Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins handed FIRST LOSS of the season by the Winnipeg Jets

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Pittsburgh Penguins stunk up the joint against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night, and Pat and I are going to recap that game coming up right after this. Your Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Huntser Hodes, joined, as always by Mike Coast, Patrick Dam, a bit later on in today's show. we're going to get into our first three shames of the year.

Starting point is 00:00:36 We've done three stars for the first couple of games. Now that the Penguins lost, we're going to do our first three shames. And Pat, we have a lot of good options to choose from considering how poor this team played on Monday. But kicking things off, Pat, have you seen, I know you've seen the movie Jurassic Park, right? Of course. Yeah, who hasn't seen Jurassic Park? It's a classic. If you haven't seen Jurassic Park, I don't know what's wrong with you.

Starting point is 00:00:59 But early on in the movie, you know when Dr. Malcolm is looking at the, the poop right there and is like that is one big pile of crap. That is exactly what we saw last night with the Pittsburgh Penguins. They played like a pile of crap like you see in that Jurassic Park movie. And it was just bad from the opening puck drop. Nothing was crisp. They were fumbling the puck like it was a grenade every single time. Eric Carlson played perhaps his worst game ever as a penguin.

Starting point is 00:01:29 Outside of two players, I think the rest of that team, completely stunk and, you know, they were out hustled, they were outworked, everything about bad performance was ugly, but I will start with one big positive pat, and that was the play of Sergei Murashav. He did not deserve to be just under siege for that entire game. The Penguins were very lucky that it was a one-nothing game going into the third period. A big part of that was because of Sergei Murashav. I thought his movement was really good. his athleticism was really showing the way that he was, again, just making these really big high danger saves was great.

Starting point is 00:02:07 At the risk of getting yelled at, I think he would probably want that third goal back, but I still think he played very well in this game. Great first start from him. I just feel really bad, Pat, that that was his first game of the season because no one else, I guess, wanted to really help him out. There's, the funniest thing I can say,

Starting point is 00:02:29 about last night's game against the Jets is the penguins have a lot of faith that Sergei Mureshov is going to be their guy for the long-term future. And last night was a good example of it because they were like, hey, you know what? Pretty much all of us are going to take the night off. You got this. And for the most part, he was kind of up to the task. And you said it.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Like, it was a big pile of crap against the Jets. And with the exception of Sergey Mershov and Ben Kindle, nobody played well. Everybody else was God awful. And I'll throw Declan Carlisle in there. I thought he played pretty well. Other than those three I'm with, He Pat, everyone else stunk up the joint. And then the other thing I will say is, again, I'm going to add the caveat that I have been adding on just about every episode up to this point.

Starting point is 00:03:26 It's early, shortened preseason, not a lot of practice. this time, plenty of roster turnover. So there's going to be nights like these. The one thing I will say, though, is an effort like this is unacceptable, strictly from an effort level. Because this is what I said about the Canadians game. The blown lead was bad, but you also had to factor in that the Canadians are a good team. But through the majority of that game, even through the blown lead, the penguins worked

Starting point is 00:03:56 their butts off. They played really hard. They played full tilt, hot. hockey. The Canadians are just good. Last night, not a high effort game. They did not have the same energy. And I get it. It's Winnipeg. They're not that good this year. And you're coming off the high of two emotional wins against the Flyers and the Canadians. Even in an 84 game season, you take a night off. A team will make you pay for taking a night off. Right. Exactly. Even a team that is on the second half of back-to-back with travel,

Starting point is 00:04:28 they still made the penguins pay pretty well. And I don't think the Jets did anything like insane or anything like that. They just stuck to their game and they took what the penguins gave them. The penguins just put together a horrific performance where they could not handle the puck to save their lives. Their passing was pathetic. They were not shooting the puck nearly as much. Everything about their game was bad. And you could tell, honestly, within the first couple of shifts, that it was like, ooh, like this,

Starting point is 00:04:56 could be a bit of a long night. And they had a chance, Pat, to steal this one or at least steal a point going into the third. But then all their mistakes that they were making came back to finally bite them because, you know, just bad defensive plays. And then Sergei Murashov, the first two goals, not his fault at all. And again, the third one, that one is just a really nice shot as well, perfectly placed right over the pad. I think, again, if it was up to him, he'd probably say I'd want that one back. But, you know, all the mistakes they were making,

Starting point is 00:05:26 he was bailing them out in the first few periods. And then that kind of stopped in the third. And the Penguins got what they deserved, basically. Like they were not playing well whatsoever. And again, I just don't like that type of loss, especially from an effort standpoint, but also because bad, that's a team that I don't think is going to be very good this year.

