Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Starting to dig the Penguins reverse retro...

Episode Date: November 18, 2020

Another week means more Locked On Penguins episodes and we actually have some news to talk about this week! First up is the reverse retro jerseys as that's been the big topic of discussion. How good are the Penguins ones? How many games does Hunter hope they wear it for? Hunter also ranks his five favorite jerseys and his least favorite ones as well. After that, Hunter gets into the latest NHL news and the fact that the league only has a week left, if that if they want to start the season January 1st. What should the league do if they start the season at the end of January? What teams should be in the Penguins division if there's realignment? Finally, we get to Jason Zucker's season in review and Hunter has a bold prediction for how his next season will turn out.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.BuiltGoVisit BuiltGO.com and use promo code “LOCKED,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order. 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.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday afternoon edition of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow those shows, Twitter, at L.O. underscore Penguins. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, so all the Steelers get to 9-0. For Virginia Tech football, it is continuing to be a dumpster fire, so I'm just not only going to talk about that. But, you know, for today's show, the Penguins, a bunch of stuff we can finally get to. There's actually some stuff to talk about, you know, the reverse retro jerseys were finally released. I'm going to give you guys my top five favorites and my least five. favorites and we're also of course going to talk about the penguins one because um hint hint i do think it's better now that i've actually seen it then you know when we were seeing leaks of it i think

it was leaked on some weird site it doesn't look anything really like that anyway so we'll talk about that but there's also some some nchal season updates well for next season release that we're going to touch on this podcast and for today's player season review it'll be jason zucker who you know didn't even play half a season with the penguins but you know with the production he put up in that very small sample size you know i'm thinking there's There could be big things ahead coming for Zucker. So that will basically be for today's show. As always, this show is brought to you by BiltBar.

You can go to BiltBar.com and use promo code lockdown and get 20% off your next order. So let's get into the reverse retro jerseys. You know, the Penguins just released a video of Mary Lumute trying his on. They made one custom for him. That trophy case in the background is just, it's legendary. And, you know, Mario just looks like a god like he always is. but you know I do I like this jersey I think you know they also did a wallpaper Wednesday thing you know some people were like well is this like the Vegas gold or is this actual Pittsburgh gold I mean guys this is Pittsburgh gold if you looked at the jersey I'll still say it again I if you've been listening to me speak for the last week or two on this podcast I'm sorry for settling there I do like the OG replicas of the black jerseys you know the ones that you know you saw snoop snoop dog wearing you know riding his bike in Pittsburgh but

But, you know, and I do want them to bring those back. That would be outstanding if they did. But these are still pretty sweet. You know, you have just the Pittsburgh gold, the diagonal, just the gold spelling of it. You know, the logo at the shoulder crest, I would have preferred the logo back from 92 to 97 when they wore these. I think that would have been better. But I'm not going to, like, I guess hate it too much. But this is still a decent jersey.

It looks really good on Cindy Crosby. I mean, they Photoshopped Jake Encelon, too. it. You know, it's just, it's growing on me, I think is the big thing. And, you know, I'm definitely going to cop one of these, I think, whether I get it for Hanukkah from someone or I just buy it myself. I'm definitely going to get one of these because it's, it's pretty sweet, you know. Like I said, I wish there was a different shoulder patch, you know, I would like the logo from 92 to 97, but, you know, this is still a pretty sweet jersey, some people that, I saw someone, I think, on the athletic. I think when Mark Lazarus of Chicago was doing his rankings for the retro

jerseys, he was like, I wish the penguins would have done something like with their Vegas gold back from the early 2000s. I'm like, Vegas gold. I don't think anyone wants to see one of those. If anything, some Penguins fans want to see the Robo Penguin brought back. I would love if a Robo penguin jersey was brought back. Hell, they can bring it back in black, do a white version of it. You know, Rob Rossi was on the podcast last week and he teased that in the next year or two. We could be seeing a version of the Robo Penguin jersey coming back. I mean, I would be all for that. But, you know, this is still a good one.

You know, some people don't like it because, you know, the diagonal that the Rangers have, eat shit. That's really what I'm going to say to that. I don't really care that it's diagonal like the Rangers ones are. I mean, if people really care about it that much, I mean, okay, I mean, this is better than the Rangers diagonal if you ask me, but still, really sweet jerseys. I'm not sure how many games they're going to wear these for. I think Rob was talking on the podcast last week, maybe two to five games.

