Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 3/9- Wake up defensively

Episode Date: March 9, 2020

In this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter goes over the Penguins biggest issues from this past weekend, including their bad defensive performances, goaltending issues, the power-play mishaps, and much more. He also talks about how big this week is coming up for the Penguins as their schedule doesn't get any easier. 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 a new episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows Twitter at L-O-U- underscore Penguins. Yeah, I guess one word to describe this weekend for the Penguins is shit. Utter, basically, yeah, utter shit. You know, we thought, you know, they stopped bleeding after those two wins, but this weekend was just unacceptable on many levels. Of course, the 5-2 and 6-2 setbacks to the Washington Capitals in Carolina Hurricane.

where do I begin honestly at this point I'm just trying to think of you know where to begin basically but um the goaltending has just really been bad lately um I thought against the camels I thought it was more on the defensive um just more on the defense to just allow him the odd man rushes than Matt Murray I thought Matt Murray was making some good saves I'm surprised they didn't score more than five goals um a lot of the goals that Murray gave up were honestly some of those were very unsavable because the defense just basically started taking a dump on the ice. That's, I think, been the biggest issue outside of the goaltending, hitting the tank and their shooting percentage has been the defense, these last few games. It's just, it's not looking like anything we saw from the first 50 to 60 games of the season where they were limiting scoring chances against at a very high level.

It's looking a lot like they did against the Islanders where, you know, they would score, and then boom, they gave up, they'll give up an on-man-rash and then to go right after. I think. I was trying to count, as I was watching the game on Saturday against the Capitals, it was probably about, what, five to six odd man rushes in a row at times. It's making bad pinches, the forwards letting the defensemen out to dry, making weird plays on two-on-one, well, not taking away the pass, trying to take away the shot, I think. They had very easy passes for the 2-1-1, and then it was an open net,

and Murray has no chance on those. And that's just some very bad plays. just pinching the offensive zone when it doesn't need to be. The Jack Johnson, Justin Schultz pairing is a complete disaster. It's just, that's basically all I can say about that pairing is that it is a complete and utter disaster. Jack Johnson has just been, I think Chad said this over the weekend, a match had 4 and 2, minus 8 in his last 11 games. And, you know, I think plus minus is one of the most useless stats in hockey. But, you know, when it adds up to that and you're almost a minus 10 in your past 10 games,

games or whatever. That's, that's, that's pretty bad. And Justin Schultz, he's just not cutting it either. I know people, a lot of people want to see a Uso-Riclo-Chabriel-Ru-pearing. You know, I think it would be decent, but do I see Mike Sullivan doing that? Honestly, I just, I really, really don't. I really don't think that they're going to do that, especially with how much the coach death loves Jack Johnson for whatever reason. He's just been a disaster. He made a bunch of plays during this weekend. He was, like, looked down to block a shot when there was, but the guy wasn't even about to shoot and left a wide open player and then he scores. So Jack Johnson continues to make Jack Johnson mistakes.

I will say this is probably one of the first times I've said this on the podcast. Chris LaTang needs to be a lot better. Making some really bad turnover these past couple games, he's been kicked off the first power play unit, you know, by not keeping the puck in the zone. You know, he's not shooting it enough, I think. Yeah, he's definitely been bad. You know, when a player like that is bad, I'll say it. I'm not going to hesitate to sit, like, you know, I'm not going to have these biases

when a player is bad. I won't say they're bad. I will literally say that he's bad. I think they need more from Sydney Crosby. He's been, I may catch some heat for this, but he's kind of been a little bit mediocre since coming back. And, you know, is he 100%? I don't know.

The way he's playing right now, I'm not really sure. He's one of their best defensive forwards on the ice this season. He's obviously their best player. They need more from him. But I think the biggest thing, you know, from these things, 10 to 12, this 10 to 12 game stretch where the penguins have been playing bat. You know, they've lost, of course, they've lost eight of their last 10 games. This 10 game stretch has been their goaltending has hit the tank and their shooting percentage

has regressed so low that who knows what's going to happen. I think over the last 10 games, I saw Danny tweeted it out this morning. One of my favorite Penn's Twitter follows. He also writes for the Penn's blog now. His ad is Shiree Irving, S-H-I-R-E-Y-I-R-E-Y-I-R-E-E-Y-E-E-R. R-V-I-N-G. Just great follow for a lot of Penguin's stuff, like I said, does stuff for Pensblog. I'm hopefully trying to have them on the podcast at some point.

