Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins play all the hits in another loss to the Islanders.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The Pittsburgh Penguins played all of their classic hits during Tuesday's loss against the New York Islanders. And Pat and I are going to recap that game. Plus give you our picks for Warrior Helmette Wednesday 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, welcome back to another episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:33 I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Join him on my host, Patrick Damping, follow him on all social media platforms at Sin and For Wet. And you can follow these shows, Twitter, at L.O. Orn's Sword Penguins, of course. Thank you all so much for making this your first dozen slash watch of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. And finally, this episode is brought to you by Monarch money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code locked on NHL at Monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. So Pat the Penguins, four-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday,

Starting point is 00:01:08 losing to the New York Islanders 4 to 2 in very classic fashion. You and I were texting about this last night. The Penguins played all of their hits against the Islanders. They take an early lead. Congratulations to Yona Copan for getting his first career NHL goal. Really nice goal, by the way. Great deflection from that point shot. Cindy Crosby later makes it to nothing.

Starting point is 00:01:27 He is now six points away from breaking the point per game record but he and Wayne Gretzky share. And oh, yeah, Pat, he also stands alone now. Fourth most points in actual history on the same team. He passed Wayne Gretzky last night. So congratulations to Sid with that. 1,670. Again, fourth most NHL points on the same team.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Next up, Pat, Mario Lemieux. So he's going to probably getting that, I would say, next year. And then we'll have to see if he can climb the list a little bit more by the end of his career. But again, Grouch to sit on that. that, but they play a really nice second period. They get some good chances in Ilya, Serokee, Tristan Jari continues to make some really good saves. But then they just fell asleep in the third period.

Starting point is 00:02:11 That was a terrible third period. It all started because Chris Lus Hayme, they get a really poor play at the point, not even 20 seconds into the third, gifting Kyle Palmyria breakaway. He hits the post, but then it banks off Jari and goes in the back of the net. I'm not really going to blame Jari too much for that one.

Starting point is 00:02:28 It goes off the post, hits his back, and goes in. I mean, that's just, again, pure bad luck here, people. And that was also a really bad play by Latang. You cannot lose the puck like that at the blue line. I thought Latang was horrendous last night. It really just stinks to see his game deteriorate throughout this year. You won't find a bigger Chrysletang Simp than me. I have loved him throughout his career here in Pittsburgh.

Starting point is 00:02:52 He is going to go down as, you know, one of the greatest players to ever play for this franchise. I think his number is going to be retired right after he's done playing in Pittsburgh. but it just stinks that his skating has gone away. His decision making has not been nearly as good. It really just sucks to see it. As you say, Pat, last week, father time, it continues to remain undefeated. Carlson last night was, okay, he was better than Letang.

Starting point is 00:03:15 Let's say that, but still I wanted to see a little bit more from him. But again, after that, the Islanders quickly tie it to two, two. And then once that happened, you knew they were going to lose this game, because every game against the Islanders is the exact same. Penguins take an early lead and making a multi-goal lead. They hold it, they take it into the third period, and then they blow it. It feels like this happens every single time against the Islanders. And we all know this team's not very good, but you can't stop skating like that in the third period.

Starting point is 00:03:48 You have built up at least a little bit of goodwill for these last four and almost three-quarters games. And then you just lay a complete egg in the third period. the power play was atrocious last night. We'll get to that a little bit later. Not nearly good enough in the third. No. And it kind of runs counter to what we've been saying the last couple weeks about this Penguins team is that they have a lot of heart.

Starting point is 00:04:14 They fight. They battle despite their shortcomings. They don't really just give up on games. I don't know if I can say they gave up on last night's game, but they had a very good effort through 40 minutes. I thought they played as well as they could, given the roster restrictions that they have on this team this year. But the third period just was a lot of lack of effort, a lot of lack of smart decisions. And I'm going to, I want to compare two of the goals that the Islanders scored in the third period.

