Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Penguins preseason standouts, plus, are we surprised about Ty Smith not being claimed?

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

It's a Victory Friday for the Pittsburgh Penguins after they took down the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night. To start off the show, Hunter and Pat recap the Penguins' 3-1 win and discuss who their standouts were. Hunter starts with Tristan Jarry with the saves that he made and how he finally looked healthy. They also look into how Rickard Rakell played and how he continues to show off his chemistry with Sidney Crosby. Will that be a thing all season long? They also analyze Drew O'Connor's big game and how Lars Eller made quite a few impressions with his skating and his play in the offensive zone. After that, they dive into Ty Smith not being claimed and whether they were both surprised before looking at what the next steps are for him. They also look at the other cuts that were made before finishing off with some Jake Guentzel talk.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashGet fifty percent off your first DoorDash order up to a twenty-dollar value when you use code locked at checkout. Limited time offer, terms apply.Jase MedicalSave more than $360 by getting these lifesaving antibiotics with Jase Medical plus an additional $20 off by using code LOCKEDON at checkout on jasemedical.com.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Right now, NEW customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get TWO HUNDRED in BONUS BETS - GUARANTEED. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Penguins were victorious in their fourth preseason game, beating the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night 3 to 1 at PPG Paints Arena. Hunter and I are going to talk about the game and more right after this on the Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. You're Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Penguins fans, welcome to the Friday edition.

of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am one of your hosts, Patrick Damp, joined as always by the esteemed Hunter Hodes, and we thank you for making this your first watch or listen of the day. You can find us on YouTube, anywhere you get your podcast, and you can follow me on Twitter at Synonym Fruwet. You can follow Hunter on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, and of course you can follow the show on Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins,

and it's a victory. Friday here in Pittsburgh, and I'm just trying to drum up some excitement because, oh, boy, the first period of that game last night was, um, put you to sleep. Yes, quite literally. Some of that is that I start my workday at four in the morning, and I was up for quite a while by the time the first period rolled around, but a lot of it was, wasn't a whole lot to talk about in that first period. But as I said, they were winners three to one over the Buffalo Sabres. last night and Hunter your thoughts who stood out to you what are we taken away from preseason game number four just a second on that i would rather watch my water boil for pasta than watch that

first period again it was absolutely awful hockey i was trying my best to multitask eating my dinner and watching i found myself more focused on my dinner which was spectacular last night than that first period it was a chore to get through just back A little bit. So, yeah, who stood out to you? What did you think? I got a couple names. We talked a little bit off, Mike, about who stood out to us.

So I think yours is probably the best one to mention. So let's hear it. Yeah, my biggest standout, honestly, Tristan Jari, I thought he looked very poised. Annette made the saves that he needed to make. The one goal that he allowed, Tage Thompson came in on like a mini breakaway, goes backhand, forehand, past his pad. He does that to any goalie. he's an absolute freak.

And the NFL he's probably going to score 45, 50 goals again this year. He is that good. But outside of that, I liked, again, how poised jari was in the net. His movement was spectacular. He made himself look aggressive in net, made himself look big in net. When he is doing all of those things, he's healthy and he's on top of his game. I want to see more of that throughout the preseason. And, of course, during the regular season.

He actually looked healthy in this game. He wasn't, what's the word I'm looking for? I guess shaky going from left to right and going from the other directions as well. Actually looked like a healthy goaltender in the net and made some really nice days. He's definitely my biggest standout to me. If he can do that during the regular season, the Penguins will be just fine. Yeah, he had a very solid game. Like we said yesterday, wasn't a lot of threats on that Buffalo rostered last night.

But Tage Thompson was one of them. And so giving up a goal to Tage Thompson is nothing to be ashamed of. It's a great goal score, and he's going to be for a long time in the National Hockey League. One of the players I wanted to mention was Ricard Raquel. I thought his goal was a really nice one, just a little bit off of a face-off play that developed a little bit longer, put the puck top shelf from a very prime scoring area as well. And as we talked about, there is some chemistry there between Crosby and Raquel and you're starting to see it. And I do keep bringing this up. It is preseason and you're not going to see a lot of this chemistry come to fruition right away. You're going to see little

snippets of it, which brings us to somebody else in Eric Carlson. He is a very unique player. And the things that he does are almost unpredictable in the sense that unless you are on the same level as him intellectually when it comes to hockey, it's going to be hard to adapt to. He found himself in some situations and some positions where he could score or could get a scoring chance. And the penguins just weren't quite ready for it because they're still feeling them out. They're still figuring out what his game is. So that's going to come with time.

