Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 12/2- Blue & Blue Jackets Games, Matt Murray's Woes, Injuries & Phil Kessel Returns

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter goes through the weekend recap of the Penguins getting no points against the Blue Jackets or the Blues. He also goes into Matt Murray's struggles and what some issues could be, plus gives his thoughts on Phil Kessel returning to Pittsburgh this Friday night for the first time since his trade to the Coyotes. 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 another edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast for December 2nd of 2019. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow the show on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. I mean, I follow the show on Twitter at Twitter. Great start, ma'am. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show on Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins, you know? That was pretty pathetic to start the week that way.

But you know what? We did it and we'll get right through it. So I'm sure you guys are well aware on Friday. I recorded a episode with a Lockdown Capitals host. Nicky Jordano A lot of fun to do Some nice Caps Pens rivalry episode You know

She didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the Penguins Even though I had a couple nice things to say about the Capitals Because I can put my hate aside But you know what Still good, a lot of fun to talk about The Caps and the Penn's rivalry It's one of the best rivalries in hockey Even though they don't play each other

Until February You know, Nikki, still love you Even though you didn't have too much Any good things to stay about the Penguins But you know what? It's okay Because that's probably all the good stuff I'll say about the Capitals is about Alexovichkin. So anyways, you guys didn't want to listen to that.

Go listen to it. It's on the Lockdown Capitals page. I retweeted onto the Lockdown Penguins' Twitter account. But let's just get right into this episode. So the Penguins, of course, lost back-to-back games this weekend to the Blues and the Blue Jackets. Not anything good came out of those games. The Blue Jackets, I thought it was the Penguins' worst game of the season since the Sabers. They came out flat.

they were being out attempted, I think, by 20 shot attempts at some point in the game, barely getting shots on net. I mean, I know it was one to one at one point, but then the jacket just blew it right open. There was nothing good coming out of that game. Trish and Jari started it, but, I mean, none of the goals really is fault. The Penguins had a lot of bad defensive breakdowns. They've been giving up a lot of goals on the power play on the PK lately. That's something that they're going to need to correct again after having a really nice stretch. I think, like I said, it was 10 games in a row without giving up a proper.

power play goal. They're going to have to correct that going forward because the pace that they're on right now, you can't keep giving up goals short-handed. I'm sure Jacques Martan will figure out. He's one of the best, I think, defensive coach, assistant coaches in the league. I think he's a really good BK unit. So I think it'll be okay. But, you know, Gensel, at least, you know, I think one positive,

the only positive out of that game was that Jake Gensel had a really nice goal on Corpastolo. He waited for his legs to open up. Fire day. This was, well, in the closing seconds of the first period, made it one-one. and then of course nothing really much happening after that the Penguins they did score to make it 4-2 Sport 1

Chris the 10 got his another goal for him and then the Penguins looked like they were carrying play a little bit but then of course they get a power play and Penguins' power play I've just run out of stuff to say about the Penguins power play

every time they step foot on the ice it's like they don't know what the heck they're doing I know it's not as bad as that skid earlier in the season when it was over 25 over 28 or something like that but I mean man, it's just bad. The puck moving is awful.

They're not getting pucks on net. It can't even enter the zone. It's just a tire fire. I know you're missing Cindy Crosby. Obviously, that's a big part of it. But, I mean, even when you have Evgeny Malkin in the ice, and Patrick Hornquist and Chris LaTang and Jake Gensel, who's had an outstanding season,

the power play should not be that bad. It's an issue. Hopefully, you know, Mark Recky does some new things to work on the power play. He's looking pretty bad as an assistant coach that runs the power play. play um that's all i'll say about that right now um moving on to the blues game um just i mean the penguins are actually looked like they were carrying play in the game i think they were out possessing them out chancing them but um this will i guess we'll just get right into this now uh matt murray man

he's got to be better um i don't know how else to sugarcoat this um he sucked lately um i don't like i said i don't know how else to say other than he has been completely awful these last few weeks. It's probably been Murray's worst three weeks of his NHL career. I don't know what it is. I don't think he's being overworked now. They're trying to get Jari some more starts because he's had a really good strong start to the season.

I don't think, is he hurt? Is he having a lower body injury? Because he had some similar stats at the beginning of the season last year when we found out he was hurt. Then he just comes back and then just goes on a tear from December all the way until April. So and he finished top 10 in the league's

percentage in top three, top three top five the rest of the way. So I don't know what's going on with Matt Murray right now. His numbers, uh, have been dreadful to say the least. Um, I don't think he's been over. I have to go back and check, check this. I don't think he's been over 920 in any start in November. Um, I can actually check right now. I can go get his game log. Uh, do, do, do, do to do. Okay, so my mistake. So he's had two, he had two good starts, um, in the month of November, that was over 9-20. So the Oilers' overtime loss where, you know, that game was really not on him.

