Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Looking at John Marino's season, plus could the Penguins go after a familiar face in free agency?

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

The season reviews continue in this episode as Hunter gets to John Marino. There's already been a lot of John Marino talk during the offseason, but Hunter now fully fives into the numbers from him this year and also gives his take on what his eye test tells him about Marino. Will he ever get better offensively? Is there more than one way to unlock that part of his game? Hunter then looks at his defensive impacts from this season and why they were actually up from a season ago. Is it due to playing with Pettersson more than Matheson? Just how good is that pairing together? Finally, Hunter looks at what the Penguins should do with Marino during the offseason. What could they get back in a trade for him? Should he be used as trade bait? Would it be the right call to bring him back? After that, Hunter does a small segment on Jack Johnson after Josh Yohe wrote an article about him for The Athletic on Thursday. He dives into the article and looks at new info that came out about his signing and why it makes GMJR look even worse. He also complains about how so many people in the fanbase were wrongly accused of not being fair to the player after he was signed while also knowing that he's likely a great human. Finally, Hunter ends the show with a potential bottom 6 UFA target that could be a real possibility this summer.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Athletic GreensAthletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/NHLNETWORK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone. Happy Thursday, June 16th. We're almost through another full week of episodes for the Locked-on Penguins podcast. For today's episode, we're going to continue the season reviews, the player grades at least. We get to John Marino today as we continue our rank through the defensive core. Talk about how he did this season, especially in the playoffs, what the team should do with him over the off season? Should they use him as trade bait? Should they keep him? And if they do keep him, what do I expect from him next season? We're also going to do a little bit the Stanley Cup final from Wednesday night and look at a certain article that Josh Gilly from the athletic wrote today about Jack Johnson and yes probably for the first time in two

three years well I shouldn't say that probably for the first time in well over a year we are going to have a segment dedicated to him and just some thoughts overall from that article and just it's penguins related and it's it's it was a very interesting read with how Josh was talking about the signing, the infamous signing, of course. And I also have a couple other things for the last segment for the show. So it's all coming up right after this drop. Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, happy Thursday. Welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodesner. on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can also follow the shows, Twitter, at L.O. Arnold Sopanglingens.

And, of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen of the day. So let's jump right into this episode. And we'll get to our season review of John Marino. So another season in the books for him. He's officially starting his massive long-term commitment to this team. When Jim Rutherford signed him to that, he was at that six-year term, 4.4 million per. And so far, hasn't lived up to it yet. This season, I thought, overall, he was good defensively.

And, you know, he's been like that throughout his career. You know, this season, when he's on ice, the penguins had close to 52% of the shot attempts, break even goals for scoring chances, 51.4% for the Penguins when he was on the ice. High danger chances, 52.2% of those. That's the best he's had since 2019-20. actual high danger goals for 26 27 against so right around 50 50 for that um you know in my opinion he was better this season than he was last year um even strength offense though you know that's that's the big thing where he's kind of a black hole for me um if you go on um hockey viz.com

um with micha blake mcurti stuff and you subscribe to him and i can't recommend his site enough to everyone to anyone that wants to you know dive into analytics a little more and just to see them as a useful tool to help evaluating a player. Even strike offense from Reno, minus 0.29 expected goals for per 60 when he was on the ice. If you look in front of the net, it is a blue hole, which is bad. You know, you want all that area to be red, which means you're generating more chances than the average player. this this is well below average than the average player i'm the only part that's red in the

offensive zone is right outside the dots like the valve maybe 20 25 feet outside the and a little bit of red um to the left side of the point otherwise um it's it's a black hole now defensively again he's a strength defense um minus point one expected goals against not a lot of red honestly in the defensive zone um it's mostly just there's a lot of lot of blue there. And that's what you want defensively. That means that he's not giving up a lot of scoring chances and shot attempts against that could lead to goals. You know, he's doing his job with Marcus Pedersen. And I think that's probably one of the more underrated pairings at Lee. Why, I think him and Pedersen are so great together. They suppress shots at a very high level.