Starting point is 00:04:49 The first goal, which awful decision making by Chris Latang leads to a breakaway. and then just a bad bounce off the post. It hits Jari's back. It bounces in. You can't really blame them for that. You can blame them a little bit because he got beat clean to the post, but nine times out of 10, the puck hits the post and it ricochets back to the slot or into the corner or wherever else. That was the one time out of 10 that it hits the goalies back and goes in.

Starting point is 00:05:19 You can't really do much about that. I did see on what was ultimately the. game-winning goal for the Islanders. A lot of people upset with Eric Carlson's decision that led to the goal. But that was to me another bad bounce. He actually made a good play on the puck carrier. The puck just happened to bounce behind him after he makes that play. And I want Carlson to make those kind of plays, not just because he's Eric Carlson, but because that's a smart defensive play. They didn't really have a lot of flow coming through the neutral zone. And he steps up, to disrupt it even more by stepping up on the puck carrier, you can't control bounces.

Starting point is 00:06:02 It would have been nice if that would have just ricocheted back into the Islanders zone, no harm, no foul. But it's another moment where the puck bounces behind him and it leads to that half break that the Islanders get to get the winning goals. So I understand the frustration people have with Eric Carlson. I have the same frustrations for the most part. He has not lived up to the billing we expected. with Eric Carlson when he was acquired two off seasons ago.

Starting point is 00:06:29 But I can't sit here and pretend like, oh, that's typical Eric Carlson right there. He made the right play. And sometimes even when you make the right play, the puck doesn't bounce your way. It's part of the sport. So, I mean, overall, the disappointing part of this on one hand is they threw away a good 40-minute effort by falling asleep for 20 minutes. the other hand, let's call this what this is. This was a very paper tiger wind streak. They were riding hilariously during what is essentially St. Patrick's Day week in Pittsburgh and in the country, a wild PDO bender, good week to go on a bender. And eventually it crashed back down to

Starting point is 00:07:17 earth. They were getting horribly outshot. They were getting horribly outchanced. Jari was making the saves he needed to make, which he did again last night. I can't. really blame him for much of anything last night. And they were getting scoring. Last night, the scoring dried up after 40 minutes and they continued to hemorrhage chances against. Hey, you know, that's fair. I think with regards to what you said about Carlson, I agree with that. If people want to blame defensemen for two of the goals against a, Latang for letting that puck go past him to allowing Cala Palmyra to get a breakaway. And then Connor Timmons, he's been great since coming over from Toronto. But can we please

Starting point is 00:07:56 stop the defenseman dive on passes right by the goal. I mean, it doesn't work. Why do we keep doing this? I mean, just in general, just in general. I mean, I get that it's, it's base instinct and you're not really, you get it, you can't take instinct out of a human being. I know. It's just inherent.

Starting point is 00:08:15 But how many times. Right. But how many times do we have to see a defenseman diving and sliding in it just leads to a chance against and diving that close to the net, it's just never going to work because you're both taking yourself out of the play and you're putting your goalie in a bad position because they're not going to be able to challenge with you prone on the ice right in front of them. Right. No, I hear you. One more thing I want to get to before we get to break here. I said during the preview that I wanted to see the power play really feast on one of the

Starting point is 00:08:51 worst penalty kills in the league and they didn't do anything of the sort. I did not like the movement on the power play in the third period especially made a couple power play chances. And the zone entries for the most part were okay, but they're not doing anything with them. Once they were gaining the zone, they had a little bit of control. They were getting stripped of the puck, was going back down the other way. They weren't zipping it around with the authority that we've seen them do for most of this season.

