Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The magic of Kris Letang continues for the Penguins

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

What a win for the Pittsburgh Penguins! Hunter starts the show off by touching on both Kris Letang and Tristan Jarry as they were the key reasons why Pittsburgh won this game. He goes into both of their performances, especially Letang's as he just came off COVID. He then goes into the performances of Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen. Was this a step in the right direction for Kapanen? Were there any differences in his game? After that, Hunter dives into Jake Guentzel finally getting his due, Mike Matheson's costly mistake, plus the listener takeaways segment returns as well!Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.ShopifyGo to Shopify.com/lockedonnhl for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. 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.

Your Locked-on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, everyone. Welcome to a very late Thursday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes.

Follow this shows Twitter at L-OenSquare Penguins. And thank you all so much for making this your first listen to the day. whether, you know, you're listening late on a Thursday evening, early Friday morning, whatever the case. Thank you for me for making this episode of Lockdown Dickling's podcast, your first listen of the day. We also have a crossover with Locked on Wild with Seth for Friday's episode, which will preview the game on Saturday. But what a performance by the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight? They snap that losing streak, and they get to four and three and two on the season. I always start out my episode with my biggest takeaways from that game.

just my two biggest storylines, I should say. I'm not going to obviously go play by play here with everything you all just watch the game. But Chris Latang, what a freaking motor. I mean, the dude has COVID, comes back, plays his ass off for 30 minutes. Pardon my language. Sorry. Plays his tail off for 30 minutes and then scores the game winning goal in overtime to Will the Penguins to this victory. I'm just, you know, I'm done with people talking crap about him.

just he keeps motoring and he just keeps being, in my opinion, the best defenseman in franchise history, the best franchise defenseman in this franchise's history. He just continues to kill it year after year. There were so many plays tonight that he was making where it was like, did this guy just miss 10 days or am I just dreaming? I mean, there was a two-on-one early in the first period where he breaks that up with ease. His skating was magnificent. And then, you know, that play in overtime, you know, one of the flyers blocked the shot.

and then La Tang was able to corral the puck do a nice wrap around, and then the parallax on that this time was on the penguin side as the reps were able to see that the puck did cross the line past Carter Hart to have the penguins win 3 to 2. Just a magnificent performance from Tanger. And again, you know, he brings an element to this team that not many teams can match. He is a pure bona fide number one defenseman in hockey.

I will say this until I am just, you know, until I can't say it anymore. When he is healthy, he is a top 10 defenseman in this league, and when he is, you know, really, really on his game, I don't think there are five defensemen in this league who are better than him. That is how gifted he is with the puck. It is a shame that he did not win the Khan Smyth in 2016, but he was a rock tonight. And, you know, for the people that say, you know, he should have been traded a long time ago. Or, you know, they should have traded him after they won the 2017. semi-cup, excuse me.

I hope you people are feeling a bit foolish right now because he is absolutely outstanding. And, you know, just these last few games when he was out as well, John Marino was taking over his minutes, and don't get me wrong, I think John has had a really good season, but there is a huge downgrade

from Chris Tang on the top pair to John Marino. And, you know, Tanger also is going to have to carry the corpse of Mike Matheson for at least next week and a half to two weeks as Brian Dumlin is in COVID protocol. We will get to some Mike Matheson's stuff later in the show, it'll probably be at least a few minutes worth of Mathis and stuff. But again, to summarize all this, what a performance from Tanger.

I'm sure he's going to keep this up, too. He is one of the most conditioned players in hockey. I wish I could say that I was surprised about this performance, but I'm not just because of the way he takes care of his body. And just, you know, this is how he plays on almost a nightly basis for this team. My second biggest storyline, the continued awesome play of Trishon Jari. I mean, he was, you know, outside of Crystal Tang, I would say that he is the biggest reason why they won this game.

