of how the team was saying, how he's like, was there one of their best defensemen during the season when a lot of the defensemen were getting hurt? And it was like, okay, so you're thinking that right now and he's a steady presence and he's good defensively. He doesn't screw up in his own zone. Doesn't make mistakes in the offensive zone.

Doesn't pinch, like, to have those bad pinches that, you know, lead to odd man rushes and can you contribute a bit offensively, why wasn't he in the lineup over Justin Schultz? I know I just asked that a couple minutes ago, but still, it just makes no sense that the coaching staff did not trust Ruehiel over Schultz who was just vomiting all over himself

in the series against Montreal. It's just, I don't get it. It's very, very puzzling to me, but still, I'm glad Ruehle is back for another season. He's a very, very capable number seven, number eight defense. And yeah, expect him to probably play at least half this season because we all know the injury bug for the Penguins is going to hit again.

It always does. We all know how bad it hit them this last season. So yeah, I would definitely expect who we don't do get in probably close to half of the season. But I also, like I said, I also would expect them to upgrade that spot on the third pairing and maybe go out and get someone like Dylan DeMello or someone else who is a free agent or maybe they can bring in someone via trade. But the other news this weekend was Evgeny Malkin winning the team MVP. The award is voted on by all of the players of the penguins.

Yeah, it was not surprising that Ogdeni Malkin was able to win this award. He was the team's best player during the regular season, especially when Sidney Crosby went down with that injury for a while. He just carried a lot of the load. It was a really big bounce back season from Malkin after he was shuggling a bit this season before. I know it had to do with him playing a lot with Jack Johnson on the ice. But this season, he was just absolutely incredible, especially with Brian Russ right next to him.

This was the fifth time that he's been named Team MVP. Only Mario Lemieux and Cindy Crosby have won the award. more than of getting Malkin. Mario, I think, has won it, I'm trying to find a tweet here. Mario has won at 12 times. Cindy Crosby has won at eight times. So I'm not really sure if anyone's going to catch Mario for that record. Maybe if Cindy Crosby wins it for four straight seasons before he retires as he gets closer to 40.

But, yeah, that Mario record will be there for a while unless Cony Crosby breaks it by the end of his career. And even if Cid does break it, that record will be there for a long time, too. There's not going to be a player that probably comes in and breaks Cindy Crosby's record for the most team award MVP's. But to go back to Malcon, I mean, he was just absolutely sensational. 74 points, 55 and 55 games, 25 of those were goals. He also missed 14 of the Penguins' 69 games, which is nice, by the way, that they played 69 games.

14th in the end in scoring, he had 1.35 points per game. He drove possession like it was nothing. His assists per game, it was 0.8-9 assists per game. That was ranked fourth in the Anshel behind Connor McDavid, Leon Dreisiel, and Artemey-Penarine. The latter, of course, I think, deserves to win the Hart trophy. But, you know, I'm just going to come back to it again. When Cindy Crosby was out for those two months, 38 points during that time, 11 goals, 27 assists, and that was in 26 games.

Penguins were 18 and 6 and 4 during that time, which was, I think, over a 700 point percentage or something like that. Yeah, he was just absolutely sensational. Like I said, there is no reason to not give this trophy or this award trophy, good lord. There's no reason to not give this award to Evgeny Malkin this season is he was easily their best player. And you guys want to know something that's even crazier? I think the last player to win the team MVP that was not Sidney Crosby, Evgeny, Malkin, or Mark Andre Fleury, I believe was Dick Tarnstrom back in 2004. Let me look at that real quick here.

I'm trying to find the tweet that I saw. I think West Crosby of NHO.com tweeted it. And yeah, so yeah, the last team MVP that was not Krausey Malkin or Flurry was Dick Tarnstrom in the 2003-2004 season. And the funny thing was that this is the best part of that tweet. Dick Tarnstrom was minus 37 that season. I know plus minus is a shitty stat and no one really looks at it anymore. But that just goes to show how bad that team was and that they still awarded a team MVP, I guess because they had to even though that team was easily one of the worst teams in the league, if not the worst one.

