Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins legend Jaromir Jagr hanging up the skates

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

They say all good things must come to an end, and apparently, that includes Jaromir Jagr's hockey career. In this episode, Patrick Damp talks about everything Jagr meant to the Penguins, hockey, and the city of Pittsburgh. He also makes the case that Jagr shouldn't have to wait the traditional three-year waiting period to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame. Then it's time to talk about the present. Patrick gets you ready for the Penguins' preseason opener against Buffalo on Saturday night. Finally, the NHL announced a few rule changes for the 2024-25 season and Patrick gives you a rundown of those changes. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit at eBayMotors.com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNHL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelNow through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. IndeedStill searching for a great candidate for your company? Don’t search, just match–with Indeed.Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed.com/LOCKEDON. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Penguins fans, I come to you today with a heavy heart to let you know that Yager Watch has officially come to an end. We're going to talk about that and more on this edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Your Locked-on Penguin. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, and welcome back to another edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Patrick Damp.

You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4 Wet, flying solo for one more time this week before Hunter Hodes returns next week, officially from vacation. And we get into the grind that is training camp preseason and the regular season. But for now, don't forget that you can always follow our show on Twitter at LO underscore Penguins. And our show is free and available every day on your favorite podcasting platform as well as YouTube. and before we jump into it today, today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Now through September 22nd, all Fandual customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial

of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit Fandul.com to get started. So I was fully ready to begin this show talking about day three of training camp and getting everybody ready for the first preseason game, which takes place tomorrow night in Buffalo. And then more and more, reports came out, began becoming public, that one of the greatest players, not just to ever put

on a Penguins jersey, but to ever play the sport in Yarmir Yager, has announced that at the end of the 24-25 season, he will be retiring. And you may sound like I'm a little bit all over the place right now, because I'll be completely honest, this felt like something that. that was never, ever going to happen. It felt like Yarmir Yager was a superhero straight out of Marvel Comics, that he was going to exist forever and ever and just constantly continue to be this legend that was somehow bigger than the sport itself. But a lot of reports, it originated with Bleacher Report,

as well as on Russian TV through Yager's agent, that at the end of this season, he is going to hang up the skates. That'll be 37 years of playing professional hockey in some capacity. He was playing professional hockey in 1988, 1989, in what was then Czechoslovakia. He then gets drafted to the Penguins in 1990, and he has just been one of the greatest players to ever come through this sport. So it was genuinely a little bit shocking to hear that for the first time since the 1980s, Yarmir Yager won't be a professional hockey on planet, a professional hockey player on planet Earth somewhere. Excuse me.

So this is really cool. So I'm going to spend the first segment just waxing poetic about Yarmir Yager, his legacy, everything else surrounding it. So I want to start really at the beginning. because I don't think until recently a story about Yarmir Yager coming to the Penguins got as much play as it really should have. And maybe that's just because I'm 34 years old. He quite literally has had a professional hockey career longer than I've been alive. But Craig Patrick had been interviewed multiple times in the years since being the Penguins general manager and drafting Yarmir Yager.

and everything he did. But he told the story that in the 1990 NHL draft, there were four teams ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins in that draft that was Quebec, Vancouver, Detroit, and the Philadelphia Flyers. And in pre-draft interviews, Yager basically told these teams, no, I'm not coming to the National Hockey League right away. I'm going to continue to play in Czechoslovakia with the team I'm with, which was, I believe, Cladno still at the time. And he told Craig Patrick, yeah, I'll come right away. I will come to Pittsburgh because I want to play with the living legend, Mario Lemieux. And as they say, the rest is history.

The Penguins drafted Yarmier-Yager fifth overall in the 1990 draft. He goes on to help them win the 1991 and 1992 Stanley Cup championships, the first two cups in the franchise's history. and he played a massive role in both of those Stanley Cups, stepping up in an incredible way, especially in 1992, when Lemieux had the broken hand injury, courtesy of Adam Graves with the New York Rangers in the second round. He really put the team on his back against the Rangers

as they waited for Lemieux to return, and just had an absolutely legendary career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, 11 seasons, 439 goals, 640 assists, 1,079 points across 806 games. We already said the two Stanley Cups. He won the Art Ross Trophy as the league's top scorer five times, and four of those five came in consecutive years between 1999 in 2001. So at the height of his powers in what was essentially the dead puck era, he was still putting up absolutely crazy numbers with the penguins. Then we know what happens in 2001. The team is in financial dire straits.

