Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Lightning strikes as the Penguins fall, 5-1

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

It was bound to happen at some point. The Pittsburgh Penguins fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night and with that, dropped their first regulation game of the season. Hunter recaps the full game, starting with the play of both goaltenders. That's where the game was lost for the Penguins as sometimes you run into the goalie who's the best on the planet. He also goes into how the team played overall, as Evan Rodrigues and Jason Zucker really stood out. Other topics discussed: How NHL officials inserted themselves into a game yet again, why Tampa Bay was so mad out of the gate, Kasperi Kapanen's struggles, Drew O'Connor's strong play, and why no fan should be mad at this start.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. So you knew it was finally going to happen at some point, right? Hey, everyone. I'm Hunter Hodes of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

You can follow the shows Twitter at L.O. Arsore Penguins, Pittsburgh comes off their first regulated. lost in the sixth game of the season. They are now 3 and 1 and 2, well, 3 and 3 overall, but they have the 2 overtime losses, 8 points out of 12 thus far. And honestly, I don't really think the team played that bad tonight. I mean, the numbers kind of reflected, to be honest.

I mean, each team had 50% of the shot attempts at 5v 5. I know Tampa Bay had 61% of the scoring chance of score, but high danger was completely even 7 to 7. The expected goals for 5E5 was 1.58 for Pittsburgh, 1.5 for Tampa Bay. The expected goals for percentage, Pittsburgh actually led in that category, 50.6% and 49.3% there. If you go to all situations, Pittsburgh actually had the better of the play in some areas, 53% of the shot attempts, including the power plays and stuff. Now, Tampa Bay did lead in scoring chances for at 56.1%.

high danger it was 10 to 8 in favor of Tampa Bay but um and they also did lead and expected goals for us all 3.1 to 2.6 3.3 so overall it was a pretty close game it was just the I think my biggest storyline is one team's goalie played a bit average and the other team's goalie played like we all know he can play at and you know he is the best goaltender in the world of course I'm talking about Andre vasilevsky um you know it was I guess a fine performance from Tristan Jari, that first goal. Beautiful move from Braden Point. I don't really think many goaltenders in this league are stopping.

I know it came 30 seconds in. It was kind of a bad pinch, I think, you know, obviously to let Point come in all alone 30 seconds in. It's not ideal. But then, you know, the Pittsburgh was able to get such a great shift from that fourth line of Brian Boyle, Sam Lafferty, and Dominic Simone. I think it was around, what, a minute and a half, two minutes of zone time. They were getting some good looks on Vasilevsky, though Tim Be was also blocking some shots as well. The crowd is getting into it. You can tell that PPG is definitely getting loud.

And then, you know, five seconds later, Andre Palak comes down. You need your goalie to make a save. And Tristan was not able to do that. That is the one, I think, that he wants back. And, you know, the one that, you know, I would want back if I was in. And I know a lot of other fans on Penguins' Twitter and, you know, Facebook and Instagram were clamming for him to want that back as well. The third one, I'm not really going to roast him for. That was a rocket of a shot from Ryan McDonough.

There are not many goaltenders in this league, I think, that are going to save that. I know I saw some people just tweeting high glove, high glove this, high glove that. You know, I'm tired of hearing that. You all know my thoughts on that. In case you are new to this episode or new to this podcast, excuse me. I think the high glove thing is just very lazy analysis from people. And it's honestly where half of like the goals are scored in the NHB. today. So I don't really pay attention to that kind of analysis. I think it's just kind of boring.

But the second one, again, you need your goalie to make that save there. This was probably his worst game of the season. I know your goaltender is not going to be great every year. Tristan has been pretty good in all of his other starts. We'll have to hope that he gets back to that level on Thursday because a really good flames team is going to be coming to PBG. That team is playing some very good hockey right now. I'm going to try to talk to Jess Belmose about that potentially on Wednesday's episode or even Thursday's episode. But, you know, getting back to this game. I thought at the start, you know, Tristan was on his angles.

He was being more aggressive. I thought in that instance, he does need to be a bit aggressive. I didn't really like that he was too deep in his net there. You know, he needs to really come out and challenge Palat there because I think if he does that, he is able to make that save. So, you know, that's just a goal that can't be given up, you know, because who knows what would have happened if Jari makes that save on Pilat. You know, the McDonald goal doesn't happen.