Starting point is 00:09:15 They weren't getting anywhere near the high danger areas. For as much as I have liked Kevin Hayes' game throughout this season, he was really dad on the top power play last night, especially towards the end of the third period when they had that chance with about five minutes to go, I would have just taken Kevin Hayes off and put Afghani Malkin on. Like, I understand what Mike Sullivan is trying to do at least a little bit with some of these split units. But when you really need a goal in that situation and you'll just blown the lead to the islanders,

Starting point is 00:09:42 thanks to Pierre Engball, who was on waivers before the season, by the way, you need to send out all your A guys there. That is not the time to run split paraplegal units. I was not happy with the power play last night, especially against the second worst penalty kill in the league. You got to make hay against the team like that. You really do. I'll say this much. Kevin Hayes did earn some looks on the top unit, given his performances recently. And he has value on a power play. He absolutely does. But to your point about the puck movement, about the overall execution, the problem last night. was more than anything. Kevin Hayes, for as good as he has been,

Starting point is 00:10:29 as a penguin, doesn't operate at the same speed, both literally and figuratively as some of the penguin's best players. And you saw that come to fruition on the power plays last night. The decision making was a half step behind. The passes were a half step behind. And there were a couple moments where they got what should have been grade A looks, but they ended up not being that good because just a half step behind. He found Sidney Crosby streaking in on the back door,

Starting point is 00:11:00 but it was a half step too late. And if you say you have an Evgeny Malkin or Chris LaTang or Eric Carlson or even Brian Rust and even, you even say Ricard Raquel in that situation, they probably find Sidney Crosby at the right time. And he's got essentially an entire open net shoot at. because Kevin Hayes is that just slight half step behind just misses them and what should have been a grade A chance falls apart.

Starting point is 00:11:31 And there was also multiple instances last night where he came into the zone with control. He's holding the puck doing his thing, but he's not shooting it when there was clear opportunities to shoot it. Like it felt like he was overthinking it at times on the top parapleg play. He's got to not do that if he wants to say on the top power play. Again, especially late in the third. period. I would have slowed it up there. I think that was a mistake from Mike Sullivan, in my opinion. And then also on the six on five, I understand Sandy Crosby blew a tire there,

Starting point is 00:12:01 Pat. You cannot send that puck back to the point. There is two guys coming right at the point. You need to send that puck to the corner. There is no excuse to make that play. I think that was a pretty rare boneheaded play from Seda. He knows better, I think, in that circumstance. But I think that will do it for this first segment coming up. In the second segment, we're going to discuss Trishon Jari's performance in this game, plus discuss coeliotronics performance and why he seemed to be benched in the third period for reasons that Pat and I don't understand, I guess. But that's coming up here in the second segment.

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Starting point is 00:14:34 What time is it? It's game time. All right, we're back here in this episode of the Lockdown England's podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. join by my co-host, Patrick Damme. So Pat, I thought Koliacharnock was playing really well, those first two periods. The skating really continues to shine, man. I'll keep saying it on the show. He really does skate like the wind. He continues to be really poised on the ice. And trust me, people, I know. This is a very small sample size. I don't think this guy is going to be a long-term

Starting point is 00:15:05 answer in the top four or anything like that. I think best case is that he's a really good option for your bottom pair. The only reason he's playing top pairing minutes right now is because A, Ryan Shea is hurt and B, P.O. Joseph is hurt. So, again, they kind of have no choice. You're not going to put Mac Grizzlick up there because his numbers will tang are not that good

Starting point is 00:15:23 and you're not going to put Ryan Graves up there, for God's sakes, people. We saw how that happened the last season. It was not good. But he's so smooth. He looks really poised every time he has the puck. The skating is nice. And I thought he was having a pretty good couple of periods.

Starting point is 00:15:36 I know the underlying numbers disagree with that. I usually like using the numbers as a good tool for what my eyes are seeing. Well, the numbers disagree with my eye test, Pat. But hey, I liked his game through two periods last night. But then he got benched in the third period. Only saw a couple of shifts. And I don't get it. We just had this conversation about Mike Sullivan on our Tuesday show

Starting point is 00:16:00 and how he was speaking to Josh Yewee and that article on the athletic. And he's like, oh, yeah, I hear the noise. I know what people say about me about playing younger players. I disagree with it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's like, Mike, you're not really doing yourself any favors by benching this player. When I went back and watched his shifts this morning, he didn't do anything wrong. Again, Chris LaTang was the one that screwed up, not even 20 seconds into the period, getting the Islanders back in that game.

