Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins look to keep up their winning ways at MSG!

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

The Pittsburgh Penguins are back in action on Friday and they're set to take on a struggling New York Rangers team inside Madison Square Garden. Hunter and Patrick get you guys set for that game and start the show by breaking down the Jacob Trouba trade and how the Penguins will not have to go against him tonight. They look at how this could set up the Rangers to make even more moves since they have a lot more cap space before discussing how the Penguins can take advantage of the Rangers struggles tonight. After that, they look at how Alex Nedeljkovic needs to have another good start after his win against the Flames before ending the show with a preview for Saturday's showdown against the Toronto Maple Leafs.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PrizePicksDownload the app or go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNHL to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. 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.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. 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.

The Penguins will kick off another weekend back-to-back starting tonight against the New York Rangers, and Pat and I are going to help you get you guys set for that game, plus get you all set for Saturday's game against the Maple Leafs right after this. You're Locked-on Penguins, your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. joined by my co-s, Patrick Dampe. You can follow him on all social media platforms

at Cendent and Furwet. And you can follow the show's Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. Of course, thank you all so much for making this your first listen slash watch today. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. You can start the season with a big return on Fandul.

New customers can place a $5 bet and you will get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. visit fandul.com to get started. So the Penguins will look to make it five in rows starting tonight against the Rangers. And this is a Rangers team, my friend, that is very, and I mean very down bad right now.

They had a great start to the season. They embarrassed the Penguins in Pittsburgh. They were winning a lot of games, but lately they have been losing and losing badly. They are just barely in a playoff spot right now, not looking anything like the Stanley Cup contender that we saw earlier this season and last season. They're kind of looking like a team

that's in the mushy middle right now, which I'm very surprised to say when you look at the amount of talent on this Rangers team. And there is some breaking news. As we are sitting down to record this, the Rangers have officially traded Jacob Truba to the Anaheim Ducks for a pick and then a young player who I can't even pronounce his last name. I'm not even going to try to do it on the showpad. If you want to try, you go right ahead. I think you're probably going to fail at it as well. But Truba had been in rumors for the last couple of weeks. He'd been rumors, honestly, going back to the summer when they thought they had something lined up, didn't happen, they came into this season. Everyone knew this was probably going to be his last season as a Ranger.

Well, he didn't even make it the full year because he's been dealt to the ducks. And I have to laugh because the ducks, they didn't even make the Rangers send any picks to take on this contract. They're just like, okay, we'll take on his entire $8 million salary. I say this all the time. I'll say it again here. Even though teams have bad contracts, there's always that one sucker that is, will to bail you out. And that's exactly what Pat Verbeek did here with the Ducks. Again,

just no clue why you're even taking on $8 million. And you're giving the Rangers back a pick and a player. It just really doesn't make much sense to me. But Pat, the Penguins have a big opportunity tonight because this is a Rangers team that is going to be upset. They just lost their captain. They're going to be obviously a bit fired up. But they're going to be upset. They've lost a lot of games lately. Penguins have a real opportunity here to really potentially kick the Rangers butts tonight at home. They do. And let's start with the trade itself. We do have to add an addendum to the Elliott Friedman when teams see that you're drowning. They don't throw you a life vest. They throw you a boat anchor. Like you said, there's always at least one team. And it's usually a team

that's like you said with Anaheim. They have been bad for a long time. They're trying to rebuild. It's not going very well. They've been spinning their tires for quite a couple years now. One of their supposed franchise cornerstones and Trevor Zegris, even though he's hurt now, has been in trade rumors for quite a while. And I was going to come on here today because it looked like this morning that they were going to do what they did with Goudro a couple weeks or months ago, whenever that was, time has no meaning anymore.

Months ago, yes. But where they were going to wave him. him just knowing that there was a team that was going to claim him. And that looked like what they were going to do this morning with Truba. It looked like they were going to waive him. And somebody was going to suddenly wake up and go, oh, Jacob Truba's on the waiver wire. Didn't know about that.

Going to pick him up. And I was going to go on a rant about how the NHLPA needs to go hard at the Rangers for that, which I still think they do because if they were a competent union, they would go after teams that do that because you are not honoring the contract that you sign that player to, but different argument for a different day. And I mean, I look at this Rangers team and I know we've talked about this with the Penguins and Mike Sullivan. I think the Penguins are just a poorly put together team and this is the end result of going

for it for as long as they did. On the other hand, on the other end with the Rangers, this is a team that's playing like they want to get Peter La Violet fired. Because last two years, they have been a very solid team. They have been a bona fide Stanley Cup contender, and they've got the wins and the results to prove it. Yes, they didn't win the Stanley Cup, but only one team wins the Stanley Cup every year. And they have been among the teams that you would realistically say have a shot to win it.

