Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 11/25- Devils Game Experience, Plus Thoughts on Flames Game & Tristan Jarry

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter recaps his trip tp PPG Paints Arena and gives his thoughts on the experience being there, plus thoughts on the food prices and the crowd. He also talks about the game itself, plus thoughts on Tristan Jarry rightfully getting some starts so that Matt Murray doesn't get overworked. There's also some thoughts about Jake Guentzel in there as well with his overtime winner. 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 and welcome to another edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show on Twitter at LO underscore Penguins. Before we get into tonight's game, I just want to talk about a little about my arena experience at PV2P2 Paints Arena. Of course, I teased it on the show last week. I did go to the game against New Jersey. I saw the Penguins win.

I am now 3 and 2 at Penguins games overall throughout my life. I started out 0-and-2, saw two straight losses to the Capitals, then. saw a win against the Sabres and they were down 3-0, came back in 153, and then saw the win last year against the Capitals at the Capital One Arena, and then now this year a 4-1 win over the New Jersey Devils.

And it was a lot of fun being at the arena. I had really good seats, thanks to Sheets. Shout out to Sheets for giving away those tickets on Twitter. I sat in Section 116. And just, it was a little bit to the diagonal of the goal. It wasn't directly behind. It was kind of to the side, the right-hand side. It wasn't at the end where the Penguins shoot twice,

deal. Great seats. I took my grandpa. He had a lot of fun with it. I gave two of my tickets away to two people from Penn's Twitter, Justin and his wife, Mennina. Thank you guys so much for being great guest start at the game. I had a lot of fun.

But I think going back to PPG again for the third time, I just, I think it's probably one of the best arenas in the league. I haven't been, of course, to not even a third of the arenas, but I don't think many could honestly compare to how good it is. I think it's a little too narrow to walk and all that. But, yeah, I still think it's really, really good. It's a great place to see a game. And the Penguins played really well that night, all 4-1.

The Penguins were just dominating the Devils. One thing about the arena experience, though, man, is the food expensive there? I think, I mean, it's obviously going to be expensive of any arena for any sporting event. Baseball, obviously, I go to so many Nationals games a year, and their food and beer is expensive. But some of the beer prices at PGG-Pain's arena was like 13. for a beer or like a large. I was like, holy crap, man.

I was like, who wants to pay for that kind of stuff? Food was, all right. I was, you know, I mean, I was about to get Permanese, then I was like, you know what, that's really only good when you're drunk. Sorry, Pittsburgh, but, I mean, it's kind of true after you've had it a few times. But other than that, really good game to watch.

The Penguins just dominated the devils from the start of the game. They did have a little bit of a pushback, I'd say, in the beginning of the second period, but the Penguins weathered that storm pretty nicely. And just watching the Devils, man, that is just a sad team. I feel really bad for Taylor Hall. I think he needs to be rescued.

He did score his third goal of the season in that game, but that was really hit. It was on the power play. And Penguins PK has a couple slip-ups later. They did give up a power play goal tonight to the Flames. Yeah, there's definitely been the last three games. There's been a little bit of a dip. Of course, you know, you're not going to have another 10 games in a row of

killing off penalties, folks. It's very hard to do. I mean, to do 10 games row of killing off penalties. I mean, there's still a top 5 PK unit in the league. You're bound to give up some power play goals. It'll eventually correct itself. But, yeah, Jake Gensel had an outstanding goal to give the Penguins the lead two to one. Also, Dominic Cahoon.

Oh, my God. He is turning into quite the player ever since he really found his game after the first five to six games because, like everyone said, he was lost. I mean, that's not really a debate. He was lost. He even admitted it to the media, I think, just this past week saying, like, yeah, I was playing my crap. But, you know, he basically admitted, like, I had to find an apartment. I had to do a lot of stuff off the ice driver's license and he was taking a toll on me.

