Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Locked On Penguins 4/27- Finishing the best moments of the season in style!

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

in this episode of Locked On Penguins, Hunter finishes the "best moments of the season" segment with the game between the Penguins and the Canucks in late November. He discusses the wild comeback the Penguins had with Kris Letang's game-winner coming in the final few minutes. He also discusses the ESPN report that came out this morning with the next steps for the NHL to resume the season. Finally, he finishes up by touching on the Penguins-Predators Game 1 replay that AT&T Sportsnet is doing in Pittsburgh tonight. 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 Monday evening episode of the Lockdown 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. Happy Monday to all of you, a new week as we almost hit May now. It's pretty crazy that we're almost into the fifth month of this new year, new decade. Yeah, this year has just been flying by. Hope you all are doing well. We're going to finish up our segment where we're going to talk about some of the best moments.

of the season today. And what better than to talk about the game against the Vancouver Canucks, that crazy comeback, which, you know, of course, we had an episode after that game where I actually had that game turned off for a while when the Canucks went up 6-3. And then when I saw them made a 6-4, I thought, you know, what the hell? I'll just turn it back on. And, you know, the rest is history. So we'll have that for you guys today.

The Penguins are replaying the 2017 Stanley Cup final tonight. They're game one against the national predators on the 18T Sportsnet. We'll talk about that. And the first period, I was actually just watching that before I recorded just to get some thoughts. So, you know, just watching that whole period back again for the first time since 2017. You know, just wanted to see some stuff, especially on the 5 on 3 because it was pretty embarrassing. But, you know, we'll get to that. Soon there's also been some updates about the potential season coming back, though.

Like I said, a lot of this is fluid. John Scott had a, I don't know if it was a troll report over the weekend or if that was legit saying that I think camps are going to reopen at like the beginning of June or something like that. You know, I think he might have just been trolling there. That's a little, um, a bit much. But, um, I did see a report this morning from Greg Wosinski and Emily Kaplan of ESPN. Elliot Freeman also had stuff, um, last week. But, you know, still the reality is that basically, um, no one knows what's going to happen, you know, apparently, according to, uh, both Emily Kaplan and Greg Wigginzky.

There are still a bunch of arenas that are actually in play. Apparently, they say sources have told ESPN at the home rings for Minnesota, Vegas, Columbus, Dallas, Carolina, and Edmonton have been among those examined. I saw a piece from the athletic over the weekend with Michael Russo saying Pittsburgh could also be in the mix, as they are not considered to be a hotspot right now. Actually, the last time I checked, I do not believe so. I mean, yeah, I could definitely see, you know, Minnesota, from what I've, you know, I don't think Minnesota is really a hotspot.

Edmonton, I think, would be kind of tricky because, you know, I think there was something that was passed just a couple weeks ago, stating that some public events might be banned there for a while. Like I said, Vegas, I mean, that's no surprise. You know, they have the NHL awards there. They have a really big practice facility. Columbus, I'm not really surprised. Dallas, that's not surprising either.

As actually today, the governor of Texas is lifting the state of home order effective April 30th, so everything is going to potentially go back to normal in the state of Texas. So Dallas is, yeah, that's not really a surprise. But, you know, this is all, like I said, this is all very, very fluid. You know, it's good that there's a lot of stuff coming out. I saw the weekend, the NBA, a little bit of a woge bomb basically saying that some NBA facilities are going to potentially be open soon to allow individual workouts for players. There will not be any group workouts allowed. So it looks like potentially the NBA is maybe taking that small next step that it needs to take in order for the road to the NBA being back.

But still, there's still no group sessions allowed for the NBA. This is only, I believe, in state's arenas where the stay-at-home orders are not as extremely. There's not like, this isn't where like the hotspots are, of course. But going back to the NHL, you know, like I said, Wazinski and the Kaplanist of reporting. that they're still looking at two to four arenas, you know, as basically hubs where the teams would finish off the regular season. I've still the opinion. I do not think that they need to really finish off the regular season.

