Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins look to make it three wins in a row against a struggling Islanders team

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

The Penguins will look to get their third straight win tonight against a banged-up Islanders squad. Patrick and Hunter give their keys to victory in what will be the Penguins' first of three straight divisional games. With an Islanders team struggling on special teams and with injuries, the Penguins will have to take advantage tonight to give themselves a boost to start off a tough week. Then, we got some updates on injured forwards Bryan Rust and Matt Nieto, both of whom are taking the trip to Long Island, Carolina, and Washington. They discuss where they could fit into the lineup and who could come out. Finally, a really cool story about how Rickard Rakell was able to bounce back and start the season hot dropped on The Athletic on Tuesday. They discuss that and how if the Penguins want to get back to the playoffs, Rakell will have to be a big part of it. 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 big week of Metropolitan Division matchups kicks off tonight against an old pal, the New York Islanders. Hunter and I are going to talk about that and more on this edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast. 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 back to another edition of the Locked on Penguins podcast.

I'm one of your host, Patrick Damp. You can follow me on Twitter at Synonym 4Wet, joined as always by my co-host, the one and only Hunter Hodes. You can follow him on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. You can give our show's account a follow at L0 underscore Penguins. And of course, we appreciate you making this part of your daily routine. And don't forget that we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts,

as well as YouTube. And if you're following us on YouTube, don't forget to click that bell get notifications so you can be ready when we drop all of our Monday through Friday episodes. Before we get started today, 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'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. Visit fandle.com to get started. The Penguins have a huge week coming up this week. All Metropolitan Divest. matchups. They've got the Islanders tonight. And then later this week, they've got the Carolina

Hurricanes and the Washington Capitals. But as I said, Hunter, it all starts tonight when they head to Long Island to take on an old foe in the New York Islanders. And it has not been the best start for the New York Islanders this season so far. They have a four, six, and two record. They have got injuries up and down the lineup. They are without Anthony Duclair, Matthew Barzal, and Adam Pelick. So three big injuries for them. And as you were saying to me before we hit record, one of the biggest issues that this Islanders team is having is something that us as Penguins fans can really relate to. Their offensive numbers, their underlying numbers on offense, not so bad, not very Islanders like, but the puck is not going in.

The Islanders currently are 31st in the National Hockey League and goals for per game with 2.25. And this is going to be a unique opportunity for the Penguins tonight because while this isn't your prototypical Islanders team that plays a very boring style, they have adjusted a little bit under head coach Patrick. The biggest thing for them is that the penguins tonight are playing a team that cannot finish is struggling on the penalty kill, excuse me, and can't really score. But again, they still have the great equalizer in Ilius Sorokin. So Hunter, to you for the penguins tonight, what do they have to do to get a victory?

Honestly, Pat, I have the same key against the islanders that I have every time the penguins play against them, and that is you have to capitalize on the chances that you get, and you want to get traffic in front of Ilya Sorokin. Sorokin did not play well for the Islanders last year. He was low-key benched down the stretch for Semyon Varlamov. Varlamov was one of the biggest reasons why the Islanders were able to sneak into the playoffs. He was giving them better goaltending compared to Sorokin. Now, this year, you look at the numbers for the Islanders' goaltenders, Sorokin has been much better. Seven games, he's three, three and one, nine, 22 save percentage, 2.29 goals against average.

Varlamov, he's played in five games, 3.21 goals against average 8.70s percentage, excuse me. So it's basically flip-flopped compared to last year. And with the Islanders this year, they're not as good defensively. Even last year, I would say, too. They aren't as good defensively as they were under Barry Trots, but they're still competent enough. I mean, I remember under Trots, one of the biggest reasons why I hated when the Penguins

would play the Islanders was because they were so. good in their own end and they always got the goal tending to help them out. You look up and down the Islander's team and you're like, oh, there's not really too much talent here, all that stuff, but they had enough offensive talent to compliment the way they play in their own end to go deep in the playoffs. I mean, there was a reason why they were within a game of going to the Stanley Cup final a few years ago. Barry Trotz was doing an excellent job, but they were just that good in the defensive zone and

got timely goals from a lot of their depth. This year, their offensive numbers, they're good. it's similar to the penguins under Mike Sullivan these last few years before this year since the penguins are finishing their chances. Their underlying numbers are good. They're just not getting any finishing. It doesn't help that Barzell is out for the next month, two months and a half. Anthony Duclear, who I thought like it was a really good pickup for the Islanders.