They don't have the cleanest of breakups. He gets traded to the capitals. He gets booed every time he comes back to Pittsburgh. and then that brings me to my favorite Yarmir Yager moment. And that is the summer of 2011. When if you were around like I was, I was in college for this, it was the early days, I guess you could say, maybe not so much early,

but really kind of the infancy of things like Twitter and blogging. The Penn's blog was at the Abbot. height of their powers in this era. They were getting so many readers a day, and this was Yager watch time. It looked like it was going to be a reunion with the Penguins and Yarmir Yager to the point where even the guys on the Penn's blog were calling Yarmir Yager's agent. If you were around for that, you remember that so well. There were memes, even though we weren't calling them memes yet. There were incredible blog posts. There was a live stream, basically a live podcast

from a lot of the Penns blog guys at the time. And then we know how it ended. It ended with him signing a deal with the Philadelphia Flyers and then to pour an entire bag of salt into the wound. He eliminates, helps eliminate the Penguins in that circus of a 2012 first round series against the flyers. So a lot of pain there and he became an absolute enemy, even more so amongst Penguins fans for spurning them for the Philadelphia Flyers. But then absence in time really make the heart grow fonder. As we saw this year, it was essentially a half a season celebration of Yarmir Yager. He was spotted in Pittsburgh so many different times taking in games ahead of getting his number retired in February, and that was just an incredible ceremony top to bottom. The banner itself

looks absolutely perfect inside PPG paints arena. We got to see so many legends from the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise in the times that Yarmory Yager was a part of it, come to town for the Jersey retirement ceremony. And now we wait and see because there have been in formal talks reported by somebody at the athletic Rob Rossi. I don't know why I said someone. Rossi's a great dude. We know Rossi. We love him. But that there have been informal talks in him having some sort of position with the Pittsburgh Penguins moving forward once his playing career is over, which we now know is coming at the end of this season. So I would love to see him in some sort of ambassador position with the Pittsburgh Penguins. I said it earlier

in this show's history after the retirement ceremony when those reports started coming out I think he would be a great European ambassador for the Pittsburgh Penguins he's a living legend there's so many people who look up to and admire

Yarmir Yager and everything he's given to the sport so I think he would be a tremendous European ambassador to get younger European talent into the system and to help bring these guys into the Penguins organization those diamonds in the rough that you might not always see or that maybe don't get scouted as heavily

by traditional NHL front offices. So that would be a really good position for him, I think. And I'm going to finish up this segment here. We know that the NHL or the Hockey Hall of Fame, excuse me, has their three-year waiting period post-retirement. For those who may not know, basically when a player retires and they are eligible for the Hockey Hall of Fame, it's three years post-retirement. So they have to be retired for three consecutive years before they can be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. There's only been two players in history who that has not applied to.

Wayne Gretzky and of course, La Magnific, Mario Lemieux. I am of the mindset as soon as the 24, 25, season comes to a conclusion in Chequia, Yarmir Yager should be getting a call on his cell phone immediately from the Hall of Fame selection committee to just say, hi, Yarmir, welcome to the Hockey Hall of Fame. He has just, if you don't even count his international numbers, if you just count the 24 years in the NHL, 766 goals. 1,921 points, two Stanley Cup championships, multiple MVP's, multiple scoring titles. He is one of the greatest players to ever play the sport of hockey.

And it would be an absolute travesty to make him wait until 2028 to be inducted into the hockey Hall of Fame. So on record right now saying that Yarmir Yager should be in the Hall of Fame class. next year as soon as he is retired. But that is going to do it for the opening segment today. When we come back, we do have to talk about the present. We do have to talk about training camp day two and get you set for the Penguins' first preseason game on Saturday in Buffalo. And we will do that right after this.

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Welcome back to the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am Patrick Damp. Flying solo one more time this week. Hunter Hodes will return to the show full-time on Monday as he's wrapping up his vacation today. But today was also day three of Penguins training camp. And we're going to touch on that very quickly before we get you ready with some ideas. is for the preseason opener tomorrow night in Buffalo. And one thing I noticed today and looking at a lot of the reporting from the UPMC, Lemieux Sports Complex, is that something we've all been waiting for for quite a while, maybe not quite a while, but at the very least since the start of camp,

to finally see the Penguins' big offseason acquisition, Rutger McGrady, start to make a mark. He did score a goal in the scrimmage today between, team one and three. It was a great sort of crash the net, get to the front of the cage kind of goal, puts in a rebound, and we love to see that for a player like him.

We want to see him get to the dirty areas of the ice and win those puck battles and score those grinding goals. But also, it was his play away from the puck. He was willing to fill in for defensemen. He was being aggressive on the forecheck, wasn't afraid to be physical as well. And we also saw a lot of speed out of him. And this is something that we're looking forward to with Rucker McGority.

He is not known to have the greatest of wheels. So we do have to take this with a bit of a grain of salt just because it is training camp. It's scrimmages. It's not real hockey yet. We're going to see that here tomorrow night in Buffalo for the penguin's first preseason game. And hopefully we will see Magrorty as well as some of the younger players that the penguins have in the system right now get a shot tomorrow night against Buffalo, especially since a lot of the players who were at the Prospects challenge for both squads are at training camp again for both teams. So there will be some familiarity there.

