Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The Pittsburgh Penguins...get a win??? Is that allowed??

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

The Pittsburgh Penguins have struck back...for now. Hunter does a full game recap for the Penguins 6-0 beatdown of Montreal and first goes into his biggest takeaways from that performance. He starts out with how the Pens were pushing all game long as the play from the 3rd period on Tuesday carried over. There was a big sense of urgency to win this game and they delivered. He also gets into Sidney Crosby coming alive, which may be bad news for the rest of the league, plus how the 4th line was able to shut some people up as well. He also goes into how Montreal made it easy for the Penguins, plus other topics such as: How great it was to hear HCMS during the game, more details surrounding the sale, Kasperi Kapanen's continued struggles, Blueger being on pace for 20+ goals, Guentzel heating up, and a whole lot more.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. Hey everyone and welcome to this Thursday edition of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. So all this shows, Twitter, at L.O. underscore Penguins.

And thank you all so much for making the Locked-on-Penguins podcast your first listen of the day. your penguins are back in the win column, a 6-0 shalacking of the Montreal Canadians. That team was horrific tonight to say the least. We'll get into the underlying numbers in a little bit for today's episode. My first big takeaway, though, from this game, you could tell from the puck drop that the penguins were pissed. You saw their comments coming into tonight. We need the two points. We deserved better against Buffalo because Dustin Torkarski went out there and played like a prime

Dominic Hashek. Easily, I think, should have gotten a point out of that, especially in the third period. And that play in that third period where they were just buzzing against Buffalo, it carried over and then some for this game. You had that awesome goal to start the game with Cindy Crosby getting his first of the year. An awesome Tick-Tacto play with Brian Russ, Jake Gensel, and Crosby finishing it off. I miss that when all three were not healthy, so I'm glad that we got that back. Teddy Bluger, I thought it was sensational tonight. I had two goals.

A lot of people were kind of dumping on that line. You know, Bluger, Aston Rees, and McGinn this week. And, you know, myself included a little bit. I thought that Brock McGinn had a little more to give. You know, Zach Ashton Rees did as well. And they brought it. And then something, if you look at the underlying numbers on Natural Statrick, when that Ashton-Ree's, Blueger-Megin line was on there,

Penguins had almost 63% of the shot attempts. They had all three of the actual goals. They had 68% of the expected goals for. they were just, they were killing it. 71.4% of the scoring chances for 75% of the high danger chances. They were a menace in Montreal zone all night long. So, awesome to see Teddy Bluger

really play well tonight. I loved that the Penguins ran up the score. Even with 10 seconds left, they usually could have just been like, okay, we're going to play save, do all this other stuff, yada, yada, yada, but they still had that goal to make it 6, nothing with 10 seconds left.

Basically a giant FU to every one. that had been talking crap about them this week. So that again was just awesome. But overall, what a great performance from Pittsburgh tonight. I didn't like how their play kind of dipped in the second period. But that's also expected a little bit just because you come out, you know, you score three goals in the opening frame. The home team is going to push back.

I know Montreal is not that good this year, but the bell center or crowd is always going to have the fans or the players, excuse me, revved up a little bit. And they were definitely trying their best to, you know, get the team playing. a bit better. Tristan Jarre had to come up with some pretty big saves early on in that period, but after that, the Penguins did settle down and they got a couple more big goals going into the third period. I loved Jake Gensel's one way. And what a screen, by the way, from Crystal Tang on that one. You don't usually see a player like Chris LaTang screening a goalie because he's always at the point, but that one on Caden Primo worked to perfection. And Gensel was able to, you know,

find that soft spot and just, you know, bury that. I believe he has now nine points in the month of November, five of those goals. Definitely a really big slow start for Jake, but, you know, as of these last couple games, he's really starting to heat up and play like the Jake Ansel that we all know and love. Denton Hinen, he finally gets back to scoring tonight. That is his fifth goal of the season. I want to remind you all, he had seven goals all of last season with the Anaheim Duck. So he is on pace to more than double that this season for Pittsburgh,

halfway there to my hopeful free cocky barbecue. And, you know, I thought his play dipped a little bit in recent games. It was nice to see him find the back of the net as he had a good bounce to his stick. Primo had no chance on that one. I think that was the one that made it 2-0, and then Jakes was the one that made it 3-0. And of course, we can't forget about

