Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 2/3-Monster win against Capitals, plus much more

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter discusses the Penguins big win against the Capitals on Sunday. He talks about the performance of Matt Murray, John Marino, Dominik Simon, etc. He also offers his thoughts on the steps tradition in D.C. and much more! 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 this Monday afternoon episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. So, of course, after the Flyers game, the Penguins had their first massive, massive game against the Washington Capitals. And what a game that was. 4-3 Penguins win. They were the better team for the first 40 minutes, even though the third period troubles.

I've continued for a second game in a row. I don't know if this is going to continue happening. I would sincerely hope not, but the Penguins were able to take the first of four meetings against the capitals, pull within four points of first place in the Metropolitan Division, and just continue to bridge the gap between the third place team and then Metropolitan Division.

But this was a lot of fun to watch on these two teams. Absolutely can't stand each other. This is probably the best rivalry in hockey. Yes, it beats the Battle of Alberta, I think. it beats penguins flyers Bruins' habs, Bruins' leaves whatever the rivalry you want to do. You know,

Blues, Blackhawks, of course, has been a big one in the past. But yeah, I think this rivalry beats not many rivalry in hockey. You know, this was probably the first time all season where, at least in my experience, you know, I was kind of pacing back and forth. You know, every one of these games, it just feels

like game seven of a playoff series, you know, like whatever series. It's a conference finals, second round. They usually play, and it'll probably be the second round this year when they play. Again, considering where the two teams are in the standing Zippo teams make it there. Yeah, this was just a really fun game. So, of course, we'll just recap it. You know, first period, the Penguins, their caps are kind of trading power plays.

No team is really scoring on them. But Lars Eller gets a really nice shot, beats Matt Murray, Gloveside. You know, Gloveside, but, you know, that was a rocket of the shot. Not a lot of goals are probably stopping that. And, yeah, I didn't really think Matt Murray's starting was anything out of the ordinary. I thought for a while that he was probably going to start this game because they didn't really want to give him, you know, like, what, two, two and a half weeks between each starts, considering that the Penguins are now in Florida. For the rest of the road trip, they will play Tampa Bay on Thursday, and then they'll play the Panthers for the final time on Saturday of the last three meetings. So this was not unexpected.

Matt Murray has deserved to play against Capitals, considering his recent play, you don't need to go back to Jari. You can just keep alternating them, and it worked out really good. You know, we're going to get to Matt Murray in his performance very, very soon. But, you know, Lars Eller beat him there. And then, of course, later in the period, you know, Lars Eller had a really sneaky, dirty hit from behind on Patrick Hornquist. There's no need for that. I know it's a rivalry game, but he could have been seriously hurt in that situation.

There's just no need when the buck's not even near him to just, you know, bored him right between the benches, kind of, where, like, the middle of it. It was just a stupid play by Larsler. I don't really understand that. You knew Tom Wilson was going to be run around like a fool. He had 13 hits. You know, who cares? Usually when another team is hitting another team, they're losing the game.

So, you know, they're chasing the game. And that's exactly what the capitals were doing for basically the whole game. So, you know, if people want to freak out, oh, my God, Tom Wilson had 13 hits. Nobody cares. Seriously, no one cares. The fact is, you know, most of those hits were actually clean hits. So I was surprised that he was able to not be an idiot. for a whole game against the penguins because usually he always has a flare-up

and at least once in every game against Pittsburgh. But the Penguins were, you know, they tied up a minute later. Sam Lafferty, of all people, gets the goal he beat Sam Sano, who, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't surprised to see him either. Brain Holpe has struggled for basically the most of this season. His say percentage is well below his average where it is. He usually averages in what the 920s. It's 900-something this season.

It's not nearly as good. It's not even in the teens, which is, that's not good. And like I've said, so many times on this podcast, someone is going to make a massive mistake, giving him a lot of money. And if he doesn't turn his play around this season, they're going to go to Samsonov in the playoffs. I thought he was really sharp for a lot of the game yesterday.

I know, you know, he gave up four goals, but, you know, that game easily could have been five to one or six to one at some point. When the penguins were up three to one, they were just, he was just under siege for those first two periods. And he kept them in the game. He kept them the caps in the game to try to make the comeback, and they almost did. I was surprised that they did not. But Lafferty was able to get that.

