Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 3/26- Almost time for the final 4, plus much more!

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter recaps the elite 8 (well most of it) for the Penguins March Madness bracket with his thoughts. He then shares some observations he had after watching the Penguins-Red Wings 2009 game 7 back for the first time in full since the Penguins won it. Finally, he also talks about the NHL's Zoom call with some players today including with Sidney Crosby on it. 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, welcome to this Thursday night evening episode of Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. We have, I guess, a little more to get to today besides the bracket polls, which are almost officially in. One of the polls has actually decided that it's going to go to overtime because a vote came in for the 2-3 matchup for the New Jersey Devils at the last minute to put it to 50-50. So because of that, I'm going to put a one hour overtime. I believe I started just a couple minutes before this recording. So we're not going to have that result by the time this recording's finished.

I could have done a 30 minute overtime, but you know what? I'll just do an hour because I did that for the first round. When there are some overtimes, I'm not going to change that. It would be biased. We did have a little NHL media conference call today with some NHL players. Cindy Crawled who was on it. We'll talk about his comments and what he had to say about what he's been doing since the NHL has went on hiatus as it has basically every major sport across North America

is how this is basically just halted everyone's everyday life. We'll have, like I said, we'll have that come in. Heck, I may even talk about the, I finally watched the Penguins Red Wings' 2009 game in full today. I have not watched that whole game overall since the 2009. Of course, the Stanley Grove Chabachabana. Yeah, that is a really fun fact about me. I have not actually spat down in two hours. I know the game's on YouTube somewhere, or you know, someone can probably find it online,

but I actually have not, before today, sat down and watched the full two, two and a half hours of the game. I was really glad I did because I definitely did miss some things. I'll definitely talk about what I noticed and everything about that in a second, in a feature in a segment for this episode. Geez, I'm already starting again. But to start off, we have our results for three of our brackets. I'm a major, major, major upset for our first matchup. Pittsburgh, Minnesota, 91 Stanley Cup final, has been up. upset, the first number one seed, has gone down to the Pittsburgh-Washington 2016 series, the number

12 seed gets to the final four of the best penguin playoff series in their franchise history. Pretty substantial victory to 75% to 25% in favor of that. So definitely did not see that coming, but I can see why some viewers would go there as, you know, that series was just epic in a lot of ways, you know, potentially even more epic than Pittsburgh's first Stanley Cup final championship. though I would argue that they were more, just better moments in the number one seeds. But, you know, that's why we're doing this, and that was a really big upset. The next matchup, you know, the Pittsburgh Columbus 2014 Cinderella story, the 14 seed.

Their run finally came to an end as it lost to the 7th seed, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, 2016 series. 87% of you guys voted for that. Definitely not a surprise there. I figured the Cinderella run would potentially end to a series that went seven games and was so big. for the Penguins 2016 run and just how they play that entire series. So the first Final 4 matchup will be the number 12 C, Pittsburgh, Washington, 2016 series against the number 7 seed Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, 2016 on Eastern Conference Finals.

So yes, 2016 will be represented in the national championship for this bracket. Just not sure which one it's going to be. You know, this is actually really hard for me personally to vote on because I'm not really sure which one I would even vote for. They're both just so epic in so many ways. So I'm really curious to see what you guys think for that. And then over on the other side, the number one seed, Pittsburgh, Detroit, 2009 Stanley Cup final. Another substantial victory.