Brock McGinn. Nice to see him get back on the board. I know he's been kind of a bit of a target from the Penguins fan lately, and, you know, I said to myself on either yesterday's episode or Tuesday's one that I want to see more from him because he hadn't been producing for the last week or so. He started that back up tonight. I think that was what his fourth goal of the season, if I'm correct.

And it was just a really sweet redirection from a Mike Matheson shot from the point. So really nice to see the fourth line contribute more offensively in this game. I believe that was Teddy Blugher's fifth and sixth goals of the season. He's on pace to have over 20 goals right now. I don't think he's ever going to hit that. But hey, you know, a man can dream, right? but I thought defensively the team was really insane tonight. I was, again, another one of my bigger takeaways.

Montreal, again, had some good pressure in the second period. And they had, I think even early on in the first period, they had a few good high danger chances, but those were gobbled up as the game went on. The Penguins really tightened up defensively in front of Jari. Tristan was able to get his first shutout of the season. Again, I thought he made some really big saves when needed to the third period. He kind of needed to just take a nap back there.

The Habs had no chance of coming back. So nice to see him have another good performance for Pittsburgh, and I would expect him to get the start again on Saturday. But, you know, again, overall, magnificent performance from Pittsburgh. You expect them to take care of business against a really bad team. I know that's been a little hard to come by lately just because of that lost Buffalo. They got blown out in Ottawa. But now, you know, you're going to Montreal.

That team is so banged up and they're just not good this year. You needed to come out of there with two points, and they did exactly that. I thought the HABs, you know, when I was previewing this episode for you all on Wednesday, you know, I did say, you know, they were a lot worse than I thought they would be this year. And boy, did they live up to that and then some in this game. They were just horrifically bad. I do not know what's going on there to make them so bad outside of the injuries, but they were not skating hard at all outside again of like, you know, maybe three to five minutes of the second period. Brendan Gallagher kind of looks lost out there. I think he could potentially be a good trade candidate at the deadline if Montreal wants to do something there.

Nick Suzuki looked kind of lost. Tyler Tofoli did as well. Jeff Petrie, I've always found him underrated, but he just really didn't do anything tonight either. And Kaden Primo, third string goalie from Montreal, and he just, he did not look like he was even close to NH already. There were some goals that he definitely had no chance on, you know, the Sid one, which I'll get into in a couple minutes with how Sid came alive finally. The Jake Gensel one when Latang was screening him, I don't think yet a chance on that. The Brock McGinn one, that awesome deflection, I don't think you had a chance on that one. But the Heinen one, I thought that was definitely savable.

And I think one or both of the Bluger ones were also, well, no, the first Blugher one I thought was saved was while the other one. He was already had been pulled at that point for the fourth string goalie, who I honestly don't even really know who he is at this point. But yeah, that's just a bad team. I know Cole Coughfield was called up for this one. That was something that I had not seen prior to recording, so I apologize for that. He looked dangerous for a couple shifts. I mean, he's going to be a pretty good NHL player. I don't know why Dom Dusharm has been sending him down to the HL squad because he's clearly

NHL ready. I don't think this is like a full-on POJ situation where he's kind of ready. I mean, Cole Cawfield is 100% ready. You saw how good he was in the same of the couple of after Montreal and down the stretch for the regular season last year. He is going to be a really good player in this league. But yeah, just again, a performance. that the Penguins needed to have

and two points that this team badly needed, especially with the other results tonight as well. The Flyers lost in the shit out. I know they got a point. The Devils lost in regulation. That's huge. The Rangers lost to the Maple Leafs.