You're down only one nothing still, and you have a lot of momentum on your side. Again, you know, maybe Pittsburgh ties the game. Who knows? But it's still a shot that needs to be a save, especially after your fourth line of all lines, just had a minute and a half to two-minute shift. That was, I think my biggest storyline of the game was goaltending. Vasselowski was just amazing. I mean, and this is what you're going to get for my player.

Like, can I understand what the numbers for him this season are not that strong? I think it was like, what, two and three and one? I think it was like 2 and 2 and 1 coming in. 8.93 save percentage, almost a goals against the average of 3. He was down a bit in goals saved above expected. But, you know, that's not going to last for a full season. This guy's won the Vezna. He's won the consmite.

He has a very big contract for a reason. He is the best goaltender in the league for a reason, and he played like it's a year. Tampa Bay I didn't really think was bringing it a lot to start the game. But he was able to keep his squad in the game and make some really big 10-bell save. to keep Tampa Bay's lead intact. I know Pittsburgh has a couple of posts with Evan Rodriguez. I'm pretty sure Jason Zulker hit the post as well. That may have been Jake Gensel.

But there was one that I remember, second period. He kind of loses the puck behind the net, out of position a little bit, Danton Heinen, looks like he has a sure goal. Doesn't elevate enough, but Vasilovsky still makes the save of the night right there. Sometimes that's what happens. The best player at his position

is going to play his ass off on certain nights. Hell, most nights, if you're someone like Vasilevsky, and you just have to tip your cap to him and say, hey, Gigi's in the chat. We'll get him next time. You know, these two teams will play later on in the season to, well, for bragging rights, because, you know, the winner will have won the season series. But, you know, Vasilevsky was great. Evan Rodriguez, he just looked like he was shot out of a cannon.

I think I saw him do a spinorama in the second period around a player, and then got a good scoring chance, hit the crossbar, post, whatever, on the power play. It looked like that puck was going to go in. Just an awesome game for him, and he is trying really hard right now to play his way into an everyday line-ups spot. He had five points in the team's first five games. Didn't record a point tonight, but he was very noticeable, I thought, on the ice, and in both zones. There was a back check, I think, when the Penguins were on the penalty kill. I want to say this was the first period, and I think it was Matthew Joseph coming in,

and Rodriguez was able to get back there. This was after, I think, I want to say. say it was one of Marino or Dumlin that disrupted him, and Red Rodriguez was able to come back and stop Joseph again. Just a ridiculously great defensive play, excuse me, and, you know, the eye test is definitely matching up with his numbers this season. So this comes courtesy of Natural Stratrick and Jesse Marshall, who posted this on his Twitter this morning. There are 298 forwards in the league that have played at least 50 minutes of even strength action the season. So 5-5. This is where Evan Rodriguez ranks among those 200.

98 forwards in case you all did not see the stat. In shot attempts against at 5V, he's number one among all the forwards, expected goals against number 6th, scoring chances against 14th, and then actual goals 4 percentage, tied for first at 100%. He has had a hell of a start to the season,

and I understand that he's playing with better line mates, and we probably would want to see this when he goes back down to playing third and fourth line minutes, but the fact that he's doing this to start the season is a really good sign, think he's definitely been a player that some people have overreacted to a lot. And I've always thought that he's been a good playmaker. I remember last season for this team, I said, you know, if it's him or Zawrna, I really

won't care, though I thought Rodriguez had the edge over him. And I'm starting to come around a little more on Rodriguez this year, despite this team being so deep if they ever freaking get healthy. Just another great game from him. And I'm really curious to see what he does moving forward. thought Jason Zulker had a really nice game as well. Got that goal to break Vasilevsky shut out to 4-1. I believe that is what his third goal of the season are a nice Jewish boy, getting that

tally. And I thought he was all over the ice tonight. I really think you're going to see him score a lot more when both of the top six centers come back. I'm not really sure what Sullivan is going to do when both are back, just because he's been a great fit on both lines. But I would like to see him play with, say, you know, I was actually having a talk with one of the listeners of the show in my DMs last night.

And you were just talking about lines when the team gets healthy. And I wholeheartedly agree. I would love to see Zulker reunited with Sid just because of the magic they had when Jason originally came over from Minnesota, 12 points in those first 15 games with the regular season. And then the playoffs while playing on Sid's line was one of their best players, I think, and scored in two of the four games. So I thought I saw some really good effort from him tonight.