And if both are on the team next year, I'll be really curious to see how they can continue to, you know, go off of what they did this year. their penalty kill. You know, he doesn't usually take a lot of penalties, but he does kill penalties on this team. And, you know, the only main chances for the opposition in the zone, center point right there. Nothing in front of the net, nothing at the two dots,

nothing even 15 to 20 feet out. He does a very nice job of clearing the net there, power play. Not really too much there, to say the least. But, yeah, I mean, this is who Marino is. at this point in his career. Is the elite defensively? Yes, you know what you're going to get from him with that. Offensively, though, it's a work in progress. I'm sorry to say. I mean, he's just, it's, it's year three now, and his offense got worse this year. I mean, he only had one goal, and I'm pretty sure that came in October or November of the season. The fact that I can't even

remember that goal off the top of my head just goes to show how limited he was offensively this year and how that's probably going to be moving forward. You know, I remember after his rookie year, which was so promising. I mean, you know, he was, remember, he was probably going to get some Calder Trophy consideration if he did not break his cheekbone. I believe that came with only, I want to say that was about a month, month and a half left in this season. And he was generating quite a bit of buzz.

I mean, I was potentially, if I had a vote, I was potentially going to put him on my ballot, but gets the injury, misses most of the end of the regular season. comes back for the last week or two, plays well. But, you know, it's just that kind of injury is such a killer because, you know, other players are able to step up and, you know, they were able to do their job a bit better. And just in the time, because Moreno was not playing. Second season goes down a little bit, not himself. I think that's partly due to playing with Mike Matheson.

A lot of those minutes, I don't really understand why Mike Sullivan decided to do that. This year, you saw him play Marcus Pederson most of the time. And, you know, that that pairing was very, very, very good, to say the least. And I can try to find the teammate here, teammates here. You know, he is what he is at this point. I don't mind having him on the team. Again, I think he's great at preventing zone entries.

I think he's good at exiting the zone. The only thing I wish is that he just provided more offense. I mean, I hate that the Penguins Blue Line right now, at least, only has Chris LaTang and Mike Matheson. as the two offensive playmakers, and then there's four other players who are basically just defense-first players. I think in a perfect rule, you want three of each. I don't really care what side they're on, but in my view, I would want three offensive distributors from the point, and then three other players who can, you know, maybe not provide as much offense,

but give it right back defensively with how well they can play in their own zone. That's how I would construct my defensive core, to say the least. But I think right now, I think right now, now the Penguins, it's a little bit of a weird ratio to say least, which is why I think, you know, one of these players is probably going to get moved over the off season. Maybe it's for to put POJ up there. Maybe it's to go out and sign a cheaper free agent. That's maybe a bit better offensively. I don't know.

But with regards to Marino at least, you know, I would put him out there as trade bait. You know, I could, I would see, you know, what is his value around the league? You know, do, do some GMs see a lot of upside? this player because he's only played three full seasons in the NHL. He's still relatively young in his early 20s. I'm curious to see here what, you know, what, you know, and if that was a little noisy there, my dryer decided to go off right as I'm finishing my segment here. So that's just, that that's perfect timing. But, you know, that's, that's the big kicker here. What is his value around the league. I think they can honestly get a forward back for him, you know, probably that can play

in the top. I remember, you know, Vancouver was discussing him during the trade deadline, I'm pretty sure. And I think they weren't really willing to give. I think they were potential willing back to give back a four, but I think the penguins were kind of like, you know, you know, we don't want to give up a player that can really help us right now. I mean, you know, sure, they did that with Zach Aston Reese and they did that with Dominic Simone, but, you know, those are also two bottom six forwards. But, you know, I didn't, I don't think they really wanted to give up a top four defenseman, especially with Chris LaTang, potentially out of the door. So I thought they made the right call to keep him. I would shop him, though, but if you're not

getting what you want to get for him, just put up probably a forward, you know, you can pull back, going to next season with him as the second right-handed defenseman. And I think that's perfectly fine. I think he showed enough this season that he can still play. And, you know, he's still mostly fine on the blue line. Again, I want more offense from him, but at this point, I'm not really holding my breath, to say the least. So that wraps up this first segment of the Lockdown Hanglons podcast. Coming up in the second segment, we're going to get into the Stanley Cup final and that interesting Jack Johnson story that I saw on the athletic.

