Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The Penguins power play continues to be a MAJOR problem...

Starting point is 00:00:01 The Pittsburgh Penguins dropped their annual Thanksgiving Eve game to the New York Rangers on Wednesday night. And for today's many episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast, I'm going to go over that loss, plus what needs to change on the power play moving forward. Your Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Locked on Penguins. podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Hunter Hodes. You can follow me on Twitter at Hunter

Starting point is 00:00:43 Hodes, follow the shows, Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. You can also follow my co-s, Twitter, Patrick Gamp, at Sinam for Wet. He is not here for today's episode. He's doing a couple of things for Thanksgiving with this family. I am, too, just a little bit later. That's why I wanted to get you all some content for today. This is probably only going to be a 10 to 15 minute episode, just recapping what happened for this Penguins Rangers game. First off, though, thank you all so much for making this your first list and slash watch for the day. And to my American listeners slash watchers, happy Thanksgiving. This is my absolute favorite holiday of the year. I love Thanksgiving so much. But let's get into the recap here. Rangers won, Penguins

Starting point is 00:01:20 nothing in a game that was very winnable for the Penguins, but they came up just short. They don't even get a point, especially after a vintage Tristan Dry performance. I'm going to get into him a little bit later because he was tremendous in this game. But this game was one for the Rangers and lost for the penguins because of the penguin's struggles on the powerplay. They went 0 for 5 on the power play in this game. Only had five shots on the power play. Very unacceptable with the level of talent that is on this unit. And just going on a natural statute to dig into some of the more of the underlying numbers.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Only five high danger chances in five powerplay opportunities. That is unacceptable. And only one expected goals for for the penguins on their power play. Also, very unacceptable. There is plenty of blame to go around for this unit. I think it's both coaching and I think it's both players. I understand that people want to get rid of Todd Reardon. If they did do that, I wouldn't be against it, to say the least.

Starting point is 00:02:21 I just don't think it's all his fault. In my opinion, I think it's 60% on the players, 40% on Reardon. You can change the argument to, I mean, I would hear arguments, excuse me, for maybe 60% Reardon, 40% of the players, maybe 50, 50, maybe you want to be in the range of higher for Reardon, lower for the players. Overall, though, blame for both parties is there. And for Reardon, I think he has a lot of control over the zone entries, which continued to be absolutely awful for the Penguins. On their five power play opportunities last night, it looked like they couldn't even gain the zone at all. And I watched the same thing when they try to break into the offensive

Starting point is 00:03:02 The Penguins are carrying the puck up the ice. They do that ridiculously stupid drop pass that I feel like they've been doing for most of Cindy Crosby's tenure. And then they try to force the puck to the corner of the blue line. And someone is either there, they try to dump the puck in, but it's the same play every single time. Puck hair comes up, they do the drop pass, they throw it to the corner of the blue line, and then they either dump it in or they try to set something up from there.

Starting point is 00:03:30 and it's not working because teams have adjusted to it. And Todd Reardon needs to adjust back. He needs to be able to cook a little bit more with getting the most out of his players with breaking into the zone. That's step one. Now, when the Penguins eventually do get the puck into the offensive zone on the power play, it feels like no one really knows what they're doing.

Starting point is 00:03:51 There still continues to be a lot of overpassing. It's not good enough. At the point, for example, Eric Carlson, they need him to be the quarterback, on this power play. He also needs to bring that one-timer a little bit more. He has a canon of a slap shot. And as for Gennie Malkin, who I thought enjoyed a really brutal game for the Penguins on Wednesday. I thought that it was his worst game of a year by far. He needs to be the trigger man on the right half wall. Do the quote-unquote Gino bombs, as I like to say, on the show. He's not

Starting point is 00:04:21 doing enough of that right now, and it's making the Penguins power play really easy to defend. Honestly, it's been really easy to defend all year, going back to last year, the year before that. They're just not being creative enough with all of their star talent, and it's showing game after game after game. I'm also just noticing when the Penguins are trying to set it up, they're forcing passes, and that's the sign of a really struggling unit. When you're forcing a lot of things and you're giving the PKers easy clears or even short-handed chances, you're just not on top of your game.

Starting point is 00:04:55 and that continues to be the case game after game after game with the Penguins. What I would do to change it up a little bit. I mean, honestly, you could make an argument to change the unit with maybe taking Evgeny Malkin off considering how bad his game was. I'm not really been a proponent of switching out Crosby and Malkin on the power play and giving their own units, but I would honestly try anything to get this unit going right now. but I would definitely try to get a Gennie Malkin going on one of the units with his Gino bombs from the right half wall. I would get Carlson going with more shots from the point.