Once I got all that settled away, I could just play hockey. And it's definitely showing, you know, he's, I think that was his sixth goal of the season. Just a gorgeous move to go backhand bar under. He's playing really well. I know you're not going to scratch him again, that's for sure, if the team gets fully healthy. What a pass move to getting him all kind of Jake Gensel for the second goal after Taylor Hall tied it. Just gorgeous Jake Ensel comes in on a semi-breakaway. Deeks at past Blackwood and the Penguins have a 2-1 lead going into the third period.

And then the Penguins, of course, they scored two goals in 30 seconds to make it full one. John Marino gets one and Jared McCann gets another. I thought at one point Alex Kow Chinook was going to get his first, though he did get it tonight. but I thought I would be at the game where he would get his first one. So I missed it by just one game. A little unfortunate, but you know what? It's whatever. But yeah, I love the way Tristan Jari played.

Trish and Jari, he's playing some really good hockey right now. And we're going to get to that to the start against the flames tonight. I'm going to talk more about that. But he had a really nice game. He was seeing the puck, the whole game. First goal, I mean, not a lot you can do on that Taylor Hall goal. But, you know, other than that, he made some really, timely saves the penguins when they were getting hemmed in their own zone a little bit in the

second period. But yeah, I mean, there was a time I think the penguins were out shooting the devils. I think it was, they got tweeted it was like 16, 3, 17 to 4 in the first period. And that didn't even begin to show just how bad the penguins outplayed in that period. And really just for the rest of the game, the devils, they just, they have three, basically three to four good players, you know. Taylor Hall is obviously awesome. Nico He's sure I think is going to be good.

Jack Hughes. P.K. Suban, but I mean, other than that, I mean, Connell Paul Mary, but I mean, other than that, it's just a bunch of nah. I mean, they're not really contending. Like, are they rebuilding? Are they just going to be stuck in the mud? I don't really know what the plan is there in New Jersey.

It was good to see, though, that the Penguins finally did not fall asleep against the Devils as they had in years past. They played a complete full 60 minutes. Really good defensively. I thought Zach Trotman had a really strong game. Jack Johnson was fine. You know, this was a game, of course, they were out of Justin Jolts and Chris LaTang.

But, yeah, everyone chipped in. Everyone, I think, had a really, really good game. It was good to give Murray a night off, especially considering, I think, yeah, this was a back-to-back. They lost the night before. And, you know, it was two points that the Penguins needed to have. And they got it full throttle. They're in a playoff spot.

And that concluded a big stretch against Metro teams for the Penguins. And, you know, even after the Penguins scored those two quick goals in the beginning of the third period, the first, just the first couple minutes, like I said, two goals in about 30 seconds. McCann had that nice shot bar under, and then Martin Marino from the point. I don't know how that puck went in. It looked like it was deflected. And then, of course, Mackenzie Blackwood got replaced by Louis Dominique.

I did not know that the devils picked him up or traded for him, whatever. But I did not know that he was the backup, especially considering Corey Schneider was sent down. I thought they just had called someone out from the H.L. But after that, the Penguins played really a good defense. They did not. New Jersey really barely got any chance. the rest of that period and just a great game to be at really good crowd um i think at a couple points though there are a couple annoying people that kept uh woo wooing at the game i hate people that do

that i think it's stupid i think it's annoying um they're obviously pretty drunk i think there's a drunk college guy a kid behind me looks like he was my age he was having a blast too but um with his friends it was just some i always love to people watch at games because it's so funny to see like how drunk people get and how many beers they actually buy even though considering that like the beers cost so much freaking money at the game like I said but yeah just a great game to go to great that I got to take

my grandpa just you know I love going to PBG Paints Arena and I wish more people from Penn's Twitter got to go so I can meet some more of y'all but I think next time I go to a game hopefully more of you guys will be there I hope you guys have heard about Roman with Roman

you can get a free online evaluation and ongoing care for ED all from the comfort and privacy of your home just go to get Roman.com slash locked to get a free online visit and free two-day shipping. If you can't visit Roman right now, you can just find all this and all our other offers from Locked-on sponsors at Locked-on Podcast.com slash offers. So after that, Penguins game, they played tonight against Calgary Flames and what a game that was. We'll just get right in the recap, I'd say. First, I want to start off, though, I was having a conversation with my friend Jeff,

not my friend, one of my best friends actually over the weekend. Die-hard Penguins fan. His at is at Full Tommer on Twitter. Shout out to you, Jeff. You're one of my best friends. I love you. And he was talking about Alex Kal-Chenyuk. And basically saying, you know, I think he's playing a lot better than people think he is. He's going to get that first goal the next game.