I want there to be 10 to 12. I think that would be awesome. You can work this into the rotation for your games throughout more seasons too. So I'm really excited for them to wear this. As for my top five, though, I mean, it's there's definitely, I think my favorite one, though, is the Avalanche one. I mean, that one is just absolutely spectacular. That's number one on my list for sure. It's just the design of it, the throwback to when they were in the, when they were basically the

The Nordiques. I mean, this is just, this is a hell of a jersey. I want them to wear almost full time, basically. It's just a great reverse retro jersey. I'm really excited about that one. I'm another one in my top five. I really like Los Angeles's. That's a great jersey.

It's purple and yellow, which, I mean, if you pay attention to Los Angeles sports, that's the colors that the Lakers wore. I believe they wore this back in the late 80s, early 90s or something like that. But, you know, this is a gorgeous jersey. That's number two on my list. number three on my list. We always talk and shit talk to Washington Capitals on this podcast and all that. But, you know, I will give it to them.

Their reverse retro jersey is pretty nice here. I mean, it's basically, I think the screeching eagle that they wore. I think this was from the early 2000s, late 90s or something like that. I have to double check. But that's a great jersey. I'm really excited to see them wear that. Hopefully they wore that. They wear that against the Pittsburgh diagonals when they play each other this season,

if there is a season, because that would be pretty sweet. I get another one in my top five At number four The Carolina Hurricanes ones I mean obviously I throw back to the Hartford Whalers The jersey is just super sweet I mean the shoulder patch just looks great I mean the whaler

The logo in the middle All the green Then you have of course the white and the blue It just it looks spectacular You know I want these Worn for like over half their games Or something like that is just that good And lastly at number five

This is tough but you know I think I'm gonna go with Arizona's. Obviously, these jerseys are also purple. They were worn during 1999 2003. This is, I can't get enough of this one. I mean, you have

the green cacti, Orange Mountains team, old purple logo included. I mean, this is a great jersey. Like I said, I know they're going to only be worn for like two to five games or something like that. This is a jersey where I want them to be worn way more than that. And then, you know,

you have the bottom five. And there are some pretty bad reverse retro jerseys here. And also I should say, honorable mention Minnesota Wild, a throwback to the North Stars. That is a hell of a jersey. I absolutely love it. If there was a 5B, I would put it at basically that. So if you're on a top six, I'll just put Minnesota right there too. But for my bottom five ones, the Detroit Red Wings one is obviously, I think, the worst one out there.

It's just a whole lot of nothing, basically. There's really nothing special about it. It's just absolute trash. Um, the another one that I really did not like at all was the Islanders one at number two. It's just basically the same thing. Well, why don't you just bring back the old fisherman logo, which I know would probably make a lot of people mad, but I don't really care. But this one is basically just the same jersey they've been wearing for like, what, 20 years now, 30 years now or something like that. So it's just there really wasn't much change to it.

Those two, I did not like it all. And number three for me is the San Jose Sharks. I mean, I understand why they brought this one back. you know, it's from the team's 98 season, but there's just, there's really nothing doing it here. I mean, like, you have a bunch of gray on the jersey. I mean, the shark is still chomping the stick, but, you know, other than that, it's just a whole bunch of blah. I mean, like, the shoulder crest is still really not that good. It's just everything about that jersey is just a bunch of blah to me.

I really don't like it at all. And I know this is world-class analysis here, but, you know, I'm not like a big jersey expert. I'm just giving my takes on which are the best and which are the worst. At number four, I have the Panthers one. That one's utterly terrible too. I don't really know what the hell they were going for with that one. And then at number five, I have the Predators one just because it looks like also almost basically the same jersey that they wear now. I mean, just a bunch of gold in it.

I mean, I know it was basically the gold version of their team's inaugural 1998-199 look. But there's just really nothing doing it for me there. So, I mean, I guess that one's a hard pass as well. Well, those are my top five favorite. least five favorite for the reverse retro jerseys. You know, most of them were pretty decent. You know, like I said, I think the Penguins won was better than I expected. I'm definitely going to buy one, though, at some point, I do want them to bring back the OG replica, well, the Snoop Dog version of the Pittsburgh Diagono and hope to get the Robo Penguin or a version of the Robo Penguin

jersey back because that would just, I will buy that one too. But before we get to some NHL season news, it's time to talk about Bill Bar. There's 18 amazing flavors, six new flavors. cookies and cream, carrot cake, apple almond, chris, or a few. Still the 12 original flavors. Peanut, banana bread, mint brownie, double chocolate. The bars are covered in 100% chocolate. They're soft and easy to chew. They're great for the health conscious person.