This year, there hasn't been that much of a change from the last two years. It wasn't like they overhauled their roster in the first. past couple of seasons. This is largely the same team. And if that's the case, this is a, this is a situation where you can say, yeah, there's probably a coaching problem here. Because at this point, I look at this roster, it's still very talented. It is still a very good team. And say what you will about Jacob Trouba. Yeah, he's not worth the cap hit he is signed to. And his game has certainly fallen off. But he didn't stink. Yeah. he was probably a second or third pairing defenseman,

but he is still a physical deterrent. Yeah, he crosses the line quite a bit, but you know when you played the Rangers the last couple of years and Jacob Truba was on the blue line, you weren't getting free passes. And yeah, he has slowed down. Yeah, his positioning isn't what it once was, but still a very serviceable defenseman.

So while you said, congratulations, Pat Verbeek, you played yourself, congratulations to Chris Drury for being able to just, dump that entire cap hit off. And now the Rangers, if they suddenly decide to figure it out, they've got a lot of cap room to work with now. Yeah, they can go after quite a few good players that eventually hit the trade market. Obviously, it's still early.

We're in early December right now. But, you know, say January, February comes around where you start seeing more teams put players, you know, up for trade. You can really see the Rangers go after a player or two, especially if they do figure it out. I mean, obviously, I think they still have Chris Kreider out there available for trade as well just because they're not playing well. And while I think I'm more skeptical about that trade happening, there's still a real world where they do make more additions if they especially figure this out. I don't think it's necessarily as much of a coaching problem.

You know what you're going to get with Lobulet. But I think the thing is, a lot of the Rangers star players this year have not been as good as normal. And just getting into the Rangers lineup that you'll see tonight, you have Panarin with Trochec and Lafranier, you have Kreider with Sabinajad and Riley Smith. And speaking of Zabinajad, he has not been good this year. He's overpaid. He's not playing well in the defensive zone. He's not scoring as much. I mean, there was a chance.

I believe it was a week, week and a half ago, he has the puck on his stick. The games in Philadelphia final seconds just totally whiffs on a half empty net. And it's like, man, he's also very down bad this year. He's not playing well for the Rangers. you have their third line with Will Cooley, Philip Heidel and Capo caco, and I could see Cappelacco being on the trade market again. Then you have Sam Carrick and Jimmy Visi on your fourth line. Then defensively, you have Ryan Lindgren and Adam Fox. Lindgren, I think, is kind of cooked at this point for the Rangers.

He's not really giving them much value, especially defensively. Keandre Miller, he's on the second pairing. He's kind of taken up a little bit of a step back. Braden Schneider, I still think is good. I think he has still more room to grow, in my opinion, but he's still a fine second, third-parent guy. then you have Zach Jones and Victor Mancini on the third pair. And then, of course, starting in net, arguably the best goal-tender in the league right now, Igor Shasturkin, though I will say he has been really struggling as of late.

I don't think all of the problems are on him. The Rangers are one of the worst defensive teams in the league, similar to the Penguins. But you look at his last nine starts, Pat. Two and seven, eight, eight-eight-two-saint-percentage, three-nine-three goals against average. I don't think I've seen Igor Shosturkin struggle like this since he can. came into the league, if I'm being quite honest with you. So the Penguins, they have a big opportunity tonight to really make Shasturkin's life hell. You've got to get traffic in front of him. You got to make him go side to side. You've got to really piss him off. That's the main

thing. He sometimes gets a bit heated when he plays the Penguins. You always see him and Crosby kind of go at it behind the net when Crosby's going for a loose buck. So you really need to get in his kitchen, get him off his game, and then maybe you'll start to get a few bounces go your way. That's really, I think, the biggest key to winning this game is get in Shisturkin's kitchen and really tick him off a bit. Yeah, you kind of beat me to the Schisturkin part. The last handful of games, he has looked human. And what I looked at, and he has given up four or more goals in three of his last four starts. Is that entirely his fault? No, because as you said, the Rangers in the past month or so have been right there with the penguins as one of the worst

defensive teams in the league. And in two of those four games, he's had that save percentage under 900, which isn't that big of a deal, because as we know, we are in an era right now of NHL hockey, where the advantage is starting to swing back to the shooters rather than the goalies. The average save percentage in the NHL right now is hovering in and around 900. So he's part of that as well. But when you are the best goaltender in the world, as Igor Shasturkin is, you expect him to be better than the average. So that's a big thing.