Maybe you can play a few games. But you know what? Honestly, you can just start with the playoffs, you know, a training camp of three weeks, maybe up to a month. I think that work. Apparently, Gary Bettman said the arenas won't necessarily be division-based, but they would be regionally friendly for teams to travel there. So, you know, for pit, Penguins, you know, speaking, of course,

for this as a Penguins podcast. You know, Columbus would be obviously, of course, the best case scenario unless they decide Pittsburgh. That would be the biggest best case scenario. But Columbus would probably be the next best case scenario as it's not even a, it's not even like, I think it's like an hour of a flight for driving wise. It's what, two, three hours. It's not far at all.

You know, Raleigh, you know, take a flight down there. It's only a couple hours. So that's not bad for the penguins either. But still, you know, does anything like very? like Gary Betman said, that's basically regionally close for the teams for these places. You know, that's the best case for them. And, of course, as everyone knows, you know, Gary Benman also had to say, you know, there's not going to be any fans in these buildings.

If they were turned to play, and that's a big if still at this point, yeah, there's no chance there'll be fans in buildings, you know, they're not going to take a risk of, you know, putting 20 fans in the buildings and you have to sit this far apart or 100 of fans, there's no, when sports eventually come back and they will come back, you know, there's, it's going to be no fans for the first, however long they decide. And then, you know, they'll gradually start putting the fans back to Norena. You know, maybe they'll have to sit, you know, a few seats apart. So, you know, it can't be like a massive sellout or something. And then, you know, once this is really, really, really died down and it's once it's really, really gone, you know, then we'll be back to normal with all the fans in each seat. But, you know, that's so far in advance. And, you know, like I said, Gary Batman, just to finish this up, Gary Benman said, you know, the location it can be anywhere

that isn't a hotspot. His exact quote from Colin Campbell, this is now Colin Campbell from the article, that from ESPN basically you said, you know, there's a number of criteria, what state is friendly, what province is friendly, what are they dealing with? Obviously, the New York area is not very friendly right now.

I mean, yeah, it's a massive hotspot. You look at Alberta, it seems a little bit friendly. So, yeah, yeah, they just, like Gary Benman said, You know, you just, you can't look at, um, hot spots, you know, like New York and a bunch of other spots in the country. So that's good news there. I thought there was something going on with the, um, the Calgary area where they banned like sporting events to like August or something, though. Um, I am, I would have to, um, double check that. Um, but to finish off this segment, you know, going around the league and stuff.

Um, apparently there were some big news with the Chicago Blackhawks today. Um, their owner, Rocky Warts, uh, announced that the team has fired president. the team president, John McDonough, and as well as president's CEO of the organization. Yeah, that's a nice Monday evening news dump at around, what, 5.30, 6 o'clock was when this came through.

I'm pretty surprised that they do not fire Stan Bowman, considering a lot of Bock's fans have turned against him. Yeah, I guess this will be up to the team president to, yeah, I guess to see what they do with Stan Doeman. And also, congratulations to Joel Ward on an outstanding career. as he announced his retirement today.

I know the games when he was with the Capitals and the Penguins were not always friendly, but he still had a great career. I do remember that goal that he had against the Rangers in the playoffs where he scored with less than a second left, and the Capitals were able to win that game. I still couldn't believe that goal. So, yeah, like I said, congratulations, do a great career there. And, yeah, definitely a weird news dump for the Blackhawks today. That kind of came out of nowhere.

And apparently this was right after, I think, a month or two ago, where the owner actually promised a lot of people in the organization that he would not be firing them. So, you know, that came out of nowhere and, you know, we'll have to be, we'll have to see when, if Stan Bowman potentially gets fired

because that might be coming. I know this doesn't pertain to the penguins, but, you know, the Blackhawks had their fun when they were winning cups, you know, just as the penguins have. And, you know, I guess, you know, to look at it this way,

it can go down really, really quick, guys. And, you know, we don't, we don't want the penguins to deal like this in the next couple years with Cindy Crosby and the Ganymalkins steal in their primes to win Stanley Cup. So, you know, just look at it like that, cherish this because, yeah, we don't want to be like the Blackhawks are right now where they're just failing with meteorocrity. All right, so for this segment, you know, like I said, we're going to continue our, we're going to finish actually our best moments in, from the season with the penguin game against

the Vancouver Canucks at home. The Penguins were able to open the scoring very, very quickly into the game. You know, they scored their first two goals in about a little over 10 minutes into the game. The second one was on a power play goal with Brian Russ. This came. So right during Thanksgiving, so November 27th, yeah, but basically that Thanksgiving weekend, basically, was when this happened. Easily one of the best games of the season, like I said, the Penguins were able to jump out to a 2-0 lead, thanks to Jake Ansel and Brian Rust. But the Vancouver Canucks stormed right back.