He's going to get one and we'll see what happens from there. Jeff, I'd like to think you are a genius because it did happen tonight. Alex Kow-Cen-Yuk got his first goal in a penguin uniform to tie up the game at one. After the penguins were being brutally outplayed, the penguins that for those first 10 minutes were outshot, 10 to 1. They were out to lunch, especially on that first goal. I don't think that was really on Tristan Jari. It was bad defense.

But, yeah, after that, the hangs got power play, started peppering shots on Riddick. And then the second power play got on the ice, and Alex Gautchenly got his first goal. It was a shot rebound, basically, right to Gau Chen Yuck, and he fired it into the net. And his celebration was, it looked like a long time coming. It looked like that meant a lot to him.

The puck would went to trainer Chris Stewart, who, of course, will give that to Gau Chen Yuck after the game. I'm sure he'll get the warrior helmet. that the penguins give out to on their social media. They do that after every win. It's like a fireman helmet, warrior helmet, whatever that is. But, yeah, it was, you know, Jeff, you're a genius with that.

He's definitely playing better. There was also one bad play, I think, with that off sides. Brandon Tannen was just motoring up the ice. And also, Chenna was like 10 feet off sides. I was like, why am so close? Why are you over there so much? But he almost had another, actually. It was a great save by Riddick off of another rebound, but still, great to see Gowchenya get that first one.

You got to think that was affecting him a lot with his play. And sometimes with this, a lot of players, we've seen it over the years. Once they get one, they start scoring a bunches. You know, Brian Russ last year went, I think, what, 15, 20 means without scoring goal, got one, and then he just went on a tear, and then, of course, he regressed it a little bit, and then he just didn't score for a little bit. But still, could we see the same of the Alex Alchenia? maybe. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't bet on it too, too much, but still, if he can start

scoring a little bit, get that confidence back. It's really big for him. It's great to see him get that first goal. Like I said, Jeff, shout out to you. You called that basically, and I know you're going to die on that hill, probably for the rest of the season, knowing you. After that, the Penguins were just dominating play for the next 20 minutes, I'd say. I think, you know, Adam Grets probably said it best. The first 10 minutes on Twitter, first 10 minutes were dominated by the flames, the next 20 minutes were dominated by the penguins, and then the next 10 minutes were dominated by the flames, and then the last 20 minutes were probably just evenly matched. You know, I thought, overall, I think it was an evenly played game.

The Penguins, I know led in shots throughout the game, but still the Penguins, they did make it two to one with a goal by Jared McCann. But, guys, I'm honestly running out of things to say about Jared McCann. What a pickup he has been. He is, he's really, really good, folks. I still can't believe that I even tweeted this during the game. How has this guy been traded twice in his career? I do not understand how two GMs look at this player and said,

yep, we're going to include him in a trade to get worse. I think there's a chance that he hits 25 goals this year. He's on pace forward. I know that. I know that much. But just a gorgeous shot. Pass Riddick, make it two-one. And yeah, he's just, he's playing awesome right now.

He's playing his natural position. You can play him anywhere in the lineup. He can play any role, PK, power play, even strength, like I said. And, you know, it's great that, you know, he's really just, he's just developed into this all-around player. And, you know, you saw it coming a little bit

during the season in Florida last season before he got traded to Pittsburgh. He was playing really well. Got to Pittsburgh, gotten even better. And in this season, he's just taking it to a whole new level. And he's going to get paid pretty soon. I think the penguins, I think they have his RFA rights after the season.

I think he's an RFA. He's not a UFA. He's going to get paid. There's no doubt about that. The Pembrance are going to have to keep him. He's going to command a decent salary. But it's great to see that he's playing so well right now. And Pittsburgh definitely needs it with Cindy Crosby and Nick Bukestow, two of their centers. And, of course, Justin Schultz.