I believe that was in regulation. The hurricanes and ducts right now are tied at the end of the first period. It's either at the end of first period or they're still playing in the first period. Columbus right now, as of this recording, is tied 1-1 with Arizona. So the Penguins have gotten some help

from other teams tonight. With regards to the standings, they're still a long way to go, but this was a step in the right direction. Great performance. Diving into the underlying numbers overall at 5E5 in the 6-0 win. Penguins had 56% of the shot attempts. They also had 61% of the scoring chances for, 66.6% of the high danger chances for,

so 12 to 6 in that regard. The expected goals for, 3.19, 1.54 from Montreal. all, you know, all the goals for, and then, you know, they also had 67.4% of the expected goals for, if you go towards all situations, it gets even better. Penguins had 57.7% of the shot attempts. They also had 61.8% of the scoring chances, 71% of the high danger chances for 3.47 expected goals for 1.54 expected goals against for Montreal. And then overall, the Penguins, a very nice 69.2% expected goals for when you round all those numbers up. So the unrined numbers backed up the eye test and then some big two points in the standings

and we'll see if that can continue on Saturday when this team goes to Toronto to play them for the second time this season. But still have a bit more to get to for this episode, including Sidney Crosby finally waking up from the dead. We also get to touch on the road ahead for Pittsburgh. And yes, I do want to touch on a little bit of that Manning cast that the Penguins had, with Mike Sullivan phoning in or going to get my thoughts on that as well on a whole bunch more for this episode. But before we do that, Ben Online, they're back and better than ever.

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That is bet online where the game starts. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. I'm going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show's Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins. And, you know, you just knew that Sid was not going to be quiet for too long. He always likes to play some of his best hockey in Montreal. And I loved that, you know, they gave him that little ovation before the game.

You know, Montreal was doing their opening lineups in French. And when it got to Sidney Crosby, they gave him a pretty raucous cheer. So he always, I think, gets that kind of royalty in Montreal. It's a city that's usually pretty classy when it comes to a lot of away teams, It's probably not Toronto or Ottawa, but when Cindy Crosby always comes there, they're always appreciative of watching him. I mean, you know, obviously he's Canadian. But I thought that was a pretty cool moment there from Sid. And he also had that typical Sid goal that we're so used to seeing him, you know, scored.

He gets to the front of the net. I know it was a little bit of a tap-in, but, you know, he's playing his best hockey when he is in those high-danger areas, whether he was making a great pass or scoring a goal. He was able to, you know, beat Primo to the punch to corral that amazing pass from, Jake and then just put it home to open the scoring just a few minutes in the game. And that really set the tone for the rest of this game just because Pittsburgh was buzzing from then on. Heck, even before that goal, they were firing a lot of pucks on the rookie goaltender, and that one just escalated it even further.

So, you know, and again, it's always going to take a few games for Sid to get going. He's been out with COVID. He had that wrist surgery, but, you know, you're starting to see Sid, heat up ever so slowly. You know, that's now two games in a row where he has recorded at least. to point. He had that secondary assist, I'm pretty sure, on Gensel's goal against Buffalo on Tuesday, and then he was able to score the goal tonight. So baby steps will sit. It's really good. Hopefully he can keep producing like that. I also did love what 18T Sportsnet did during that first period. They were able to do a little bit of a Manning cast with bringing on Mike Sullivan for about, what, 10 to 15 minutes

of the broadcast. I think in, you know, actual game time, I think, you know, five to six to seven minutes of the period went on and they were just asking you know all sorts of questions you know what's going with your mind when you're watching this play you know are you more of a coach at home or you know you're actually just cheering the team on you know what are you currently doing you have your laptop in front of you are you getting ready to talk with the coaching staff on webx or zoom or something like that what are you hoping to see here from the power play all these really thoughtful questions you know from both bob barry and steve mirz and his answers were it was pretty fun again you know it's not going to be as funny as something would be on the