He beat some blockerside, just a rocket of the shot. Beautiful. And then I really, really loved this subtle play by John Marino, and that this was the second period. I think Malkin just kind of does a little bit of a behind-the-back pass, and Marino just skates in beautifully, like looks off kind of the defender, and then just puts it in front of the net to Hornquist. and he does his business by jamming it past Samsonov goes actually off his sticking in. It looked like it wasn't going in, but it took a really nice balance. To make it two to one, that's just one of those really flashy plays that Marino knows how to make.

And it's just keeps getting better and better. I thought he was, you know, he even talked about it. John Rood actually talked about it before the game that, you know, he was really excited to play Alex Ovechkin in the Capitals. You know, he actually called, I think, Ovechkin the greatest goal score of all times. It's a very high phrase, of course. You easily make that argument. I think he is. And, you know, he did not look out of place at all.

I thought he was really, really sharp. He keeps getting just more better and better each game. And sometimes I find out hard to believe, considering just how good it has been this season. But, yeah, he just keeps on chugging along. And hopefully sooner or later he's going to be a quarter trophy finalist by the end of the season. So that was nice. And then later in the period, it was the Crosby show on the third goal. Really, really nice.

feed, I think it was to Simone, and Simone pokes at five whole pass Samson up. So, yeah, really good to see Dominic Simone get on the goal sheet, you know, get a goal. He's been, you know, his think been a little bit recently. But his playmaking ability has been really, really good lately. But like, it's just, it's really good that he's finally getting some more goals to go with that playmaking ability because his own entries lately from what I've watched. And, you know, his possession numbers, they've just, they've been really, really good. And I just, I really, you love to see it as everyone on.

social media says you absolutely love to see it. There's not been a lot of things for the Dominic Simone haters to complain about lately, and I don't really know why people like to complain about him a lot just because, oh, he doesn't score goals, but, you know, he's just, he's been really, really, really good lately, and that makes me happy. I just thought that was good. And through the first two periods, you know, that takes us to the end of the two periods. The Penguins dominated Washington.

You know, they were leading in shots, and he was like 27 to 19, I think. I think it was somewhere around there. The Caps were hardly getting any chances on Matt Murray for most of the two periods. They would get some. But Matt Murray was also making some 10-bell saves when they did get some of these chances on Matt Murray. He was square to the shooter.

He was playing big in the net. And when he's playing like that, he's on his A-game. I think Matt Murray quieted a lot of people in the Penguins fan base and has been lately. And we're going to get to that coming up after the break. But yeah, the Penguins' neutral zone, trap was working really, really good. They're the one-two-two system that Mike Sullivan loves to try it out there.

They also, at times, they had two guys up, kind of playing like a two-one-two, it looked like. So they were rotating between that, it looked like. I thought it was just, when the penguins are having those little neutral zone traps, when they're clogging it, there's just not a lot of space for the capitals out there. The penguins definitely did their homework on the capitals for the first two periods, even though the third period was an utter disaster. And it worked to perfection, you know, that the only goal that was a, was scored was, of course, some Lars Eller, and he was wide open in the slot, and, you know,

a good shooter is going to bury that 10 out of 10 times almost, well, maybe 9 out of 10 times, but just a really big rocket of the shot. But, yeah, it was just really, really good, I thought, for those first two periods. All right, so, of course, you know, third period comes in, what do you know? It's the same as the Flyers game. The Penguins were insanely lucky to win this game in the third period. They were lucky to not lose this game in the third period. third period. I don't know what it is lately. I don't know why they've been taking their foot

off the gas pedal. I don't know why they've been sitting back. Turtling is a term that is always thrown out there, which is what a team does in those situations. They need to stop doing that. They need to cut down on that. Because that game yesterday reminded me a lot of the 2017 cup run and so it was the Flyers third period too, where both of those teams took control of play in the third period. And, you know, even though the Penguins have won, that's exactly how they won in 2017. teams controlled the play against them, but the difference is the penguins have cashed in on their chances better than those teams have. And they've also gotten the goaltending, much better goaltending than those teams did during the games. And that's, I think, the two biggest differences.