Also, tonight saw the return of Chris LaTang. He was back in practice yesterday for the Penguins full contact, packed with Brian Dumlin. and activated free manager reserve before the game. And Salon, of course, confirmed that he was playing. And Matt, and Matt looked really good. Had some really nice shots on net. Didn't really make any mistakes.

I mean, you know, of course, sometimes he is going to make a mistake. That's the high-risk, high-reward player that he is. He's one of the best in the game in his position. I always love to see when he's out of the lineup, this account on Twitter. I think it's probably one of the worst accounts on Twitter. Penguins Chronicles, he has to tweet a stat that the Penguins the record without Chris Latang in the lineup. It's like such a small sample size.

Look at the record with Latang in the lineup. It's throughout the career. It is so much better. And it was great to have him on the ice three on three tonight because he was creating a couple chances. He almost scored on one of them coming down on the left side of the ice. But yeah, I mean, he makes the team so much better. And with Justin Schultz out, I mean, even though he's kind of had not so good of the

year, you need Chris Lattang back. and it's great to see it's great that another core player is back he's healthy and now that leaves three injured players for the penguins all i know all are out longer term but still the list is shrinking a little bit so that's good news like i said great to see crystal tang back um we needed it there's always funny memes i posted i said uh i think it was oh no that was the alks cow chenuk meme that uh connor had i was for the goal light the beacons but um connor also has a tweet where it's the batman sign looking up and it's crystal tang in the um sky so uh connor shan out to you for those really funny tweets during the game.

I know we all love Chris LaTang on Penguins Twitter except that stupid Penguins Chronicles account. And let's just, let's see. Of course, Flames tied in on the power play. P.K. was kind of out to lunch a little bit. Jari, can't really fault Trish Injari for that goal. And yes, folks, Trish and Jari, obviously, if you're not, if you're living under a rock, Trish and Jari did the start tonight.

And I agreed with it. You've got to ride the hot hand, and all of his starts. this season except one, he's had a 930 save percentage or better. Tonight, you know, again, he was 941 tonight. And not just 32 saves, 34 shots. One of his best saves in the night came in overtime. And look, Johnny Gujarot at a full-on breakaway, as there was no one near him at all.

You could literally fit a sofa, probably two sofas in between there, maybe probably plenty more, and you wouldn't even fill up. Trish and Jari came up with a wonderful save. I think it hit the crossbar right after it, but it was great that Jari stayed with him. He didn't really commit to either side to give Jari, I mean, to give Gujarro a half-empty net. You know, and I even, I tweeted this.

After the game, I tweeted this, you know, what a saved right before that, right before Jake Gensel ended the game. You know, guys, this is why sometimes you ride the hot hand and you give the starter and Matt Murray some rest, especially when your backup goaltender is giving you 930 to 930 to 9. 40 goaltending every night. I saw a great article by Ryan Wilson, who writes for hockey buzz actually talked about guys like, you know, you don't have to play a starter of 65 to 70 games anymore.

Hell, even 60, you know, you got to give the starter some rest. And Matt Murray obviously is a starting goaltender. He's had mostly a really, really good season, but you don't want to overwork him. That's the issue. But by giving Jari these starts, you can rest Matt Murray, get him a little more refocus. He's still having a good year, while also giving the backup some good, games to get his confidence up, to keep his stellar backup season going. He's performing even better than Casey DeSmith was last season, I think by a long shot. And, you know, we'll see if he'll start on Thursday.

I think, I imagine he will before Matt Murray gets one of the two back-to-back games. Actually, no, it's not this Thursday. Sorry, not on Thanksgiving Day. It's on Wednesday against the Vancouver Connects the Penguin's annual Thanksgiving Eve game. And, you know, that's why you have a capable backup that can take away starts from a starting goaltender. Matt Murray will get the net Friday or Saturday against Columbus or St. Louis. Doesn't really matter which.