The Penguins' goaltenders have an 8-54 save percentage over the last 10 games, and that no other team in the league has gotten worse goaltending over that time. Yeah, what was once a strength for the Penguins for the first 60 games has gone into the tank. Pretty bad. Of course, it's not a good time for it to happen, especially when you're in the heat of a playoff race. You only five points clear of the last playoff spot. That's unacceptable.

You know, hopefully that can get corrected. And then, of course, the penguin was expected goalshare. I mean, it's gone down a bit. The PDO regression is still happening. You got to think, I think, the most likely thing to happen of one of the two things rebounding is, I think, that the expected goal share and the scoring is going to have to go up. There's just this team is too talented for that to continue. And, you know, this team, like, they're just, they're too talented to be scoring two goals or less a game. It's just, it cannot happen.

And they're hitting the posts all the time. They're not scoring on empty nets. I mean, Cindy Crosby, I mean, the Penguins had a five on three in the game against the capitals. Usually, Cindy Crosby, buries this puck nine out of ten times, goes almost right through the blueprint, and just pass Halpe, and he missed it. And so, yeah, like I said, Sid usually scores on that nine out of ten times. You know it's in the tank. You know, their expected goal share in the PDO, and pucks like that are just not going in for them. Yeah, you have to think it's going to regress.

get back to the mean at some point. But, yeah, I just, you know, I had a thread this morning. You know, Adam Grets had a really good thread last night. If you guys just want to check that out, just go follow them. He does a bunch of writing for a bunch of different sites. But, you know, I mean, I tweeted out, you know, we all know they're playing like crap. The odd man meshes are back, you know, they're not working for Pox. You know, I said the shooting percentage in goaltending, but, I mean, you know, it's just,

they need to get back to basics. We all know they probably blew their chances of getting home ice in the playoffs, which for me personally, I do find a lot of value in getting home ice, especially for this team. They're one of the best teams in the league at home. They're top five in the league. Wins are home, I think they still about 23 right now. But, you know, they just, they need to get back to basics.

You know, getting Pucks deep, you know, limiting the scoring chances against, not allowing six to eight on-man rushes in a row each game. Heck, yesterday after two periods, the giveaways were penguins, they had 16 giveaways in the first two periods, Carolina had nine. That's, that's unacceptable. That's not penguins hockey. And I know Mike Sullivan has got to be fuming about that to his players. And, you know, the penguins are running out of time to get this fixed.

Like, do I think they'll get this fixed? You know, we're hopeful, but, you know, they're going to have a big test coming up against the devils. Yes, you heard me right. They are going to have a big test coming against the devils because, oh, yeah, none of these games are gimmicks, as we've learned. They lost to the ducks, they lost to the kings, they lost to the sharks. Hell, they lost to Buffalo. It was just a little while back, even though they beat them the third time was a charm. But, you know, none of these games inside your division are gimmicks.

You know, these teams are playing, even though these bad teams like the devils are playing for pride. You have a huge road trip this week. You go to New Jersey. You go to Carolina. You go to Columbus for the final time. Columbus is playing for their playoff lives. Carolina is still playing for their playoff lives. Then you come home to play the Islanders on Sunday.

who, oh yeah, their fault is bringing in a really bad time too. And I think as of right now of this recording, they're on the outside looking in considering how bad they've been. I think because the Blue Jackets won last night, I believe they have the second wild card. I'm going to have to double-check the standings. But yeah, the time is running out here. They have to get back to basics.

They have to stop limiting the odd man rushes against. That has to get out of their system. They can't keep playing like this, you know. Or else, you know, they may not even win around in the playoffs. I think, you know, I've seen some people on Twitter only, the penguins are going to miss the playoffs, the Penguins are going to miss the playoffs. People say this every year. They literally say this every year.

And then, of course, the Penguins make the playoffs. They have Cindy Crawls, you know, McGee-Malk, and you miss the playoffs. With those two, there are something seriously, seriously wrong with this team. That's just not going to happen. And, you know, Jed, you know, Jed, and I had actually a really, really good tweet this morning. You know, the past couple years for the Penguins around this time, you know, 81 and 82 points, respectively. They have 84 right now and people are still, you know, saying, oh, my God, they're going to miss the

playoffs. They will make it. It's all fine. We're going to have more coming up in the next couple segments about the games and all that. You know, my thread that I put on Twitter. But yeah, they're going to get in. Everyone, just take a deep breath. All right. So, I still, you know,

I had my thread last night. I mean, you know, I did, last night, this morning, duh. But my biggest thing, you know, if we defined every 10 to 15 game stretch of a season as bad, you know, when they, because all teams, every single NHL team goes through this.