And then he was 935 against the Blackhawks on November 9. But other than that, guys, after that, Oilers game, you know, 727 against the Bruins, 870 against the Islanders, 889 against the Rangers, 905 against the Devils, 881 against the Islanders again, 714 against the Canucks, and then 815. against the blue. So overall guys in the month of November after a really strong October, memory was 923 overall in the month of October, 867 in the month of November.

I don't know what else to say. I don't know what the problem is. He's not playing his way to a contract right now. That's for damn sure. He's not playing his way to wanting $6 million per year, $7 million per year. His overall Sabres sentence now for this season,

It's 897. It was 923, and that awful month of November dropped it below 900 for this season. That's just absolutely awful. I think he's going to turn it around at some point. He's too good not to, but this is definitely a little frightening, I think. We haven't really seen, like I said, we really haven't seen Matt Murray play like this for an extended period, I mean, for time, for a whole month, especially. He keeps coming to practice, so I don't think he's hurt. I think his confidence is not high right now.

He's not, he looks like he's not seeing the puck at all. I mean, there's a goal in the game against the games were up, one, one. And the second goal he gave up was just, it looked like he was going wide, and it just to flex off his blocker and it goes in. I don't know what Murray was doing coming out all the way of his crease. There's plenty goals in that game where I was just like, he usually, these are routine saves Sir Murray, and he's just, he's not giving them the goaltending that he usually does. And going forward, you know, you're going to have to give Trish and Dari more starts.

There's no goalie controversy, but until Matt Murray gets himself right, and until he starts playing at the level that we know he can play at, that he's proved that he can play at, you've got to keep giving the backup who's at a really good start to the season, more starts. You know, the penguins, they bled points this weekend. You can't have back-to-back and get no points, especially with the injury situation, which has gone a lot worse. We'll talk about that coming up in the next segment. But, I mean, it's just, it's bad.

I don't know what else to say about it. I don't know if he's going to get a lot of more starts going for. Like I said, I know I would give Jari more starts. And the game against the Blues, I'd go to Jari that game. I really would. earned it and then the back-to-back this weekend. I'd almost throw Murray out against the Red Wings and then leave Jari in to play the coyotes. I know, you know, I know the coyotes are, I mean, I'm going to say, I know the first game is usually when Murray goes,

but, you know, go Jari the first game and then go put Murray out there against one of the worst teams in the league in the Red Wings. If you struggle against the Red Wings, there are some serious problems. That team is just so bad, and I just, I feel bad for Steve Iizerman. They don't generate chances at all. They hardly score almost, it looks like. That's the game where you would like for Murray to get his, start to get his confidence back and actually start to put up some decent numbers. You know, new month maybe, you know, new Matt Murray.

So, you know, this is going to be interesting. We'll see this month if he really turns around and plays like he did in October. Also, guys, remember, treat yourself to the meal you deserve, have your favorite restaurants come to you with DoorDash. You guys can get $5 off your first order of $15 and more when you download the DoorDash app and enter the the code locked on. If you can't visit DoorDash right now, you can just find this and all the other offers

from Lockdown sponsors at Lockdown Podcast.com slash offers. So, the Penguins injury situation of, kind of run out of words to describe it.

I'm laughing about it because it really is just funny at this point. It's just a joke. Poor Brian Dumlin, you know, he's going to be out eight weeks now because of ankle surgery

that he had to have. It looked like his ankle, it got tangled up with, I think it was Seinfra during the early in the Longoose game, hobbled off the ice. You know, usually when a player hobbles off the ice like, it ain't good. He didn't return for the rest of the game, so it was like, of course, Penguins would look has that. Brian Rust falls in practice, he's day-to-day. Patrick Hornquist, he falls in practice.

He's getting evaluated. It's like, we got, the Penguins injury situation is so bad now that it's over 100 man-games lost. And we got players falling in practice getting hurt. You can't even make it up this point And earlier today Jared McCannah, West Crosby, who covers the team for NHL.com, shout to him. Jared McCann basically had the reaction

with another key player goes down and he goes, At this point you just have to smile. I mean, well, shit. You know what, Jared? You basically spoke for the whole fan base. He spoke for basically, I mean, hockey Twitter around the world. I mean, yeah, it says it all. I mean, it's just, I just, it's crazy

how bad it is now. That's three more players added to the injured list. It looks like Justin Schultz is going to be returning to practice. Apparently Mike Sullivan today said that he's been skating on his own, so that's good news. But, I mean, geez. And, you know, it just looks like there's no end in sight for these penguins injuries. It's just, this border is on the level of 2014, crap when the penguins were icing. A, I think it was a whole, almost a whole AHL lineup besides Sidney-Prosby and up getting him allkin for almost that entire season. I don't know what else to say about it. It's just it's that, it's that freaking bad right now,

that there are without so many forwards, so many defensemen, and now you're going to actually play Jack Johnson on potentially the top pairing, which would be stupid anyway, and the second pairing, which is just, oh, that's not what he's here to be used for. Everyone just plays so far out of position. I just, I don't know what else to say. Another good thing I forgot to mention from this weekend, Sam Lafferty's goal, I mean, wow.