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Let's just get into some season stuff. So there's been rumors circulating these last couple days. You know, they still want to start on January 1st. They're having a lot of meetings. I think it's the NHLPA executive player board. I think there are 16 players on it. If I can find Pierre LeBron's tweet to it, actually. I think Mark Savard is one of the players that are on.

Let me go to his Twitter right now. I know, guys, this is great podcast material that I'm just looking this up on Twitter right now. So the players that he said are on it. David Backus, Darren Hemp, I don't know why Darren Helm's on there. David Savar, Justin Falk, Lars Eller, Sam Ghanier, Justin Abdukator, Ian Colossack, Heimann, Ron Hainzy, Claude, Claude, Andrew Kopp, Alex Beaga, Chris Kreider, Mark Chifley. The fact that are not more star players on there is pretty interesting to me. But, you know, to the news itself, Elliot Freeman had a quickie blog last night.

apparently he did say of course the players want to play the Anshel wants to get going apparently the Anshel is asking for an additional 13% salary deferment I mean of course the Anshel was going to ask for that I'm sure the players aren't going to be too thrilled about that

but you know they might have not they might not have a choice if they want to play but you know here's the big thing here one current option is 60 games for a season in your own arenas MLB style set up with back to backs in the same rank divisional only yes than a Canadian division as part of it and the playoffs would start in mid-May

if they're going to try and start January 1st. Time is short. They're working at it now. Now, I've taken them as critical financial detail. I've been saying on this for about a week or two, starting January 1st is just not realistic to me. I mean, if you're going to do a January 1st restart, you've got to come to a agreement in the next week. I mean, honestly, you forget a week.

I mean, you got to come to agreement in the next few days. I mean, the players have to come back from Europe. I mean, they have to be tested and all that, quarantining from coming back. I mean, there's just a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen. When are you going to open training camp in a month from now? I mean, there's probably not going to be a preseason for obvious reasons. So you're going to open up a two-week training camp and then just get right into it on January 1st. I just think that's rushing it a bit.

I think the best case scenario for the league, and I was actually reading this from Josh Joey's Live Q&A on the athletic would be to, you know, to start end of January on Pro Bowl weekend, which I think the Pro Bowl was supposed to take place, excuse me. I think it was canceled this year. That will be perfect. There's really no sports going on this weekend. There's no baseball, of course. There's no basketball. You're preparing for the Super Bowl a week after.

You will have everyone's attention if you return that weekend. And you can do four games a day on NBC, NBCSN. You know, have a game at noon. Have a game at three. Have a game of six. Have a game at nine. That's eight games over the weekend on your networks. You can really showcase the sport, you know, for it's coming back.

And, you know, obviously the other games we played on the really. regional networks, but, you know, that would just be a great idea, I think, for the league. It's more realistic. You have more time to prepare, more time for training camp, more time to get players over from Europe or wherever the hell they're at. I mean, hell, Canada as well, especially someone like Cindy Crosby, who needs to come back from Cold Harbor, Nova Scotia, where he stays over the offseason, and then, you know, if you get him Malkin, who's just in Russia, probably right now, too. So, you know, it's just, it makes more sense to do that. More national exposure, we all know there's going to be a new TV deal at some point for the league.

You know, I don't know when they're going to agree to it. Hopefully they bring ESPN back into the fold. We'll have a whole episode, I'm sure, detailing that at some point. But yeah, I mean, I just, I think it makes more sense to do it that way. I mean, January 1st, like I said, you're looking at a potential, you got to come to a deal within less than a week, I think. And also, I mean, the MLB set up, you know, just playing two games back to back or, you know, another good idea. You can play one game on Wednesday, one game on Wednesday, one game on Monday, and then one game on Wednesday. You don't even have to deal with the back-to-back at times.

Boom, same arena, and then the visiting team can just go home, and you can do that. You can just rotate teams in and out of arenas just all season long, and they can travel and one on. I'm sure they'll probably start the season with no fans, and they'll try to get fans in at some point in 2021. I just, who knows how the virus is going to look like if it's just going to keep spiking as we go into the new year. And then, you know, you have the whole realignment thing that we're going to have to do. I mean, there's obviously, I think, going to be a Canadian division. Actually, Rob Rossi just came out with a pretty cool piece on the athletic. You know,

how NHL realignment could force the penguins into a new division. I mean, there's a couple scenarios that he lays out here. There could be like a central one, hypothetical. This is just a hypothetical one. Blackhawks, Blues, Blue Jackets, Capitals, hurricanes, Penguins, Predators, Red Wings. That actually would be pretty interesting. You would

play the Blackhawks a lot more, which, you know, I don't think the Penguins have beaten them enough over Crosby's tenure. They do not beat the Blackhawks very often at all. The Blues, that would be cool. you know, Columbus, obviously, I mean, they're not even that far from Columbus. Washington in the division, that makes sense. Carolina, they're not that far off to.