I mean, being a minus 37 during a full season is just, that's just awful. And ever since, you know, 2015, 16, Crosby and Malkin have just been alternating winning it, basically. 2015, 16, and 2016, 17, 17, 17, 17, Malkin, was to of Gany Malkin. 2018, 19 was to Crosby, of course, was to of Gany Malkin. Before that, Florey 1, and then Crosby won two. Malkin had one for his 2011-2012 season, which that's the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind. For that was Mark Andre Flurry. in 2009-10, Malkin two years prior in 08 and 2009, and then Crosby in 06 and 07 because, I mean, of course, that was his first two years in the league, and he just took the league by Stormum.

I had to guess who's going to win it next season. It's probably going to be Sidney Crosby. I really don't think he's going to deal with a sports hernia injury next year. And, you know, here's hoping that of Gennie Malkin's elbow going into next season is going to be fine. We all saw his struggles in the playoffs. I think a good chunk of that was because his elbow was bothering in, but he just didn't. look right in all facets of his game, but I really don't think that's going to matter going into next season. I know he's getting a bit older, but, you know, like I said, here's hoping

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He spoke to Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a wide-ranging interview. I'm not going to go into all of it because, you know, he touches on the go-tending situation, and I don't care to talk about that. I've talked about that enough this off-season where it's just going to drive me crazy until one of them gets traded. But the big thing that he talked about in this piece was apparently changes in style or personnel on the third line. Jim Rutherford had this very interesting comment.

What do we want from our third line? Do we want it to be more of a defensive line than an offensive line or in vice versa? You know, I just, I don't really like when a GM kind of says something like that. In my opinion, in a third line, I want it to be more offensively minded than defensively minded. I still want the players to be good defensively in their own zone. But, you know, what happened when the Penguins won the Cup in 2016? They had a player like Carl Hagelin, Nick Benino, and Phil Kessel. Kessel, of course, was the offensive catalyst on that line.

Nick Benino provided some good offense, but he was also a very good shutdown center. all Haglin provided some offense. He was really good on the PK, but he brought that speed game that the Penguins were just really, really lacking in years prior. He was just absolutely lethal when he was on the ice with just how fast he wasn't getting the puckson, just forechecking and really just being a menace to any opposing line that he was up against. So, you know, that's the kind of third line that I would want to go back to if I were turned out of it. You know, you need to have that offensive catalyst on that third line that can put up some good scoring numbers. I mean, it doesn't have to be like Philcastle. I mean, you're not going to find another Phil Kessel, and those players just don't grow on.

trees. A lot of them probably I don't think will be available this off season and if they are. I really don't think the penguins are going to go out and acquire a play like that because they're so up against the cap because they always are basically every off season. That comes with being a contending team every year that spends up to a salary cap. But still, you know, I just found that quote pretty interesting. I don't think you need a third line of full

of defensive plugs. Especially as you go into the playoffs, a lot of these star players, you know, you're seeing it right now with Philadelphia and we're going to touch on that series in the next segment. they're feeling it right now with their depth. Their star players have gone basically just full on ghost mode. They have not shown up a lot of these playoffs, and their depth has not been able to help them. They've had to rely on Carter Hart for basically carrying them to wins every night,

or just trying to be, he's basically been keeping them in every single game, even though their stars just aren't performing, and the Flyers' depth just isn't there. And they don't have a lot of those offensive catalysts on their bottom six that can lift up the stars when they're not playing well. And I want good depth, you know, good players that can actually score to help out their stars when they're struggling in the playoffs and during the regular season. Because that's just very, very necessary.

You saw it from, you know, 2011, 12, 2012, 2013, 14. The Penguins were so bad in their bottom six. They had two checking lines down there, two defensively minded lines. They had freaking Craig Adams, his corpse was down there, Joe Vitalee, Tenerglast. How did that work out for you? You had a player like Brian Gibbons down there. How did that work out for you? Not very well at all.