So I'm very encouraged by that. Last person I want to mention is Drew O'Connor. Two goals. One of them, yes, an empty netter. but again, this is his time to really make his presence known on this roster. And he has consistently been good throughout this camp. And he's somebody that is really pushing to make the opening night roster. Agreed on all those points.

And before I get to my final standout, because you hit on a couple that were also my standouts for this game. You know, speaking about Raquel, he scored that goal from the signature T.J. Oshy spot where he has scored probably half of his goals. goals in the league against the penguins. I saw that spot right away. I'm like, yep, hit him there.

Boom, puck goes in the back of the net. No chance for Comrie. Agreed on Drew O'Connor. He had quite a few chances before he got that first goal off of a really nice pass from Lars Eller, more on Eller in just a second because he played really well. But that was a nice goal. A cup before that, though. Had a couple of mini breakaways, wasn't able to cash in, but finally breaks through there.

He continues to play like that. There's no doubt that he's going to have a roster spot in the bag in the next. week and a half, two weeks, whatever. And then for Eric Carlson, a little bit of a quiet night from him, but that's fine. You're still working out the kinks. And when you can have a quiet night from Eric Carlson, where he's still, when he's on the ice,

the penguins have almost 75% of the expected goal share, that's pretty a okay in my book, Pat. Yeah, and that's really all that you want, obviously not all, but you do want some more offensive push and output. But I say this all the time about elite players, especially ones offensively, is my worry for them is when the chances stop coming. That's when I get worried with players like that. It's not so much, oh, no, they're mired in a scoring slump because anybody who understands hockey, and especially anybody who understands analytics is goals are random. There's no way to predict them.

but you can look at the process and say, okay, they're doing the right things. So for your Eric Carlson's, your Sidney Crosby's, Afghani, Malkins, et cetera, et cetera, when they are getting chances in creating offense, yeah, maybe the puck's not going in, but you know eventually that dam is going to break.

Agreed. And there were a couple other plays I did notice from Carlson last night. There was one play. He was deep in the offensive zone, and it looks like he's being pressured by a couple of Sabres players. he is still able to whack the puck to the point to set up a chance on there. And I'm like, how did you even make that pass? I just was flabbergass.

I had to rewind the stream on the Penguins website to watch it again because I was like, wait, it looked like he had no room there. And just that kind of play is a taste of what he's going to bring to the Penguins lineup this year. I also noticed just how fast of a skater he is. He got back into the play after it looked like he was burned once or 20. twice so fast take away maybe like an odd man rush or something like that it was like wow like i think his skating ability is not talked about enough in this city within the fans in the media and you're going to see that on display a lot this season everybody is going to talk

understandably so about the offense that he could potentially bring to this roster but do not sleep on his speed he is a fast player and the best way i can distinguish describe his skating as well is that it's economical. You're not going to see his arms moving quick. You're not going to see a bunch of quick strides. You're going to see three or four powerful strides and this guy is off to the races. For sure. And we saw it a couple of times last night. But the final player who I do want to shout out, Lars Eller, again, I will do the shock meme. I wasn't familiar with your game. Well, I was last night. I had said after they signed him that I thought his legs were kind of cooked.

Did not look that way against the Sabres. He was very quick on the ice. He was a forechecking menace for the Penguins. He was also responsible in his own zone. It looks like they may have something with him and Drew O'Connor. They were finding each other all game long. And that passed by Eller to DOC for that go-ahead goal that ended up being the game winner.

Beautiful job from the corner. You saw the goal too. Just a really nice pass. O'Connor was able to tip it in. I thought Eller was a menace. in this game. And he plays like that, he's going to prove me in quite a few people wrong, but really like that performance from him. He definitely did not look like a player who was cooked, especially in the offensive zone. And here's the thing about that. If that's part of your third

line and they're just tenacious on the forecheck, here's the dirty little secret. They don't have to score. If they can just hem the opposing team in the offensive zone, their defensive zone, and tire them out. And then Sullivan tapped one of Malkin or Crosby on the shoulder and goes, go get them. That's a net positive for this team. I would still prefer the bottom six to score, but I definitely understand what you're saying.