Now that I'm going to thinking about it, I think he is the biggest reason why they won this game, especially in that first period while I was watching. Those last 10 minutes, Pittsburgh was getting caved in to a very high degree. I think the Flyers finished that period with 17 shots, if I'm not mistaken. And Jari, which is making save after save. This is another really great performance from him. I know I've said this 5,000 times.

on this podcast, but in case anyone is new here, I will say this again. You are not going to write a redemption story, you know, even if just after a first month of regular season, after the first couple months, even for an entire regular season, right? Everyone is going to judge you by the way you play in the Stanley Cup playoffs because he was the biggest reason why they shook. That said, he is off to a hell of a start. And in his last, I believe, four to five stars this season, he has a 9.35% percentage. He saved 9 or 10 high danger chances tonight.

he was the biggest reason why they won this game. You know, in overtime especially, was making some huge saves. In the third period, when the team was getting caved in a little bit, was making some ginormous saves. I think he had a couple saves on breakaways as well. You know, that's an area where I think he needs to improve on a little bit. But he was awesome tonight,

and he matched what Carter Hart was doing on the other side. So he's making me eat crow. I think he's making the entire fan base ecro. And I think the only people that he's not making Eat Crow, are Ron Hexton and Brian Burke because they believed in him coming this season and you can also really see the work that Andy Kyoto is continuing to pull off

with this whole tenter. He was much more aggressive again tonight. Sometimes he's still a little bit deep in his net, but it's not nearly as often as I saw last year and he's more square up, squared up, excuse me, to the shooters and there's just not a lot of, you know, net to shoot at when he's playing like that and you saw that tonight with how the flyers are struggling to,

you know, put pucks past him. The two goals that he did allow were not even his fault. The Travis Connectney won. You know, say what you want about connecting with what he's done against the Penguins over the years, with, you know, his antics and stuff. That was a gorgeous move. It was, you know, backhand top cheese. Jari had no chance on that.

The second one, Mike Matheson just basically vomits all over himself, turns the puck over behind the net, and then Scott Lawton Berries at Top Cheese over Jari's glove. I'm sure some people are going to cling. Glove side this, glove side that. To me, really no goalie is saving that, at least in my opinion. So yeah, I'm not blaming Jari at all for those two goals.

So it was just, again, another really big step in the right direction. I understand that people are going to McDale every time he steps onto the ice. You know, every time he gets a puck thrown out just because of the playoffs. But right now, I think people can quit a little bit. You know, he is on his game. And if he continues to give this team quality, great goaltending the way that he is right now on a nightly basis. and if they can get some healthy bodies back from COVID and some injuries. And so help me God, have this team be healthy.

They are going to be one of the best teams in the conference. And I really think they will win a lot of games. I don't think that's too homerish to say. Yes, I'm very high on them. But, you know, this team has to get healthy first, even though that's basically a big myth at this point. But he is giving them a really good goal-titting on a night-le-bases and is giving them a chance to win every time he steps on into the rank.

I can't say the same for Casey DeSmith right now, but at least for Jari, he needs to continue to get almost all of the starts moving forward. The only time I really want to see DeSmith get some starts, or as if, you know, Jari's played seven, eight games in a row, maybe he needs a breather or especially on a back-to-back. Other than that, just keep riding Tristan. He's on a high note right now, and again, he's giving them the best chance to win on an every night basis.

Now, this is a little funny takeaway to end this first segment of this episode. Again, one of the Flyers players just goes after Mark Friedman, and I tweeted this, I don't know if Friedman slept with a Flyer player's girlfriend, you know, this girl like cheated on this player with Mark Freeman. I have no idea. But every time these two teams play when Friedman is in the lineup, the Flyers are taking cheap shots at him. I don't know if he trashed the city on his way out about, you know, maybe being given a chance

or something like that. Again, I don't know if he slept with a player's girlfriend, but it is weird to see that he continually just gets cheap-shotted every time these two teams play. Tonight, it was with Abi Kubal basically punching in in the face and Freedman drawed an interference call. One of the games last year, I think it was, I want to say, Goss despair with a nasty shove right after that he got an empty-net goal into the boards. It was a very dangerous boarding play. I think he either got fined or suspended a game after that. Another one, again, they're just taking liberties at him. really weird to see.