They really didn't contribute anything offensively. And when Sidney Crosy and Evgeny Malkin would go ghost mode in the playoffs, they didn't have the depth to bring them back up and carry them when they're struggling. I mean, because this just happens all the time. You know, we saw it in 2016 with Cindy Crosby. He went goalless for a lot of that playoff run. I think that 2016 game two, overtime winner against the lightning, I believe if I'm not mistaken, that was.

his first goal of the playoffs since he had that goal against the Rangers. I really don't think he scored in that Capitol Series. My memory might be plaguing me just a little bit. But you know, that's the kind of stuff that happens. The stars go dark for a while. You need your bottom six to lift you up and provide some depth scoring. If you go to like a defensively minded third line, I just don't see how that's going to help the team moving forward. You got to have at least some semblance of offense down there on that line. And also for the fourth line, but I don't think that's going to be a problem. him at all. Another interesting comment from Jim Rutherford, he said Jared McHan should score 20 to 25 goals. Nick Bukstad will come off his surgery. He's doing very well. He's 100%. He'll probably be better

than ever. I mean, is he expecting to keep Nick Bukstad going into the season? Or am I just like tripping right now? Because I really don't think he's going to keep Nick Bukstad going in the next season. His comments might say otherwise right now, but I just don't see that. He's making $4 million against the cap going into next season. He hasn't been healthy. I mean, if they want to see more of Nick Bukestad, that would be, I guess, okay, but you know, you just, you have to understand his injury concerns because it's just not been good since he came over from Florida. And speaking of Jared McCann, that comment was interesting because he said he should be a 20 to 25 goal score. And I don't disagree with that. I think he can be a 20 goal score in this league.

But, you know, then I saw Elliott Freeman's 31 thoughts, and it sounds like they're testing the market on Jared McCann right now just to see what he can potentially bring back in a trade of it. it's like if you're just going to say that why are you testing the market on him i mean that just doesn't really make any sense to me i don't think it makes any sense to trade jared mccann i've said that a couple weeks ago i'm going to stand by it until the day i die i mean it's just you know he's had a really bad shooting percentage i think that's going to regress back to normal and if you give him good competent line mates he should be perfectly fine going into next season i don't think he's going to have a really disastrous second half of the season like he did um this past season i just i can't see that happening with him again.

So, you know, I'm curious to see what the penguins could pull back in a trade for Jared McKin. I'm not really sure what they would be asking for, maybe a Senate return. Please not Max Domi. I'm tired of seeing these Max Domi trade rumors, everyone. I can't do it anymore. He's not that good. He doesn't do a lot of things well.

I don't care if there's the Tide Domi Mario Lemieux connection. He's just not that good. He's not what his team needs. It's just no thanks. That's a hard pass for me. I'm trying to find other stuff in this article. I mean, he basically said, yeah, Justin Schultz has gone. I mean, again, that's not a surprise.

Also, apparently the Penguins are in the process of interviewing candidates to replace the three assistant coaches who were dismissed following the loss to Montreal. Rutherford apparently said, we're going to look at someone that has power play experience. Hello, Todd Reardon. Guys, I would be very, very stunned if Todd Reardon is not brought back on this staff. I would be pretty, pretty stunned if he was not, especially when I just read that line with Jim Rutherford saying, we want someone with power play experience. Reardon coached the power play here before Kessel got here. it was always a top five unit in the league.

He always did a very, very good job with it. Usually the Capitol's power play was pretty mint under him when he was an assistant head coach. I don't know why it went to the toilet this season, but still, you know, I think in an assistant role, I think Rudy could do a good job here. Like I said, death, he would not be surprised if he is hired here. And I would be pretty stunned, honestly, if he wasn't the guy Elliot Friedman also touched on that in his 31 thoughts. Rutherford said will also look at someone that has penalty killing experience as a coach.

I'm not really sure who that's going to be, to be honest. I'm not sure who a lot of assistant coaches are out there that have a lot of penalty-killing experience. Again, I would love to hire someone like Gerard Gawant to the staff before someone like the capitals could scoop him up. The capitals look like right now they may be hiring Peter Lobilette, by, you know, which case, by all means, do that because I don't think Peter Lobilette's that good of a coach. I just, I've never really thought that highly of him, to be honest. And then Rutherford said, I would also like to hire someone that can work with our defense. We like to hire somebody that is a good communicator with the players. So it sounds like there's probably going to be three brand new coaches brought on, one.

the power play, one for the PK, and one for the defense. So, and Rutherford also said that it sounds like it's going to be coming fairly soon. So how soon is that? You know, we're probably talking about a couple weeks. So stay tuned for those announcements, have the Penguins swore notifications on, especially now during the off season. Anything can happen. Trades can happen at any time.