You know, the Capitals are just coming out of this stretch right now, where they were playing really, really bad for the stretch of 10 to 15 games. Hell, they were Caps fans joking on Twitter during the Caps fans game saying, wow, the Capitals finally decided to show up for a game for once. That's how bad it's been in Washington lately. Hell, even for Carolina yesterday, one of my buddies who's a Hurricanes fan that goes to Virginia Tech, of course, that's the college I go to. He was joking with me that he was surprised that they even showed up yesterday, too.

He was surprised they even potted six goals, considering that the way the hurricanes have played lately and the fact that their goaltenders, both their starting goaltenders, are out with an injury. I feel like, yeah, that loss was more embarrassing than the Capitol's loss because, you know, they played a third or fourth string goaltender.

But, yeah, I just, you know, if every time a team had this, you know, we would be losing our minds. I said before, it just absolutely sucks. It's this late in the season. And, you know, there's just, there's too much talent on the team to be playing. this, especially at this time of year, where the playoffs, I mean, I can't believe I'm saying this,

the playoffs are four weeks away. The weather is getting nicer, you know, that's just when you know the playoffs are really, really close. This is the best time of the year to be playing your best hockey. I guess we're really, we should really be thankful that the Penguins banked a lot of points in the early part of the season when Crawledby was hurt, because if they didn't, they could be even further down the standings right now after this eight out of 10 losing stretch. You know, it's good that a lot of teams in the metro have been playing really, really bad lately, you know, outside of the Flyers who have won nine in a row and may win the Metropolitan Division. Hell, they may force caps pens in the first round, which I would not really be a fan of because I don't really need to see that. But yeah, like, this is big.

You know, this week is so big for the Penguins. You know, I know they went two and two last week, but, you know, this week is even bigger. We're getting closer. You know, you need to go out tomorrow night in New Jersey and just, just, just, just, you know, like Patrick Hornquist said, you know, after the game, I read on Rob Rossi's piece, you know, we'll see what we're made of in New Jersey. You know, I know he said that before after going into the San Jose game, and then, of course, they got wax, but you know what?

Penguins tend to play their best when the stakes are the highest. You know, Josh Yoey had a really, really good piece for athletic today, talking to Jim Rutherford, like, is he upset? Basically, you know, the premise I got from that article is he's basically like, everyone calm down, you know. I believe in Cindy Crosby. I believe in this team. I think if anyone's going to get us out of it,

it's the coach, Mike Sullivan, who's one of the best coaches in the league. And then, of course, Cindy Crosby, who is arguably still the best player in the league. But aside from that talk, you know, I think another big thing that needs to get fixed besides some of the stuff that I talked about is the power play.

And I love Mark Recky. He was a great player for here. He was great period for the Penguins, you know, many years ago. But if this does not change with the power play, I think he might need to be canned. There's no excuse to be rolling Justin Schultz out on the first pairing of the powerplay. That's complete bullshit, in my opinion. He does not carry the puck very well anymore.

I know he might have a booming shot, maybe a little more than Chris LaTang's. But I'm sorry, you know, if you want to, I know you kick Chris LaTang off. Why don't you just try John Marino on there? He moves the puck very well. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. Why are you putting players on the power play that make it worse? I saw it against the capitals. They're putting Jared McCann on the first season.

unit. It's like Mark Recky, I mean, man, it's really not that deep. I just don't understand it. The power play, it's just, it's just been an average power play this season. And, you know, that's unacceptable with the talent that this team has. You know, you can put out Cindy Garlandi, Gennie Malcreen, Chris LaTang, and Patrick was on the top bearing. And then for the fifth spot, you can choose whoever you want, you know. You can put Jason Zucker out there. You know, I like, I know some people have kind of said they don't want Hornquist out there, but, you know, he's actually had a really, really, really good season. And, you know, we know that Jake Gensel absence on the top power play has been just so noticeable.

His absence in the lineup as a whole is obviously very noticeable. I think if the Penguins had Jake Gensel right now, I think they'd be potentially winning some more of these games. He just provides such a scoring punch for them. I miss him each and every game. But, yeah, like back to the power play, it's just they're not, I mean, they're not getting a lot of pucks on net. I think they're overpassing in a lot of shooting situations. you know, you don't need to look like the Harlem Globe Trotters just to get our power play goal.

Just get back to basics with it. Get puck on net. Get pucks on net. You know, hopefully some of them go in, and then, you know, you have Patrick Horquist right in the net front to clean up the mess. And you also, you can probably, like I said, you can try Jason Zucker out there too. I know Brian Russ has been really, really good on the power play this season. Keep him on the unit.

There's no point to putting Schultz and McCann on the first unit. I just, the penguins, they had that five on three. I think it was, what, a minute and a half against the Capitals, I think they got like one or two, one or two shots off. And they, the Capitals were clearing the puck, almost like, AE's. And you know what, that's, that's not okay. You know, if that were the Capitals in that situation, they probably would have scored within 30 seconds because their power play is meant.

