Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The NHLPA says yes to the format! What that means for the Penguins, plus thoughts on being scared of Carey Price.

Episode Date: May 23, 2020

The NHLPA executive board has decided to say "yes" to the NHL's playoff proposal and Hunter breaks down what that means for the Penguins, plus some thoughts on how it doesn't benefit some other teams as well. We also get conflicting reports as to what the Penguins voted for in the proposal during the recording of this episode, plus we get to this day in Penguins history (it's not a good one). 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, welcome to this Friday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. Remember, this show is brought to you by Bilt Bar, and we actually have an Memorial Day offer for you guys. Monday only, you can get a free pack of assorted built boost energy drink mix. But for the week next week, you can get $5 off every box of bars. This can be used in addition to the $10 off promo code and the new flavors,

Pee-B banana, blueberry lemon, coconut pecan pie, pineapple upside-down cake. Remember that promo code, the $10 off at billbar.com for your first order. In addition to this offer, we have going as well. But in any case, happy Friday evening to you all. Happy Memorial Day weekend. Well, happy early Memorial Day, I should say, but Memorial Day weekend is here.

So we do have a lot to get to on this episode of Lockdown Penguins, a lot more NHL News, Kemp is in today. It looks like the players are going to, to be approving this 2014 playoff format, though. It looks like it came with a little bit of a fight. Apparently today, Elliot Freeman went on Sportsnet Radio, basically said, yeah, a lot of the players don't like it. Some of the teams don't like it.

But basically, the quote that I really, really liked that he said, I'm trying to find it here. But the players, yeah, he says the players, they will plug their noses and pass it through. So, yeah, basically, so no one likes the idea, but they're going to do it anyway. You know, that just sounds like peak NHL. because, you know, they like to do that stuff all the time. So, yeah, it looks like that means we will be getting a Penguins-Canadians play-in series. There's been a lot of weird takes on the Twitterverse today. A lot of people simping for the league.

If you don't know what a simp is, basically means like if you, like, the league says something and you're basically like you're following it to like the highest degree. You know, some of these simps, as I like to call them, and a lot of people like to call people's samps, they're just like, if you don't like this format then you don't want hockey back if you want like we want hockey back so accept the format and it's just like I I really don't understand those kind of people you know we all know there's never going to be a perfect solution for this we are in the middle of a pandemic of course this is we are not any under normal circumstances I 100% understand that but if a format

is dog shit to a vast majority of people you know and it doesn't it's not not like, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not as fair as it needs to be to all the teams. Why should you go through with it? Make it 20 to 22 teams. Excuse me. You know, have the top three teams get bys or do the round robins for them, which determines the top succeeding in each conference, and then just have the wild cards do the play in, like I said yesterday. You know, it's really not that hard, but instead, you know, they want to make it more random, you know, and just have these five-game series between two teams that. really don't deserve to be in and two high 5C teams that 100% deserve to make it into the

Stanley Cup playoffs. I feel really, really bad for the Edmonton Oilers in the situation. We'll get to the Penguins coming up. Well, we've already talked about the Penguins, but the Oilers, you know, they're in second place in their division. And, you know, I mean, they should be getting the buy, but I think their point percentage is not as good. And I think some other teams have played more games. I got to double check, but I know that their point percentage is not up to par with some other teams in the division. They get screwed. They have to go play the Chicago Blackhawks when, you know,

that's not fair. Same with the Penguins, you know. There are four points out of the Metropolitan Division lead. There are six points out of third overall in the league standings, but nope, they got to do a play in series just to get into the playoffs. There was one really, really cool idea today that apparently Elliot Freeman

said on Sportsnet Radio that there was a discussion of the idea of the higher seat in the playing series starting with a one game lead, but in the end, they decided against it. I'm going to give off a hop take and say, I agree with that. You know, I think three out of five just, that's not enough in my opinion in some of these play-in series.