The other issue that the Rangers are having is in their last 10, they have lost six of those 10, and there was a five-game losing streak involved in that. And during that streak, they can't score. They have been outscored 29 to 15 in their last seven games. games. So this is all of their problems coalescing into one, one perfect storm. Their defense is not very good. Igor Shisterkin's looking human and they can't get goals from anywhere. So for the penguins, the Rangers season won't be ended tonight if the penguins win, but the penguins can push them just a little bit closer to that, that cliff. And we, talked about this early in the week. Penguins don't get scared by the bright lights of Madison

Square Garden like a lot of teams do. They have had in the Crosby era a lot of success at Madison Square Garden. Agreed. And I even tweeted it this morning on my fanboy hat on right now. I need Ciddy Crosby to have another great performance against the Rangers. So Chris Derry goes out there and makes a big time panic move. Please. That's all I'm asking for tonight. And I also, again, do want to see more of the Penguins' good habits for this game. Like they've had these past four games outside of, you know, blowing that three goal lead against the Panthers earlier this week. But I'm going to discuss more of those good habits and more about this Penguins-Rangers

matchup coming up in the second segment. But before Pat and I gets that, we got to tell you all about our first sponsor, and that is Fandall. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandall. That's America's number one sports book. Because right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $150 and bonus bets if you win. The Fandul Sportsbook Act gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats,

view live, play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. Just visit Fandul.com to join today, and you will get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's Fandle.com, never waste a hunch and make every moment more of Fandle and official sportsbook betting partner of the NFL. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-host Patrick Amp. And Pat, you hinted at something about how poor the Rangers have been defensively this year.

Yeah, I mean, they really are right on par, no pun intended, of course, with the Penguins. The Penguins have given up 289 high danger chances against 5-on-5 this year. The Rangers, right behind them at 252. They are a wreck in their own zone. So the Penguins, they will have their fair share. of chances tonight, it's all about the penguins not giving back the same amount of chances the other way. Penguins have been really good in terms of creating chances this year.

There are top five in terms of expected goals. Again, they just have to make sure they're not giving those chances back in their own zone. The Rangers, over these last two to three, four years, they are a very good team off the rush. That's where they get a lot of their offense. They can still forecheck, don't get me wrong, but they're primarily a rush-based team, in my opinion, when I watch a lot of their tape. So if the Penguins can cut down on the amount of rush chances against like they've been doing,

it feels like these last four games, I think they'll have a shot at really winning this game and making it five in a row. You know, that's a good habit that I've been noticing. They're getting the depth scoring. They're getting the goal-tending. Alex Nadelcovic is scheduled to start in this game while Tristan Jari goes on Saturday. And speaking of Ned, I want him to continue off his good start that he had last week. He played really well in that game against Calgary after a really rough,

month of November. I want to see him make it two in a row here because outside of that start against Calgary, it's been kind of rough for Ned this year. It has. And Hunter, I got to say this, I think I'm just going to go because it's like you're reading my mind. You're bringing up every point right before I do. But I guess that's what happens when you do a couple hundred episodes of a show like this together. But you're right. This has to be another bounce back game. But this time, it has to be for Alex Nadelcovic. Yes, he played well against Calgary. But the Penguin played such a complete game. And yes, I know they gave up a couple goals,

but the penguins, for the most part, played such a complete game against the flames that they didn't really have to call upon Ned all that often to make any saves. He just had to be good enough to keep them in it. And he did that. The Rangers, yes, they are struggling. Yes, they are in a very bad way right now.

But there is still talent on that roster. You still have Artemi Panarin. You still have Pittsburgh native, Vinny Trocheck, LaFrenier. He's leaving all those bust allegations way in the rearview mirror. Sabenajad, yeah, he's struggling. So is Criter, but those guys are still very good hockey players at the end of the day. Crider's a penguin killer, man. Every time it feels like these two teams play,

Criter always has a goal. So I know he struggled this year, but he loves playing the penguins, man. But as you said, this is a team that gets a lot of its offense, in transition. They get a lot of offense off of the rush. And if there's one through line through this four-game winning streak that the penguins have had, they're cutting back on mistakes like that. We have been talking about it all week. There have not been unnecessary pinches by the defense. They have been making high percentage plays in the offensive zone to keep them from giving up those odd man rushes.

So if you can do that tonight against the Rangers, you will find yourself in a position to win the game. So they have to keep those good habits up. And let's be honest about the Rangers here. They are going to get chances. This is still a team that will get chances. And when that happens, Alex Nadelcovic has to step up and make a save. Other thing I wanted to mention, not to harp on goaltending too much, especially not on the Rangers side, but this has to be a Michael Bunting game. Yeah. This has to be a game where Mike Sullivan, tells him, I don't care what is happening in the offensive zone tonight. Your toes are at the tip of the blue paint.