This was not one of Matt Murray's best. best performances, not by loss. He was just absolutely brutal in this game. J.T. Miller was able to make it to 1. Pedersen was able to tie it in the second period with 1243 remaining. And then, you know, right as the second period is basically about to expire with less than two minutes left. Chris LaTang really loses a terrible foot race to Jake Bertan.

And I still can't believe Chris LaTang lost that foot race there, considering Rattano really wasn't even coming in that fast. And then Matt Murray, you know, has to have that puck right there. The Canucks are up 3-2 at that point. you know, it did not, it did not stop there. The Canucks are able to score, not even a minute later with Adam God, Adam God, Jesus, making it forward to. I cannot pronounce names today, guys.

I am just having a real big case of the Mondays. But, yeah, the booze came down from Matt Murray. I was watching the highlights of that game, actually, before I started to record this episode. And, yeah, the crowd was not happy with Matt Murray. You know, I don't think anyone really was at that point. So, you know, just those four goals. just not a good period for Matt Murray. He could have had a few of those back.

Just not a good period for the Penguins defensive guy. They were just a mess defensively. It was absolutely embarrassing to watch. And they were down 4-2 going into the third period. But Penguins would respond about a minute into the third period. Jake Gensel gets his second of the game because, you know, when was Jake Gensel not scoring during the beginning of the season? I'm serious.

You know, 20 goals, what was it, like 43 points, 39 games, 20 goals and 39 games, just absolutely ridiculous start to this season from Jake Gensel. He was easily going to be a 40 goal score. Had he not got her right before the new year. And, yeah, if this season was just a normal one, there was no pandemic, I honestly think you can make the case that Gensel was going to get close to 50. You know, I'm honestly, I'm dead serious on that. I don't know if you'll ever get to 50, but there's a potential, there's a chance for it.

I'll say that. But, you know, the score wouldn't stop after that. The Kinnock's score, basically two goals, and less than in and again to make it 6 to 3. Just continuing Matt Murray's terrible night. And at 6.3, and, you know, this is at the point, you know, there's 1654 left at the point where this goal scored. I was just like, you know, throwing the towel. You know, if Matt Murray is going to keep playing, like, there's no way they were going to come back, you know.

Me myself, I'm an idiot a lot of the times, as you guys know. Like I said, I turned off this game. I thought it was over. I almost basically started to record at this point because this was just, this was going terribly. the Penguins just looked lost in the defensive zone. Matt Murray was getting wetting up, just spewing rebounds out like a Pez dispenser. It was just, it was brutal.

Heck, I don't even think I knew who Adam Goddet was going into this game. Hell, then he had two goals in this game. So, you know, that just goes to show how much I know everyone. But, you know, this is the bit in the pivotal moment, you know, I was keeping it up on my Twitter feed. You know, 1351 left. It's a four on four. you know, what the hell, you know, what's going to happen here?

Old friend Dominic Cahoon is able to make it 6 to 4 on the 4 on 4. So then I was, so then I was like, okay, you know, I'm going to turn this on, you know, see if I'm bad luck, if the Canucks scored on the one, then I'm done for good. Needless to say, I'm really, really glad that I was not bad luck for this one because the Penguins just started bringing it to just bring it to the Vancouver Canucks. the penguins are able to get a power play right after this, and I will play this goal that made it 6 to 5 right now. Malkin slows it down.

Now the power play. TRIves, go! One! So, yeah, two goals in less than a minute. So, you know, they basically gave a little bit of karma back to the Canucks as they've done that. Not once in this game, but twice. So, you know, six, five.

So then it's like, okay, plenty of time to get an equalizer here, you know. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened. in the next couple minutes with the way the penguins are playing. And I just loved on that fifth goal, how Havgeny Malkin is able to just wind that up, do a geno bomb, as I like to call it, and just let her rip. You know, the goal, you know, just had no chance.