You know, you want some of these bad teams to really earn their way in. Go have them beat them four out of five times, see what happens. Or like I said, just do the wild card play-in, have them go through the gauntlet, three versus six, four versus five, have them go beat one of the top two wild-car teams and have them earn their way in. I mean, it's not rocket science, you know? Like I said, you're just inviting so much randomness into these series. A hot goalie can happen.

Some of these shooters can go on ridiculously long scoring streaks, or just very short scoring streaks, too, I should say, because it's a five-game series. You know, a lot of times, guys, the best team doesn't always win. You know, you have last year, the Columbus Blue Jacket swept away one of the best teams in Salary-Cath era history in the Tampa Bay Lightning when they were just outworldly.

They were just so damn good. But Columbus, you know, they got a good. sample size. They got, they got streaky, they got hot. Tampa had no answer for them. And you know what? They got crushed. You know, three years ago, you also had, the Ottawa Senators make it to the Eastern Conference Final by winning almost what. All of their overtime games had a negative goal differential, I think, if I'm not mistaken. It's just, you know, but the NHL loves this stuff, that this is the thing. They love this kind of stuff. They love the chaos. They love to be different from all the

other sports. The funniest thing about this format that I really, really don't like is there won't be receding afterwards. So let's say Montreal upsets the penguins, which, you know, probably won't happen, but you know what anything is possible. You know, like I said, Columbus swept Tampa last year. Let's say Montreal beats the Pittsburgh, you know, three, four, or five games. They would not be playing the Boston Bruins or whoever the number one seat is. They would be playing the Philadelphia Flyers, the number four seat. Explain that to me like I'm five, please, because I really, really don't understand that. I guess they're trying to make it like a March madness kind of thing. But newsflash,

This is not the NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament prides itself on being that way because it's crazy. You know, it's one of the craziest tournaments in sports. It's very, very insane to watch. You love the upsets in those. But, you know, the NHL, it's a little bit different. But, oh, also in college basketball, you know, the number one seed, wow, they play the 16 seed. The number two seed plays a 15.

The three seed plays a 14. The four plays a 13 and so on and so forth. And it's just like, I mean, the NHF, show obviously is not going to reseed. So it just, it really just makes no sense to me. I did see, though, today that, you know, according to Dan Kngerski of Pittsburgh Hockey now, which, you know, we can sometimes take that with a little grain of salt. If you guys follow him or have followed his work before, you would know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to diss anyone pretty bad on this podcast. But, you know, I'll leave it at that. Apparently the

penguins voted a hard no on it, you know? Hard no basically is kind for F-V. that. I'm going to refrain from using the actual word. But yeah, it basically just means F that. Chris LaTang is the player rep for the Penguins. I can only imagine what he had to say on that player executive call. Apparently, according to some reports, Bob McKenzie was tweeting the solid. It got a little heated last night. It was pretty raucous, as he said. So it definitely sounds like the players were trying to fight it. It also sounds like that they think all the players should be voting, not just the executive board on the PA, but still regardless, it is going to go through and I think we're going to get hockey, potentially in the next couple months,

whatever if this goes through. One other thing, I know I touched on this yesterday, in that article, and what I've seen on Twitter today, it's really, really, really weird that people are afraid of Carrie Price. Okay, wait, wait, before I say this, we actually just got breaking news as I am recording this. Let's just go to this Elliott Friedman tweet. More to come, but Pittsburgh NHLPA, Brazil, president of Chris LaTang, says the Penguins actually voted yes. the playoff format. In quote, he says, at the end of the day, nobody gets exactly what they want,

but we all want what is best for hockey and to continue to grow the game. He adds that safety of everyone remains paramount. Hmm. It looks like someone is wrong again. Okay, I'm going to stop before I go into a rant about that. But yes, it looks like a certain someone was wrong. Elliot Friedman comes out and basically just dunks on him. But anyways, back to the whole Carrie Price thing. It is really, really weird that some people seem to be afraid of Carrie Price. You know, could he go on a small little heater, a three to five game heater? Absolutely, you know. Could he turn into 2015 God mode?