But, yeah, the Penguins were just the times, they couldn't even clear the zone. They barely could get it to the red line. They almost barely could not even dump the puck in. I don't understand what it was. They were barely getting any chances. I thought the power play was absolutely atrocious yesterday, going 0 of 6. There are not many times when you watch a Penguins game and you see a penguin powerplay of Sydney Crosby, Fgeny, Fagney, Pantry, Parenthuze, and Brian Russ go O of six.

I'd have to go back and see how many times they've gone O for six in the Sydney Crosby of Ganyi Malkin era. I would imagine it's not very high because when you have that much talent on your top powerplay as they have throughout their tenure, usually you can get, with six chances, you can get maybe one to two goals. And the pigments had a couple chances on some, but for the lack of better part, they just, they could not game the zone. They were, the caps were clear in the puck with these. It was just bad. It was really, really bad.

And I don't really understand why the power play has become this bad at times. You know, you wouldn't know it based on their ranking. They're in the top, like 15 for a power play average. usually they're in the top five. They usually have one of the best power plays in hockey. So to see that, and what happened with that yesterday was pretty just atrocious. It's embarrassing, I'd say. We need to work on that and practice going forward.

Obviously, you're not going to be 0 of 6 every game. You're not going to get six power play chances every game. They almost never give a team six penalties. But you need to cash in on one of those chances because you have a chance to put the hammer down, blow this team out when you were playing well in the first two periods, and you didn't do that. and that almost cost them in the third period. Of course, Evgeny Kuznetsov made it 3-2, though.

That was kind of a bit of a lucky goal, I would say, in the third period. Went off on Reno Skate and up over Matt Murray's glove. That puck was going way wide as Murray went out, because Netsaw sent it in. It was just, Marino Skate just happened to be right there, and you know what? You know, sometimes you get a lucky bounce. Sometimes it's unlucky for the other team. That's hockey. It happens all the time.

You can't really blame on anything other than luck. The puck sometimes is fine. it's way into the net. All football players skate. You know, it's just, it happens countless times. But after that, you know, I was really surprised that the Capitals didn't tie it. Matt Murray was just under siege that entire period. And, you know, now we'll get to really Matt Murray.

What a game Matt Murray had. I know his state percentage was like 908 or something, but 30 saves on 33 shots. He's just shutting it down in the third period, as usual. That's now his sixth straight win for his starting. I think that's seven of eight now. he's found his form the past month, month and a half. And I tweeted this yesterday. He's playing his way into being the starter again.

And he was the biggest reason why the Penguins won that game. And, you know, I just, I love having two very, very capable goaltenders that the Penguins can go to in any game. You know, I've said it many times on this podcast as well. There's no wrong answer for who starts in game one of the playoffs. The way that Matt Murray is going right now, you can easily start him. The way that Trishon Jari has played all of the years. you can easily start him. Well, all I know is you're going to need both goalies in the playoffs.

And who better to trust than Mike Sullivan, who, oh, yeah, has done this in the past in the 2016-17 run by playing Mark Andre Florey for half of it and then going to Matt Murray to finish it off because Matt Murray has just built his reputation as a really, really good playoff, goaltender. And, you know, it's great to see that he's found his game. It's great that he shut up a lot of these critics. Hopefully, you know, some of these people under the Penguin's tweet that like to bash on Murray, I'm sure it's probably going to potentially stop hopefully soon,

considering the level of play that Murray has been going. But I think eventually you are going to want to star Tristan Jari against the Capitals, you know, have them feel out the cap, shooters, and how he plays against them. Because, you know, more than likely, there might be 10 more games of these two teams going at it. These teams are destined to do this forever, you know, as the Joker said to the Batman, you know, in the Dark Night.