This was the Canucks backup, because I believe Jacob Markstrom was sick, actually. I think he was supposed to start in this game, then he was sick, and then they had their backup start. So, yeah, the Penguins were able to light him up like a Christmas tree. And then, of course, you know, not even just a few minutes later, the Penguins were able to tie it up as here is the tying goal

right here for you guys. No stick Edler and Dempco was on an island. That's dominating here. Looking for the equalizer. Marino would drive off the body acid rates. He scores. We're tied at 6-6. Okay, I'm not going to play that clip from Bob area just being an absolute nut.

But yeah, so three goals in the span of just a few minutes. And yeah, brand new ball game. Zach Astor-Maris is able to tie the game. I just, I couldn't believe what I saw. I remember I think I was watching it with my. My grandparents are here for Thanksgiving and my mom. And, you know, they couldn't believe it either. Like I said, I was getting ready to just go record the podcast.

And, yeah, I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I waited. I'm glad I put it on after the fourth goal. You know, I know, I'm not a true fan that I kind of turned it off after the sixth three. You know, this is the way they were flying. You know, I thought it was basically over. But then, you know, the Penguins, they were able to have the game winner to get that

seventh goal, you know, because for a while it looked like this was going to overtime. As I will play for you guys, the game winning goal from who else, by Chris LaTang. We are at the Leightang Colt here on You Locked on Penguins podcast. Here you guys go. Goes it to open ice, skated into by Duhilin.

Duma leaves it for russ. All three players, three points on this line. Gensel, takes him, sets it up. Latang, he scores. It's 7.6, Chris Latang. Chris Latang, you know, was able to make up for his mistake, you know, earlier when he let Jake for Chanon,

basically beat him for no reason. And I guess the game-winning goal, you know, the goal he had no shot on that. And yeah, for a game, that looked like it was about to go to overtime, the Penguins made sure that it was not going to go to overtime, as Lattang makes it 7, 6. And then the Penguins later add another goal to make it 8 to 6.

It was an empty-knit goal. Malkin was basically tripped up. It was going to be a penalty, but he still was able to slide the puck in, gets his second goal of the game. And with 0.2 seconds remaining, it was an 8 to 6 finals. So, yeah, one of the games of the year,

easily one of the best moments of this season before. It got put on the hiatus. 14 goal game, six goal third period. That's just, that's unbelievable. All the Pagoes were able to come back in this game, especially considering there was less than a period remaining to undergo a three-go-deficit.

That does not happen very often in this league. The Penguins were able to do it and beat the Canucks in just a wild affair. So that ends some of the best moments of this season. We're actually, so for next episode, for the next episode, We're going to be starting our new series this week, actually. I think this is one that you guys will really, really like a lot. And this week, guys, this will be the greatest moments in franchise history. So, you know, there's a lot of ideas that, you know, I've come up with for this.

You know, honestly, the whole Lock on NHL network has come up, you know. You know, milestone games, great playoff games, performance games from players, great trades that change the course of the Penguins, you know, draft lottery, you know. we know all too well about that here in Pittsburgh. Like I said, milestone games, rewatch of old games that are re-earing. I could potentially do that.

You know, there's a lot of really, really cool stuff that I have planned for you guys this week and for a couple more episodes for the great moments in franchise history. I may try to have a couple people long to talk about their great moments that they've seen in franchise history.

So look for that coming. Wednesday, Friday, and I can't wait to bring you guys that awesome content. All right, so for this last segment for the Locked on Penguins episode today. I wanted to talk about that game one, that first period between the penguins and the predators.

Kudos to the Penguins for re-airing these games. I know it's probably not easy to do this in the time. I know NH on NBC, they're doing... What's their hashtag that they're doing called? Is it... Oh, hockey, hashtag hockey happy hour, where they show like an hour and a half condensed game, like a big playoff game or something.

Tonight they were doing the game 7 of 2011 between Boston and... Montreal this weekend. They actually did show the back-to-back run of the Penguins. So if you guys were able to watch that at NBC, that was awesome. That was really fun to watch as I was taking a break

from the NFL draft. And speaking of the NFL draft, I will say, good job to Chris Carter. I've locked on the Steelers. If you guys don't listen to him, please do. He does a lot of really great stuff about the Steelers. So on one of our sister stations for Pittsburgh.

So, you know, go give him a follow. I'm about that. But anyways, going back to this, you know, watching the game first period of game one, the penguins still got insanely lucky with that offside call. I know a lot of people aren't too pleased with that rule. It was able to benefit the penguins there. It's gone against the penguins plenty of times ever since it's been introduced.