Could the penguins get halocked again? Absolutely. You know, a lot of crazier things have happened. You know, I would look like an idiot. I would eat all the crow. But is it likely? No. Guys, Kerry Price is a below average goaltender this season.

He's 9-09. He's been, what, 9-10 the past three seasons? You know, compare that to Matt Murray. This was actually a really good tweet from Ryan Wilson where I saw this stat. Matt Murray is basically right around the same number. 909 the past few seasons. I mean, if you're afraid of that when it comes to Kerry Price, I mean, okay, you know, the habs are not good.

That's not a good HAB's team. So, you know, if this format comes to fruition and everything happens, you know, we saw what's going to happen with the testing, you know, is it safe enough to happen? What's going to happen if a player to test positive? The NHL is kind of embarrassed when they said, oh, if, I think one of the flyers, beat reporters basically said, yeah, if like two players test positive, like the whole team is not going to go into a quarantine and it's like uh-huh like well what are we doing here guys that just does not make any sense at all so it only makes sense that you know as ian mcclaren said

the host of locked on bruin's that you know that we just had a mumps breakout like what about five six years ago that of course they're going to be over aggressive with this so you know that's not surprising but the natcho will be weird with that so yeah i just wanted to get those thoughts off my chest with that you know don't you don't need to really fear carry price that match the habs are also not that good. If the penguins have to beat them, you know what, go kick their ass, and then you go play Philadelphia. You know, there's not going to be any fans in the arena anyway. The penguins are basically the home team.

They'll get last change, which is really, really big. I think people need to really understand that is one of the biggest aspects. I think of home ice is the last change. I didn't really think it was that big of a deal up to a few, about a few years ago until I finally realized it. But yes, it is a big deal. So that will be really, really good for the penguin. So just wanted to share that news from you guys, share my thoughts and everything and all that. But there is one more thing I do want to give my thoughts on and that is built bar, everyone.

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Again, go to builtbar.com. Use promo code locked on. You'll get $10 off your first order. That's promo code locked on for $10 off at builtbar.com. We did have one question from a listener today. King Clarkie and me, you know, he's a really, really good friend of mine. He asked this really, really quick, I need to go down to find this question. Man, I had a lot of mentions today.

Good freaking Lord. Let's see here. Yeah, I guess this is what I get for just talking about the playoff format all day because I really just cannot find this question. And I'm not really prepared at all. So, okay, well, we finally found it because it finally took me forever to go. So, clock on a scale of one dollar log, how ready are you to be mad online when, not if Carrie Price goes on a heater?

If that happens, and this does happen, and we do get, this format and we do get hockey at the end of July, which apparently according to David Pagnata, that's when it would start up, which is pathetic. If that happens, on a scale of one to Holog, very, very close to Hulok. You know, Hulac just made me mad because the Canadians had no business winning that series. And I was also very upset with Mark Andre Florey because he kind of cost the Penguins that series too. You guys remember the Penguins had a three-two series lead against the Canadians, and Floree just shat the bat in Game 6. I think when the penguins were, what, up two to one? at some point, and then we all know what happened in Game 7 with Floreo out for really, really bad goals.

And then I think he was pulled that game, if I'm not mistaken. I think Brent Johnson came in. And then, you know, Yaroslav Holoch just decided to be God for two series in row before finally losing in the Eastern Conference Finals. I believe that was two, wasn't that? Yeah, yeah, that was Philadelphia. Yeah, the funny thing is if the Penguins won that series, they would have played the Flyers in the conference final. And that would have been, I think, three years in a row that we would have been, I think, three years in a row that we would have forgotten penguins flyers um two uh in the playoffs two out of three in the conference final but

so you have one to log it's it's close to halak because um care price has not been good for three years now um i've talked to a couple of my friends you're like you know you shouldn't like doubt him and all that i'm like man he's nine 10 if he goes on a heater you know i'll eat all the crow i can and i'll look like an idiot it won't be the first time i look like an idiot and be wrong about something in this sport it will not be the last time i look like an idiot and be wrong about something in the sport i am prepared to eat you and i am prepared to eat grow, you know, people would laugh at the penguins for losing a playing series to the Canadians. You know, I'd probably laugh at them too. They really have no business losing that kind of series.