Starting point is 00:05:45 And they're on the second half of a back-to-back with travel. You got to put forward a better effort than that. I know it's early in the season. I think they're going to be fine. It's game three of 84. but I still want to see a little bit of a better effort than that. It's a tough mentality kind of night is the way I look at it. And it's the thing about that is it's something that is extremely fixable.

Starting point is 00:06:08 It's not a fatal flaw within the team. It's not a lack of talent. It's not them trying to play a system. They don't have the ability to play. It's not even a bad matchup because we know that there are going to be games throughout the season where there are teams that just do not. match up well together. We have seen that every single year.

Starting point is 00:06:29 There's always a team or two that even when you put the roster next to one another, you can even go back to the cup winning seasons where there were games where you saw a team on the schedule and went for whatever reason, they can't beat this team. They just don't match up well despite having more talent, having more talent. Last night was simply just bad effort, not a great mentality from the team. But you can fix that. And the way you fix it is you don't let it become a habit. You don't let it become a recurring theme.

Starting point is 00:07:01 And we'll obviously talk more about this tomorrow, but pretty highly emotional game coming up on Wednesday. So it'd be real easy to snap out of that going into Wednesday's game. Exactly bad. And for the most part, they usually play the capitals pretty hard. So I don't think that's going to be a problem on Wednesday. I think they're going to go in there and effort-wise have a pretty big bounce back. Now, whether they get the result, that's a different story. We're going to preview that game on Wednesday.

Starting point is 00:07:27 But I do think the effort level and the compete level, especially, are going to be raised quite a bit just because big rivalry game. It's one of your last times you'll see Alex Ovechkin in the regular season because he announced his retirement on Monday after the year. So I think that's going to be fixed. And I also think you can go into the video room, watch what you did wrong, clean that up, so it's not a problem moving forward. The other player who I really want to highlight in this first segment as a positive,

Starting point is 00:07:53 before we get into a lot more of the negative, is Ben Kendall Pat. By far the best player on the ice last night. The deflection that he had there to open the scoring was just absolutely ridiculous, to be honest. He has really done a good job of getting better with his hand-to-eye with those deflections, and he continues to look faster. He continues to generate scoring chances at will. The play that he made with Declan Carlisle's goal was also great. So I can't say enough about the level that Ben Kendall is playing at right now.

Starting point is 00:08:22 it already looks like it's only been two games i know short sample but it already looks like such a massive jump compared to what we saw just a few months ago in his rookie season we still haven't even seen him put together like that vintage wrist shot that he has his one-timer is also pretty good but what a start for him so far man i am loving what i'm seeing from this kid i'm also going to be a bit of a stickler here and say we can't call a 19 year olds wrist shot vintage he's way too young to use the descriptor vintage but in general in general i i love the shot when he decides to use he just hasn't used it yet but it's only been two games he will but i will say this one of the biggest narratives surrounding kendall going into this season is he got bigger he got stronger and it's

Starting point is 00:09:07 showing and here's how it's showing he's going to the front of the net yeah and it's not to say that in his rookie season he was afraid to go to the net he had no qualms getting into the dirty air areas on the ice. But now he's a factor in those dirty areas of the ice. His first two goals of the season have been deflections right in front. And it's because he has added some strength to his game. And he is able to box out defensemen. He's able to stand that ground and make the deflection. And for a kid who has a level of hockey IQ that Ben Kindle has, adding a step of speed and a few pounds of strength, you got the makings of what could be a pretty damn good player for the long run.

Starting point is 00:09:57 Again, I think he's going to have a pretty awesome second season. This is just the start so far. So I want to give him his kudos. Great performance last night. Same with Sergei Moroshov. I will throw Declan Carlisle in there last night. He was by far their best defenseman. Other than that, those are all the positives that I can really take away from this one.