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They're available at built.com right now, but they're going fast because they are delicious. You can go to build.com, use prone code lock 15 and get 15% off your order. That's prone code lock 15 for 15% off at built.com. All right, we're back here on this episode of the locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hoadies. You're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. all this shows Twitter at LO underscore Penguins. Okay, so again, you know, this is probably the first time in over a year that I am going to discuss

the infamous Jack Johnson contract and the player, of course, that is Jack Johnson. So Josh O'Dia of the Athletic, what a pretty cool story this morning, you know, about Johnson, you know, time in Pittsburgh, you know, talk to Jim Rutherford and all that stuff. If I can just find this here on my Twitter. Um, and you know, Josh basically just writes in this story, you know, he, you know, I hope he wins the cup and then he calls it a career. And he had some interesting information about Johnson in this story. And, you know, he's right about this. You know, they gave Johnson a five-year contract. They were under no obligation to do so. There was no bidding more. He was viewed around the league as a declining player who's underlying numbers would undermine a team's championship hopes more than augment them. He says, I've spoken to Brotherford at times about the contract. To this day, he said, he said, still doesn't regret it. Shocker. I know. I'm not shocked at that. And Rutherford even said he could still play, could still kill penalties and help a team win. And he is a character guy. And of course, that's, that, that's what he says.

But this is, this is the big kicker here in Josh's story. I truly believe that Rutherford felt like he was being something of a father figure to Johnson based on what happened. He surely was aware that other teams were knocking down Johnson's door with long-term offers. Then it goes to say, my belief is that John's wanted to set him up for a lot my belief is rutherford wanted to set johnson up for life excuse me to make sure he was taken care of it's not every day that a pro athlete loses most of his money to his parents the whole story yeah you can find that story by aaron port's line on the athletic or you know just do a couple of google searches and stuff it's actually a very sad story in all seriously

i know people joke about it on social media um especially when he was here but in all seriousness that is a very sad story and his parents just totally you know screwed him over that that's that's that's the nice way of saying. I'm not going to cuss on this podcast here, but that's that that's the nice way of putting it, to say the least. And, you know, I think the biggest thing of Johnson's tenure, and I said this when I started the podcast, I think he was really only here when I was really first starting out the show. And of course, they bought him out and that was probably one of the greatest days in the show's history. But, you know, I gave him a chance because, hey, you know, I've ate crow plenty of times.

I'm willing to do that again. But sure enough, what I thought was going to happen came to pass. And he was not good. And sadly, a lot of us, you know, fans, other media members, saw this coming. But the biggest thing about the Johnson era in Pittsburgh was the lies that people told to the fan base. And what I mean by people, I mean by certain media members. It was not one or two people in the city of Pittsburgh that were doing it. It was multiple.

And they would always be, they would either just try to be a contrarian for the sake of doing that, access journalism, you know, Jim Rutherford being able to, they don't want to lose, no, talking to Jim Rutherford and all this other stuff. And at the end of the day, I guess shilling is probably the best word for it. And it wasn't like a committee was formed to be like a Jack Johnson, the defending committee, But it was a bit weird how, I'm not going to name names here. I'm not like that kind of person. But it was more than one or two media members in this city that would always defend him,

defend Jim Rutherford, say it was a good signing. But yet, I test and analytics-wise, he stunk. You know, there was no reason to give him that five-year term. And by all accounts, he is a great guy on and off the ice. He's probably a very nice dude. I've heard nothing but great stories about him. But at the end of the day, the penguins screwed themselves by signing him. He was that freaking bad in the return to play series against the Montreal Canadiens

when he had debt players basically just owning him on a nightly basis in that series. Literally his pairing with Justin Schultz was one of the worst pairings I think I've ever seen in a playoff series. I'm not even being, I'm not even joking there. it was the two other pairings at that time. Dumlin-Latang, pretty sure it was Pedersen-Marino. They were fine. But otherwise, that pairing, every time they were on the ice, it was either a scoring chance against or a goal was in the back of their net.

And, you know, sure, you can also put it on Mike Sullivan, you know, for icing that pairing. And, you know, you definitely can because there's probably no reason for either of those two players to be playing. But you can also fault the general manager for, you know, just signing A, Schultz to, you know, that kind of extension and also B, Johnson did that contract. And, you know, Rutherford's tenure here was always very weird. You know, had a great 18-month stretch where he was killing it. And then after that, just totally barfled all over himself, including with the Johnson signing.