But yeah, it would totally happen because, you know, the NHL is random and that shit just happens all the goddamn time. You know, just look at last year when a bluejackets just swept away the lightning with playoff Sergei Bavrovsky. I did forget to touch on this, though. One other thing that's weird. So the Boston Bruins are the number one seat right now, but according to like this format potentially, they would have to do like, a round robin kind of thing where it kind of determines who the top four seeds are going to be and it's like um what the bruns were going to win the president's trophy i think they were what six seven points up on everyone with about 85 to 90 percent of the regular season completed and you know

bearing an unforeseen collapse yeah i mean they were going to win the president's trophy but now you're basically saying oh let's throw it out the window to get round robin games in to determine if they're going to be the number one seed or not you know that's just that's just that's just funny to me, but hopefully they just don't do that because if they don't in Boston, it's the number one seed, guys, if Toronto beats Columbus in the play-in series, we'll get Boston Toronto again.

And Steve, Steve Dangle, who is a character on Twitter, I guess that's the best word to describe it. Basically said, you know, I think someone asked him, like, oh, well, Toronto won't be able to play Boston this year. He's like, oh, they'll probably lose to them twice, which is that's, I can't stop, I couldn't stop laughing at that, but

You know, that would be Boston, Toronto, that would be one, two, three. Wouldn't that be the fourth year in a row that that's happened? I think it's, I think it's not, wasn't the fourth, I think it's the third year in a row. I might be a year short. Because, yeah, yeah, 2016, 17 was when the Caps played the, yeah, yeah, that was when they played the Leafs in the first round. Yeah, it'll be the third year in a row that this happened. You know, but the fourth time since 2013. Yeah, that's my bad.

So, yeah, I was wrong about that, but still, if we get a number. another Boston Toronto series, you know, that'd be awesome. And we could get a Caps hurricane series. If all these results go according to plan, that would be fun because, you know, that's turned into a little bit of a rivalry in itself, you know. I didn't really see that happening, but I guess, you know, I guess that happened. But all right, man, I just, I cannot get over what Elliot Friedman just did to Dan Kngerski. Oh, man, I know I said I was going to be nice on this episode, but man, that's just two times in a row now that he's just gotten crush like this. It's really, it's really, honestly, you guys remember, I'm trying to find a tweet,

I think Tyler, just Tyler, I Fishy HD, of course, who's been on the podcast. Yeah, here was, you know, September 12th, 2019, Bob McKenzie actually dunked on him too. The Bobfather, as we all know him. So, yeah, you know, things you hate to see, you know, the mean picture, you know, that, you know, that's something you hate to see for him, but, you know, things you love to see that for the Penguins fan base, man, the Penguins fan base is just going off on him. Right now, I would read some of the sweets, but you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to get in trouble here. But it's just, it's too good. It's just, I love that. As soon as I said that report in quotation marks, not just a few seconds later, it just goes up in flames. So that, I find that just really, really, really funny.

All right. So for our last little segment here, we'll do what this day in Penguin's history thing. What's just seeing right now is that the Penguins are actually finishing up the replay of the 91 Stanley Cup final. I think that's on 18T Sportsnet, but this day in Penguins history, two big things. In 1995, the Devils defeated the Penguins 4-2 in game two of the Eastern Conference semifinals. They also defeated the Penguins in five games. And then, you know, 2001 on this day, they defeated the Penguins 4-2 to eliminate the Penguins from the Eastern Conference finals.

