Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 1/17- Winning in Motown

Episode Date: January 18, 2020

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter recaps the Penguins win against the Detroit Red Wings and how they were able to find a way to win despite not playing their best hockey. He then goes around the league a little bit in the last segment of the podcast! 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, well, late-night episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast for Friday, January 17th. I'm, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes. This will be my last episode being at home until probably March around spring break, which is when the playoff push will be in full effect. And then as I will be going back to school tomorrow for my last semester as a college student. It feels pretty weird that I get to say that now, which is, this will be my eighth and final semester at Virginia Tech University. and yeah, I still can't believe that I'm going to be graduating and starting probably a full-time job pretty soon. But as always, follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes for All Thing Penguins,

L.O underscore Penguins for the shows, Twitter. Penguins are able to get back in the win column tonight, of course, a 2-1 overtime win, oh, the Detroit Wedwings. And for a while there, you know, it was looking like the Penguins were going to lose to the Detroit Wedwings who are not only on pace to be the worst team in the national hockey, but probably one of the worst teams of the Saturdays.

cap era dating back to you know 2007 2008 or just around there they are just putually bad their minus their goal differential is almost minus 100 at this point they now have in 48 games only 12 wins in 48 games

that is absolutely insane to think about apparently I saw a stat on the 18 Z Sportsnet broadcast tonight that Jimmy Howard the goaltender who lost night has not won since a game as as a Detroit Red Wing since late October That is how bad things are up in Detroit, but Penguins were able to get the win two to one.

The first period, they were looking sloppy, same for the second period, up until really the final five minutes of the second period, and then they dominated the third period. They finally woke up a little bit. And then, of course, they won the game in overtime. But, yeah, for about a good 35, almost 40 minutes of this game, the Penguins where I thought were outplayed. I know, I was looking actually at Natural Statrick before this podcast of recording this,

And the Penguins actually, I did not realize that they had the better of the play. They controlled the shot attempts in the possession around 62% tonight. And, you know, I mean, it is Detroit, but so that did not line up with what I was seeing on the ice with my personal eye test. So it was good to see that the numbers apparently say a little bit different. But overall, I just thought the Penguins, they just, they weren't themselves, obviously. It's a back-to-back. You lost to the Bruins last night. Those are all.

It's always a tough game. A road back-to-back is also usually really, really tough. But, yeah, they were able to get the job done. Even Jimmy Howard, of course, you know. Jimmy Howard, this is the thing with bad goalies against the penguins. If you're a bad goalie going up against the penguins, you're almost always going to play well. It just happens night in and night out.

This was, I think, going in to the third period. I saw a tweet actually from Pensburg. You know, Jimmy Howard, he has a 4.26 goals against average, 876% percentage in 19 games. And, yeah, I mean, of course, he tries to play like God tonight, because, you know, that's the penguin's luck with going up against bad goalies. He's basically, so now after this game, he's 2 and 16 and 2. Yeah, it's just, I just, I love how a bad goalie like that can put up a performance like this.

He was making some really good saves towards the end of the second period. Third period, of course, is when the penguins are able to wake up. But like I said, the final five minutes when they made the push. Brian Russ gets his 20th goal of the season. I still can't believe that over the off season. One of my good friends, Jeff, tweeted this too, that, you know, we were talking about trading Brian Russ. Feel still fears a little weird that we were somehow talking about that. But, you know, 20 goals, it sucks that he missed that time earlier in the season because he could very well be at 30 goals right now.

He's just been that good. I think there's a chance that he potentially gets to 40 goals by the end of the season. I think he's easily going to get over 30. I think he'll probably end it around 35 if I had to make a wager right now and make a guess. But, you know, just a stellar season for Brian Russ. he gets the power play goal. Also some really, really crisp passing on that power play. I think it was Latang, I think to Hornquist,

then the Malkin, and then Malkin just basically dished it to Russ to beat Jimmy Howard. It went off his glove and bar under. Tie the game early in the third period. They got the power play. I was like, yeah, if there was ever time for a power play goal, that was going to be it because the penguins are likely probably not going to get another power play for the rest of the game. You know, just watching this game on TV also with Detroit. You know, there's just, there's a lot of empty seats in Little Caesars Arena, but I just, I'm surprised.

I mean, I know they're really bad, but, you know, I mean, Red Wings fans are known for honestly having some of the best fans in the league. Apparently, AT&T Sportsnet said that they have actually, like, the fifth or sixth best attendance in the league this season, which is nothing short of outstanding, considering how bad they are. But still, a lot of empty seats there tonight, a lot of Penguin fans. They had, and I usually didn't see a lot of Penguins fans there when during the days of the Joe Lewis Arena. But that's also when the Red Wings were really, really good, and they had all those stack teams with Dad Tzuke, Lydstrom, Zetterberg, Holmstrom, Fronson, Rafalski, Stuart, Osgood.