Nashville, Detroit. That would be a cool, fun division. Rob even Rice will be more beneficial in terms of average road trip miles. It also allowed them to remain a division with at least one of their biggest rivals, the Washington Capitals. It also brings together three of America's strongest NHL television markets in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Chicago. Here's the other hypothetical Chicago, St. Louis, Cucson. Columbus, Tampa, Florida, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Nashville. I do not like the Florida teams being in there.

I really don't. That seems weird that both Florida teams would be in that division. I definitely like the first central hypothetical that Rob points out, then the second one. And, you know, here's the big kicker from this article. From what Rob has been told, it sounds like they, the Penguins preferred to remain in division with long-term rivals such as the Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Blue Jackets, and Clubs within the New York metropolitan area, aside from maintaining their oldest and fierce rivalries. There is a financial upside to being grouped with six clubs. Shorter flight, save money and

cost-cutting measures are especially valued by all NHL clubs because of limited gate revenue. I mean, like I said, I mean, that makes sense, though. I would prefer them to be in a division with all East clubs. But, you know, if you put them in a division with Detroit, I mean, hell, Buffalo, that would be great. I mean, the trip from Pittsburgh to Buffalo is honestly not even that far. Columbus, again, makes sense. Washington. Carolina, you can probably sub out and put Philadelphia in. St. Louis, that would be pretty cool. show we'd be pretty cool, especially with that 2017 Stanley Cup final rematch in there. So, you know, I definitely think there is going to be some sort of realignment that we will be looking at for this season.

It's not going to be the same divisions, you know, especially if we're going to get a Canadian division. But, you know, we're also just like spip-holling at this point. But, you know, I definitely prefer the first hypothetical rather than the second one that Rob points out. And, you know, we'll see what happens with these negotiations. It's going to be very interesting to see where this goes. Will they come to do an agreement within the next seven to ten days? I don't really know. I mean, forget seven to ten days.

You know, they got to come to agreement, you know, I think, in a shorter time frame than that. And, you know, like I said, late January restart would be more beneficial. You know, as Josh was also saying in his live Q&A, start the games on a weekend, put four games a day on NBC and NHL on NBC Sports Network. I mean, that would just be absolutely awesome. But coming up in our next segment, we will be doing our player season review for Jason Zucker, who was, of course, required from the Minnesota Wild,

and what a season it was for him. So stick around for that. All right, guys, welcome back to the, this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm, of course, your host, Hunter Hodes. So, you know, just what a debut it was for Zucker. Obviously, I think was their best player in the playoffs, had two goals, drove possession, that was a great fan on Malkins line with Russ.

He was one of the few players that actually showed up in those four games against Monterey, I'll bet a short sample size, even though it looked like the team was just not ready to be there. I don't think a lot of those players even wanted to be there, but, you know, Jason Zucker definitely did. He was trying to carry them as best he could, but, you know, ultimately, you know, of course, they lost three games to one to the Canadians. But you look at it as on-ice impacts here.

Only played 15 games, 221 minutes on the Iates. Chances for chances against 234-199. His possession numbers, 54%. I know guys, 15 game sample size in 45 games in Minnesota. They were at 47.4%. But I would also argue that Minnesota has never been a good team at driving possession. You know, you come into a team like Pittsburgh, who is usually top. five to top 10 and driving possession year in and year out and of course has two superstars who drive

lines I mean you're obviously your numbers are going to go up but um his goals four goals against you know 10 11 you know in Minnesota's 8 28 to 31 I'm not really going to look at that too much um his is his is his goals four percentage 48.8% even in 15 games I would expect that to be above 50% I mean before that year he was well over 50% in Minnesota 2018-19 was 56%. 2017-18, 58%, 57% in 2017, 53% in 2016.