So I would love to find out the backstory behind that at some point during his tenure or, you know, after he leaves, I would just love for that story to come out. But overall, you know, those are my three main takeaways from this game. And, you know, also, obviously, great to be back in the wind column. This team needs to bank points. I understand it is hard to be mad at them with the entire situation that's going on right now. Mike Sullivan was on the bench tonight due to COVID protocol. Sydney Crosby has it.

Brian Duman has it. Traver-Reedle has and Marcus Pedersen has it. I know some people are going to say that, you know, well, this shows the vaccines don't work. You know, it failed. This is just, this is the world we live in now. I'm not going to go on a full tirade on this podcast, but, you know, the vaccine only helps slow the spread of the virus. You can still get the virus if you are fully vaccinated.

It usually just means that you won't have symptoms as bad as someone would if they were unvaccinated. Again, it's a very unfortunate circumstance what's going on right now. with the penguins because you're not really seeing any other outbreaks across the sports. I know the sharks are having a bit of one right now. Some other players have tested positive or on the league. You know, some also have tested positive in the NFL. But, you know, God willing, hopefully the penguins are out of this sooner rather than later, you know,

because I know a lot of teams went through a big outbreak. Last season, obviously a lot bigger than this one. The penguins are lucky that it's not gotten up to that level of that. But still, you know, with how many players that have been out due to COVID this year, I think it's almost up to half a team at this point. It's just ridiculous that it's even got here. But, you know, just what a win for this team overall to wrap up this first segment, especially without Mike Sullivan on the bench to coach

and all the players out due to injuries in code. They've got to continue to bang points, and hopefully they do that on Saturday against the Minnesota Wild as well. Now, we still have more to get to for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast, including my thoughts tonight from Kasperi Kappan, Jason Zucker, a few other players who I thought played well, P.O. Joseph, debut. I'm going to touch on him. Also going to get to some listener takeaways later in the show.

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So, before I do get into some list, turn takeaways. We do not have to touch on Kasperi Captain again. I actually thought tonight he was getting much better quality looks than he had for most of the season thus far. He was actually engaging in some puck battles, a little bit better defensively. He was ripping some shots from the slot and the high danger areas. This time, you know, Carter Hart was right there to make all the saves. So hopefully he'll come out of the gulag at some point, you know, a war zone in case anyone does not play Call of Duty. Anyways, I still think this was a much better performance from him.

The puck just needs to start going in the net for him because, you know, if he's not scoring, he's not bringing a lot of positives to the lineup on an every-night basis. Overall, his line tonight with Zooker and Rodriguez was pretty decent. They had 57% of the shot attempts when they were on the ice. If you go over more a little bit here, expected goals 4.75, expected goals against 0.44. They had 62.9% of the expected goals for percentage. That's very good scoring chances. They dominated.

They were actually the best Penguins line at 5-5 in terms of scoring chances. 75% of the scoring chances for when they were on the ice. High danger, you want to talk about, here's a good step for you all. 10 high danger chances for one high danger chance against that is equal to 90.9% of the high danger chances. They were a menace. You know, a lot of that I did think had to do with Campan being, you know, just much more present. You know, again, winning those puck battles. And he has not been doing that a lot this season just because he's been floating around the ice,

not really doing much. The puck's been bouncing over his stake. I didn't really see that a lot tonight either. Jason Zucker, I also thought I had a really good performance. He's already started to, you know, hit that redemption a bit this season as well. I thought he had some good looks tonight. Carter Hart was just better. Evan Rodriguez was dangling.

some flyers. It's a weird night when you have a player like Rodriguez dangling folks on on an every shift basis. But he's been, I think, one of the more underrated players this season and I think he's potentially going to stay in the lineup if this team ever gets healthy.