They move on to the final four. That series takes out the Pittsburgh San Jose 2016 Stanley Cup final. So three Stanley Cup final, I mean three, Stanley Cup final, three 2016 series were represented in the elite eight. Two of them do move on. The one that loses out is the 2016 Stanley Cup final. Again, 84% for Pittsburgh, Detroit as the number one seed. Just complete domination. And they will meet the winner of the Pittsburgh, Chicago-92 Stanley Cup final

and the Pittsburgh, New Jersey 99 series. So are we going to have a 1 versus 2 matchup in the final 4, or is it going to be a 1 versus 3? This is going to be pretty interesting so far. the overtime in, four votes in just so far, about 10 minutes into the poll. Pittsburgh, Chicago, 92 Stanley Cup final is up 75% to 25%. So again, so three out of four votes have gone to the 92 Stanley Cup final. We'll see if we potentially need a double overtime, which we would shrink it to 30 minutes,

or if we will only need one overtime. If we just keep being tied, I'm just going to be short in the polls, just keep less, you know, less and less and less and less. So, yeah, so like I said, three of the results are in. I think if I had to make a wager, I think you guys will probably vote for Pittsburgh, Detroit, to go to the national championship. I would be a little surprised if it lost to the 92 Stanley Cup final or the 99 series.

But I was not surprised, though, by how much people love the 99 series just because of how instrumental it was in Penguin's history with how, like I've said so many times this week, it saved the franchise at least once with your... Jarmer Yager's heroics in game six against the Devils, not only the tying goal, but the game winning goal was an overtime. I believe the past was from what, Marty Strachka, two Yager, just beat Broder, just a beautiful play. And then, of course, in game seven, they were able to beat the Devils there as well with more of Yarmory Yager's heroics, because, yeah, Yarmory Yager is completely awesome.

And we will always stand Yarmory Yager in the city of Pittsburgh. But, yeah, so this overtime is going to be pretty interesting. Let's see if any more. So more results, a couple more votes have come in. Now it's at a more wide, 83% for the Pittsburgh, Chicago, 92 Stanley Cup final, over 16% for the Pittsburgh, New Jersey. So I believe that's five of the six votes so far have gone to Pittsburgh, Chicago. So it's looking good for that series right now to come out on top in the overtime and we'll challenge Pittsburgh, Detroit, 2009, Stanley, Cup final.

So we could see another Stanley Cup final match in the Final Four, and then the awesome Final Four matchup between the two series in 2016 with Pittsburgh, Washington, the six-game thriller with Nick Benino's overtime winner versus the Pittsburgh Tampa series where they won game seven by a score of two to one, thanks to Brian Rust's heroics. I do want to say, though, before we do get the final four matchups started and before we finish this overtime, I really do appreciate. All of you taking part in this, this was, I loved coming up with this idea with Cam. He's been actually, he was pretty surprised that the Pittsburgh Minnesota series didn't end up going down.

But then he also said that he was not surprised that Pittsburgh, Detroit for 2009, that number one seat is alive and well. Because, yeah, I mean, it is, that has crushed the competition. I knew that was easily one of the final four best series in Penguin's history, just the way it was. And especially after watching that game seven today, you can, you can just really, really easily see it. But yeah, so that's the update on the brackets. We'll have the final four voting after this podcast.

And yeah, well, this is going to be awesome. I can't wait to see what you guys vote for for the final four. So today, at 3 p.m., I decided to, you know what, I'm going to turn on the Penguins, Red Wings, Game 7th, Stanley Cup final game. And you know what? I'm going to watch it through and through just to see what I've missed over the years. And I decided to live tweet it. So I remember just, so watching the start of the game, like I said, I was live tweeting it, man, the Penguin Star Bad. Just barely any shots in the opening five to six minutes.

Detroit was basically bullying them. You kind of expected it with the way Joe Lewis Arena was just hopping at the beginning of that game. Everyone was standing. A massive let's go Red Wings chant was sort of probably, I think, every 10 to 20 seconds, it had to have been. It had to have been that because, you know, everyone was standing. I'm kind of glad that the Red Wings don't play in Joe Lewis Arena anymore because good grief, man. I mean, you can't even really see anything if someone just stands up because I think the camera, it's at such a level that, you know, if fans stand up, so you just, you can barely see the screen as in other arenas. It really doesn't matter.

No one really cares. But an arena like that, that's like an old school hockey ball. It's also like that kind of at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. I'd also wager that that place is a dump. You know, don't even get me started on the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Union Day on New York. That place is just a complete and utter tire fire. That place is not an NHL arena. I've said this a lot over my time on this podcast.