I thought John Marino looked really crisp with his skating. he was firing a lot of pucks on net. I will say shout out to the lightning players for blocking a lot of shots. That was one of the main things I was noticing during this game as well. There was not a lot of shooting lanes. You know, I really think John Cooper coached his squat up well for this one because there were a lot of opportunities for Pittsburgh that did not get to Vasilevsky. That could have, but their defense and their forwards were able to block a lot of shots.

So kudos to them for that. I thought Jake Gensel was fine. Denton Hyen looked good. Sam Lafferty We're going to get to that coming up in the next segment with what happened in the first period and obviously I'm going to touch on the officiating as well and a whole lot more that came out of this game

but overall just to end this segment no it is not the end of the world sometimes a team loses in regulation they are so banged up right now it's not even funny and the fact that they are three and one and two through their first six games is nothing short of the miracle I would have taken this if the team was fully healthy

and I will surely take it now when the team has half of their forward group basically missing and their top defensemen as well. So as I just tease, coming up in the next segment, we are going to go over some of the officiating miscues that I didn't really care for in this game. Sam Lafferty just being a punching bag for Ryan McDonough and a few other Tampa Bay players and a whole lot more.

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That is bet online where the game starts. All right, welcome back here to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the shows Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. I guess let's just go into the officiating. Pretty big joke, I think, if you ask me.

I saw Chad from the Mad Chat and Eddie Show of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports tweet this out. I've also always said this on this podcast numerous times in case this is your first one. I think the NHL officials are the worst of the four major sports. I know MLB has their problems, and you see the calls for robo-ums. I know the NFL clearly has their problems as well with what is a catch, what is past interference. NBA, I will say I don't watch as much, though college basketballs are also pretty bad too. The NHLs, they always like to make everything about themselves, and they are way too inconsistent.

I mean, that Brock McGinn situation, he fires the puck off Asolevsky. It's literally on his shoulder, going down, and then it's poked in. I don't remember who poked it in, and I want to say it looked like it was bluger there. For a second, but the ref just blows it dead before the puck comes down from the shoulder. that can't happen. And I obviously remember just about a week ago when Mike Sullivan was pretty animated as we all were when the ref didn't stop play

when the Penguins were up 4-2 against the Panthers and Ekblad was able to fire the puck in the net to make it 4-3. I don't know how the ref saw the puck there and didn't stop play, but yet he couldn't see the puck here when it was on Vasilevsky's shoulder. I just don't understand it.

There needs to be more accountability and more consistency with NHL officiating. It's just, it's a tire fire every season. I wish I was surprised. I never will be. There's a play later in the game that Brock McGinn got a penalty for literally doing nothing. I mean, he got attacked by one of the Tampa Bay players, pushed back, and then the Penn Bay player pushed back him, and then they're only taking Brock McGinn. So I guess that was just a make-up call for what happened before. You saw a lot of Tampa Bay players having filled diapers in the first period because Sam Lafferty went after Ryan

McDonough on a perfectly clean hit. That is another thing that I hate within this sport. And don't get me wrong. I love carving the penguins. I love watching hockey. I've loved this sport for so many years. But if there's one thing that really grinds my gears, just to

steal a reference from family guy, it's that, you know, grown men are going after other grown men because of a clean hit. I really don't understand. You know, Lafferty was able to dish McDonough up a little bit. I always have said I hated fighting. But there's just no reason for McDonough to do that.

I mean, you got hit cleanly, take it, move on. You don't have to go after him and attack him because you ended up being short-handed after that. I understand the Lightning won the game, so, and they can kind of just laugh about it. But still, man, like, just I don't really understand that at all. Just move on. You don't need to take a penalty for the sake of taking a penalty.

There were a few other streams. I think I saw Corey Perry doing Corey Perry things. That's just, you know, that's him in a nutshell. But for some reason, you know, the Lightning players were pretty, animated, I want to say, in the first period. I don't know if it was because they got embarrassed by the Sabres the night before, which is because of their slow start. But definitely a lot of players were acting like some children in that game,

which I never really understood at all. And okay, here's a little bit of breaking news as I'm recording this. So, Dejan Kovachvich, tweets, this was, Teddy Blugher just talked to the media. I'm going to say this. I'm sure you all will gasp when you hear me say this. Teddy Bluger says the refs told the penguins that the waved off goal would have counted if Brock McGinn hadn't touched it at all. I don't understand what that means because they blew it dead because they couldn't see it.