And, you know, then he just quit on the franchise. I think at the end of the day, that's really what you can say about him. And, you know, the Penguins, they're still paying for it with that Johnson contract. They had to buy that. They had to buy him out. And it's going to be at least the next couple of years until he is off their payroll. It's funny. The Penguins are paying him right now to be in the Stanley Cup final.

That's how pathetic it is. And again, you know, I hope, honestly, he's the first guy to get the Cup of Colorado wins. I hope when Nathan McKinnon gets it, if the abs win, he skates it right up to Jack Johnson, be like, hey, man, here's the Stanley Cup. And I hope he skates it around the ice and just looks like the happiest kid on Earth. I truly hope for that. I'm not even being facetious here. You know, it would be pretty cool.

I would love to see just what the yinzers in this city say. Excuse me, just what they say either in person with each other or on social media because it would be truly hilarious. And, you know, I think my buddy, J. underscore 155, Jason. And I shouted him out numerous times on this podcast. He has done an incredible job with explaining the Jack Johnson situation. And he had a great threat on it on his Twitter today. And as I just said, you know, Jack Johnson is a good person. But, you know, we just we still can't ignore the propaganda campaign,

justifying the acquisition and then telling everyone like, oh, my God, you know, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just a stupid fan who you just look at the numbers. You don't know him as like an actual person, character guy. He's going to blow you all away and all this other stuff. But again, you know, what came, what I thought came to pass, what I thought was going to happen, came to pass, and he stunk. And at the end of the day, a lot of the very vocal majority of the fans were right.

Now, should he have been the scapegoat on everything? Absolutely not. But the people that would always rush to defend him, you know, every time like a goal was swore against the Penguins, even when he was not on ice, you know, I would see media members, you know, just be smart butts and just be like, oh, Jack Johnson's fault. Oh, hey, this is Jack Johnson's fault, right? I'm like, you guys don't have to be just fools for the sake of being fools. I mean, we only, the people that were in that category only give out criticism when it's warranted. And I felt like when he did screw up, which was pretty often, I thought, he deserved it. And, you know, I'm not going to fault someone like Johnson for taking that kind of contract. I mean, five years, three and a half million, who wouldn't. take that contract, but it was still an egregious move that really screwed over the penguins for, you know, at least two full seasons. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, Sadin Gino were still a lot younger at that time.

They could have really went all in and maybe gotten some, you know, better players to come in, especially on the defensive side of the puck and, you know, also forward-wise. But, you know, they had a GM that was just basically throwing stuff at the wall and hoping that it stuck. And, you know, this was one of them and it didn't work out for them. But at the end of the day, you know, I'm glad the avalanche are in the Stanley Cup final, and I do wish for Jack Johnson to, you know, walk off into the sunset here when the cup called a crew. I mean, I think that's really what he's missing at this point. And, you know, sure, the only reason he's in the lineup is because Sam Gerard is not playing.

But, you know, I still wish the best for him. And, you know, I do think he is a good person. So that wraps up the second segment of today's episode. So coming up in the third segment, I'm going to get into something that I listen to on DK's Daily Shot of the Penguins of DK for Thread Sports. It was one of his just J1Qs that he runs. And it was an interesting topic that there's a potential free agent that the Penguins could be going after. So I'm going to get some of my thoughts on that and whether the Penguins should sign him coming up here in this next second. All right.

I'm back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Honor Hoddies. We're going to follow me on Twitter. Hunter Hodes. You can also follow the show his Twitter at. L.A.1Square Penguins. So I was listening to D.K.'s DailyShodd, this was on Tuesday, Wednesday morning, and someone asked, D.K., you know, what free agent are you looking for for the Penguins to go after?

And he always says he loves getting that question. But he threw out the name, and if you listen to it, you probably already know, but if you didn't know, throw out the name right now, he said he wouldn't be surprised if the Penguins go out and get Zach Aston Reese again. And he said it's because Mike Sullivan absolutely loves him. He said Ron Hextall absolutely loves him. And, you know, it sounds like they never really wanted to give him up. I almost lost my train.