I could go on. Andreas Lill, yeah, I can go on and all of those teams were just so good. You know, I can sit here and talk about how the Penguins had no business taking the Red Wings to six games of the 2008 Stanley Cup final. And, you know, I could talk about that series for probably an hour or two on a podcast. Maybe I will someday. But I still feel bad for Steve Eisenman up there as the GM. He has a lot of work to do.

I talked about this yesterday. I think he's going to get the job done. He's very, very good. But, you know, he's inherited a mess. A true big mess that Ken Holland left behind for him. And, you know, I pity him. But going back to the game overall, I thought the third period of the Penguins after that, they were pressing a lot more.

Zach Asson-Reece had a hell of a chance. I think this was late in the third period. It goes off. Jimmy Howard's glove hits the crossbar somehow stays out. Brian Russ had a chance short-handed. A lot of really good chances towards the end of third period. That's when the Penguins obviously were dictating the play. The Red Wings, I don't really think if I was watching correctly,

they probably only had a few scoring chances for those final 25 minutes of the game. Outside that power play goal, honestly, you never really thought the Red Wings were really going to score when they came into the offensive zone, upgraded the Penguins defensively. but also credit Matt Murray and we'll get to Matt Murray coming out of the commercial break but Matt Murray's was awesome again only gave up one goal

that's now four consecutive really really good starts for Matt Murray and if I'm not if I'm correct Chad also tweeted this out shout out to him great Penguin Follow he has a 926A percentage

you know in these last four starts so no great great job for Matt Murray you know like I said we'll talk to him more coming out of the commercial break. Who else tonight? Of getting him, Alkin, another just ho-hum for him. He both assists.

Directly, the primary assist on both the Penguins' goals tonight. He also set up, of course, Sidney Crosby in the overtime period. You know, they were trying. It was basically, getting to the overtime now, it was basically like overtime practice for the Penguins in that overtime. It was a four-on-three power five.

play practice. The Red Wings were not really doing anything. And I really don't know what Luke Lendon was doing there towards taking that penalty. The puck was like 50 feet away from him when he just boarded. I'm trying to remember who he boarded, but he just hit a penguin player that wasn't even close to having the puck. And that was an easy call. You can call that. You know, it doesn't, you can be, Stevie Wonder could have made that call.

And he's blind. So I just did not understand what the hell. Luke Lundang was doing there, but hey, you know what? You take it, and the penguins made them pay. Chris Lantang tried to make that shot past Cindy Crosby. It was saved by Howard, but, you know, Fulme once, shame on you, Howard. Fulme twice, shame on me. And Malkin did the same thing as Lattang did this time.

Crosby was able to score on it, and the Penguins went home with the two points. I love those little shot pass plays that the Penguins do. I know they work on that and practice all the time. I've seen all the clips and all that, but still, not a pretty win. You'll take that, though. I mean, this is probably a win where you go up against any other shitty team, maybe even the king or something, you probably lose. You know, it's just, you know, it's great that the Red Wings are this bad,

but the Penguins, they're now tied in games played with the Capitals. They are four points behind them again. They are also five points now up on the New York Islanders for second place, though. The Islanders have two games a hand on them, so really can't judge that until they play their two games and catch up to the penguins. All right, so coming out of this break now, do want to give a lot of praise to Matt Murray. 28 saves, 29 shots tonight. 966, 8, pretenders.

The one goal healed out. Really, really, I don't think was his fault. I didn't really. There was just a lot of bodies in front of them. Went five-hole, but I think he was screened by not only a Red Wing, but I think the penguin, too. I don't really have to think he had a prayer of seeing that puck. But otherwise, you know, he was playing big in net.

He was coming out, challenging the shooters, just making really good saves. He's worked on a lot of the saves from like kind of to the side of the goal one. He's letting him, he's been a little leaky sometimes throughout his career there. He's made some really good saves there. Like I said, he had one-timers on the Detroit power play. He was really, really good. The Red Wings had some really good chances. I'm inside the dots at times just a little bit.

Rignore was able to make those saves. And, you know, this is another really, really, really good start for Matt Murray. And I would go to him for this game against Boston, this massive game against Boston. And if he plays well that game, I'd go. to him against Philadelphia when the penguins go to Philly for their final game before the All-Star break, and I believe their bi-week as well. I think coming out of the All-Star break, I believe the Penguins have their by-week. So only now two more games before the All-Star break and the By-week, it's pretty crazy that we're already there. But yeah, I would give Murray this start.