Starting point is 00:10:17 And that'll do it for this first segment because in the second segment, we're going to get into quite a bit of the negative, including players that we felt did not play well, and there is a long, long list of those that's coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we have to tell you about a couple of sponsors, one of which is Kalshi. The puck has finally dropped on a new initial season, who makes the playoffs, who wins their division,

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Starting point is 00:12:46 Remember, you can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can follow Pat on most social media platform. at Sinan Fuwet, and you can follow the show's Twitter at LO underscore Penguins, and we're on Instagram at Lockdown underscore Penguins as well. All right, Pat, let's get into the rest of the lineup, which was pretty bad to say the least. Outside of Declan Carlisle, none of the defensemen played well last night, specifically Eric Carlson, I don't know what he was doing out there. Fumbling the puck, every single shift.

Starting point is 00:13:14 He was not shooting it like he normally does. His vision was way off. He was out to lunch in his own zone. every single time he was out there, it was an adventure and not the good kind of adventure. He was not good. Again, the rest of the defensive group was not very good either. I thought Nick Robertson, also Pat,

Starting point is 00:13:33 really bad game. The play that he made, Pat, that he tried to be cute along the boards. Buddy, get that out. It led to a goal against right after. You got to get that puck out there in that situation. Like, that's not good enough for me. We'll have more about him in the Shames segment at the end of the show.

Starting point is 00:13:49 But I kind of wanted to start there, Pat, because I didn't like his game, and I especially didn't like any of the defensemen's game outside of Declan Carlisle. Well, I do want to talk about Carlson for a second because he has games like this. Right. A couple times a season. And it is kind of baffling,

Starting point is 00:14:10 but I think I have figured out why it happens. And I want to draw some inspiration from Phil Bork, because Phil Bork, talked about this on the radio last night. I had a beer league game myself, so I had to hit the road during the second period. So I listened to the second period and then watch the third period in the locker room on my phone. So that was fun. But Bork talked about in the second period how the penguins don't have, at least we haven't

Starting point is 00:14:42 seen one yet. We know that there are guys on this lineup who can do it that can be spark plugs. You're like guys like Patrick Hornquist in the past is who, Bork referenced where when the team's flat, they would go out and have a shift where they would just be total chaos. I think Carlson is in that mold of player, that elite level player, that they understand the team is coming out flat. And instead of just doing what he does best, he tries to do too much. He tries to take over the game.

Starting point is 00:15:12 He tries to play out of his abilities and it leads to mistakes. It leads to turnovers. it leads to forcing shots that aren't there. It's no excuse for him having a piss poor game against the Jets, but I look at a lot of what he did last night, and it feels like he was like, all right, we don't have it tonight. We're not playing well. The effort isn't there.

Starting point is 00:15:37 The Jets are out everythinging us. If I just put on my cape and play Superman, I'll get us back in this game. And it leads to mistakes. And it leads to the kind of game he had last night. I think that's fair. He also talked about it after practice today where he said, yeah, I tried to snap out of it during the game. It did not work.

Starting point is 00:15:57 I'm moving on, but part of it was on me. He took responsibility for part of the loss, which he will do after those losses when he doesn't really play well. He will say, yeah, part of this was on me. I didn't have it tonight, and I will be better moving forward, and that's what I expect. You're right, Pat. He does this kind of, you know, four to five times a year somewhere along those lines. and then in the rest of the games, he looks like one of their best players,

Starting point is 00:16:20 which we all know he is. So he will be fine on Wednesday. He'll be fine moving forward. It just happens sometimes when one of your best players simply doesn't happen. And speaking of that, Pat, I do want to kind of continue this with a conversation,

Starting point is 00:16:34 a small one about Sidney Crosby. He definitely hasn't had his legs to start the season yet. I'm not concerned because this is Sidney Crosby. He is one of the greatest players of all time. I'm just saying that so far to start the year, just hasn't fully looked like himself yet, but I still think his big breakout is coming, where he's just going to rattle off a bunch of goals and points,

Starting point is 00:16:55 and he'll be typical Cindy Crosby that we have seen throughout his career. But I do think so far they're not getting enough out of him just yet. But again, just so no one yells at me, I do think it's coming. I just, I definitely didn't like his performance last night, just with everyone else for the most part. The way I see it with Sid now, and this is going to sound borderline insulting, and it's not my intent, I think we have to shift our mentality about Sidney Crosby, because it's not 10 years ago. And 10 years ago, Sidney Crosby would be consistently great for 82 games,