You and I, you and I feel like we're destined to do this together. So I just, that's one of the quotes that. What's one of those movie quotes that just always stands out to me. So whenever I think of Caps fans, I just, you know, I just think of Batman and the Joker because they just keep going at it. And, you know, it's just a great playoff preview. But of course, and then the other goal in this game, Brandon Tanna makes it forward to off of another really lucky bounce because of course that goes in off of the Caps defender over the glove of Samsonov. And I know L.R would pull the Caps to within 4.3, 15 to 20, seconds later, and of course he was defending in Jack Johnson, because Jack Johnson always has to be

on the ice in these situations. I cannot wait for Brian Dumlin to come back and get Jack Johnson off the top area because, boy, do the penguins need it at this point. Dummeline did travel on the road trip, as did Nick Bukes said, so hopefully they can get in a few more practice days before potentially rejoining the team. But the penguins were able to survive the final two minutes after that. The caps had some really, really good looks. The penguins were able to clear the zone, I think, with, what, 15 seconds left? And they were able to come away. I'm away with a victory. So just two monster points.

I can't stress enough how big those points were. There's still three more games. If you somehow, hint, hint, season sweep them, which I don't think is going to happen. These teams never really season sweep each other. But if the big ones can at least take three out of four, get six out of eight points, maybe seven out of eight points against the capitals, you know, that they're going to make a serious run at getting the Metropolitan Division from them. And, oh, getting home ice for, I think, almost the entire playoffs,

if they can leapfrog Boston as well. But just watching also these two teams yesterday, it almost felt like these are actually the two best teams in hockey. And that might be a hot take to a lot of people. They don't think the capitals are very good or not as good as their record indicates. They are. They're deep. They're fast.

They're big. Their defensemen are mobile. They have a young goalie who, you know, has reminded me a lot of Matt Murray when he first came to the league where the other starter has struggled a bunch. They're well coach. They have the star talent The match up against the penguins. And, you know, these two teams

bring out the best in one another. And yes, I know the St. Louis Blues are in the West, but, you know, I also think the West is very weak this year outside of the St. Louis Blues. I know the stars are a decent, you know, the Avalanche, Vegas is we don't know about them. And I know the Bruins have been really good in the East. I know Tampa has woken up as of late.

They're going to try to make a push for the top spot in the Atlantic. But I just, when I watch those two teams, I think those are the two best teams on hockey. And, you know, it probably honestly may come down to a second round meeting again. And, you know, I think if the capitals win the metropolitan division, I think they could get Carolina in the first round. I don't really know if I liked that matchup for them, considering what happened last year. Penguins could also potentially play Columbus. You know, we're also getting too far ahead of ourselves with the first round matchups.

So, of course, it may not happen if one of these teams lose in the first round. But I really would not bet on it at this stage just because of how good, these two teams are. But yeah, just a really, really great matchup yesterday on Super Bowl Sunday. I know a lot of people were talking about it on Twitter, which is great to see. I like that this sport is hopefully gaining more popularity when the two teams like this. Go at it. But NBC, please have a post-game show so people can watch that and they can analyze the game

because that's what you're lacking right now. Hopefully in the new rights deal, as Matt Gack actually tweeted out yesterday and I agreed with them, hopefully in the new right-steele, that comes up. or, you know, maybe there's a post-game show you don't have to cut to frickin' golf of all sports, and right after a hockey game between two of the league's best teams. Also, folks, please just don't remember, don't forget, if you've been a listener of this podcast,

I'm sure you've heard about all the great advertisers working with Lockedont to reach sports fans, but you may not know that Lockdown Penguins is a great way for your local business to reach passionate penguins fans, just like you, unlike any other podcast, Lockdown gives your local company the unique ability to reach local podcast listeners, not just any podcast listener, a Lockdown podcast listener. If your company wants to connect with Penguins fans that are well educated, with disposal, and Kimmel, let's put your money right here on this Locked-on podcast. Local fans love to support local businesses.

Text the word advertising to 3377 or visit Lockdown Podcast.com slash advertising and let us know who you are. We'll get our team to help your team achieve locked-on advertising success. Once again, text the word advertising to 33777 or visit Lockdownpodcast.com slash advertising. So another thing I think I wanted to talk about for Penguins Capitals. This is like, I love that the Penguins fans storm the steps in D.C. Myself, I've gotten to do it once or twice. It is very fun.