No, no, for sure. In an ideal world, you want them to put up a good few goals here and there. But if they're going out and they're not hemmed in the defensive zone, and they're getting extended offensive zone time to wear down opposing defense, that just makes life easier for the top six. Agreed. Yeah, you just can't have it like it was last year where the bottom six was, A, not scoring, and B, just allowing way too many goals when both those lines were out. Exactly. That's going to do it for this segment.

When we come back, we are going to talk about what we ended the show with yesterday, and that is Ty Smith being placed on waivers and then clearing them today at 2 p.m. We'll talk about that and what it means for the show. the roster right after this. But first, it's Friday and maybe you're on your way home and you're thinking about cooking a nice big dinner and you get all the ingredients out in the kitchen. You start getting ready, read the recipe and think, ah man, I forgot to get an onion. Now that is where DoorDash grocery comes into play. You've trusted DoorDash for a long time now to deliver your restaurant favorites. And now you can get groceries delivered

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Join us always by the tremendous Hunter Hodes. And as always, we thank you for making this your first listen or watch of the day. as I said before we went to break, Ty Smith, he's going to Wilkes Bear. He was placed on waivers when we were wrapping up the Thursday show yesterday. And I got to be honest, man, I'm going to surprised he made it through. I really thought he was going to be a candidate to get claimed

because he's young, he's got some offensive talent. There's a good bit of potential there. And if you're a bubble contending team or a somewhat rebuilding team, That seems like a good defenseman to put in your system. And I don't know. I'm just genuinely stunned. He made it through waivers. That's where I am at as well.

You're telling me there's not a non-playoff team out there that didn't want to take a free flyer on him with all that offensive potential that he has, with how he's a former first-round pick, with how he was on that all-rooky team as a member of the Devils. No one really wanted to take a flyer on him. It was just very intriguing to me. And yes, I do understand that maybe some teams are not ready for that yet because they're trying to figure out what they want to do with their own rosters. Remember, we still got about almost two weeks at this point into opening night. A lot of these teams are not at where the penguins are right now in terms of roster cuts. They are going to do a lot of their cuts a little later on.

So maybe if they would have done this next week, it could have been a bit different. Kyle Dewis could have just been using a strategy here where he knew. no one was going to take him just because it's a bit early. But still, despite that, despite it being almost two weeks before opening night, I'm still a bit surprised considering what I just said. He's going to go down to Wilkesbury. I don't think the penguins are going to trade him at this point, though. Honestly, if they can get a late round pick for him back,

that would be preferable as to keeping him in Wilkesbury because, let's face it. I think he's better than an HL player at this point. He belongs in the NHL. but with how P.O. Joseph has blown past in the past year, year and a half, there's no spot for him with the penguins. So sooner rather than later, I still think they're going to have to figure something out here. But yeah, I was definitely surprised. I thought for sure he was going to get claimed.

Heck, I was listening to 32 thoughts this morning. And even Elliot Friedman was even saying that he thought someone was going to take a flyer on him. So, again, I was definitely a bit stunned that he was not claimed by a team. but penguins will get their chance to keep developing in, and hey, maybe they'll get to turn him into something at some point, even though that's probably on the low end of probabilities right now. Agreed with that. And I'm going to put my blue light on here and sound the siren.

So it got to be the conjecture police for a second. He's just a first round pick. He's not a former first round pick. You're always a first round pick, unless you go back into the draft and get picked in a different round. Just something that bugs me a little bit. Anyway, he joins the likes of Jonathan Gruden, Rem Pitlick, Taylor Fadune, and Xavier Ullett in those players who have been assigned to Wilkesbury Scranton. Not a lot of surprises here.

Most of these guys either made a little bit of an impact or not much of one. You kind of figured this was going to be the next round of cuts or reassignment because it kind of feels weird saying cut just because they're still in the organization. they're just not going to be on the big club. Right. There's really no surprises there. If you want to count one as like maybe a mini surprise, rent-pit, like I thought he played well in the second game against the Blue Jackets, had a couple really nice plays to game in the offensive zone.