I could probably spend 20, 25 minutes of a full episode talking about how much I hate the Nassau Coliseum because it is just a massive crap hole. But in any case, yeah, I mean, the Joe is always an icon, though. It's just such a great arena. You know, it's time headcom because, like I said, these fans were just standing up all the time and just it blocked the view. It was that bad. Other things I noticed, you know, had a little bit of a funny tweet. You know, it looked like when Pierre was interviewing people, he legit has not aged in 11 years and it shows.

I mean, I know Captain Obvious here. I sound like probably Bougar McFarlane from Monday Night Football, who is not someone you really want to follow, but considering that he states way more obvious things than what probably I just stated. But yeah, that man has not aged a single day in 11 years. He looks exactly like he did back in 2009, as he does now in 2020. It's actually a little bit scary. He just, he does the same old crap that he did 11 years ago. I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.

I think there was that time where he's like, oh, my God, there's, there's Ray Shiro in the box. There's Mario Lemieux up there. He just blurts out the most blatant, obvious things. It's like, okay, Pierre, he just goes from one thing. do another. One thing to another. It was really funny to to keep track of that. Also, I did tweet about this too. You know, yes, the Cronwall clean hits that were legal back in 2009

that big hit that he put on Maxime Talbot, where he basically left his feet to do it. Talbot was a little shaking up on the play, but got up right after and of course went on to be a hero. But yeah, everyone loved those hits. The game like back then, 11 years ago, if that game was played today, it would honestly not really, it just, it would not be good. Because there were so many different rules back then. And like the way the game was played,

it just would not work today in 2020. And those chrome wall hits are a big example. You would not get away with that in today's league. There's just no chance. His hits were a little, sometimes they were clean, you know, but he would leave his feet a lot. And the crone wall term would get, you know, put in everyone's head. And it was like, oh my God,

he had the textbook definition of a clean hit. Well, I honestly wouldn't say that, especially in today's NHL, to say the least. But then, of course, for the first goal, Maxine Talbot, you know, poor Brad Stewart that game. He was just brutal. Passe goes off his skate, then right to Max Talbot, who then just embarrasses Brad Stewart, and then Chris Ozget opens up the wickets to make it 1-0. I forgot how early in the second period that it was. Another interesting observation that I had, man, those Red Wings fans,

will just boo everything the penguins did. I even said, you know, it's on borderline Montreal levels of bad. And Montreal gets really, their fans get really, really bad in the playoffs when just when a player touches their team's player, boo. Oh, my God, one of their players falls, boo, where's the penalty? It was almost like that in the game for the Red Wings fans where they were just booing everything. But, you know, there were obviously going to be a lot of penalties called because it's game seven in the Stanley Cup vinyl. The game was officiated way different. back then than it is now.

I still think it may be a little similar to how it would be officiated today since a lot of reps don't call penalties in playoffs anyway, but I don't think it would be that bad with all the clutching and grabbing that I saw the Red Wings get away with in this game. I also, the one thing I did forget in this game, the one thing I did forget, when did Sidney Crosby get hurt? Of course I knew he got hurt. He didn't finish the game.

He only took one shift in the third period after he got hurt. in the second. I just did know that it was really early in the second period. And I'm talking like well before the halfway point of the second period. I think there was just five, a little over five minutes were passed in the first second period. And then Franz and his knee buckled on when Franzon hit him and then Crosby went out. I think it was like five, 35 or something like that. I just had no idea that it was that early. Just absolutely no idea. And yeah, the fact that the Penguins were able to win that game while playing without Sinicrosky for basically half of Game 7. Just really, really honestly, nothing short of a miracle.

Again, you know, Brad Stewart, like I talked about for the first goal, he made that awful play. Then Max Talbot, you know, his level only intensified with his outstanding goal. And can we also talk about Chris Osgood's angle on that goal? Guy looks like a 1980s goalie in there. He's barely even taking up any of the net max tile, but probably had half of the net to shoot at. And yeah, people still think Chris Osgood should go to the Hall of Fame. I'm sorry, no, he really, really should not.