Starting point is 00:16:30 And then after that, you're just kind of benching Koliachanak for reasons. Because I noticed it throughout the period last night. The defensive pairs were juggled, and I'm like, okay, so. So someone was benched and then I was like, oh yeah, it was Goliachanuck. So Mike Sullivan, man, what are we doing here? He didn't make a mistake, but you're still shortening the bench for unknown reasons. Pat, what are your thoughts? Because to me, man, I don't understand this.

Starting point is 00:16:55 I'm going to try to work through this live to tape on the show because on the surface, I'm in agreement with you that I don't get why he was benched. Now, I'm not looking, I'm not doing the sports talk radio thing where I'm trying to find a way to take the other side and disagree with you and turn it into a debate. It's more just me trying to figure out the reasoning. The first thing that comes to mind when you talk about, you know, hey, Latang had a bunch of egregious mistakes, continued to play. You also have to remember, it's Chris Latang. He's one of the best defensemen to have ever played for this franchise. He's come up big in massive moments.

Starting point is 00:17:37 and the track record is there through hundreds of games of showing that he can handle recovery from a mistake. On the other hand, you look at Kola Chonok. He's played all of 69 games in his career. He's put up 14 points. Yeah, he's on a nice little run here where he's had assists in the last two games. But you're not turning to him for offense. It got to the point where the penguins did need an offensive push. And you're really not going to go to him.

Starting point is 00:18:07 the other thing you and I noticed looking at the shift charts, basically everybody who was on the fourth line in the third period watched the third period. Right. So it was probably at least if I had to put a guess on it, a shortening of the bench and putting out your more offensive-minded players, giving them more looks, whether it's double shift or every other shift. And he was just a victim of that numbers game.

Starting point is 00:18:31 On the other hand, I look at this and think, the kids play in solid. He's got the wheels. he has a good first pass, doesn't make a ton of mistakes. There's no risk in putting him out there. At the very least, you can put him out there to give Chris LaTang, Eric Carlson, Matt Grizzlick a little bit of a break to catch their breath before sending them right back out there. So, I mean, I don't quite understand the decision behind benching him.

Starting point is 00:19:01 But I can at least find some logic to why you might sit him in this third period. but at the end of the day, the kid's been fine. It wasn't like he made, because we talked about this yesterday. We have seen younger players get yanked, and it's been after bad decisions. It's not like they were just yanked for no reason. There's a couple cases here and there, but you point to a pretty egregious mistake and go, well, yeah, he made a pretty bad mistake. You're going to get fenced after that.

Starting point is 00:19:32 For Kuala Chana, it hasn't really happened yet. And there was no bad decision that he made during the third period. Again, I went back and watched his shifts this morning when I turned on my wonderful Fubo TV and I rewinded Sportsnet Pittsburgh. And I did not see a mistake that for me should have gotten him benched. I still am dumbfounded by the decision. Mike Stone needs to be a lot better with that type of stuff. Again, you can say all this stuff to Josh, which, you know, Josh's a great friend of the show, really nice article. you can say all this stuff to him, but you need to put it into practice because I don't need to see that stuff happening next season, especially when Rucker McGorady and Billy Coivant are going to be ready.

Starting point is 00:20:13 And there's an outside shot that Harrison Brunuch could be ready as well based on the camp in the preseason that he had before this past season. One more thing before we get to break and we get to Warrior Hum at Wednesday. Tristan Jari, I thought he was really good again in this game. The first two goals, really not his fault. The third one, I was originally going to crucify him for that because I was. I thought he was off his angle. And he was a little bit, but the book also did go off riding Graves' stick. So I think that kind of fooled him a little bit there.