It was one of the main reasons why Sam Poulan scored in that game in Columbus. But outside of that, I don't think he did enough during camp and in the other preseason games to really warrant getting a spot with the Penguins. And I guess to go down to Wilkesbury, work on his game a little bit. If there are injuries, he'll probably be one of the top call-ups, considering he was in the Air Carlson train. But still, not that much of a surprise there. And then the other players, they were all in Wilkesbury last year. And, you know, Jonathan Gruden actually came up to the Penguins last year.

So maybe he comes up at some point. But yeah, really no other surprises from those round of cuts. Meanwhile, we still have Alex Neelander on the roster, Sam Ulan on the roster, Redim Zornah on the roster. These guys have been pretty effective so far this training camp and this preseason. So who knows, man. I wrote about it this morning on KDKA for Penguin's perspectives. I'm really starting to get to the point where I think, you know what?

Gruit. Leave them on the roster. Give them some bottom six time and see if you got something here. Like we said when we talked Josh, like Josh said. they're not interested in winning the division. They just want to get into the dance. And beginning of the season, you got a softer schedule to start the first couple of weeks.

You're not going up against a bunch of big time contenders. So why not play with things a little bit to start the year and see if you got something? Let the kids play and see if you can score some goals. Zohorna was taking line rushes with Edgar Malkins line during practice today. It was rotating, but he was still taking line rushes with them. And I'm fairly certain he'll probably play on Monday up in Halifax, Nova Scotia for that game. It's time for him to get even more looks.

I mean, he's trying to play his way onto the roster. I mean, I saw the updated roster. There's about 19 forwards left right now. He's one of the last ones. I mean, I agree mostly. I mean, I liked what I saw from Nealander last night. He didn't do things that were made you be like, wow, oh my God, he really stood out. But he was still pretty fine.

And he had a couple's chances during the second period. Not the first period, obviously. No one had a chance. And that had a couple scoring chances there. His chemistry with Malkin is not all the way there yet, which is why I think you would probably see him in a bottom six role to start. He still has a little bit more to go, I think, to make the team. But you can't know what you have in two players like that unless they get live reps

and the NHL, excuse me. And you're going to see that for these final few preseason games. Yeah. And again, the team's getting ready here. about to fly or they think they already have flown up to Nova Scotia either in the air now or already there. But yeah, I agree. Like if we get to the next, I think there's three preseason games left. At this point, let these guys cook. Just let them, let them see what, let them go, let them see what they can do. We know what we got in a lot of these, these roster regulars that

we've had for the last few years. So at this point, these guys have earned, in my opinion, and a chance to really, really show what they can do at the end of this preseason. It's been one heck of a competitive camp in preseason. And I expect that to continue over this next week as heck, preseason ends next week. We're going to know a lot more about this roster at that time than we do right now. It's showtime. Let's see what they can do these final few games. Still want to see more of Sam Poulan.

Still want to see more about Trey Pusson. I still need to see some more from Andreas Johnson. He was signed during the offseason to that one-year deal. to me, he hasn't done enough to warrant an NHL spot. I want to see what he can do in those final couple of games because if he's not able to be as good as some of these younger players from Wilkesbury, they may have no choice but to put him on waivers and then have someone else make the team. But that's also someone that I really want to keep my eye on heading in the next week.

Speaking of keeping eyes on, there's somebody everybody has been watching in camp, and an old friend might be back a lot sooner. than once expected. We'll talk about that right after this. We're back here on a Friday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. Once again, I'm one of your host Patrick Damp, joined as always by the stupendous Hunter Hodes.

And as I said, just before we went to that ad break, now all of a sudden, where there once was doom and gloom, oh my goodness, this team is going to be without Jake Gensel for five games, more games, maybe longer, all of a sudden, seems ahead of schedule and he's popping into practice. Now, it is a non-contact jersey, so everybody take a breath. He's not going to be playing in Nova Scotia on Monday. But this is a very positive sign for a guy who we thought we were going to not have for quite a while. And now he appears to be well ahead of schedule.