He's earned it. That's four consecutive starts, like I said. Chad tweeted out, he has a 9-26-8 percentage in those four starts. And, you know, the funny thing is about Matt Murray right now is, you know, you're not really seeing a lot of too much praise from him. For some reason, you know, people, we got to be objective here, people. We really need to be objective about what we're seeing from Matt Murray. He's played really good, and you know what? I see you people, you know, hiding in the balance here. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to credit Matt Murray because he stunked up the bed.

And, oh, my God, in November and December, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever, you know, I'm watching you people. So, you know, just give Matt Murray a little bit of praise right now, because he's actually starting to play some really, really good hockey. He's finding his game back, which is absolutely massive. You know, Trishonjari, of course, allowed three more goals again last night. He's regressing a little bit. So, you know, there's a little bit of an opening year for Matt Murray to get his job back.

So, I mean, like I said, go to him on Sunday in Boston. I expect Mike Sullivan to do that, considering that way that Murray has played. And like I said, Murray plays well in that game, which I think he may. Go to him again in Philadelphia before the All-Star break. These are two massive games coming up. This is your time for Matt Murray to show that he is the number one goaltender again, that he has found his game, which he has the last four games. Go ahead, give him the couple starts, see what he can do.

You know, make it or break it. Put a nut up or shut up. As the saying is from Zombie Land goes, I'm going to show my inner nerd geek of seeing Zombie Land in both Zombland movies. They're outstanding movies. But I thought that reference would go along with what I'm talking about here. And you know what? I don't really care if it's, well, you know, he beat the Red Wings.

He beat the Red Wings earlier in the season. I don't give a shit. I really, really don't, you know. You know, some of these people are all about riding the hot goalie. And then, you know, I know there's a lot of Murray haters out there. But you know what? Tough shit. He's the goalie now.

He's one of the goleys at least. We have the luxury of having two really, really good goaltenders this year. And you know what? Play the one that's hotter than the other one right now. And Matt Murray is hotter than Trish and Jari right now. But earlier in the season, it was Shishan Jari that was harder than Matt Murray. Now the opposite has happened.

And, you know, this is a good problem to have. Both goalies have had, are putting up some decent numbers so far. I mean, Matt Murray is getting his numbers back. Jari's put up really, really good numbers so far that he's kind of regressing a little bit, but still overall, they're playing mostly pretty fine. So, like I said, really happy for Matt Murray, really happy that he's finding his game back as well. I thought it's just great. It's really just great to see.

Other really thoughts about this game. I really don't think there was just, it was kind of just a boring game to watch. I would think the Red Wings' loan goal was from Philip Zedina. He's a Red Wing prospect that they are very, very excited about. And then the two players that have the assist, Franz Nielsen, who is on that Albatross. Albatross of a contract, that is just a woof.

That contract sucks. Ken Holland really handicapped the Red Wings with that awful deal. And then old friend Trevor Daly, of two-time Stanley Cup champion, of course, Trevor Daly made his return to the lineup, missing the last four games of an injury. He gets an assist. I think this is Daly's last year under contract with the Red Wing. So, I mean, I would all seem wouldn't be surprised if Stevie Eisenman attempts to deal him by the deadline,

considering he's a rental for a team. No, he can play in a bottom-paring role. Maybe you can get by with him playing in the top four. Maybe not. Maybe not. But potentially bottom six, I think you could definitely get a draft pick for him. but like I've said it earlier, I've said a lot. Recently, Steve Eiseman has a lot to get right going for.

I just, I pity him, but you know what? That's what he signed up for. But, of course, Cindy Crosby, you know, six points in the three games that he's returned. You know, I also saw the treat from Dimitimici Filipovich tonight. You know, when Sid's using that big ass of his, the big butt, you know, his big butt to make a lot of plays behind the net, you know, things are going well. I'm trying not to be weird about talking about Cindy Crosby's ass

But you know what? He does have a pretty big ass So I mean But you know what? We've also known about that For probably a decade now So I mean, you know People probably used to talking about it

A little bit at this point I'm trying not to be weird As I talk about it But you know what Whatever and of course tonight I said I was going to try To have a little bit of mailbag questions But

I guess we're not going to Well I can maybe tweet it out And see if anyone would like to have any questions answered for this last segment coming up. I can't believe I'm doing this right now, but you know what? We'll see if at all you are I'm going to find something else to talk about.

Maybe I'll go around the Metropolitan Division, look at the scores tonight, and whatnot. But overall, folks, that's it for basically the recap of this game. Good to get the win, you know, sloppy. I don't care how you get the two points. You get the two big points, and now you go back home.