So he's really hovered around there. I would expect in a full season, even if it's 60 plus games. Next season, I think it would be right around there, 53-58%, especially if he's playing on a line with Malkin and Rust the whole time. His scoring chance is 4% percentage, 49.7%. Again, I would expect that to go up, you know,

for the three years prior to this year. He was at 55, 56%. it was almost at 57% during the 2017-18 season for Minnesota. So I would expect his numbers to get right back up to there. His high-danger chances for versus high-danger chances against. Those took a hit, 36 to 49. It also doesn't help that Gino is not really that good of a defensive player. And, you know, I think Jack Johnson was also getting a lot of minutes on the ice

when Zucker was on the ice for some reason. They always wanted to put the Johnson pairing on with Malkin. You know, they did that for both of the seasons that he was there. and, you know, his line obviously suffered the consequences from it. So I would expect that to go up next year as well. But overall, point production-wise, six goals, 12 points and 15 games. If you add the playoff numbers to those, that's basically, I'm trying to do the math here. So that's two points in four games.

So what do you have, 14 points and 19 games. That's virtually almost at a point per game pace. I would expect him for next year. I mean, he had total 20 goals, 41 points this past season, and 60 games. I think for this year it's not out of the realm of possibility that he gets 25 to 30 goals. I mean, he did it in 2017-18 with Minnesota, had a 33-goal campaign, 64 points in a full season, 82 games. That's obviously the best season of his career.

And, you know, with playing with Malkin and Russ, who is also coming off a career year, I could definitely see the possibility, like I said, that he puts up 25 to 30 goals and maybe 50 to 60 points. I mean, I'm going to go out a limb next year. And I'm going to say he's going to pot 30 goals and he's going to have. 35 assists for a 65 point season. He's going to break his career high that he had from 2017-18 that when he had 64 points and he's just going to break it by just one point. 30 goals, 35 assists here for Jason Zulker. You heard it here first. If I'm wrong, I of course will eat crow. I'm just, I'm really high on him going into this season. He had really good underlying numbers

before this season. He has a hell of a shot. He puts up points. He's a good playmaker. And I think he's just a great fit on the Balkan line. So I'm really really. really excited to see what can happen with Zucker going into this season. I honestly think he's like the big, what do I call it? X factor, I would say. I think he's the big X factor for the Penguins outside of Tristan Jari, because we really don't know how he's going to do for a full season as the starting goaltender.

So that basically wraps up the player season review for Jason Zucker. Earlier today, though, I did want to end with this. I'd be tweeted this onto my timeline from Ryan Rushog of TSA. I think it looks like Team Canada's training camp for the World Juniors has started. Of course, the World Junior's start. I believe it's in a month, if I'm not mistaken, towards like right around Christmas time. Sam Poulin had probably one of the goals of the day,

maybe even training camp, just the way. I mean, he kind of falls down on the defenseman, takes the puck back, skates around him, and then goes forehand, backhand, past the goaltender, just a gorgeous goal. You guys can go check that out on my Twitter timeline at Honjahodes. And I quote tweeted it, and I'm going to say it here as well, guys,

if you guys don't follow me. Sam Puelan is going to make the Penguins out of training camp. Mark my words, you heard it here. He has the skill to be on this team. I think he's NHL ready. I know there's a lot of players that may be blocking him potentially at the start of the season, but with Aston Reese, and with Evan Rodriguez, kind of a bit of an unknown, even though he was brought back, I can definitely see Poulin stealing a roster spot when the season begins, especially if he does have a great training camp, and I expect him to have a great training camp. So like I said, I think Sam Pooleon makes this team. He would probably start out on the third.

line. I think people are a bit too high with their expectations that he's just going to come into a top six role. I mean, think about it. You have Jake Gensel with Sidney Crosby and Casperi Captain. Mike Sullivan even said last week when he was interviewing with Josh Gets off of Penguins Radio. They're going to start captain with Crosby. So again, that's a no right there. Then you have Jason Zarkwithick, Andy Malkin, and Brian Russ. That's your top six, bar none. Where's their room to put pool in in the top six? I mean, if Capon's struggles, maybe you move him down and put Poolin up there, I can totally see that. But, you know, you're probably. looking at him on the third line and I'm sure

they could use it, especially Jared McCann I mean, he can definitely use Evie, especially if he's going to be playing with Mark Jankowski and Evan Rodriguez every night, or they can just promote Brandon Tannib up there. But, you know, I really do expect him to earn a roster spot from training camp. I really believe that. So that will do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I hope

you guys enjoyed it. I hope you guys enjoyed the Jersey talk. You know, we're getting hopefully closer to the start of the season where this podcast will get back to doing everyday episodes, recapping the game, previewing the games, bringing on some more guests. We will have some more guests on at some point here during the off season. But, you know, there should be more news coming from the NHL with their plans to start up their next season.

And when that news comes, you guys will be the first to hear about it here on Locked on Penguins. So again, thank you guys so much for listening, and I will talk to you all tomorrow.