I know that would have, what, he would have, like, a few. I'm trying to remember how many cups here. I think he would have, what, four cups? If he would have won that, you know, no. Let's not. Let's not insane we did, because his numbers, if you look overall, just for his regular season numbers, is there honestly not bad on president if you ask me but yeah that angle that he had on that second

max tablet goal absolutely embarrassing i when they showed the replay for i just i absolutely cringe because what goaltender plays like that in 2009 hell you don't even see that in today's game every goaltender just plays so much um bigger in the net and then oh my god just watching watching the third period back i mean i was getting nervous just watching it it was so painful the penguins they were barely getting the puck to the red line. I think they only had one shot, two shots overall for the third period. It was just turtle, turtle, turtle for the penguins, the Red Wings were coming out them in ways.

I was just stunned that they didn't give up a second goal in that period. I was surprised that the Red Wings didn't score their first goal until, what, less than 10 minutes remaining in the third period? It's just, it's nuts. Hell, I think it was actually like five minutes remaining in the third period, if I remember correctly. It's just, the breadwings were really just getting no puck luck. Mark Andre Flurry was a menace in front of the net, but penguins were blocking shots like it was no tomorrow. And I'll still, I'll say this now. I send it back in 2009. I will forever thank the Lord for

that Jonathan and Erickson shot hitting off the crossbar and going out because, man, when I saw that happened today, and I knew when that happened, because I've watched that replay probably so many times and I still get chills from it and get scared. It comes right before the two-minute mark. Yeah, seeing what the Red Wings fans reacted. I think that's, of course, I didn't react like that when I saw that back live in 2009. I probably face-planted knowing myself when I was 11, but still, that is a clenched butt cheek moment overall. I still can't believe that puck did not go in and flora completely whiffed on it. Then, of course, as the game gets closer to the end, like I said, the pain was, they just keep dump.

and there's dumping it, dumping it out, dumping it out, getting it to the red line, getting it to the opposing team's blue line, and then, you know, Mark Ande, Fulry with the save that, you know, Walfour, we remembered in Penguin's history and the Penguins were able to do it. And of course, it comes off of Nick Lydstrom,

who is almost 40 in this game, folks. He is almost 40 years old, and yet he played that game like he was 20 years old. It is absolutely unbelievable how good Nick Littstrom still was. in that series. Hell, even in that game, he was easily the best defenseman I've ever grown up watching, easily the best defenseman I think of my generation. There are not many, like the Nick Ledstrom Hell. He's definitely in my list of top five best defensemen of all time. I mean, if he's not in your

top five, there might be something wrong with you, at my opinion. But yeah, those are honestly just my thoughts watching it. I did notice Cindy Crosby didn't start to shake hands until the very end. I kind of forgot about that a little bit. I can see why I'm not maybe rubbed redwere fans the wrong way. But still, I thought it was, what an awesome game to watch. That was just such a classic. And I'm still surprised they won that game.

Hell, hell, let alone won that series and took, after going down O2, took four of the next five against that Red Wings team, which was easily one of the best teams of the Salter Cap Arrow. I just, I could not believe it. All right. So for this last segment of the Locked on Penguins podcast, I guess we'll talk about what Cindy Crosby said in a media. teleconference call today to, I think, a bunch of media than I think an NHL Department of

Communications, PR person, I believe. But apparently Cindy Crosby is still in Pittsburgh, you know, he's just been in his house, you know, spending time with his family and all that. I was actually a little surprised to hear that he is still in Pittsburgh. I thought for sure he would have went back to Cole Harbor to be with his mom and dad and everyone up there since I know that's where his family's from. I know that's where his off-season home is. So, yeah, I was a bit surprised to hear that he's still in Pittsburgh.

but, you know, I guess his routine doesn't change as he probably still thinks that this is in season that. I guess he still thinks that, you know, he uses that as basically just like a summer offseason only house. I love one of the questions was today, you know, apparently someone asked if he was stuck in quarantine with one teammate, who would he pick? He said he would pick Chris Littang. He serves as the Penguins player rep. Apparently, Crosby's quote, I actually watched it back then. I saw his always transcribe. He said, I feel like he's in the know.