I know he walked Derek Pooleyot. Of course, all the Derek Pooleyot jokes came out is one of my favorite moments, I think, of Penguin's Twitter, like, it was a couple years ago when the Penguins traded, people were like, well, you know, they didn't give Derek Pooleon a fair chance. Like, that's been, you know, they didn't give him a fair chance at all.

He's just always in the press box. You can't really see what he has to do. He has some good. possession numbers. I'm like every game. I know, and I know the possession means a lot because I look at it a lot and it's actually used to, you know, help like the eye test. But he did not look good in any game he played and he was so bad defensively, barely brought anything offensively. And you know what?

Mike Sullivan, he's one of the five best coaches in hockey, at least in my opinion. And that was his third coaching regime that he had gone through, that he was just so bad. and you know what the penguins got ties with them so I didn't really understand why people got so mad about it but Lafferty walked him and then beat Bennington he went backhand forehand a gorgeous goal like I said he's you know he's going to stay in the lineup for a long time because the penguins will just never stop being injured but if they eventually do get healthy probably won't they eventually do he's definitely going to make a push to be that third 13th forward potentially.

I mean 13th forward, be that 12th forward, excuse me. Also, you know, it was funny during the game to see something like the Penguins media dunked on Derek Pooley out, I mean, rightfully so he's not good. But then some of these same people will, like, defend Jack Johnson,

which I think is, like, kind of weird because Jack Johnson is really bad. And, you know, I've read all the hit pieces on Jack Johnson. I'm really, I'm good friends with a couple of the writers that write them. I have nothing bad to say about them. But, I mean,

There really, I mean, he's just, there's been really no improvement in this game. I mean, sure, you could go say he went from a complete liability to just garbage. I mean, is that an upgrade at this point? But I think that's, like, kind of confusing to me. Like, we can dunk on someone like Puyot who was bad defensively, but not someone like Jack Johnson, who is also really bad defensively and does not bring any offense to the table whatsoever. So that definitely is weird to me, I would say. but you know what I'm not really going to go into

I'm not trying to start a debate or anything but you know if you're going to trash one defense so overall if you're going to trash one defense when not being good defensively it doesn't really bring a much offense you can do the same for the other one who is also on a five-year contract work with making $3.25 million

I don't think it's that hard he's not good at what he does I don't care what pairing is on it is what it is basically at this point but you know two losses to the penguins that drops him in the metropolitan division but man, it is tight all the way up to second place. I think second to fifth place is only like three points, like three, four points.

The Penguins, with the win, the Penguins will jump that right back into a playoff spot at this point. So, I mean, it's really tight right now. You'd expect it. Hopefully the Penguins will get healthy soon. Cindy Crosby should be back in a few weeks. I think his prognosis goes until Christmas time. Justin Shultz looks like he's going to start practicing soon too. That would be big to get him back.

Hopefully you can play at least a decent level. especially with Brian Dumlin being out for the next two months. He'll be out until early February, so right around when the Super Bowl comes around. So that's a massive loss. I think a lot of people don't really know just how good Brian Dumlin is around the league. He forms one of the best pairings in the league with Crystal Tang. He's so good defensively in his own zone. I know for the longest time, people are saying, you know, he doesn't bring a lot of offense.

I do think that's part of his game. That definitely still needs to get going. But, I mean, he's just such a steady defense. He's kind of like a mini Paul Martin to me, I would say. He's just, he's such a small hockey player. He knows how to win a pinch. He knows how to play in the defensive zone. He can move the puck.

He's just a great compliment to Crystal Tang, who does like to take a lot of risk, and is an outstanding offensive defense. We're just really just a great defense in him in the league. But they just form such a great pairing. It's going to be, it's going to be sad to not see that pairing for at least a couple months. Hopefully, Brian Dumme gets a good speedy recovery,

and he'll be back on that top pairing. the penguins will be in a playoffs up by then i think they will be i still don't think they're any danger missing the playoffs penguins usually go on their hot streaks around this time anyway january february so uh oh they uh we uh we hope to see them get uh healthy healthy at least starting soon with justin shultz and potentially cindy crossey but and also hope the injuries of brian west and patrick forklis arm so bad even though they fall on the ice of practice that's like that's something that would happen to like beau bennett of all of all players and I mean, that was a player.