Starting point is 00:20:42 But he still made a lot of big saves, especially in the first two periods. I'm not really going to blame him too much for this loss. No, 34 saves puts up a 9-19 save percentage in a losing effort. And the Islanders outshot the penguins in all three periods. And overall throughout the game, 38 to 22. So you really can't put. any of the goals on him or even the loss on him. He takes the loss,

Starting point is 00:21:07 but it was another encouraging start from him. He played a very confident game. He was challenging shooters. He was making a couple desperation saves as well, which is something we don't often see from him. So that was another encouraging sign. Again, I've said it before. It's only a good thing for this franchise.

Starting point is 00:21:29 I know everybody wants the team to lose into tank and get the higher draft pick and all of that. But in the long term, not even long term, the medium term, the best thing for the long term health of this franchise is for him to figure it out because then you can either move him or he just figures it out and you can deal with having him and a couple other goalies compete for a single net. And you've got at the very least a couple of options that you can use to stabilize the net over the next couple years.

Starting point is 00:22:00 But I mean, last night, it's another, it's a fifth consecutive start where he plays very well and makes the saves he needs to make. And at the end of the day, all you can realistically ask from a goaltender on any team is that they give you a chance. And Tristan Jari gave them a chance last night. Yeah, he more than kept them in that game, especially in the third period where the Islanders just came out like a house on fire. It was a pretty big repeat of their last game against Florida, too.

Starting point is 00:22:25 They were down to nothing with only 13. 30 to go in the third period and they just blitz the Panthers at home. Wasn't with 1330 to go in this one, but still, two nothing deficit going into the third period, and they just blitz the penguins in that period, a little bit of deja vu with that one. But hey, the loss in regulation, that does help the tanking purposes a little bit, Pat. Hey, I had to say it at some point during the show. It does help the tanking purposes that they lost in regulation. But that will do it for the second segment coming up to end the show.

Starting point is 00:22:57 It's Wednesday. You know what that means. Warrior Helmet Wednesday. Pat and I are going to give out our Player of the Week award for the Warrior Helmet for this last week. And I think we both know who we're going with for this last week. Though there are a lot of very good candidates. But before we get to that, we'll got to tell you all about our final sponsor. And that is Upwork.

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Starting point is 00:24:25 Stream it all for free on Amazon Fire TV channels. Search Bracket Breakdown. to see it all for free. It's your team every day. All right, we're back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I'm one of your host, Hunter Hodes. Join my co-os, Patrick Damp.

Starting point is 00:24:42 I can't wait for the NCAA tournament. Every time we play that little 30-second ad, just gets me more AMP to turn on my TV tomorrow and watch all the NCAA tournament games. It really is one of the best times of the year if you're a sports fan. But it's signed for Warrior Helmet Wednesday. Pat and I give out our Player of the Week awards.

Starting point is 00:24:59 And there's quite a few players to choose from, man. Connor Timmons, Connor Dewar, Tristan Jari, Sidney Crosby, Rickel. The list goes on, people. But I didn't give it to him last week. I will give it to him this week, though, Pat. And that is Tristan Jari. He's had three really good starts over the last week. Was great against the Blues, 914.

Starting point is 00:25:20 I know he allowed three against the Devils on Saturday. He was 889, but he still made a lot of really big saves in that game. And yeah, I know. They lost against the Islanders, but he was still 919 in that game. I've really liked his performances since March 9th against the Minnesota Wild. He deserves this warrior helmet to me. I know. I could have given it to Connor Dewar, who has also been tremendous.

Starting point is 00:25:40 I think you might be giving it to him. I could have given it to Connor Timmons. Sid easily as well with everything he's doing. Ricardo Raquel with the way he's also been playing over the last week. But I have to give credit where it's due. Tristan Jari has been a completely different goaltender over the last week and a half. And he's been really good, especially this last week. I will give it to number 35, Tristan Jari.

Starting point is 00:26:02 It's a good pick for a second week in a row. He really has stabilized since coming back up from Wokes Bear. And I know it's kind of annoying for us, for Penguins fans, that now he decides to return to form that we've seen in the past. But, I mean, at the end of the day, what can you do about it? Really good choice. I kind of went back and forth on this. I gave it to Jari last week.