We could see this on a little bit higher and elevated level, as I was saying to Hunter yesterday on the show, because this is elevated. While the Prospects challenge is guys trying to make their marks with the hockey operations staff watching on, now we get into preseason when guys are actually fighting for NHL jobs rather than just trying to increase their stock inside their own organization. So we had that. We also had quite a lot of, or not quite a lot, excuse me,

we had another player who seemed to step up pretty well in one of the scrimmages. And that was a guy that we spoke of yesterday, and that's Ypresi-Polyarvey. Now, I still maintain my thought process that it's going to be very difficult for Jesse Poo-Yarvey right now to get a spot on this team.

It appears that he's going to be a victim of a numbers game with so many new pieces brought in, especially within the bottom six. Pull-Yarvy, while he did play well to end the season last year, it would not shock me. to see him start the year in the AHL and get some more experience with the organization, try to be one of the best players at the AHL level, and work his way back up to the NHL roster.

But he did have a pair of goals in the scrimmage today, which huge thing for him, you got to make your mark somehow before the games start. Obviously, the games mean a whole heck of a lot more than what you do in Intra Squad. scrimmages, but again, you have to look at training camp as a place to make your mark from start to finish, whether it's in a practice, whether it's in a conditioning stint, whether it's in an intra squad scrimmage, excuse me, you do have to find times and opportunities to make your mark. And scoring two goals in an inter squad scrimmage, that's not going to rate too high on your

evaluation and training camp, but it's certainly not going to hurt it either. So we'll keep an eye on training camp every day as it develops and continues. As we've said before, training camp up at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, free and open to the public on all non-game days. So that means tomorrow if you're going to get a look at the team, you're probably going to be out of luck because it is a game day. They will have their morning skate at the UPMC Lemieux Complex, and then they will head to Buffalo, where they will take on the Sabres for their preseason opener.

while we don't quite have lineups for either team. One thing that I'm going to say I want to see from Mike Sullivan and the Penguins going into tomorrow's game is I want to see a lot of these young guys put in positions to succeed. I want to see Rutger Magrory playing. I want to see Ponomarev playing. I want to see Tristan Brose playing. I want to see these guys getting extended looks. while I don't see a lot of them outside of maybe McGrory making the NHL team right out of camp,

I want them to be given the opportunity to make the team. I wrote about this today on my column on kDK.com, Penguins Perspectives. For the first time in a long time, the Penguins have some youth and talent within the system. And Kyle Dubus, while it was not the most exciting offseason for him, you can make the argument that it was a tidy piece of business for him this offseason, getting players like Rucker McGrady, having another solid draft, and being willing to say we want to make this team a little bit younger. We want to supplant our big name stars with some younger players

so they can both learn from them and be assets to this team being competitive as well. and that's going to start with this preseason. You have to almost put these guys in a sink or swim position. I'm not abdicating, throwing them to the wolves and saying you're in the lineup just because you're young, and we want to see how you do in the regular season because this team still does want to get back to the Stanley Cup playoffs, and that has a lot of risk if you just give these young guys roster spots and let them play simply because they're young. But that means in the preseason, it's your time to really let them. them shine. We know what Sidney Crosby, Gennie Malkin, Chris Latang, Eric Carlson, so many others,

Brian Rust, even DOC to an extent, we know what these guys are capable of at the NHL level. Yes, we don't want them to go into the regular season cold, but we do know that they're going to be able to play. Get them some experience, a couple games here and there, especially the Hockeyville game in Sudbury. I think you're going to see as close. to an NHL roster as it's going to get when they have that game, simply because it's a marketing type of game, and you want to service the fans in that way by showing them actual NHL players

rather than making it another preseason tryout game. But in all the games surrounding that, I want to see these young guys really getting a look. I want to see them taking top line minutes, second line minutes, minutes on the back end. And the same goes for the goaltenders. We obviously want to see Jari. and Adelkevich a little bit in this preseason, let them get some game action, let them feel

the puck, get into a little bit of a rhythm, and then we can let these younger guys who are in the system like Joel Blumquist and Sergey Murshov really get extended looks to see what they have in them. So going into tomorrow's game against Buffalo, when the lineup comes out, I'm really hoping to see a lot of the young guys get a shot. I don't need to see the veterans playing all these games, because there are opportunities to be had for these young guys, and I would love to see them take those opportunities. So we will see what happens there. That game is tomorrow night in Buffalo at 7 o'clock.