He's out. Adam Pelick, one of their best defensemen is out, but they still have some good pieces up front. Kyle Palmer, the ageless wonder at this point. He has five goals and nine points in 12 games. He always kills the penguins. Same with Brock Nelson, five goals, seven points, and 12. 12 games. Anders Lee, he has three goals and six points and 12 games. Those are just three penguin killers that they have on this team. And if you are a betting person, I would definitely bet at least

one of those three to score against the penguins tonight because, again, they score virtually every game against the penguins. But my biggest key is, A, getting the traffic in front of Sorokin, considering he's one of the top five goaltenders in the league, and B, capitalizing on your chances. The Islanders may not be as good defensively as they used to be, but they're still competent enough that they're going to slow this game down, they're going to play it to a slog, and you're going to have to really capitalize on the chances that you get. It's kind of similar to the key that I had against Winnipeg.

You know, Winnipeg, they're much better defensive league compared to the Islanders, but the Penguins at least to start that game, they were getting the chances, and they were capitalizing on them before they just kind of barfed all over themselves in the defensive zone. But again, that's what I really come back to when it comes to this Islanders team. Yeah, absolutely.

And I hinted at this, I had to be earlier in the show. show is that I think tonight is going to be the kind of game that is won or lost in the special teams battle for the penguins because the islanders are not a good special team's team early in this season. They've got the 29th ranked power play at only 12.5%. So you need your penalty kill, which is currently for the penguin's sixth in the national hockey league at 86.5 to come through as it has for most of the year. And then on the flip side of that, their penalty kill, is not much better. It's ranked 30th at 65.2%. And then the penguins have a 22.2% power play,

which is good for 11th in the NHL. So when you get your opportunities tonight on the man advantage, you absolutely have to take advantage of them against the struggling Islanders team. And the other thing along with that, and it kind of builds off of what I was just saying and what you said is patience. We know how the New York Islanders play the game. They, even for a team that's not in that Barry Trots, slow it down, turn it into a slog kind of game, they are still the kind of team that is not going to trade chances with you. They're not going to give you the opportunity to turn this into a track meet. And even though the penguins aren't that kind of team anymore, this is going to be more

than likely a low event game. This is not going to be double digit chances for each team. This is not going to be a 40 to 30 shots on goal kind of game. It's going to be a game where when you have your opportunities, you have to strike. You have to take advantage because that is how the Islanders, even still under Patrick Waugh, beat you, is they low you to sleep, they take advantage of the opportunities that they get, and then they lock it down. So any chance you get tonight, you have to take advantage of it, whether it's extended zone time, in getting offensive zone faceoffs or finishing the good looks that you get in turning those

into goals. That to me is how the penguins are going to beat the Islanders tonight. No, I agree. I think it's, again, the same type of keys that we have against the Islanders every time they play against them just because the Islanders have been playing at least assemblance of the style for the last several years. Obviously, it was better under Barry Trots, but this is still the way they play, not to that great of a degree, but still, Patrick Waugh, he wants them to be responsible in their own zone while

pushing a bit more offensively. The jury is still out a bit on that higher. I still don't know what the islanders want to be as a team. It feels like they're just kind of stuck in the middle right now. They don't really want to contend, but they don't want to rebuild. They're just kind of in that mushy middle. They have a lot of term on a lot of these players with these contracts. So I'm curious to see what they do long term. But when you look at this week in general for the Penguins, this is the game you got to win. They're right there with you in the standings. The Penguins and Islanders, they split the four meetings last year. Penguins are six and four and three in their last 13 games against the Islanders. That goes to show how close these matchups are. They're virtually

50-50s every time they play. But with how big this week is with all these Metro teams, the Penguins have not, A, beat a Metro team this year, and B, they have not beat a playoff team from last year. This is a game you got to win just so you can head into later this week. just needing maybe a split in those two games. Obviously going three and no is the very big goal, but if you can win this game, get a split in the next two. I'll consider that a very successful week for the Penguins,

but they got to win this one. I'm right there with you. This is a game in this week's long stretch that I would count as a maybe not must win, but definitely should win, because it'll set them up and give them a little bit more of a room for a margin of error later in the week when they take on Carolina and Washington.