Yeah, I mean, just reading between the tea leaves here, again, I don't claim to have any insider information. I've never really been an insider or anything like that. And I get Hodes over here. I know. Hashtag Hodes Insider on social media and all that stuff. But there definitely seems to be some optimism. I'm just guessing here that he'll be available before that timeline of the first five games,

whether it's the third game, whether it's the second game, heck, whether it's the first game against the Blackhawks. There's a chance that he could be available for that. And say he practices in the non-contact jersey for the next five to six days, switches that out, puts on the full contact jersey. Who's to say that he won't be available for that game against the Blackhawks if he's able to practice in a full contact capacity for a week or something like that? You know, there's definitely a shot. And that would be very welcome news to the Penguins because they are a completely different

team when he is not in the lineup. Agreed. The one thing I do think, and again, similar to what you were saying, is just my speculation and my thought on it. I think we probably see him by maybe the third or fourth regular season game because what they'll probably do is near the end of camp, ramp him up a little bit, put the contact jersey on, see how he's feeling, kind of take this day to day because even if he is ahead of schedule right now,

getting surgery on your ankle, getting surgery at all is it's a tough draw. It's a tough rehab. So it's not like they want to just say, oh, look, he's moving quick. He's got his speed. He's doing okay. Let's play him. You got to see how he reacts to contact. You got to see if he holds up to contact because if he goes into a corner and there's contact and reaggravates an ankle, this could be a much longer term injury.

So I think we may not see him right away, but we may see him a lot sooner than once expected. But I also do think that the coaching staff and management understand how valuable this guy is for once we get to later in the season rather than right out of the gate. Because, again, set it in the last segment. The team's not worried about winning the division. They're worried about getting into the playoffs. They're worried about getting into the playoffs and playing well when they get into the playoffs. So Jake Gensel is not going to win or lose you to Stanley Cup in October, but you'd much rather have him in April and May. I agree with you.

And just to hit on one of your points that you just made, the last thing you want to do with Jake, especially in this situation, is rushing back. Because say, you know, he keeps being ahead of schedule, but then he hits a setback, and then he has to miss maybe more than five games. He's already doing really good right now, but you don't want to push him to a point where he potentially has a setback with that ankle injury. And then you have to reassess, have him be out a bit longer than what you anticipated when you made the announcement. all those weeks ago.

Just got to manage his workload right now. I think the Penguins are doing a really good job of that. It's great to see him back in practice. I would love to see him back for that opener against the Blackhawks. But if he's not there, even though he's taking full contact and maybe he's not there for that second game, it's not going to be the end of the world because he's still going to be on that timeline. Third or fourth, fifth game, even if it's a sixth game, even if he misses all five of those

games, Pat, gets back for that six or seventh game of the season. That's still fine. that's really not even behind schedule, if you will. You just got to make sure that he's 110% considering how important he is to this team. The amount of goals he scores, the playmaker that he is, there's just no replacement for him in this lineup. Yeah, and we have seen a lot of guys because it's been a competitive camp that they're not going to be Jake Gensel's long-term replacement. They're not going to take that spot away from him. But they have shown that in a pinch, they can help.

They can be a temporary stopgap while they make sure that this guy is ready to come back to game action rather than have to make a panic trade or try a bunch of things out that don't work. Between a lot of the guys we've talked about throughout camp the last few weeks and now seeing that Jake Gensel is ahead of schedule, the penguins are in a much more advantageous situation than they were, say, a month ago. Yeah, you just need to have those players come up when they play with Gensel. Just have them survive for a first, you know, again, two, three, four, five games. If those players can maybe pot a goal or two during that time and then boom, Jake comes back, that is a job well done, in my opinion. Those players are not going to be obviously scoring at the pace that Jake will because not many players in the league can.

But if they can, again, score a goal or two, help replace Jake by committee, then once he's ready to return, it looks like it's going to be hopefully quicker than a lot of us expected. It's going to be very seamless. Those players can go back down the lineup, and everything is going to be just fine. Exactly. If he only misses four, five, six, seven games, but then you get three, four, maybe five goals from some of those guys who step in or some of those depth players, perfectly fine. And like we've talked about, it's a bit of a lighter schedule to start the season. so all things considered, this is not a bad position for the penguins to be in. But that is going to do it for us on this Friday edition.

Thank you so much for listening and or watching. Hunter and I will be back on Monday to preview the Nova Scotia preseason game, and hopefully they'll make a little bit of news over the weekend, right? Right, right, right. This franchise is never boring, man. You know there's always news when it comes to the penguins. Exactly. Thank you again for everybody that watches, listens, and subscribes, and we will talk to you on Monday.