Obviously, be in the lineup for many more games moving forward, but, you know, obviously I'm just talking about the myth of this team ever getting healthy. So that line continues to just kick ass. And I thought that, you know, all three especially Kaplan. and we're good tonight. You know, obviously, everyone is judged by how, you know,

what they produce with, you know, with goals and assists. The underlying numbers were there from him tonight. Now it's all about putting the puck in the back of the net in finishing those chances from the underlying numbers on Natural Statsrick and a couple others. Other players that I thought played well. Finally, you know, Jake Gensel breaks out of that slum, gets a goal this season.

I think that was his first one since the game against the Panthers where he made Sergey Brabrovsky, his personal puppet. it once again. But, you know, tonight, he was finally rewarded for all the chances that he's been getting these last few games. I think he was more snake-bitten than anything, even though you still want to see him wake up. You know, it's okay for a player that's making, what, six million per year to cash in on these chances. He finally did so tonight. Hopefully the floodgates start to open for Jake, because, you know, even on a goal like that, which was pretty fluky, I think it bounced off one of the Flyers players in it. It was just a weird freaking goal.

really huge for Jake to get that because again I really think that this could spark a lot of offense from him the bluegar-assan-rese-Migin line I think was fine Brock gets another goal this season I didn't like the penalty that he took towards the end of the third period I think that gave the Flyers too much life just because it looked like they were going to basically slog this game to the end

and then Brock just really takes an ill-a-vis penalty there I know Pittsburgh was able to kill it off but then you know obviously let's just get to it right now now the Mike Matheson experience. This is what we all signed up for when he got acquired by former GM, Jim Arthur. He is the total chaos player. I have said that many times since he got acquired from the Panthers. He probably should just be a forward right now.

Shout out to you, King Clarkie, for suggesting that back in September of last year. That play on the top pairing with three minutes left. A, why in the hell is he on the ice with three minutes left? Just put someone like Rikolo out there. And B, that's just an inning. excusable play. I mean, there's less than three minutes left, as I just said, you're doing a D-to-D pass, you fan on it, and the flyers are able to take advantage of that, turn over, centering pass, boom, it's passers-injari, and then you give the flyers a point in the process.

I mean, had that not happen, they probably win that game in regulation. I think, you know, probably 95% chance with the way, you know, they were defending for most of that period. It was basically a slog test. That's just a play that can't happen. It's inexcusable on all levels. and, you know, I've seen this take thrown around a lot lately, and I completely agree with this. Mike Matheson is the player that Chris Latang haters think Chris Latang is. And what I mean by that is, you know, sure, he's gifted offensively, but, excuse me, Matheson is so bad in his own zone that, you know,

you don't even have to look at the underlying numbers to see it. You can just watch him and see how much of a train wreck in his own zone. his own zone. That is who people think, that is who the Latang haters think Latang is, except, you know, Latang is nothing like Mike Matheson in the slightest. So I thought I would put that take out there just because I'm tired of people see, people bashing Latang for stuff that he doesn't really do, but yet Mike Matheson does that same stuff, and no one bashes him just because, oh, you know, the GM made a trade that, you know, I guess worked out a little better than expected so we can't bash him. I've never really understood that. But again, that's a play that's inexcusable.

it's bad. It costs the penguins a point, well, it costs the penguins having to go to overtime because they should have won the game in regulation. I hate giving away loser points to teams in the division. I don't care if it's the first game of their season. I don't care if it's the 50th game of the season. I don't care if it's the, what are we at? Game 9 right now. I don't care if it's the

9 game of the season. That can't happen. You should have won that game in regulation. Obviously, I'm going to take the W. But in a key moment in that game, it's just very upsetting to see Mike Matheson make a blunder that you probably wouldn't even see in junior level hockey in that situation. In terms of all my thoughts and everything, I think that does it for me.