Manning cast, but, you know, I wish we could have something like that every week with Mike, but that's just not going to happen because obviously everyone wants him to be behind the bench. The only reason he was not behind the bench in any case anyone was not aware, Canada has that, you know, 14-day quarantine for COVID, so he will be able to come to Canada on Friday, and then he will be behind the bench for the game against Toronto and Saturday and against the game on Winnipeg next week before the team returns home to play Vancouver, and then they go to UBS Arena to play the Islanders. But I thought it was a really cool thing.

The Penguins did by bringing Sully on. It was just really cool to hear his thoughts as he's watching the game at home because we really can't hear what Sully is thinking during the game. Obviously, he's yelling at his team from the bench. He's not going to do that on open mic, but it was still cool to see, just his overall thoughts on how the team was playing and answers to a whole bunch of other questions. So that was really great. I know I touched on Teddy Bluger a little bit in the first segment,

but man, that second goal that he scored with 10 seconds left, I got to say it again. That was awesome. I mean, I don't know really what Montreal was doing by letting him get behind everyone like that. That was definitely a bit weird, but he was able to go, you know, backhand, forehand. It went past the four-st-st-grade goaltender. It was just a really smooth move there, I thought, from Teddy. Other things that I was pretty impressed with tonight,

Trican Jari actually spoke to the media a bit. He said he didn't really like how he played in Washington. He said he wanted to do something about it. So, again, he's not really a player that's open to the media. I think he's just a shy person overall because when you look at his post-game quotes, it kind of reminds me of Matt Murray and where he doesn't really say too much. Or, you know, I think with Murray, he would kind of always blame himself, which is, you know, a lot of players do that. But still, he usually wouldn't say much other than that. Jari even does less than that.

He doesn't really blame himself at times. he just doesn't really speak up a lot. That's just, I think, how he is. He's always, I guess, cool, calm and collected. But I really liked that he said that tonight, that, you know, he didn't like his performance in Washington. And he has played well in these last two games. Only two goals combined, both against Buffalo,

both of which were really nice goals by the savers, I should say. I mean, one of them, he was screened on that he had no chance in that Oposa was able to score from five feet out, which is, you know, that one's really hard to say. But tonight, again, made some really nice saves and was able to continue to rebound after that. his play against Washington. It also looks like Admiral Rieges.

He was injured on the final shift, but Tar Reardon said after the game, it's really nothing to worry about. But knowing this team, I'm sure it is going to be something to worry about going into the game against Toronto. I thought Brian Russ tonight was awesome as well. I think he had a multi-point night,

if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, two assists on two of the Penguins' goals. He's really been flying. Lally, I know the goal scoring has not been there for him. He's going into a contract year where he's probably going to get a lot of money from some team. I'm not sure it's going to be the Penguins at this point, considering they have still not signed. Evgeny Malkin and Crystal Tang and Kaspera Kappen is still a free agent.

Jeff Carter is still a free agent. They're going to have a lot of tough decisions to make after this season. I just don't know if Russ is going to come back next year. But his play is definitely improving right now. I still want to see him find the back of the net more. He was really close a couple of times tonight against the Habs. But, you know, I'll still take two assists in the dub any time. But I thought he was skating really hard, getting to those prime scoring areas. that we're used to seeing him get to, and his playmaking ability was also off the charts. I love that line with Gensel and Russ next to said. I know some people want to move one of those players down.

Usually I think it's Brian Russ that some talk about, you know, maybe move Jason Zuckerup. Again, I wouldn't be opposed to that, but with how they play tonight and how they usually play with the underlying number supporting it, I think it's a line that Sully shouldn't touch unless it's absolutely necessary. And again, that's just my opinion on the matter. And I'm sure, you know, knowing Sullivan, he is going to stick with that going into the next game. Overall, again, I don't really care if you're playing Montreal. I don't care if you're playing Philadelphia. I don't care if you're playing the fucking Arizona coyotes.