I thought when they were getting the Ricard Raquel trade, but the Ricard Raquel deal, excuse me. But, you know, that's the price you pay when you want to go out and get a top six to top nine winger. but, you know, D.K says he'll be cheap. And, you know, he might be right, I would say with that, because he doesn't bring a lot of offense. He came over to Anaheim, played in 17 games, doubled up his goal total.

Two goals in 17 games, only one goal in 52 games for the Penguins this season. Underlying numbers, when he went over to Anaheim, when he was on ice, the ducks had 46% of the shot attempts, but basically break even, and actual goals, four goals against, 48% of the expected goals. Scoring chances got caved in a little bit, 45.6% of those.

High danger chances, though. He broke even, 50.6%. And he was only on the ice for two high danger goals against. So defensively, he is still a rock for them. And, you know, he would be cheap. You know, at the end of that, you could probably get him for a million to 1.5. But, you know,

I kind of want fresh blood in from another team. I mean, sure, you know, it would make sense because he is one of their best penalty killers. You know, nothing really happens in the defensive zone when he is on the ice. But offensively, he just doesn't do enough for me to justify bringing him back. And, you know, at the end of the day,

if they do bring him back, I'm not going to be super upset about that. I'll just be like, well, you know, I kind of saw it coming, especially with talking about it on the podcast. and listening to it on DK's Daily Shot. But I still feel like you can get bargain-level contracts for good defensive players and someone who can drive a little more offense for maybe a little more than 1.5. I think the Penguins would have the cap space to give out like a one-year, two or a $2.1 million contract to someone in pre-agency.

But I'm not surprised to hear that Sullivan does love Aston Reese. I mean, he would always, you know, ice him in pretty, big situations down the stretching games. Remember last year against the Islanders in the playoffs, right? You know, when the Penguins were trying to ice a game, Ashton Reese, Bluger, Tannett, go out, feed them to the wolves, and they wouldn't usually do their job. They were probably, I would say, the best fourth,

arguably the best fourth line in hockey. After he did leave the team, I will say the penalty kill did struggle, so he would be a good asset back there. And, you know, forward line-wise, I mean, I mean, I would probably have him in the lineup over someone like Brian Boyle. I think that would be perfectly fine, in my opinion. But, you know, with Boyle being a UFA and with other players being UFAs as well in the bottom six,

I feel like the team can and they should do better. But, you know, this is Ron Hextall we're talking about here. So at the end of the day, he always loves going after people who knows. He even said, you know, he thanked Ashton Reese for being a great penguin. He also said he didn't really want to deal him in the deal. But again, that's the price you pay when you're in a win-now mode. He is a UFA so he can sign anywhere he wants. But how much he loved being a penguin, I think.

And how much I think, again, he's loved by everyone, I think, on this team would not be surprised if he takes a hometown discount to come back here. Maybe you could put him back on the fourth line with Bluger and McGinn, if McGinn is back too. You figure out what you can do on the third line if Capitin doesn't come back. maybe you re-signed hynen Rodriguez, all those guys. And, you know, if your top six is something like Gensel-Crosby-Rust, you know, Malkin with, I don't know, Zulker, another winger,

and maybe a different winger on Malkins line, and you have a third line of, you know, Hine, Rodriguez, and Carter, and then maybe your fourth line is Astony Spulcher. Again, I'm almost Bosch-Brock McGinn's name. You know, that's still a pretty deep team, but, you know, I still want to see them make changes. to that third line.

So, you know, his underwings, they weren't overly terrible. Even with the penguins this year, you know, right around 50% in shot attempts when he was on the ice, 60% of the actual goals score for the penguins, 51% of the high danger chances for he was on the ice for nine high danger goals against in 52 games. I mean, those are pretty good numbers to say at least. So let me know, what do you all think of a potential Aston-Ree's reunion? Would you bring him back, if you would? what kind of contract would you sign up to?

Let me know in the comments. You can DM me on social media, all that. So that will do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I again, appreciate every one of you listening to the show. And I'll be back on Friday with another episode of this podcast from Monday and Tuesday next week. I won't be in my normal house. I'm taking a vacation with my family to Florida for a few days. So you all will get a nice view for the video portion of the episodes.

Please start the week. but again that will do it for this episode appreciate all of you listening to this one and i'll be back with another episode on friday