The Pittsburgh Penguins' last goal was scored by Marty Strachka at 1309 of the second period. That was the 10,000 goal in Penguins' franchise history. So, you know, you learn something every day with this franchise. Nothing else really happened on this day for the Penguins, but I thought we would just get those two things in. What else can we talk about here for just a couple more minutes? Oh, yeah, there was this really, really bad tweet up today from his ad is the draft analyst. You know, I don't want to share his name, but you can look at that ad if you want.

Really bad tweet. His tweet was, bottom line assembled, NHL games must resume. Current players will have to bite the same bowl with the owners and their stats and employees have been biting since March. They need to suck it up for the greater good and trust the league to meet their medical and security needs. So, wait, suck it up for the greater good. First off, what the hell does that even mean? What greater good are we talking about here? You know, one of the funniest responses comes from Michael Clipper, who I followed him for a long time, you know? Imagine tweeting for the

public to read that the owners have sacrificed anything meaningful and that the league should be trusted to do literally anything right. I mean, the league really doesn't do a lot of things right. And just, you know, just for the public, the greater good, they need to suck it up. I'm serious. Like, what does that mean? Angel Games must resume. No, they really should not, they should not must resume. They should resume if there's plenty of safety precautions, and if it's the actual right time to do it.

You need accurate testing. You need to make sure that the cities that you choose are not hotspots. You need to see if the numbers are going down, follow the data. That is one of the biggest things that I can say, many others would say, you know, follow the data, follow the science in this, you know, with what we have done for the last couple months, a lot of the numbers in a lot of places have gone down. It's especially in my state,

you know, I know up in northern Virginia, the numbers have not gone down faster as in other parts of my state, but they're still going down and we're moving to phase one, I think, next weekend. I know some other states have gone further than that. I know Pennsylvania, I think close to the Pittsburgh area, parts of that are in the yellow phase.

Some parts of the area of Pennsylvania are moving to the green phase soon, you know. like the social like the distancing like it has work but you know like it's just it's weird that these people just spew out these hot takes you know oh nchl games must resume it's like well you need the right safety precautions and you need just to make sure like i said you have accurate testing you make sure that players are well taken care of you know and there's just so much more you know the family's aspect you know are they going to be away from their families for very long you know just you know sitting on the bench what's going to happen with that you know are players going to be

allowed to celebrate when they score goals together. I mean, you know, you can celebrate, of course, but like together, you know, who knows? You know, there's a whole long document of the baseball proposal. I think it was like 67 pages where I think, like, if you're not playing in the baseball game, you would have to like sit in the stands, like a few, like a seat, a few seats apart or something like that. There's a whole bunch of rules. I'd have to go back and read some of it. But, you know, just tweeting stuff like that, it's just, you know, it's just, the greater good part is just, that's just, that's dumb, you know, resume it when the time is right. and when you have the safety precautions ready

and that, you know, like I said, just follow the data, follow the science, and you will see the path, as people have said. On that note, I think that we'll do it for this episode of Locked on Penguins. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Enjoyed seeing Elliot Friedman dunk on Bud Moonshine. And my thoughts on the 2014 format again

with also some more thoughts on Curry Price and some other stuff. But we will be back next week. we have some things coming that will surely be pretty, pretty good. And yeah, how you guys said, hope you guys have a really safe, happy Memorial Day weekend, you know, grow some burgers, make some ribs, you know, just keep practicing social distancing and all that. You know, we'll keep getting through this together.

And, you know, perhaps at some point we'll get into preseason mode on the podcast where we can start talking more and more about some playoff hockey for this team. And, you know, maybe at some point in the next couple months, maybe previewing a matchup against the Canadians or the Flyers, you know, but that's if all goes. as well, and, you know, the numbers hopefully continue to go down in a lot of areas across the country, hopefully in all areas across the country and around the world, I should say that. So, like I said, happy more day weekend to you guys. Have a safe weekend, and we will talk to you all next week.