Coming up in the next seven, we are going to get to your listener takeaways to see if what you watched lines up with what I watched, and I always love to hear what you all have to say. So stick around for that in the next segment. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins.

So I promised I would start with King Clarkie here. Michael Matheson is the most entertaining player on the team, and it is not close. I even responded. First one that's being mentioned, thanks for your service. Yeah, he is entertaining, though at times I think we all want him sent to the gulag. It's just, I can't wrap my head around how bad that play was. I know I just said it a couple minutes ago. That's a play you wouldn't even see in junior hockey in that kind of situation.

Iris, AJ says, I'm glad Jake was able to score finally. Riegla is like the defensive version of Tannet, hitting machine, hope he stays in the lineup. Yes, I am glad that someone did mention Yusel Rechola. It is crazy to me how this guy cannot play for a year or two, basically just eat to check by sitting in the press box every night, eating a bunch of nachos, burgers, whatever, hell else food they have up there. And then he comes in and just plays his tail off, and it's like, why is this guy not getting more of a look?

You know, as Iris A.J. just said, you know, he's a hitting machine. He's a great separating a player from the puck. and he also just drives offense to a pretty good degree. So there's not really much to dislike from him. I really hope he continues to get, you know, a long look, even if the defensive corpse does get healthy, you know, obviously I think that point will, with three of their defensemen coming back from COVID protocol at some point.

I'll be curious to see what Sullivan and the coaching staff do with that, but I really would like to see Rickula get more of a look because he is a player that has underutilized for reasons. He's always been a Mike Sullivan's doghouse. Thank you for bringing up that player, because I really think there's something more from him there. Jackson Hollster says, bit of a nail-barred, but I thought the pens played really well.

Jarre was incredible, and so was Latang. The only lead negatives I can say is that we should have had two of those wide-open chances. Matheson needs to work on his passing. Yes, and Matheson needs to work. I think on almost everything, Jackson, especially not turning the puck over with three minutes left. And yeah, I agree Capon and does need to figure it out. I know we touched on it earlier in this episode. I thought this was probably his best game of the season,

and hopefully, hopefully, you know, the chances start to go in for him because, you know, this could, I think, be a really big step in the right direction. Sam, Alves says my number one takeaway is that the penguins still own the flyers. Now, now, Sam, the penguins did lose five of eight last season, but, you know, we'll see if the penguins can own them this season. You know, last season is over with, you know, in their last nine games, I believe the penguins are four and five against them. So it's almost been a 50-50 split.

They haven't owned them, you know, the last year. But, you know, before that, you know, the penguins were playing. Philadelphia pretty well. Finally, and with Nick saying Chris Lattang is the lead. Jari played out of his mind. I love seeing Jake play well as well. Okay, this is the comment of the night. Those mouth breathers in Philadelphia cannot be the COVID-19 penguins.

Yes. I did tweet before the game that, you know, if the Flyers lost this game, I think they would have to be eradicated from the state of Pennsylvania. I still stand by that. Send them to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, or, you know, maybe anywhere. New Jersey, to be honest.

No one really likes that state. Anyway, now I'm just messing around. Jersey is a fine state. I actually have family from there, but still, I think the Flyers probably need to be moved away from Philadelphia for losing to a team without its head coach and without so many players injured and in COVID protocol. But I think that will do it for this episode of Lockdown Penguins.

I don't believe I missed anyone. Shout out to Alan Tejota, though, for sending me a video of him at the game. Got to go to a Flyers game with a mostly full arena. He wore his Latang, to the game as well and gave me a video of just the arena going crazy when the goal was announced. I've missed full crowds for sports games, and it's really great to see that. Again, so, Alan, thank you so much for sending me that.

And again, thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We will have another one of these on Friday with a crossover with Seth of Lockdown Wild 2 preview that game on Saturday. Then we'll have a fresh five episodes the week after for Lockdown Penguins. as well. So I will talk to you all on Friday.