I believe it will be on the Penguins Radio broadcast on their website. Other than that, we will have a recap of the game and some notes for you on Monday when Hunter returns. And when we come back here on the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast, there are some rule changes coming to the NHL this year. I'm going to break down a few of those to make sure you're caught up, and we will do that right after this before we tell you about our second sponsor, and that is Fandul. You've heard us talk a lot about Fandul, America's number one sportsbook.

Well, we have something a little different for you. Now through September 22nd, all Fandul customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then with a YouTube TV base plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment and you can cancel anytime.

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I cannot recommend it enough. Just visit fandul.com to download America's number one sports book. All right, welcome back to the Friday edition of Locked-on Penguins. I am your host, Patrick Damp. And as I said, just before we went to break, the NHL put out a video today. You can see it on their social media channels as well as their website.

But there are a handful of role changes coming to the National Hockey League this upcoming season. And before I jump into any of them, I got to look at them and think, did we? We really need a whole heck of a lot of these changes. So we'll start with what is probably one of the most controversial things in the National Hockey League right now, and that is the puck over the glass delay of game role. The NHL announced that this will now be a challengeable play. However, there are some stipulations on this.

Coaches can challenge a puck over the glass penalty, but it's only for the penalty itself, as in they will not be able to challenge a missed call. Say they think that a player on the opposing team flicked the puck over the glass and it got missed or something like that. They're not going to be able to challenge that. But if their own team flips the puck over the glass and replay shows that it hit an opposing player, it hit a stick, it hit the glass and then went out or didn't go out clean in anyway, they'll be able to put a challenge in on that penalty.

But on the flip side of that, there is consequence for it. Should they get it wrong? It will immediately become a five on three power play for the opposing team as a failed challenge will lead to a delay of game penalty. Excuse me. So I really don't think we need to do this. I think in all reality, this needs to be a warning and then a penalty in the NHL. I think 95% of the time when a player throws the puck over the glass in the defensive zone, it's pretty much just an accident.

It's very rarely ever purposeful. I don't think you're going to see if you take this penalty away, suddenly a bunch of players flipping the puck over the glass in desperation. I just don't think that players are wired that way. I also think if you change it to a warning and then a penalty, it'll be just fine. I think you get won a game. If you flip it over the glass, you're not going to be able to change lines here, face off stays in the defensive zone.

And if you do it a second time, then it'll be a two-minute delay a game penalty, simply just to keep some kind of a deterrent in place rather than making it a constant penalty. I know there might be some bias there for me because we look back. at the 2016 Stanley Cup run when the Penguins took a couple of those penalties against the capitals and it was just an absolute madhouse about it. But that's pretty much that for that one. So challenging is now on the table for the puck over the glass penalty. And ho-hum, who knows. Another one that I think is fine enough. I don't think this was really that big of a deal. but as someone who's always looking for an increase to offense in the NHL,

one of the new role changes is there will not be a line change allowed should a defending team dislodge their own net. So essentially, it gets treated as an icing call. If the team knocks the net off its moorings, causing play to stop, the offending team will not be permitted to change lines after the net goes off its pegs. Again, another role change that, fine, whatever can't say, I'm too passionate about it one way or the other.

A couple other ones here before we close out the show. There is a bit of a funny one that is a role change to this year. There will now be a warning issued to teams for players who have their skates over the boards prior to a line change or are sitting on the boards while play is in motion, the teams will get one warning. Should they not change or there should still be players sitting on the boards, it will be called as an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. I didn't know that there was suddenly an influx of players just hanging out on the boards during play.

Apparently, the NHL saw differently and decided that this is something they need to address. So that's apparently a now role change in the NHL. There's going to be more face-off minutia because, as we all know, you and I go to hockey games just to watch the officials and the linesmen. We're not there to watch our favorite players or hockey. We're there to watch the referees. But essentially, following an icing, this is where the face-off changes come. The offensive player will also be given a warning should they have some sort of face-off violation. Their feet are not in the right place.

you want to categorize that. And then a second violation will lead to a bench minor two-minute penalty. And finally, the last rule change they announced today is that when goalies are hurt, if there's an injured goalie and they are taken out of the game, when the team brings their backup onto the ice, they will be allowed to take a warm-up, get a couple warm-up shots from their team to get themselves in the flow of the game. it doesn't appear that it's going to be required.

So it is strictly the choice of the goaltender and the team. So say Tristan Jari and or Alex Nadelcovic get hurt in the middle of a game and they're taken out in lieu of the other one for the backup. That backup will be allowed to take warm up shots if they so desire. But those are the rule changes. The NHL announced today on their website as well as their social media pages. You can check those out there. but that is going to do it for the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

Hunter will be back on Monday, and when we return on Monday, we're going to give you a breakdown of the Penguins' first preseason game, which is Saturday night in Buffalo against the Sabres. But for Hunter Hodes, I'm Patrick Damp. Thank you, as always, for tuning in. Have a great weekend, and we will talk to you again on Monday.