but we will deal with those games later on in the week. Penguins and Islanders tonight on Long Island at 730. You can tune into that on SportsNet, Pittsburgh, or wherever you watch games. But we also got some updates today on a couple of injured players. Hunter and I are going to talk about that as well as what it might mean for the Penguins lineup when we come back. But first, we've got to tell you about our first sponsor, and that is indeed. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire,

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I am Patrick Damp alongside the one and only Hunter Hodes as always. And we got a couple updates this morning on a couple of the penguins injured players, two of them to be specific, Brian Rust and someone you may have forgotten about who is a penguin, and that is Matt Nietto. Brian Rust skated this morning before the team hit the road by himself. He is actually traveling with the team, so there is a chance that we could see him back in action on this road trip. And joining him on the trip is Matt Nietto. He practiced with the team this morning and will also be on the road with them as they go to Long Island, Carolina, and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

So Hunter, this could make a lot of decisions difficult for head coach Mike Sullivan as, he might have two forwards at his disposal. So in your estimation, should we see these guys on this trip? Where do you think they slot in? Well, Rust is obviously going to come back in. I would assume he's going to be on the second line, if I had to guess. And then another player moves either down the lineup or out of the lineup.

And yes, for the fans out there that forgot that Matt Nietto is still on the Penguins, well, yes, he is. He's getting a bit closer to returning from this injury. We understand that he really. he didn't play much last year because he was a bit banged up. But I do think when healthy, this is someone that can help in the bottom six, can give you a little bit of depth scoring, can give you some good work on the penalty kill. I'm just not sure where he slots in right now.

Because considering how many forwards they have playing, I mean, do you want to take out someone like Cody Glass, for example? Would you take out someone like Jesse Poo Yardee for him? In my opinion, if I had to pick one, I would go Cody Glass coming out for Mattieetto. But again, they're going to have to figure out what they have in this player. at some point. I don't think you're going to have them be a healthy scratch for all the entire season. He's going to have to come in and show up the coaching staff what he can do.

He did it in sports last year. I thought he had a couple of good games, but again, we just don't really know what the penguins have in him just because he's been banged up his entire penguin's tenure. So that's going to make for some really intriguing decisions for Mike Sullivan. I still think we're a little bit away from Nietto playing. If I had to guess, it's going to be either later this month or in December, something like that. But for Rust, if he comes back to this trip, he'll definitely be playing.

I think of the top six, I think if they do decide to keep that Malkin-Krosby-Rekyll line going, I think you'll see Rust on the second line with someone like Eller or something like that. Yeah, that's kind of where I am as well. And the other thing that makes this a bit of an issue for the penguins moving forward, depending upon when Matt Nietto is activated, because he is still on LTIR, according to Pockedia. The biggest issue they have is they don't really have any anybody at Forward whose waivers exempt. So if you have to send somebody down, you are going to risk losing them for nothing. And you look at players like Cody Glass, I think he's been pretty solid, but I wouldn't say he's invaluable, but you still would like to hold on to him rather

than lose him for nothing. And the same goes for the likes of Valteri Pustin, who you think would eventually maybe be one of these odd men out. So this is going to be a really tough decision. for Sullivan. Although I look at it this way, I think if you can get Matt Nietto back sometime by the end of the month or early December, what you said, I agree with that you eventually have to figure out what you have in this player, especially if he's fully recovered from knee surgery and at 100%. Because you never really got that last season. You didn't really get the opportunity to see what you have in this player. It was in and out of the lineup. injuries and he never got a consistent look and you pursued this guy in free agency.

So you want to see if you made the right decision or not. But I do think at the same time, he has proven throughout his career to be a very solid bottom six contributor when healthy. And if you can get that version of Matt Nietto with a team that has shown they have an improved bottom six, that could really help this team push its way back into the postseason. potentially. I mean, again, it's just going to be tough because, like, I'm looking at the lines at least for the game tonight, based on practice yesterday. You know, Malcon, Crosby, Raquel, O'Connor, Eller Glass, Bontingachari-Poyarvi, Hayes-Lazte, and Boillard. Hayes-Vos-I and Boeh-Yarvy with Niedo and Pousin and his extra.