He'd get all the info first. I would have a better sense of what's going on if I was stuck with him. And Crosby, by the way, by being stuck with Chrisadang, he would also get to spend time with his outstanding son Alexander, who I'm sure would absolutely bully Crosby. He would honestly, I could see Czny just getting tired of him because Alexander just seems like a riot, and he just seems like a massive troll as well.

For other things that he said, apparently, Crosby said he's doing his best to say professional with limited resources. Apparently he said he has a, bike, you know, push-ups. Kind of old, he said it's basically kind of old school at this point. Whatever you can get done, you get done. These quotes come from Mike Defabo, who writes about the Penguins for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Other things, apparently, so he was asked about what he would like to see the season resume, like what idea he would push forward. He said the more games, the better. But he also said, I would not mind starting right away with the playoffs. There's a lot of guys in different situations. The more games you can play, the better when it comes to the integrity of for you think. So did find that quote pretty interesting from Crosby, as I guess, you know,

he really doesn't care if they go straight to playoffs. I also did see today that one of the Penguins are tribal, Alex Ovetchkin, who said that, you know, he agrees to Crosby. He wouldn't really wouldn't mind if the season started right away with the playoffs. He just honestly wouldn't mind it. Apparently, during this layoff, another interesting quote, Crosby said he's basically been

binge watching an F1 documentary series on Netflix during the quarantine period and the hiatus. So I'm good to see that Cindy Crosby is basically Netflix and chilling by himself at home, you know, probably with his dog as well. I do remember that he has that 14-year-old Sam. If you guys listen to that podcast that he had over the summer where he went on, I think it was with Ryan Whitney, whatever. He told him an awesome story about that dog when how he first got it when he was still living at Mary Loulemy's house.

I still can't believe that that dog still there today all these years later. So I think he's probably going to be 15. That dog has lived quite a life. Hopefully he keeps living his best life. I'm trying to find if there were any other interesting quotes here from Cindy Grosby. Apparently, him and Claude Giroux were actually going back and forth since they were on the same conference call together. I thought I found it was pretty apparently. Drew said, you know, Jordan said cheat so much in faceoffs.

I don't miss that. Then Crosby said, I was going to say the same thing about you. And then Drew said, I knew you were going to say that. That's why I said that first. So, you know, a little playful. Little shit talk between them, you know, the two of the arch rivals of each other. But, you know, they're just having fun, you know, I'm sure. There's nothing, like, serious about it.

Some people like to be like, oh, my God, it's a rivalry. It's like, you know, it's just two guys joking around. I can't believe I actually have to explain that. One more check up on the final poll of the overtime poll before we end this podcast. Let's see here. Halfway through the poll, still, Pittsburgh, Chicago, rocking a very big advantage. 83% over 16% for the Pittsburgh. for New Jersey series.

So it looks like, as of right now, of this recording as we end it now, it looks like it's going to be a one versus two matchup in the final four to decide who goes to the national championship. But again, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Lockdown Penguins. I'm glad I had other stuff to talk about today. I was actually concerned that I was not really going to be able to talk about anything. I'm glad we got that NHL media group call today as well. So we'll be back tomorrow with another episode.

I think we're going to have probably some mailbag talked tomorrow. Please send in your questions. We're a little bit lacking with that. Also, we'll have the final four matchup tomorrow, so please go out and vote. And then we will have the national championship coming on Monday. So that is when we will finish up the pool and potentially even make another poll after this one is done. So like I said, thank you so much for listening. Be sure to go vote on L.O. underscore Penguins for the Lockdown Penguins Twitter account.

for my Twitter account at Hunter Hodey. So thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.