Starting point is 00:17:36 or however many games he would play in a season for whatever reason, injuries, you name it. Crosby is now going to be a lot streakier than he used to be. There are going to be five to eight, nine or ten game stretches where he goes off. And he has 15, 16, 17 points, handful of goals, a bunch of assists. And then he'll probably go quiet for three to four games, maybe five games. And quiet by Crosby standards, where instead of, double-digit points, he's going to have five or six. He's going to have a few assists and a goal or two. But I don't think we're in an era anymore where he is just going to be

Starting point is 00:18:22 consistently great every single night. I don't also think he's going to be bad. That's not to say that he is suddenly going to drop off a cliff and completely disappear for two weeks. But you're just not going to see Crosby takeover games every single night, but there are going to be stretches where he gets irrationally hot, and then there are going to be streaks where he goes cold by Sidney Crosby standards. And I think to start the year, we're seeing him gear up. He's going to start getting to that point. And probably through October, he's going to have a two to three week span where he goes off and then it'll regress a little bit. So like you, I'm not worried. I just think the mentality of the way Crosby is going to play right

Starting point is 00:19:07 now at his age and with the miles he has, it's going to look a little bit different. Yeah, I can understand that. I also think just at the start of the season doesn't have his full legs yet shorter preseason, shorter training camp, like less time for him to really get acclimated a bit more as he continues to play. He'll be fine. The points will come. The goals will come. No reason for concern. I'm just saying that so far, not up to the usual said standards, but in the long run, he is going to be totally fine just because he's sitting in Crosby, top five player of all time. Assuming he stays healthy this year, I still think he's going to lead the team in points, but just a little bit of a slow start, just something that I want to bring up a little bit.

Starting point is 00:19:50 And with that, that's going to do it for our second segment. Coming up to end the show, it's our first three shames of the year. And Pat and I, we got some good ones on here. That's coming up right after this. But before we get to that, we got to talk to you about one, more sponsor, which is Fandl. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever, only on Fandle. How rewarding are we talking? Well, more rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring, more rewarding than an 18-point comeback, and maybe even more rewarding than an offensive lineman

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Starting point is 00:20:56 All right, we're back here on the Tuesday edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hans and Hodes, joined by my co-Cost, Patrick Dam and Pat. It's our first three shames of the year. We've done our first three stars for two of the games. now it's time for some shames pat just go over once again the criteria here the more shames down the list the worst the performance is saying with the more stars correct so apologies to our audience for two things here one the immediate apology for right now you're going to hear me yap for a little bit right now because i'm going to have to explain some of this stuff and

Starting point is 00:21:33 then i'll get into my shames of the game and the other apology is for just that i have not done a good job explaining this segment. We've gotten plenty of questions about it. And I think I finally have the right explanation for this. So it is inspired by our colleague over at Locked-on Steelers. Chris Carter does a great job. Go listen to him. In fact, if you're listening to this on Tuesday, the Tuesday episode of Locked-on Steelers was what we are borrowing this from. What he does on Tuesdays is called stars and skulls. And it's basically that high school and college football inspiration of, if you have a good play or a good game or whatever for football,

Starting point is 00:22:17 coach gives you a star sticker, you put it on your helmet, you have a bad game, you get a skull sticker, you put that on your helmet. Since we're not doing the helmet thing and we're making it a hockey style thing, we had our three stars of the game after wins, and after losses, we will have our shames of the game. and you will see what we use for shames here in a minute. But it's real simple. One star means you had a pretty good game.

Starting point is 00:22:45 A couple good moments or one or two good moments. Two stars, great game. You were one of the better players on the ice. You had one great night. You get two stars. That's worth two. Three stars, you were arguably the best player on the ice. It's worth three.

Starting point is 00:23:02 And then what we will do at the end of the season, I'm keeping a tally of this in a spreadsheet. We will tell you who got the most stars. We will tell you who got the most shames. And that'll be that. And it's the same in the inverse for shames. One shame, a bit of a rough night, not your best effort. Two shames, pretty bad game.

Starting point is 00:23:22 Got to bounce back from that. Three shames, you were a big reason probably why the team lost. Same values. One, two, and three. We'll add them up at the end of the year. we'll let you know who got the most shame. So now, let's get into mine. From this game against the Jets, one shame to Igor Chinikov, two to Nick Robertson, and three to Eric Carlson. And here's why we've talked about Carlson. We've talked about

Starting point is 00:23:50 Robertson. Carlson, awful night last night, did not play well. Nick Robertson, turnover almost directly leads to a goal against. And it was an uphill climb for him most of the night. Chinikov might have some people scratch in their heads. Here's what I want to say. It got revised this morning, but after the game, he was credited with no shot attempts. And I don't think Chinikov played all that poorly. Then again, nobody really played well, save for a few guys. But if Igor Chinikov isn't getting shooting attempts or shooting the puck, his best asset, that is not what Igor Chinikov needs to do for the Pittsburgh penguins. So for that, I'm giving him one of my shames. Hunter, I have yapped more than long enough.