Yes, I know the Capitals power play has struggled this season. I don't care. They probably would have scored in 30 seconds because, you know, that's how hockey works against the Penguins. But, you know, the power play is, just too, there's too much talent on there for it to be forming at this level and they need to work on a fix very soon. You know, there should not be an average power play. You know, this should always, this power play should always, always be in the top five in the league for

overall percentage and just effectiveness. You know, you can lose games by not converting on your power play chances and, oh, well, that's honestly been one of the biggest reasons why they're losing games is because they're not contributing on the power play. You know, sure, maybe they get one power play goal in some games, but, you know, they're not going like, you know, two for three, one for three, you know, one for two, one for two, two, three of three on the power play that we're used to seeing at times from the penguins, you know, they're going one of four, one of five, oh of five, oh of six, one for six, it's like, that's not, it's unacceptable. You're getting a five on three for almost spot 90 seconds at times, and you're not putting the puck

in the back of the net. That's not okay. I mean, I don't know how much, no more I need to say it. I'm, like I said, I probably sound like a broken record. Mark Rage has to come up with some solutions soon for that because I think he could find himself out of a job. I think, I know it's probably some of the final say to Sutheran, I think he needs to say to Rike, you know what, stop putting Schultz and McCann on the powerplay. I get, you know, I'm all trying for trying new ideas,

but they have to make sense, you know, like maybe putting Jason Zucker on the top powerplay, putting John Marino up there if Chris Latang is struggling. You don't need to put Justin Schultz on the second powerplay unit when every shot that he takes basically just goes wide and he's just been an utter mess for basically this entire season. So, yeah, that's just something I honestly never understand. All right, so I always talked to, you know, a little bit about, you know, this week being

the biggest week of the season now for the Penguins after dropping those two games against Carolina and Washington home. I mean, it is. You know, this road trip is so massive. You know, they need to bang points and they need to bank them now. I know a lot of people are panicking, like I said, you know, let's just chill it down a little bit, eat Arby's, you know, go outside. The weather is absolutely gorgeous.

gorgeous, 67 degrees up here in northern Virginia, just absolutely incredible. You know, they need to beat the Devils. You know, that's a team that they should definitely be able to beat. The Devils are really, really bad this season, and they sell it at the deadline. Goaltending's been a disaster. Their defense has been a disaster. They traded a bunch of their forwards, you know, of course, like Blake Coleman, Taylor Hall. You know, Wayne Simmons is gone.

You know, Andy Green is gone. And the list goes on and on and on. It's just a bad Devils team. They need to come out tomorrow night. firing on all cylinders. I'm not really sure who's going to start the game against the devils. If I'm a betting man, though, I think they're going to go back to Matt Murray, especially after Tristan Jari, did not have a good start against the hurricanes,

giving up six goals. Some of them definitely were disabled. But, you know, what I'm going to be really looking for tomorrow night is how the penguins respond to that closed-door meeting. It was reported in Rob Rossi's article of the athletic that, you know, they did have a little bit of a closed-door meeting for about five to ten minutes, I think. You know, I'm sure, you know, the leaders stood up, said what they had to say.

or it was probably Sydney Crawley leading the way. Chris LaTang, Afghani Malkin, probably speaking a little bit. Hopefully that pays dividends coming into tomorrow's game in Newark. The last time, I believe that's the last time that the Penguins will be in Newark this season. Thankfully, you don't really want to stay in Newark too long because that city is a bit of a dump.

Anyways, enough of me shitting on the city of Newark. But, yeah, the Penguins, they just, this is the type of team you just have to beat. I know it's a little bit of a trap game, but this time of year, the stakes are the highest for the team. You're in the playoffs, you're playing against a team that's just playing for pride, almost just tanking kind of too, you know, for trying to get the number one overall pick. The Devils, Tom Fitzgerald has done a really, really nice job of recouping assets for his players that he traded as the interim GM.

I think he should definitely have the job at this point. But that is, you know, with that said, you still need to go out and beat the Devils. You know, like I said, I probably sound like a broken record. They're bad. They're going to be bad of the rest of the season. I think they still play them one more time. Back in Pittsburgh, you know, you went, you go out and get these two points tomorrow night, because then you have to go to Columbus.

I know the Penguins played it, you know, a bit bad in Columbus earlier in the season. I think this was spring break. No, spring break, good Lord. I am on Spring break right now. That was over Thanksgiving break. I'm just messing up everything today. I definitely have a case of the Mondays, everyone. So I really do apologize for that.