So when Russ comes back, someone's going to have to come out. You know, is it Yassie Poo-Yarvey? Is it Cody Glass? Is it Aminibovillier? Okay, someone has to come out, right? Now, if Nieto comes back at some point, too, who else are you taking a out of that lineup. Is it Anthony Beauvillier, who I think has been okay at times this season, but really hasn't stood out. But at the same time, I know the Penguins are also trying to audition him in quotation marks

for other teams just because of where they are right now in the standings. And if this continues, you can try and get something for him at the deadline if he's able to re-up his value a little bit. So, again, I just really don't know who you're taking out here. I personally would not take out yes, he pull Yardv, no matter what, because I feel like when this team is fully healthy with all their forwards, he is one of their 12 best forwards. I don't agree with scratching him, you know, again, recently.

And I'm glad that it looks like he's going to be coming back in the lineup tonight. But again, you have Houston in there as well, who's had a couple really good games recently. He had that really nice goal against Minnesota last week. He played a bit good later on that week as well. So this is a very difficult situation, I feel like, just because of how many. players, I feel like, are playing at least decently well in the bottom six.

I mean, Noachari, he's also had a couple really good games recently. I don't think the penguins are going to take him out with the way he's penalty killing and the way he's being physical. So, you know, Blake was on. He just came back to the penguins want to know what they have in him, considering they just signed him. So I'm just really not sure who's coming out. Neander's going to play at some point if he's healthy. It's just, man, I don't want to be making that decision, man.

I really don't. Yeah, I do not envy. Mike Sullivan on this one whatsoever. One last quick thing, something that we're going to dive into a little bit deeper later this week on the show. But I just wanted to make sure we got in as a mention. Tristan Jari off to a 3 and 0 start in Wilkes-Bare. He, like I said, 3 and 0.

He's given up only six goals. He's got a 1.95 goals against average as well as a 937 save percentage. So at the very least, without digging too deep into it, he's doing what he's supposed to by being sent down for that conditioning loan in Wilkes-Bair. So we will see if he can figure it out before he returns early next week from that conditioning loan. But that'll do it for this segment. When we come back, we got to highlight some great work from our pal Josh Yohei,

who had an absolutely awesome story about the one and only Ricard Raquel and how he was able to get his game back on track going into this season. But before we do that, we have to tell you about our last sponsor, and that is prize picks. Prize picks is the best place to get real money sports action. With over 10 million members and billions of dollars in awarded winnings, prize picks has made daily fantasy sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 100 times your cash. Run your game all season long on prize picks.

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So you can catch me there making my daily picks. So download the app today and use code locked on. NHL to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Download the app, use code Locked on NHL, and you'll get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks run your game. All right, welcome back to the Tuesday edition of Locked on Penguins. I'm Patrick Damp alongside the one and only Hunter Hodes.

And a player that we have been very high on so far this season is the one and only Ricard Raquel. we know what a struggle it was for him last year. Had the shoulder injury, came back, never really found his stride. You could see that it was bugging him quite a lot, both physically. And now as we found out mentally, thanks to some great reporting from the athletic and our pal Josh, who talked to Raquel about just that. And he basically said, I want to read this quote verbatim because it is a great one.

and I think it sums it up perfectly. So shout out to Raquel for saying it. He said, quote, I feel like what happened last year and what is happening this season are two different worlds. Boy, if that isn't the understatement of the season, because he is off to a white hot start looking like he is all the way back. And Josh did a lot of reporting on this, basically talking to Raquel about how something we speculated on. He pretty much admitted last season he got into. to his own head. He recovered from the injury. He came back, got into a slump. The negative self-talk started. A lot of the outside noise. Sorry, Ricard. That was also us as well, our bad. But.

And this year, this summer, he was able to work on his speed, work on his agility and shut out the noise. And look where he is. Yeah. I mean, we both said on the show. And you're right, Pat, we're sorry, Ricard, that, yeah, they could be looking into maybe training him this summer just with the season that he just had, the contract that he has, and it just looked like that he was a step behind at this point. But he said, the hell with that talk and everyone else that's doubting me, I'm going to go out there and be one of the Penguins' best players this season. And so far, he has been one of their best players.