Starting point is 00:05:31 Cindy Crosby, he can do his work down low, but it's been few and far between because no one is getting chances, especially in front of the net. The Penguins, I think, are really missing a strong net front presence right now. It's just everything about this unit. It's a chore to watch. It's unwatchable. and for a funny story, I was watching this game with my uncle, my grandpa last night. And when the Penguins got that fifth power play in the third period, they looked at me and they said,

Starting point is 00:06:01 do they even want this power play? And I just said, no, I don't think they do because they've been struggling all night. And sure enough, their struggles continued and that won. And just to dive a little bit more into the numbers a little bit, the Penguins home power play this year at home, three for 31. That is embarrassing. I've been trying not to use that word on the show today. I feel like I could have used that word 600 times, but that is absolutely embarrassing. Three for 31 on Hallmice when you have future Hall of Famers on your first unit and some other really good players too. It's terrible and it continues to cost the Penguins valuable points and wins in the standings. If they had just scored on one of those opportunities on Wednesday night, they would have

Starting point is 00:06:50 gone at least a point, you would have gone to overtime, and then anything can happen because the Penguins have at least improved a little bit on three and three overtime going back to the little eight stages of last season. Heck, if they had scored on just two of the five opportunities, they would have won this game. But because the power play continues to be a momentum suck, because it continues to not do anything when the opportunity presents itself, it's losing the Penguins games. And it needs to change ASAP, especially if this team, wants to make the playoffs. I'll say it again. If this unit continues to be this bad, the Penguins will not make the playoffs this year. And a quote that really stood out to me when

Starting point is 00:07:32 I was just scoring Twitter last night, when Mike Selden was talking in the media, he was asked about the power play. And he goes, I think it was a struggle on the powerplay tonight. I think we were forcing it a little bit. And he said, because we were forcing it, we looked a little robotic instead of instinctive. And it's like Mike Sullivan, my dude, you have the ability to change the personnel in game. You can take players off that first unit and put other players on it if you're not feeling like you're getting enough out of the players on your first unit. Why are you not doing that? I know Tar Reardon is the quote unquote expert for this power play, but you are the head coach. You can make changes to it, my man. So I don't want to see the same five players out on

Starting point is 00:08:13 this unit when they play again on Friday night. There has to be some sort of change to This, you know, the zone entries need to be better. Get rid of that stupid drop pass. Please, for the love of God, have more of a shoot first mentality. Feed of Guinea-Malkin a bit more. Feed Eric Carlson at the top point. Honestly, I feel like the power play should run through both of those players. They should be unleashing bombs every chance they get on the power play.

Starting point is 00:08:41 So until that happens, I feel like the powerplay is just going to continue to stink. Tar Reardon, I mean, if this doesn't get better, I do think he's going to. going to get canned. He's going to get Matt Candid as Steelers Offensive quarterback Matt Canada got canned earlier this week. But overall, it's just not good enough for the Penguins in this one. And it needs to change if this team, again, has any hope of making the playoffs this year. Outside of the power play, I know I just spent almost 10 minutes discussing the power play for this mini episode, but I feel like that was the main story of this game. Tristan Jari was excellent in this game. I felt awful for him because you could tell from the

Starting point is 00:09:20 opening puck drop that he was dialed in for this game. He was making some really strong saves in the opening couple of minutes. Sure, he was beat by Alexei Lafranier to open this morning. And I know that was the game's only goal. That was also a really nice move by Lafranier going forehand, a little bit of a mini breakaway. Did not like that play from Ryan Graves. By the way, he can't force that pass to that side of the blue line.

Starting point is 00:09:42 There was no one open there, and then he's a bit slow getting back. He's got to be a little more patient with the puck there, in my opinion. Lefter Sanjari out to dry a little bit. but even after that, he was making 10-bell save after 10-bell save. He was fantastic. His expected goals against him, this one was 3.163, and he had a 2.16 goals saved above expected. The Penguins absolutely wasted a vintage Jari performance.

Starting point is 00:10:07 They got the very good version of Jari in this one, and it stinks that they couldn't even get him a point in this game, because he deserved at least that for this one. I hope that continues this weekend. he's going to get one of these starts. I would guess he's going to get the start against the Maple Leafs. I would go to Delkevich and the Sazbers, but Pat and I can discuss that a little bit more on Friday's episode.

Starting point is 00:10:28 Outside of that, I thought Cindy Crosby enjoyed a pretty sound game. He had a couple glorious scoring chances, you know, including with about 15 seconds left in the third period. Really nice save from Jonathan Quick. And speaking of Jonathan Quick, wow, he was tremendous in this game for the New York Rangers. And just how good? I mean, he had 3.65 goals A lot of expected, my friends. That is very, and I mean, very good.

Starting point is 00:10:53 He is the main reason why the Rangers won this game, made some ridiculous saves through all three periods, and he is the main reason why the Rangers walked out with this one. But I thought Sid looked really good. Jake Gensel had a couple glorious chances, one of which got behind quick, but the Rangers were able to somehow keep out. But outside of that, there's really not much else to discuss

Starting point is 00:11:14 when it comes to this game. The power play just has to be better. And until that happens, I think you're going to see just the same stuff with this unit. But I think that I'll do it for this very mini recap of the Penguins Rangers game on Wednesday night. Pat and I will be back with another full episode for you all on Friday to get you all set for the game against the Buffalo Sabres and the game against the Toronto Maple East on Saturday. Two more massive games for the Penguins will be back on Friday. I hope everyone that's listening slash watching in the United States has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Starting point is 00:11:44 and for everyone else, I hope you all be wonderful Thursday. We'll be back with another full episode for you all on Friday.

Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The Penguins power play continues to be a MAJOR problem...

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