And you are in Shisterkin's face all night long. I want him to know how you smell. I want you to know what kind of gum he's chewing and stay in his kitchen all game long. Because we know when you do that to him, especially against the penguins, he gets really, really frustrated. Oh, I agree. And again, it feels like every time these two teams play, we always see Sid and Shisterkin go at it.

So what's one more in Michael Bunton getting in Shisterkin's face and getting him a bit riled up? You know, the Penguins are looking for back-to-back wins at the Garden for the first time since January and March of 2019. So first time in a little over five years. And the Penguins also 14 and 9 in 3 in their last 26 games, against the Ranger. So history is on their side. But again, the biggest thing for me is you want to get back into this race. You want to show you, me, a lot of other people that this comeback is for

real, go out here and win this game. We are both still very skeptical about this right now. Yeah, they've won four in a row. They've beaten some good teams. But I want to see, is this just a run-of-the-mill winning streak that all bad teams have during the season? Or are you actually building towards something here and really making a comeback to try and potentially push for a playoff spot down the line. We're both pretty skeptical about that right now. But a win tonight, I think gets us a bit closer, even though they also have Toronto on Saturday, which we'll get to in a second, Colorado the next week. So again, continue to try and prove us wrong. Here is the best way I have heard it put. And it is from the great Adam Gretz. There's a difference

between a streak and a run. If the penguins can get a win tonight, they don't have to beat Toronto tomorrow, but if then they can get a point or two out of Colorado next week, they're on a run. And there's a difference between a streak and a run. And then the one last thing to build off is something I said about, yeah, the Rangers season won't end tonight if the penguins win,

but the penguins can push them a little closer to that cliff. The Penguins win tonight. they jumped the Rangers in the standings. They're at one point behind the Rangers right now. They'd win tonight in regulation. They jump the Rangers in the standings. And that is a far, far cry from what happened on opening night. That is crazy to think about,

considering how far the penguins have been at various points from them this year, the fact that they can jump them in the standings where the regulation went, yeah, I know points percentage, you know, games in hand, all that. they definitely do matter. But the fact that they can still jump in the standings just goes to show how ridiculous this season is. And again, we're not even at 30 games right now.

But I think that will do it for the second segment. Coming up to end the show, we're going to discuss Penguins lease in the second half of the back-to-back on Saturday in Pittsburgh. So don't go anywhere. That's coming up right after this. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast.

I am one of your host, Hunter Hodes, joined by my co-coes Patrick Dam. So, Pat, the Maple Leafs, they're playing some very, and I mean very good hockey this year. They're first in the Atlantic right now, 16 and 7 and 2. They did just get back Austin Matthews, who's playing very well. And these two teams played a pretty good game earlier this season in Toronto. I didn't think the Penguins played poorly in that game.

They just kind of played like a team that just, again, wasn't really a playoff team. You're going up against a team that's going to make the playoffs. More times than not, the playoff team is going to win. And the Leafs had more talent in that game. They played better. It was the type of result where I'm like, kind of just shrugged my shoulders. I'm like, okay, that's kind of what I expected. At least they didn't get blown off the rank in that game.

But the Penguins will have an opportunity to strike back in this second matchup against the Maple Leafs. But they're going to have to earn it. Mitch Marner has been awesome this year. Nine goals, 36 points in 25 games. William Nylander has also been great. 16 goals. He leads the team in goals. 27 points.

Tavaris is about a point for game. Matthew Nyes has been awesome this year. And even though Matthews has missed a little bit of time, he's back now. Eight goals, 16 points in 16 games. You look at their lines. Matthews is with Marner on that top line. You had Sabarison, Nealander on the second line. You have Nick Robertson and Stephen Lorenz on the third line. You have Ryan Reeves on your fourth line.

You have OEL and Chris Tannab, meaning your top pairing, Morgan Riley on the second pairing. And then goaltending-wise for this game, you know you have both Stolars and Joseph Wall. Yes, the Maple Leafs do have quite a bit of injuries, but this is still a very deep team top to bottom. And it's like every time we discuss the Maple Leafs, you do not want to get into a game where you're training chances with these guys, especially considering the amount of talent that the Maple Leafs can throw at you, especially up front with Matthews, Nealander, Marner, Tavaris, Matthew Nyes, etc. So, Pat, what is your big thing the Penguins need to do in order to win this game against Toronto? Well, I already made one reference to what was formerly one half of the 32 Thoughts podcast and

Elliot Friedman. So I got to make a reference to his former cohort Jeff Merrick, where he always, used to say, you might as well just call hockey goaltending. Because if you want to know what is a big, big difference for the Maple Leafs so far this year, it's goaltending. Whether it's Anthony Stolars or Joseph Wool, both of them are turning in tremendous performances this year. Both have saved percentages north of 920. So not only can this Maple Leafs team score, as we all expect them to be able to, they get saves too. So for the penguins, this has to be the absolute simplest back-to-back game that you can think of. Everything has to be simple plays.