But, yes, that game was over Spring Break. I believe the Penguins lost that game, what, 5-2 or something like that? It was just a really ugly game. I think that was when Mike Sullivan called it, probably one of the worst games his team has played. This season, I think it was right after Sidney Crosby got hurt, I want to say. I want to say it was right after he got hurt. It was very, very close, but still, the Penguins did not play well that game.

And then now, I think that was actually the road trip where Brian Dumlin got hurt. He got hurt the game after when against the Blues, where, of course, he had his big ankle injury. But, yeah, you know, go out tomorrow night, get the win, get the two points. And, of course, like I said, go to Columbus. That's a monster game. The jackets have been faltering a bit lately. You know, of course, they don't have Seth Jones for the rest of the regular season, perhaps some of the playoffs.

Kim Atkinson's been banged up. They have a massive list of players that have been so hurt this season that I could spend probably 20 minutes talking about it. Then, like I said, they go to Raleigh to play the Hurricanes. They definitely want to get probably a little bit of revenge. After making Carolina look like the Harlem Globetrotters, it looked like the best team in the league on Sunday afternoon. Just ban all Sunday afternoon games, honestly, at this point for the Penguins,

because it's just time after time after time the penguins come out and they just look like utter crap in these afternoon games. I don't know what it is. It's like, do they're not like playing afternoon games? You're not getting up for them. I know the back-to-back probably had something to play with it, especially on Sunday. But, you know, it's just, it's weird that they just play so bad in these afternoon games. I don't understand it.

But, you know, the Islander's game, at least this weekend, will be a 6 o'clock game. That'll be big for the Penguins. That'll be the final time they play. the Islanders for the rest of the season. If I'm going to check this out actually real quick to see if that Hurricanes game this weekend is an afternoon game. It is not the next afternoon. They don't play another afternoon game. I think for the next, for a couple of weeks, they don't play an afternoon game until Sunday, March 22nd against Capitals.

That'll be at 12 p.m. start. They still actually have three more afternoon games. They'll play the Hurricanes. Again, in Raleigh on the 28th, then they'll play the Flyers on the 29th. So a lot of these back-to-back afternoon games are coming up. Yeah, it's just not going to get any easier for the Penguins at this point. if they want to bank points. But, you know, hopefully it starts tomorrow.

The stakes are very high right now. You can expect the best players to start playing like the best players. You know, Cindy Crosby, Evgeny Malkin. Chris Lattang, you know, some of those guys really need to balance back, especially Lathie, who have just been so meh, you know, these last 10 games that you have not really helped with their cause, I think one bit, you know, at least in my opinion. But, you know, hopefully that they'll get that going.

You know, like I said, the goal 10 needs to get going to. You know, you can't have a sub-9-100. say percentage in 10 games in a row and expect to bang points, you know, honestly on every night, any night, you know, you can't have that kind of gold hitting and expect to get wins and bang points in this league. That's just not going to happen. There are no giving wins in this league, but, you know, go out tomorrow night, take care of business, and then the team will be feeling a lot better than themselves. Even Jason Zucker, I saw, quoted, said yesterday, you know, this road trip is going to be big for us, you know, get away from Pittsburgh a little bit

and, you know, just basically, you know, like Patrick Horkwood said, you know, see what they're made of in New Jersey. But I think that'll be it for today's Lock on Penguins episode. And everyone, just don't panic so hard yet. You know, I think they're going to make the playoffs. You know, how much noise will they do in the playoffs? I'm unsure of, but, you know, as everyone knows, they're not going anywhere if they continue this bad play up and continue this unacceptable play in the defensive zone

by giving up odd man rushes, giving up so many high-danger scoring chances against. The goal is not having some bad numbers, you know, just all that combined, the power play, of course, you know, being really bad. Like I said, they're just not going to get the results that they want. if they're going to keep playing like this. But, you know, we'll have another episode coming tomorrow night for you all. After the devil's game, we'll break it all down, see all the penguins. If they responded to these back-to-back sweep, or if, you know, they suffer another loss.

But, you know, just keep it right here on Locked on Penguins. Follow my Twitter at Hunter Hodeys. Follow the show's Twitter at L-O underscore Penguins. And, oh, don't forget. Don't, don't forget, you know, this is actually new for the network and everything. If you guys want to check out another really, really good show, just go to the R-CHA podcast. You know, the host there, they talk about the league as a whole. It's really, really good weekly.

You know, just check that out. You know, really make my day and make everyone's day over there as well. But, you know, keep subscribing and liking the podcast. Keep listening. And like I said, we'll have another episode coming tomorrow. So we will talk to you all then.