So how can you say that the goal would have counted if McGinn hadn't touched it, yet your reasoning for not calling it the goal was because you couldn't see the puck with the intent of blow? you know, it was obviously kind of like a cult and citizen situation from 2017 in the Stanley Cup final. This might be one of these stupidest explanations I have ever seen from an NHL ref, and not saying something just because these guys are so terrible at their jobs, but that just doesn't even make any sense. I'm trying to piece this together and see where the logic comes from. I can't. If any of you have any logic to this statement,

please DM me at Hunter Hodes on my Twitter and L.O. and score penguins on the show's Twitter. That might have been one of the dumbest things I've ever heard said again from an NHL official. So I thought I would pass that on to you all towards the end of this segment. But again, you know, going back, so that just goes to show again, the officiating in this game was garbage. And sometimes that's what you're going to get from officials. On some nights, it's worse than others tonight. You know, it was one of those nights.

And, you know, for some reason, I don't know why some Tampa Bay players were acting like their diapers were filled at the beginning of the game. You know, there were definitely portions of this game where it looked like the Penguins were the team playing last night and not Tampa Bay, but you knew they were going to push. They were embarrassed last night by the Sabres. This has not been a strong start to the season for the lightning. You know, they're without any acute to Kutrov. I think the latest rumor I saw from him from Joe Smith of the Athletic this morning was the next eight weeks. So he's on LTIR. It doesn't look like they're going to do it.

They did last season and keep him out until the playoffs. I think this is going to be a situation where you see him back potentially around the time when Evgeny Malcon comes back, though. Gino could be tracking to be back a bit sooner at this point. Before we do get to our next segment, that will be some listener takeaways from you. I always appreciate y'all sending these in. I like doing them every once in a while. Again, Casperi Capnan, I don't know what the heck is going on there,

but we got to get something more out of him. I mean, on the power play, even strength. I saw him fumbling the puck on his stick numerous times tonight. His skating was off. his shot is going way wide every single time just not even putting anything on net it has been a rough start to the season i just don't think his confidence is there i mean he just doesn't look comfortable at any point on the ice i mean you know sure his two-way game is improved you know his defensive numbers are actually um among some of the teams best forwards wise but offensively this is nowhere near the player that we saw last season and the people that said that he was going to score 30 goals this season i mean i thought he was going to score 20 to 25. I don't know if I was at 30, but the people that said 30 coming at a preseason training champion,

it's definitely looking a bit rough right now because he really was one of their best players during that time, but for whatever reason, he just has not been able to put together. So he needs to find his confidence and he needs to find it fast. Drew Connor, another really strong game.

I think he also hit the post on a shot tonight, but he was flying out there. He continues to make a push to be in the sling. up on an every night basis if this team ever gets healthy. I am just loving what I am seeing right now out of O'Connor. And I also tweeted this, you know, during that sequence when the lightning scored two goals in 10 seconds to go up three nothing and basically end the game.

I will always say it. This sport is the devil's sport when sequences like that happen. It is so frustrating when you're dominating a team right after they scored on you. Minute a minute shift. Next shift, they come right back, score on a little mini breakway and then they get another goal. and it's just like, you know, that's just, that's life sometimes. But, you know, all you can do is really move on.

You have a big matchup against the Calgary Flames coming up on Thursday. And if there's any indication, it looks like Sid is getting closer. He was taking a lot of face off during the morning skate this morning. I would imagine that he will practice with the team on Wednesday. Maybe we'll see him do line rushes. Maybe not. But his return looks to be pretty imminent. I'm not going to go out on a game basis and say which game home to ever return

at unless Mike Sullivan declares something. a game time decision for that one on Thursday. Once he does that, then I'll be pretty comfortable saying that we will see the return of Sid. There was also some updates this morning. It sounds like because Jeff Carter's remained asymptomatic to COVID-19, he might be coming off the protocol later this week and could be available to play later this week and towards the weekend as well. So that's good news there. Coming up in the next segment, we will do some listener takeaways. I always love doing these. So thank you all again for sending these in. we do that though. You can save time and money when using Rock Auto. It's a family business

serving Do-It-Yerselfers for over 20 years. The price is all right below for every customer. They have everything you could need from bright parts, tail lamps, mortal oil, and even new carpet. You can go explore their easy-to-use website today to find the solution to your auto part needs. You can go to rockado.com right now and see all the parts available for your car truck and you can write locked on in their housebox so they know we sent you. Amazing selection, rely below prices, all the parts of the car ever need. That is rock auto.com. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

I'm your host, Hunter Hoddes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hoddies. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. Undersore Penguins. So let's get in to some of these listener takeaways. We will start here with Isaac Emerson. The kids are shot back to reality. Lockwood was not on the Penguins side today.