And we're getting closer now to the end of the season. It's pretty crazy. And we're going to touch on that in just a couple of minutes. Well, that's basically it out of that article from Jim Rutherford. Apparently, they're really high on Drew O'Connor, who, of course, they signed out of Dartmouth. Sam Poole and they're really hoping can potentially make the team next season. They have Camley and Josh Manascallo.

Jim Rutherford said they're also hoping that they can have a really, really good impression at training camp whenever that comes around, whether that's like end of November, early December, or anything like that. But that's basically it for all of Jim Rutherford's comments that came out of this article. Again, great job by Mike DeFaubo with the Pittsburgh Post. He's had a lot of really, really good content in there for this one, especially some interesting comments coming about, you know, Jared McCann and the Third Line Center. and just the whole third line situation going into the season for the penguins.

All right, guys, let's talk about some of these playoffs series. This second round has sucked. I'm going to go out and just say that on a limb. This second round has just sucked so bad. I mean, I kind of feel bad for the Canucks. I mean, they're just, they're not in the same league as the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas is just a juggernaut. They're a juggernaut for a reason.

They can run four lines. I was reading an article from Travis Yost today. I can pull it up right now. This is just how bad Vegas is dominating Vancouver. He basically had a head-to-head, even-strike shot differential, so when the Canucks players go against any Vegas players. So when J.T. Miller goes against the Stasney-Karlson-Patrytti line, or just them players in general, the shot differential is minus 26 for Carlson,

minus 28 for Patcheretti, minus 22 for Stam. Horvats basically the same. Minus 24, minus 27, minus 24. Besser, minus 20, minus 17, minus 17, minus 17, minus 17, minus. is 18. Again, these are all for William Carlson, Max Petruetti, and Mark Stone. And his name is also said for basically Alex Edler. Basically, it's everyone that's not Elias Peterson is just getting caved in whenever they go out against the Petru-Ready line. I mean, they were trying to see if that was going to work.

But, I mean, yeah, I mean, J.T. Miller, Boer, or that, Brock Bessler going up against that line. I mean, that's just not fair. And honestly, if you read this article and you see the head-to-head even straight shot differential for all the Canucks players against a lot of these Vegas players, most of it is in the minus, which basically means they're getting caved in every single shift. And the Canucks players that haven't shown up like they were against the Blues and the Wild. And oh, yeah, that's for good reason because, well, I mean, Vegas is a much better team than those other two teams. It was always, I always love watching the Canucks just because of their high-end talent. I think they're going to be a really, really good team in the next couple of seasons. I'm going to go back to what I said, though, about a week ago before the series started,

they have to address their depth. They got to get players like Brandon Sauter out of their bottom six, Jay Beagle, Adam Goddette, Tyler Mote, Antoine Rousel, Louis Erickson. If they can just cut some of that dead weight, bring some players in that can actually contribute offensively or are also good in their defensive zone, maybe get some help around Quinn Hughes on the Blue Line, that's going to be a very, very scary team to watch. I really like what they're building there right now, but it's just they're just not up there. Vegas is level yet.

So yeah, Vegas is definitely going to advance. You go to the Dallas-Colado series. That series turned when Philip Grubauer went out. There's just nothing more

to it, I think, than that. Honestly, though, with Gruberra-R-in, I think Dallas, it would be at least two to two if Grubauer were in, but Dallas was really

dominating them in game one despite Grubauer getting hurt. But, yeah, Colorado just, they're not getting really, really bad goal-tending right now. It's not surprising

that Dallas is taking full advantage of it. They're lethal offensively right now, and that's not something people usually say about the stars since they're very defensively minded and they're stingy in the defensive zone but there are a lot of fun to watch right now i think a dallas Vegas western conference final would be really interesting i think it'll be fun to watch i don't think Dallas could beat

Vegas in the best of seven i think they would give them a good scare i would probably lean Vegas and 67 there but still seeing Dallas go up against them would be a lot of fun but i mean Vegas is going to win the west anyway unless something weird happens but you know weird has been the definition of 2020 so i wouldn't put it past anything else like that happening here. You move on to the east. Tampa Bay is up three games to one against Boston. Again, you guys, that's not surprising when Tuka Rasq left.