The way Tristan Jari is playing, you could rotate them either way, but still, great game from Trish and Jani. He was able to help get the Penguins both points, and just a really great performance from him. I was really impressed with how he played, and yeah, I think, like I said, I think he'll

definitely be getting the start Wednesday again when the Vancouver Canucks coming down. Who just played the Philadelphia Flyers tonight? All right, so the three-on-three overtime of this game, wow, that was a lot of fun. I love three-on-three overtime. I think it's, you know, the NHL makes a lot of dumb decisions for their league. There's a lot of dumb off-side reviews.

No one knows what the hell goaltender interference is. You can't even, like I said, you can't even tell off-side reviews sometimes. The puck over the glass penalty is a penalty that I've hated for so many years. But the one, the biggest thing that they've got right was they got rid of the four-on-four over time. which got a little boring at times, and went to three on three. Because three on three is so freaking exciting. I don't know how many times I can say that. It's so, so good.

And Jake Gensel, of course, gets the game winner, his 12th goal to season, which leads the team. But he's a product of Sidney Crosby. I've heard that so many times. I think it's died down a little bit. The fans of rival teams have loved to say that, you know, Jake Gensel, the product of Sidney Crosby. But it's like, no, he's doing this all at even strength. Even without Crosby in the lineup, and he's going to be out in the lineup for six weeks,

he's still scoring. Great player, 40 goals score last year. Did most of his damage at even strength. He doesn't even get all of his points from the power play. He's not a power play specialist here. But what a season for Jake Gensel. He could potentially hit 45 to 50 goals this year. Just a great shot coming into the zone with, like,

than a couple minutes remaining in the overtime. It looked like it was going to go to a shootout. I mentioned Tristan Jari's outstanding save on Johnny Goodrow. He also made a lot of really other big saves. I think Chuck had a chance. Backland had a chance. The Penguins were gassed a lot in that overtime. I think Chris LaTang was out there for like a full minute and a half.

You could just tell by the end, he was barely skating. He was gassed. And, you know, Chris is dang, you know, he does a lot of conditioning. He eats minutes. Yeah, but he was completely gassed. I think Malkin at times was gassed. out there, Jumelin. It's easy to get gassed out there because there's so many odd man rushes, two-on-ones.

Teams will hem you in the own zone. There's not like a full-on strategy for three-on-three. It's just, you know, create your own, create your own walk. But I know the Penguins have struggled at three-on-three this season, and for some reason, you know, I guess part of that I think has to do with losing some face-offs, but also some players making some bone-headed decisions. In this overtime, there really was not many bone-headed decisions that I saw. saw. Everyone was making good plays with the puck.

There wasn't any dumb passes, dumb clears, anything of that nature, I would say. Christine had some really good chances, and like I said, it was great to have him back for 3-1-3 overtime. That is where he makes such a big difference in the overtime.

But great win for the Penguins to get. That's another two points in the standings with Sidney Crosby out, of course, with Nick Bukstad and Justin Schultz. That is now a five-game point streak for the Penguins, and the Penguins now also have been playing outstandingly well

at home on home ice this season. For the Penguins right now, there are 5 and 0 and 2 on their last 7 games on home ice. It's a 7 game point streak at home now for the Penguins. Like I said, 5 game points straight. They're banking points. They need to do that, of course, especially with Cindy Crosby out.

They got Chris LaTang back. Hopefully he can stay healthy now for the rest of the season after he got. He missed the last eight games with the injury. And, you know, status quo. You know, just keep banking points. You got the Vancouver Canucks coming to town on Wednesday before a big back-to-back this weekend.

I think he starts Black Friday against the Blue Jackets and the Blues, both those games. Being on the road, I'll expect, you know, Murray and Jari to split that. But for me personally, after this game, like I said, I'll go to Jari on Wednesday. He's playing really, really well right now. No shame in getting Matt Murray another game off. And he'll be, I think it'll be a week's worth of rest for him going into this weekend with the back-to-back when he'll get at least one of those starts. But thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Lockdown Pay.

I figured I'd just do this episode since I was driving back from Pittsburgh all day. I didn't really have time to do it. I figured I would just do it after the game. We'll have another one coming tomorrow, and we'll talk to you guys soon.