Starting point is 00:26:27 thought about doing it two weeks in a row, but this was, I know you said there were a lot of good candidates, but I have to lean on what I said earlier in the episode. This has been, this was a winning streak that was based on a PDO bender. They were not exactly playing great. They were just finding ways to score goals. Tristan Jari was making saves, but they were getting pretty badly outplayed in a lot of these games and somehow finding a way to get a victory. So looking at up and down the results from the last week, it was also a team effort. There's a lot of guys who contributed to this win streak. It wasn't just Crosby, Malkin, Latang, Carlson, and Rust, and Raquel, just carrying them across finish line.

Starting point is 00:27:12 So I'm going to go with Connor Dewar. I think three goals in the last three games, obviously one of them was an empty net in a two-goal performance against the devils over the weekend. But I've liked his game a lot since he's come over from Toronto. I'm not going to oversell it and pretend like he's some diamond in the rough for some great find that is going to blossom into a great player because he is only 25. He'll be 26 at the start of next season. But he has shown he can be a stabilizing player in the bottom six. He's not going to wow you.

Starting point is 00:27:47 He's not going to blow you away. He's not going to score 20 to 30 goals. But he looks like a good bottom six player that can chip in 5, 10, 15 max goals, give you some good depth option, play a responsible game. And since becoming a penguin, he's done exactly that. I've liked his game a lot. And I thought he had a pretty good week. Yeah, I think that's totally fair.

Starting point is 00:28:09 And I even tweeted this during the game last night because there was a couple instances, especially in the first period where he was forechecking his butt off. And he's been doing that ever since coming over from Toronto. And one more thing about his game, that he forms a really nice duo with Blake LaZont. on the fourth line. Very small sample size. Give me more minutes of them together because you're seeing Lazot start to cook a little bit more over the last week, week and a half. It's no wonder, by the way, you actually give him a competent limaite. You can see what he can do. He's not having two anchors next to him. And yeah, I know, Achari is still next to him at times during this season.

Starting point is 00:28:48 We have to see if Achari is even on the team next year. But I like Dewar and Lazot together. We know that Mike Sullivan likes to work in duos for a lot of his lines before, you know, finalizing that line with another player, I think you're going to see if he keeps it up, I think you're going to see a lot more of Dewar and Lazot together going in the next season. I think they're going to keep Dewar. Obviously, if he keeps us up, I know he's an RFA, but I think he has shown quite a bit so far. And I'm really happy with the way he's playing.

Starting point is 00:29:17 Again, as I said on Tuesday, he's a feisty little fella. He goes to the front of the net. He gets his nose dirty. I like his game quite a bit as a fourth liner. And I'm excited to see where it continues down the stretch of this season and hopefully into next season as well. If the sample size continues to be really nice, do you have anything else to add about this game or going forward?

Starting point is 00:29:35 Penguins don't play again until Friday now. No. I mean, really at the end of the day, that was like we said, they played the hits. But to your point about Deer, I think that's a good option to bring back. He's going to be an RFA.

Starting point is 00:29:48 It's not going to cost you a lot of money. And you see what you have in them. whether it's for one year or two years, I think it's a pretty low risk, high reward guy that you can bring back and he brings some value to your bottom six. Yep. And with that,

Starting point is 00:30:01 I think that's going to 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. Remember, we'll be back with another episode, if you all on Thursday to discuss everything penguins related. And then Friday,

Starting point is 00:30:14 same thing, but we'll get you all set for penguins, blue jackets. That's another big game, especially for the blue jackets as they are trying to nail down one of those playoff spots in the Eastern Conference and the Penguins will try to play spoiler in that game against one of the rivals. But again, that will do it for this one. Thank you all so much for tuning in.

Starting point is 00:30:30 We appreciate it. We'll be back on Thursday.

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins play all the hits in another loss to the Islanders.

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