He's off to a very hot star goal scoring-wise. He's been a really great playmaker. And he's been great on that line with againy Malkin and Cindy Crosby. I'm glad that they promoted him to that line and no one else because their numbers, all three of them together. they have been lights out ever since they started that about a week ago. They're outscoring teams. Every time they're out on the ice,

their expected goals is very high. The high danger chances for well over 50%. That line is humming, and I don't see it changing unless that line starts to really just come crashing down to earth or anything like that. But it's awesome seeing him have his confidence. And you're seeing him use his release so much more. Like last year, he was always second-guessing everything when he had the puck on his stick.

He would get it. And it would be like, I'm not really sure what to do here. Do I pass it or do I just try to use my release? And every time he would get the puck, again, he would be a step slow and he would have the puck strut with him. And then it would be going back the other way. And he just looked like kind of a broken player at times throughout last season. It was a level that we really hadn't seen from Raquel before.

But kudos to him. He has been outstanding this year. And I am so glad because if he wasn't scoring at the clip that he were this year, I feel like the Penguins would be a lot further down in the standings right now than they are. He's been a huge driver for this team since the beginning of the season. Obviously, we can wash out the opener against the Rangers. Everybody was terrible in that one. But there's another quote from it that I want to read because, and I will say it after I read the quote,

it made me think of one of my all-time favorite sports Twitter moments. Ricard Raquel says, I'm 31. You hear it. That's what you start to hear. I came in last season and thought I was in great shape, better shape than the year before when I was good. So it didn't start well. Then I heard people talking about my age.

Maybe I'm getting too old, end quote. All I could think of was that tweet about life versus sports where it's like, oh, I'm 30. I'm in the prime of my life. I've got all these years ahead of me. Sports broadcaster. Here he comes. The oldest player in the league.

He's 35, a medical marvel. So it did kind of remind me of that just because on a more kind of serious analysis note, I think this is something that, and it's something we could maybe talk about when there's a lull in the season or as an offseason episode, I do think with the renewed focus that there has been in sports, especially the NHL, that, oh, you got to get younger, you got to get younger, you got to get younger, because the game is so developed better now with the way players come up. ready to play in the NHL at 18, 19, 20, rather than 23, 24, 25. The other side of that is that we have made so many advancements in training, nutrition, longevity, that, you know, we'll talk about these guys who are in their early 30s,

like, oh, I don't know how many more years he's got left. And yeah, obviously guys like Sid, Gino, Latang, Carlson, they're outliers because they're great. But we have still seen plenty of guys in the last few years north of 30 continue to be fairly productive. So I really think there may, it may be time to really reevaluate this that rather than saying, oh, a player's window to play, maybe on average, it's still five to seven years. But we're going to see, I think, a lot more players who play eight, nine, ten seasons and the majority of them are productive. I agree. And I think with Raquel, while I'm still not that big of

a fan of the contract as a whole just past this year, I'm willing to look past it just, again, with the way that he's playing this year. You know, once his play potentially dips the next season, the season after, if he's still on the team, okay, then we can have more of the conversation just because of how the contract is set up. But this year, he's playing his tail off. He's one of the biggest reasons why the penguins are where they are in the standings, and they're not worse, just considering the way he's playing.

and I'm just super thrilled for him just considering he was so banged up last year. He didn't have his confidence. He wasn't using his shot. Now this year, he's going to the goal scoring areas. He's using that release. He's fooling the goaltenders. It's been a complete 180 compared to last year. It's the best I've seen Raquel play since he was first acquired by the Penguins.

And honestly, the season after that, too, he was great both of those years. Yeah, this has been a very solid bounce back to start for Ricard Raquel. We're going to hope it continues. for the rest of the season because for this team to reach its stated goal of getting back to the postseason, he has to be a massive part of that. But that is going to do it for the Tuesday edition of Locked-on. Penguins, Hunter and I will be back with a brand new episode for you on Wednesday to recap this game, as well as talk about anything else that may happen between now and then in Penguins Land. But for now, for Hunter Hodes, I am Patrick Dam.

Thank you, as always, for tuning in. and we will be back on your favorite podcasting platform on Wednesday.