Literally, he scored a goal and then jumped in the glass and celebrated it, and he got hurt and it was day to day. He was, poor Bow Ben, it was the most injured-dry prone player that I think of ever seen in all sports. So I don't want to dunk on him really too much. But, yeah, Penguins and Julek, guys. Like Jared McCann basically said, you know, well, shit, you know. What are you going to do about it? All right, so for this last segment, I don't really have too much else to really talk about

for this last segment because the Penguins don't play until Wednesday. It's kind of that weird thing. The Penguins have three full days off before they play again on Wednesday after a game on Saturday. Usually they play again on like a Tuesday or something. They usually don't play on Monday, but usually be like a Tuesday or Thursday or Thursday.

But they say to do it home-at-home with the St. Louis Blues. The Penguins will try to get back to the Blues for them meeting them 4 to 1. But, of course, you know, the big game this coming week is Arizona. Phil Kessel will return to PBG Paterina for the first time without being a Pittsburgh penguin and it's definitely going to be a bit sad

I think for a lot of people considering what he did for this franchise helping them bring them those two cups in 2016 2017 I guess so some of my favorite Phil Kessel moments will probably be you know I think just him in the um I think it was

being recorded I think by Evgeny Malkin he was like in the, it was like in the machine where he like gets like, like, not like a massage, but like he like gets, it's like a, like a heating machine or something and he's just like sitting in there chilling. Of course, you know, the tweet,

team USA tweet, that was absolutely hysterical, you know, thinking I thought I could have been doing something that couldn't really put my finger on it. And then, of course, John Torrella got so mad about it. But on the ice stuff, you know, just those two playoff runs. Just, he's got to be one of the most clutch

players I think had ever seen. Whenever the Penguins needed a big goal or a big moment, he was there. You know, the two goals against Washington, I mean, game six of the clincher, goals in the Tampa series, goals in the final goal, goals in every series. He could have been the Kahn-Smite

winner that season for that playoff run for the Penguins. In 2017, you know, I mean, the goal in game two against Ottawa, I mean, man, that was used. That Penguins could not go down. I love to O2 back to Ottawa with the way Ottawa was just trapping the hell out of that series.

Kessel, that was just a great play. The shot block happened, and he got the puck right back. Anderson really wasn't expecting the next shot, and he just blew it right past him. And he was a point-for-game player here basically every season in Pittsburgh. I think the Penguins are definitely missing that right now, missing his power play presence. Alex Galchernic has been absolutely awful in every single way. I was reading some takes on Twitter. I mean, Gretz had a really good take on Twitter.

I don't know if he, like, I agree. I don't really know if Gowchennik lasts the whole season or potentially even past January if the Penguins want to look into getting a high rental winger, Taylor Halls available with everyone. I mean, he can maybe be a trade chip in that, but also it's ratio. He knows the Penguin system, I think, down to AT, considering he was here

in Pittsburgh for a very long time. But otherwise, going back, to Phil Kessel. He was just the funniest person in an interview I think I've ever seen. I think a media person asked him, Phil, would you do this summer? He was,

same old shit, I guess. It was like, he, we all know he's so awkward towards the media. He doesn't really like talking on camera, but whenever he did, he always had something funny to say.

I always love what Malkin and, when Gino and Phil went at it, I'm on the ice and then in the locker room. They were just so hilarious together, but you know, Phil, you know, point for game player. Those do not go on, trees. He was just absolutely outstanding. I remember, you know, the day they acquired him,

I probably, probably screamed a little too hard, because you know what? That was, that was the winner that they need at the time. And, you know, I wish he was still here this season. You know, that trade for Gow Cheneyuk is just looking worse and worse by the day. We don't know what we have in P.O. Joseph yet. I mean, I still wish that, I mean, if there was a trade to happen with Phil Kessel, I wish it was the Jason Zucker trade, where, you know, at least you know what you're getting in Jason Zucker, because he actually is producing, a lot this season. Now, Scott Jernick just has one goal and just a few

other assists, which he's just been awful, and I just don't know, but no, Penguins' hands that are going into the game on Friday. Please give Phil Kessel a standing ovation. He deserves it. Help bring the two cups there. Point per game player. Great playoff

performer. That shot that he has is one of the most underrated best shots, I think, in the league. He was just, he was, he filled a lot of needs for the Penguins. And I know the marriage was never meant to last Although he told the rest of his contract But you know what?

He did what he needed to do And I still wish that he would have been here At least one more season But you know what? Just, man, I'll never have anything bad to say about Hillcastle. He was just absolutely outstanding. And of course, the Penguins, like I said, the next night, they go to Detroit on Saturday

to play the Red Wings for the first time this season As they have been one of the worst teams in the week this season. So that about wraps up for this edition of locked on penguins. There will be another episode coming tomorrow. I'm not really sure what we'll do for that yet. I may have a couple things up my sleeve that I'm thinking about doing.

So thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll talk to you guys soon.