Because if you try to get into any kind of a track meet with a team like this, you're going to get your doors blown off because as you went down the rundown of all the talent on this team. And oh, look at that. Austin Matthews, maybe the best. goal score, future best goal score after Ovechkin catches the record in hockey. Oh, look at that. They get him back. And he's as advertised. The guide scores goals like people need to breathe. And I look at this Maple Leafs team. And the biggest thing I've noticed about them, other than everything I've already said, they're playing complete hockey this year. When we've watched them

in this current era with their big three or four, whatever you want to call them. them, you could always notice little chinks in their armor. Yeah, they might be a little top heavy or their defense isn't all that great or their goal tendings letting them down. This year, they're getting help in all three zones. Their goaltending's good. Their defense is solid and they can still score. So this is a team that you have to play an absolutely flawless, simple game against,

or it's going to get ugly. And when they played them up in Toronto earlier this year, it was a couple bad bounces that went against the penguins. But when you play a really good team like Toronto, those bad bounces end up in the back of your net and you lose the game. So for the penguins, regardless of what happens tonight against the Rangers, when you return home tomorrow, it has to be a stupidly simple game or it's going to get ugly. Pretty similar to what they did against Calgary. honestly last week and when they returned home for that back to back you know just they kept it really simple they played really well in their own zone they capitalized off the rush they also got their forecheck going and they really didn't give much back again the other way they kept their

pinches down they weren't too aggressive with them and they were able to blow the flames out i'm not sitting here and saying the penguins are going to do the same thing to maple leads and blow them out but if you're able to bring those elements to that game against the leaps you'll have a really good shot at winning so i definitely agree with you on that and the biggest thing i think for the Maple Leafs this year, especially with their improved play in their own zone. That's Craig Maroube, man. He was always known as a very good defensive coach and a good overall head coach in St. Louis. But the biggest reason for that was how the Blues played in their own zone.

You can see his, what's the word I want to call? I guess the markings of that in this team for Toronto. So he makes his teams play a very honest brand of hockey. There was a great story. it wasn't so much reporting, but it was something that the hockey world talked about early in their season. They were winning a game pretty handily.

I can't remember who they were playing, but they gave up a couple quick goals, and they still had the lead. Baroube called time out and basically told them, lock it in, lock down, because we're not doing this. And if you remember a lot of the teams of years past with Toronto,

they'd let their foot off the gas and they'd still come out with a win. Barouba is not letting them do that. He is making sure that they are playing a full 60 or 65 minutes. And if you play the Toronto Maple Leafs, you can tell that this team might be developing a little bit of a killer instinct, which is something they have lacked for quite a while. And again, we'll see what happens once the postseason comes, because that is their boogeyman.

But we still got a few months until that gets here. so we can only analyze the now rather than try to predict the future. And in the now, this team is playing like a team that is saying, yeah, if you're going to play Toronto, you better come for 60 minutes or it's going to be a rough night. I hear you. But again, let's see what happens when April comes around and see if they can, again, A, get out of the first round and then potentially be,

get out of the second round, especially if they do play Florida in those first two rounds. And when you look at the Atlantic standings right now, they're probably going to have to go through Florida if they want to get to the conference final. And I'm still at this point a bit skeptical that they will when I look at Florida to pair to Toronto. Well, I don't know. I think the penguins might have broken them because they beat them in overtime and then they go get beat up by the flyers.

So it might be a little bit of worry time in Florida. Just kidding. They're still very good. Do not take that seriously. Yes, of course. Are the Panthers broken to the Penguins fully just send them to hell? Here's my call. I'm just joking.

The Panthers are going to be completely fine. all of it. I think that'll do it for today's episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Thank you all so much for taking the time to listen to slash watch this one. Pat and I will be back with another episode of you all on Monday. And hopefully, of course, Jesse Marshall will be there for Marshall Monday to break down both of these two games and see, could the Penguins be on a six-game winning streak on Monday? Or could they have won five of their last six games heading in Monday? Or will they lose both of these games and annoy us once Monday comes around?

All three options very much on the table. over these next few days. But again, that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for tuning in. We'll talk with you all on Monday.