So yeah, great that it did there. The penguins, I felt like after that they tried to sort to dominate, you know. The one thing in particular, though, that five on three, man, I mean, what was that? The penguin, they would gain the zone, and then the predators would somehow just be able to clear it. It was literally just well over the first half of the power play. I think it was like for the first minute, 15, minute 20. The Penguins didn't get a shot on that. They were

not even getting it set up. Patrick Hornquist tried a zone entry when on a 5 on 3 when all basic Predators players went to him. He didn't even pass it and the Predators had an easy clear. No idea what he was doing there. We all know zone entries have never been. Patrick Hornquist thing. We all know what he's

very, very good at. But you know, when's the Penguins were able to set it up and Trevor Daly had a nice pass to a beginning of Malkin, he unleashed his geno bomb and pecorine that's a very stoppock i can't believe that he did not stop that it was almost went right for his glove but um went underneath it i guess and walkin was able to make it one nothing you know this all comes with only a few minutes left in the period the penguin scored their three goals um in what less than five minutes it was basically that you know you have the second goal with a gorgeous pass from chis kunitz to connor sherry um i was i was i was i was in all of that

Kuhnitz pass at the time when I was watching it. I still am in all of it today. Just what a player Chris Kuntz was, man. Especially towards the late stages of his career. He really could still do the same things that he did early in his career. You know, his passing was always crisp. You know, he was, of course, you know, the overtime hero in game seven against the Audreux Senators of the Eastern Conference final. Just what a remarkable player. He was so underrated for the era.

Just did so much damage next to Cindy Crosby. And, you know, just a pastor. I know, I mean, Pecorane, I didn't even move on that. That's just how funny that was. And then the third goal, you know, you get a little bit of luck there. You know, it goes off in T.S. Eckholm. And then after going off the skate, well, not the skate, the stick of Pecoran, excuse me. And then the Penguins are up three nothing going into the first intermission.

But yeah, just those last five minutes just complete domination by the Penguins. I thought the Penguins were playing pretty good, honestly, up until that point, though the predators were still pushing hard as well. Then, you know, we all know what happened. the Penguins not having a shot in 37. I think it's what, 37 minutes, if I'm not mistaken, and the Penguins, they're still able to win that game with Jake Gensel's heroics, because, you know, when is Jake Gensel not a hero?

It's really the big question for you all. But, you know, just really, really cool. Like I said, that the Penguins are doing that. Game two, I'm sure will be on Wednesday, where the Penguins blitz pecorina in the third period for those three goals very, very early. And then I'm sure they'll do games. game five. I wonder if they'll do game five. I think they'll do game five on Monday. I don't think they'll do it Friday. They'll do game five on month next Monday. Then they'll do

game six in Nashville on Wednesday. And then, you know, I don't really know what the penguins go from there. You know, do they, I saw someone actually did ask, like, are you guys going to be doing the same from 91 and 92? They said stay tuned. So, you know, hint, hit, it looks like that's what they're going to be doing next. You know, what do you do after 91 and 92 Stanley Cup final? So at least like I said, at least this is able to have people have some sort of sports in their life. With that topic in mind, it was really, really great to have sports back in any capacity this past weekend with the NFL draft. Finally, there was something on, you know, I know it was a virtual draft. All the players were at home.

Even the commissioner was, look like he was a little bit hammered at times. But, you know, it was just, I was really, really happy to have those sports back. It was just, it's, I know it's small, you know, in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, it was just, it was really, really great to have that back. And, you know, it's just, it's going to be even greater when we get, we get sports back regularly again after this pandemic goes away at some point. And we will get out of this. So, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Locked on Penguins. We will be back on Wednesday. I am so sorry, everyone.

I have probably been stuttering like a complete moron. This episode, a massive case in the Mondays. So, yes, we will be back on Wednesday for you all with our new segment, and we'll be continuing that on Friday and potentially next week. We'll have to see if we have a more different segment for you guys coming on next week. I'll try to have also have some guests on for you guys this week as well. So stay tuned for that, and I will talk to you all on Wednesday. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the show's Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins.

Also listen to the national show, the Lockdown NHL National Show, show, an outstanding show there as well. So yeah, we will talk to you all on Wednesday.