It is very fine seeing the Caps fans just walking by it, you know, seeing Penguins fans, you'll get happy. And you know what? The best part after these games, when the Penguins win in D.C., is seeing all these people so jammed up about it. It's not a big deal. Like, there really is not a big deal to it. If it makes you so mad, then how about you tell your team to beat the penguins and people will not do it? It is not hard.

You know, if you really want to get mad over that, there are way more other things in life to get mad at that. Oh, yeah, another opposing fan base is standing on steps. Like, seriously? And another thing I think I saw on Twitter yesterday, someone alleging that Penguins fans stepped on a Kobe Bryant Memorial. Pretty sure no one is that low to step on a... Was there even a Kobe Bryant Memorial there? There's no one is that low enough to do that. And just by you saying that, you just look like a piece of, just like an idiot.

I'm sad to stop myself by going a little too far. You just look like an idiot. Don't spew fake news nonsense like that. It's just stupid. But, you know, it fuels the rivalry. It actually is good for the rivalry. And, hey, you know what? Have the caps win.

It's not a big deal. The caps win. Penn fans won't do it. It's really that simple. You know, I think another thing is funny. because the capitals only had three power plays to the Penguin 6

of course you're going to see people like oh yeah but it's the officiating you know I love coming on logging on to Twitter.com and just seeing all these people complaining oh well the refs lost us the game the refs lost the refs cost us

if you I don't understand these kind of people either those are the kind of people that like you know I'm someone I grew up in the DC area for the most part I've been with Caps fans for 18 years well actually now you know kind of yeah basically about 18 years now since i'm 22 now i moved to around the dc area when i was four i know how they operate they've been doing that since i moved there

and i've gone to school with them and so it's not a surprise these people just need to just you know do something else with your life and logging on to a social media or just saying oh my god me officiating oh my god they're on the they're on the steps nobody cares what you think Nobody cares. You're literally just making yourself look like boomers. And I just, it really, it's really funny to me. I just, I wanted to share that on my podcast, on the podcast because I just found it really, really funny. But I hope you guys enjoyed listening to this episode of Locked on Penguins.

I was trying to get a mailbag in today. But I do remember one of the questions, though, from Clark, who's been one of my really good friends on Twitter, a good listener. Zucker, Kreider, Zucker, preferably. Looks like Chris Kreider, apparently as many as 8 teams right now are in on Chris Kreider, according to Beyer LeBron. So I'd be curious to see how high up that asking price goes. And then I think Jeff Alst also asked a question last week. Oh, is the question, like, why haven't I seen Joe Dirt in this other movie?

I'm trying to look it up as we speak. All right, so why haven't I seen Little Nikki or Joe? Do you uncultured swine. Yes, I need to see these movies, Jeff. I definitely need to see Joe Dirk and Lennyky. I guess I was not shown them by any of my parents. But you know what? I can also do this on my own time.

I'm going to add that to my to-do list. Oh yeah, one more thing before I do end this podcast. For some reason, this Caps blog today, Russian machine, whatever the hell it's called, thought it would be cool that it is news that Mary Alamu has not congratulated Alex Ovechkin for passing him on the all-time goals list. I mean, is it a slow? News Day, nobody cares. I can tell you that nobody else cares, but you guys. I don't even know why you feel the need to report that. And especially as a journalistic site in quotation marks,

a journalistic site, there's just, there's absolutely no need to report that. Nobody cares. You know, for all you know, he maybe have done it. Um, and a private text message. You know, maybe it doesn't have to be public all the time. Sure, you know, to the two others in your article mentioned it, but you know what? I mean, is it, is you, you know, is it, is you, you, you're, Do you guys have full diapers today or something? All right, I'm done picking on the Capitals. I could do this all day. And I need to be at least a little bit,

mostly professional in this podcast. But I just, I thought I'd bring this up a little bit. I thought that would be really, really funny to talk about because there are some people in that fan base that do a lot of weird stuff. And, hey, you know, Penguins fans are not good at times either. I could make, I could dedicate a whole few episodes to what some Penguins fans have said about some other stuff. But I just, I thought this would be really, really funny. Thank you guys so much for listening, and we'll have another episode coming tomorrow.

Talk to you guys then.