The two points make the dads happy. You split the two back to back, and now you get ready for a big. Sunday matinee 1230 matchup in Pittsburgh against the Boston ruins. So it looks like so far, no questions have come in because of course not. Everyone is probably asleep at 11 o'clock in night, but you know what? Whatever. I guess we'll just go around the league for now, maybe see if we can get some questions

and potentially, you know what we'll see. But, you know, Tampa Bay folks, they have heated it up tonight, man. I mean, just nearly the last month or so, they were just blowing teams out of the water. This team is, you know, it took them a while to wake up, you know, for a while they looked like, oh, well, what happened to Tampa Bay? Did Columbus really break Tampa Bay? But, you know, right now, they're kind of, I know my friend was talking to me today. You know, they're kind of looking like a little bit of the, you know, just a little bit of the caps from 2018, you know, is this the year that Tampa finally, finally breaks out and stops choking the playoffs?

We'll see. I know they have. I think I have to check their cap-friendly. They may have some salary cap space to work with. Wouldn't be surprised if they make a trade to potentially bolster their depth. But, you know, this is a really, really good team. I think they'll, if they don't get first in the Atlantic, it's going to be Tampa versus Toronto, I would think,

in the two-three matchup in the Atlantic, and I think Tampa would blow Toronto out of the water. I don't particularly think that playoff series would be any close. I think Tampa is world's better than Toronto. And, you know, I would just be here for the takes of just, you know, seeing Leas fans again just being upset that they would be a first run exit. But you know what? That's what happens when the NHL's playoff format is just really, really shitty.

But, I mean, I think it's going to be Boston and Tampa in the second round, winner. We'll go to the conference final. And then, of course, that's just going to be a bloodbath. It's not going to be a five-game series that it was a few years ago. I think when Tampa just blew out Boston in five games. It would be a lot more close this time, especially when Boston gets two harass back.

No. And the Penguins are now. to go through one of those teams if they want to make it to the Stanley Cup final, you know. We know they may have to go through the I-owners. We know they're going to have to go through the Capitals. I really don't think the Capitals are going to be a first-round exit again this season with the way that they're playing. Though I do know that Carolina has caused them a little bit of problems over the past year.

I think they split their season series this year, two games apiece. Of course, they lost to the playoffs against them. But still, this is going to be a team. If they get past Washington, they're going to have to face one of Tampa or Boston. And right now, I mean, it's just the penguins have a little bit of a problem of playing up in Boston. I know Yarstav-Lock has played in both games this season, and you know how Yars Valka can be at times, you know, with playing against the penguins. But I think I talked about last night in the podcast. Penguins have hardly, hardly won in Boston since the Eastern Conference final.

I think it's only been less than maybe three times since they've won in Boston since then. It's not very often. That is a team that has given the problem. Penguins a lot of fits over the years. And I know the Penguins won the season series last year, two out of three games, but both the games were in Pittsburgh. Of course, the game they lost wasn't in Boston. But you know what?

Sometimes it doesn't mean anything. In 2013, the Penguins swept the season series against Boston, only to get sleeped by the Boston ruins in the conference final. It was one of the most embarrassing playoff series that I think I've ever seen the Penguins play. And of course, for those that don't know, I was supposed to go to game 5 that playoff series. It ended actually right after, it ended right as my freshman year of high school was letting out.

So for those who listen to this podcast, they're feeling old. Yeah, I was supposed to go to that series. And, of course, it didn't work out. But you know what? Whatever. I'm still, I mean, I think I'm over it. You know, I still sometimes get nightmares from Tugherask. But you know what?

It's whatever at this point. But so I think that's really all I have for you guys. I saw Tampa again tonight. They were able to beat the Winnipeg Jets. Tampa is just a buzzsaw right now, and they're not, I don't think they're going to stop any time. So it would not surprise anyone. I don't think if they won the Atlantic.

And then, of course, set up Boston and Toronto for, what is it, round three, round three, round four of those two teams going at it. And I am here for the takes when those teams go at it. I'm just, that's all I'll say. I'm here for the takes when those two teams go out. But thank you guys so much for listening to Locked-on Penguins this week. Really good content we had coming out. Of course, definitely watch the game on Sunday, 12.30 p.m. Eastern game.

I think it'll be Doc, Eddie Olcheck and Brian Boucher. I think we'll be calling the game on NBC. I'll always love the Saturday, matinee matchups, 1230. Right before the NFL playoffs, it's right after, of course. I take my final exam for my winter class. I don't really have anything to do before my classes start on Tuesday so I can watch that. We'll have a recap of that game.

on Monday for you guys, and then a preview of the Flyers game, and then on Tuesday we'll talk about the game, probably after the Flyers game, and then going in the All-Star break. We'll have more content, of course. Coming next week after the Flyers game, I'm not really sure what else I'm going to be able to talk about, maybe some trade talk with a couple friends.

But you know what? Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Lockdown Penguins. Please subscribe to it. You know, Apple, podcast, Spotify. Where do you guys use? And follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hoodies. talk to you guys next monday folks