It was always going to be a tall task for Yarcelof Halak to equal Rask's level. And honestly, even if Rask was in there right now, I think they would still be down three games to one. Boston has just not looked good during the series. Tampa's depth is just killing them. You know, they're getting scoring from everywhere. Vasilevsky's been on fire. Defensively, Tampa Bay has been really, really good.

There's no excuses for Tampa Bay this year. have to get to the final. This will be their first final, I think, since 2014-15 against the Chicago Blackhawks. They have the perfect bracket to get there. I think they would beat the Islanders or the Flyers in a seven-game series. But yeah, I mean, like I said, there's no excuses for Tampa Tampa this year. They have to close this out. And then I think they have to go to the final. And I do think they will go to the final. A Tampa-Vegas Stanley Cup final is probably what everyone is looking forward to right now if it does happen. And then for the last series, Philadelphia and Yonanders, you truly hate to see it with the Flyers, you know, being down three.

games to one. Claudeau, where are you, sir? That baton has just gone back to Cindy Crosby, maybe. I had to bring that out. You know, I don't know why at the time, Sam Cardici decided to tweet that out because Claudeau had just one good playoff series for his career.

But yeah, ever since then, I mean, honestly, I think it's like the last 25, 26 playoff games. He has just one goal. I mean, he's been a ghost. Voracek's been okay, but not nearly good enough during this series. Kineckney's been a ghost. Kevin Hayes came out for a game, but still hasn't really been as good.

Sean Couturier came out has come out a bit, but still, you know, it's not nearly enough from him. The Flyers top players have just not been playing like how they were in the Rad Robin and during the regular season. And, you know, that's basically why they're down three games to one. Carter Hart can only do so much. I am probably eating some crow right now for bashing Carter Hart a little bit.

I didn't know if he was going to be the real deal. He looks like the real deal right now with how he's been playing against the Islanders, how he played against the Canadians. And honestly, like, I'm not really too surprised the Flyer. are down in this series. We all know how good the islanders are defensively. I just didn't think we knew how, you know, this good they were. I mean, it's just, they've really taken it to another level under Barry Trotter, just how good they are in the defensive zone. I'm going to say it again, and I know I understand they're going to get mad. Your team is boring. That's just how it is.

You guys play a boring style of hockey. You guys shouldn't care what outsiders like me or a bunch of other people think. It wins you games. And, you know, you really shouldn't give a shit about that. If that were my team playing like that, even though it would be boring as fuck, I, I, I, I'd just be laughing about it because, you know, it's getting you probably the conference final. But that being said, I really don't think the Islanders can beat the Lightning in a seven-game series. I just don't think they can beat them four out of seven times. Just how good with how the Lightning have been this postseason. And that third line of the Lightning that they have, Fianney Gore, Blake Coleman and Barkley-Gudrow.

That's just going to be, I think, the big equalizer for the Lightning against them. And Vasselowski should be able to play pretty, pretty good. But, yeah, overall, guys, this has been a really boring second round of the playoffs. I thought this was going to be a really good round, especially with Boston, Tampa. but I think that was before we all knew that Tuka Rass was going to pull out. Again, we'll never say anything bad about what Tuka Rass did. I still think anyone that is so mad at him can, you know, just go eat shit, to be honest. But, I mean, I guess I kind of expected Vegas to roll over Vancouver.

Vegas is just so ridiculously good. And I guess no one saw what's going on with the Dallas Stars against the avalanche, but, I mean, also no one saw Philip Grubauer basically being out for the entire series. I mean, that really is a big game changer. And then when you have the Islanders Flyers series, I guess it's not too surprising they're up three games to one with how the Islanders have just basically dominated this series and the Flyers top players have just not shown up. So if we're making a prediction right now, I think the conference finals are going to be Dallas

versus Vegas and the Islanders versus the Lightning. That would be two interesting conference finals. Two very different teams going up against two offensive powerhouses. So, I mean, hopefully we don't have a Star's Islander series because I honestly think that would bore everyone to death, including myself. But that will do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I hope you guys enjoy listening to it. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode

talking all things penguins. So keep it right here on Lockdown Penguins. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. And I will talk to you all then.