The puck's management was not that good. But I'm still happy with how this team is performing without the big guns. Yeah, I mean, you're always going to have. games like this when you're so short-handed. You know, five of your best forwards, basically. Your top defenseman is out. You know, you're relying on Jake N. Silkasbury captain and a few others to carry you against the two-time defending champions

who are pretty pissed off. I'm not surprised in the slightest that has happened. Yeah, the luck was definitely not on the side as well. When you hit two or three posts and you have the best goaltender on the planet playing the best gold tender on the planet, stuff like this will happen. I did not like, I didn't mention this either. and thank you for bringing up the puck management. I did not like how many odd man rushes there were.

I wanted to say I counted six to eight of them. That's unacceptable. That's not something you want to see, especially when you're playing a team as talented as the lightning. You know, that's been an issue in the past. It really hasn't been for a lot of the season, but, you know, it's something that we don't want to see moving forward. So thank you for bringing up the puck management point.

I really appreciate that. It was also something that I did not like. That's for sure. Jackson Hollister says can't win them all Also can't be mad at how the boys played They had great chances that were saved by Vasilevsky And a couple off the posts Yes, we didn't play amazing, but it happens

Also have to remember that we didn't have Yep, Sid Gino, Russ, Carter, and Leteang Yeah, I mean, you basically, I've been saying that all show Jackson, I'm glad you were able to agree I'm not gonna go to bed mad I don't think any fan should go to bed mad You know, I understand that people may blame Tristan Jari a little too much

But you know, I think two of those three goals were not savable. Obviously, you want that second one back, but, you know, Tampa Bay was starting to warm to the task a little bit, you know, during that second period as well. You know, even before Pittsburgh had that big shift, I thought Tampa Bay was playing decently well,

even though Pittsburgh was matching them a little bit. But, you know, when you run into a team that good, with a goalie that can stand on his head every night, this is what you get sometimes. And yes, at least the Penguins did not get shut out. Good boy. a good, nice Jewish boy, Jason Zulker, was able to score to get that out of here. Nick says, eight out of 12 points without the big guns is pretty good.

Everyone's saying this team had to keep their head above water. They have done that and more. Yeah, 100% man, you know, three and one and two to start the year, eight out of 12 points, as you just said. I would have taken that if the team was fully healthy, and I will fully take that when this team is so banged up. Yeah, Zulker's been awesome. I know everyone wants it back as well. I think there's a decent chance he could be back on Thursday if he has a full practice and does line rushes and everything. Tomorrow takes full contact, but we'll have to see on that.

And yes, Nick, I definitely agree, Kaspari Captain has been pretty garbage to start the season as I just talked about. Alan Teyodor, again, keeping up with the theme, they were due for a dud. You knew exactly how the game was going to go when Rock McGinn scored but got called back. Yeah, I really did not understand that. It's just, you know, the explanation that Teddy Bluger gave that I ran on the show about a few minutes ago. go made no sense at all. I really, I've been thinking about it for the last, you know, five to ten minutes, and I can't, there's no actual logic to it.

So I'm just going to leave it at that, I think. And then this comes from someone new, Link Hogthrob, our HL team can't be the reigning NHL champions playing at a high level all the time, take the ass whipping and learn and move on. That might have been the comment of the year or the listener comment of the year. So thank you so much for. sending that in, you know, take the little thing and learn and move on. That is just, yeah, that's basically what the Penguins need to do. I'm sure it will be better on Thursday against Calgary.

So we'll have to see what happens there. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We'll have another one coming out tomorrow. Might be a crossover with Jess Belmosto of Locked on Flames. We'll have to see. But in any case, we will have a full Flames preview on tomorrow's episode. And on Thursday, it'll likely be a game recap episode coming up to you all. After the game, and then Friday, we will do a preview for the game against the Devils on Saturday.

So that is it for the rest of the week. Again, thank you all so much for listening, and we will talk again on Wednesday.