Starting point is 00:24:41 Let's go through your shames. All right. Well, I'm not going to put Igor Chinov on one of my shames, just considering how great of a start to the season he has had. As you said, Eric Carlson, he gets three shames for me. I am with you. Awful night. He was just one of the worst performances I've seen from him in a penguin uniform. Two shames for me with for Nick Robertson. I agree with everything you said. One shame for me, though, for Evgeny Malkin. I thought the puck was jumping over his stick. Way too often, wasn't making the right reads.

Starting point is 00:25:14 I don't think he was skating very well in this game. Just look like a very off game in general from Evgeny Malkin, and that comes after he had two really good performances against Philadelphia and Montreal. So I will ding him a little bit there for a shame. I was kind of going back and forth, Pat, because I also, you know, Crystal Tang, he had two really good games, start the season and then struggled in this one i didn't want to put both of them on there i sided

Starting point is 00:25:38 with gino because just because i think he was worse than tanger was in this one but on the power play especially i did not like malcon's game last night and just specifically talking about the power play wow the puck movement it was especially bad i could tell this was kind of going to be a long night when i saw that first power play chance come and go and it was like oh well i do think i i i do think Hunter. I do think that is something we should talk about real quick to end the show. Sorry to kind of rip the host chair from you on that one. But the penguins, and it's one game, so I don't want to overreact, but the penguins are going to eventually have to figure out.

Starting point is 00:26:18 And maybe it happens against Washington tomorrow night, but the Jets played a really aggressive penalty kill. And it really put the penguins out of sorts. And I think that was a huge, huge reason why they dropped the game. last night was because they got two different power play opportunities and two very high leverage moments that could have swung the game. And the Jets just played really aggressively. And that took the Penguins power play way off their game. And again, it's early. There's going to be time to develop chemistry and develop a flow. We've talked about that even after the wins. But I did

Starting point is 00:26:55 not like and was not encouraged by how they kind of fell apart when they got heavy pressure. Yeah, I'm with you there. I also think this is more of like a positive. It's kind of a way for the power play. I think the penalty kill has also ratcheted up a notch a little bit this year. It's you and I were texting about it, and I agree. It's kind of more of like a power kill. It's a bit more aggressive this year.

Starting point is 00:27:18 It kind of reminds me of what Carolina has done, what Dallas has done. Heck, even what New Jersey has done in the past when you've seen the type of penalty kill they've run when they've had one of the better penalty kills in the league. That's been a big positive to start the season. So I kind of wanted to end at least on a good note, Pat, where penalty kill continues to be really good in general. But the power play, as I was saying, I could tell from the first one they got that this was just kind of going to be an ugly night because the zone. Once they even gained the zone, they were not slipping the puck around like they normally would. They weren't getting any of those high danger areas. and even when they were trying to pass it,

Starting point is 00:28:00 they were just kind of playing patty cake. So just not a good night in general. However, it is one game. You flush it down the toilet, and you get ready for Washington on Wednesday, really big divisional game, and then you'll have Columbus later on this week, and then Dallas comes to town this weekend.

Starting point is 00:28:18 So you weren't going to go 84 and O as much as we wanted to joke about it, but it's a good opportunity for the staff and the players to watch some video, clean some stuff up and get ready to go in Washington to try to get to three and one on the season on Wednesday. Pat, unless you have anything else to add for this game in this episode, I think that's going to do it for the Tuesday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much taking the time to listen to slash watch this one.

Starting point is 00:28:44 We'll be back with another show on Wednesday, getting you all set for Penn's Caps, and our first warrior helmet Wednesday returns, and there's some pretty good options from this first week of the season. We'll have that on Wednesday. We'll recap this game on Thursday and then on Friday, get everyone set for the weekend back-to-back against Columbus and Dallas. So for Patrick Damp, I'm Hunter Hodes. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We appreciate it. We'll be back on Wednesday.

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins handed FIRST LOSS of the season by the Winnipeg Jets

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