The penguins needed this win. They needed something to feel good about it. They needed something to give the fans to feel good about, especially because they had lost 8 out of 10 and 3 in a row coming into this one. But they were able to send a message, I think, to some people that are saying they're not going to make the playoffs, that, you know, maybe pump the brakes just a little bit. Again, it is still not panic time with this team. Let's see how the rest of the road trip goes, but a great start overall. Coming up in the next segment, we're going to go.

Frank Saravelli had some more details surrounding the penguin's sale today on daily face-up. So we're going to touch on that. Plus go around the league a little bit. Coming up here in the final segment of this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. All right, so we are back here on this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hoadies. follow the shows Twitter at L.O. underscore penguin. So Frank So Heserville in his weekly icebreakers, so touched on the penguin's

sale. And this is what he did have to say. So he said, it's always tricky when you're doing with these kind of numbers to figure out. There's a lot of complicated parts. I do know that the number begins with an eight as it's an 800 plus million deal. That is the valuation that the sale is working on. It's always an important test for the valuations we see throughout the year, whether it's on Forbes, Sportico, whatever. Pittsburgh Penguins will be landing at least the 8th when this sale goes final. The Forbes valuation for this year of the Penguins was $849 million. So what does that mean for Ron Berkel who is executing?

This is the kicker here. So he's been told that Berkel is looking at a six-time multiplier on his investment that he put in. So what does that mean? It's somewhere in the 70 million range. So he's going to be leaving with $400 plus million if and when this deal goes final. They bought this team back in 1999 for what? I believe the final number was $107 million. He is now going to walk away with $400 plus million when this goes final.

That is just insane. What a payday for Ron Burkle as he's going to exit. And then, of course, you know, Mary Lemieux, he's going to get a lot of money as well as he will be sliding into a minority owner. But as Frank says, he will remain on board with the team. That is the expectation as the Fenway Sports Group dives in. He also says, for a timeline, we could see an approval vote for this sale, provided that everything gets done in closing with the NHL Board of Governors meeting,

set to take place on December 9th and December 10th. So that means around three weeks from today is when this could all be final in the Board of Governors vote on it, and they approve it. So it's looking like the deal, it's going to be at least around 849, $850 million plus. You know, Elliot Freeman touched on it. It could even eclipse 900. million just because of how value the Penguins franchise is. And again, it's just insane that Berkle is going to walk out with over 400 million after

he and Mario bought the team for 100, only 107 million. And it's crazy to me that I am saying the only part when it comes to 107 million. I understand that is a crap sum money. But compared to what this team is about to sell for, that is basically pennies on the dollar. So he's going to be walking out with quite a bit of cash. And, you know, good for him and Mario, man. you know the team has won three Stanley Cups on their watch they can go into retirement you know Mario especially I know he'll be around the team a little bit and a burkle might not be

I think Burkle also owns quite a few other things uh in his life as a business owner but Mario he can go back to just drinking wine every single night I really don't think he's going to care that much so that is the latest detail surrounding the penguin sale um otherwise again there's not really much going on with the team right now I didn't really like happenance effort again And tonight, I keep saying that every single episode when it comes to this podcast, he just, I'll criticize him until the day I die, he keeps playing like this. You know, you all know me, if you've been listening to this podcast for even one episode to 100, 150, whatever, I will always say what comes to my mind.

And Captain has been really freaking bad up until this point. You know, I thought that game that he had against Minnesota was going to be the start with maybe something a little special. It has been anything but that. It is just a disaster. I mean, his puck control coming into the offensive zone is non-existent. Every single time he has the puck, it is stripped with so much ease from any defender of that just comes up to him. I mean, he's so good, you know, going behind the net, the puck is fine there.

But whenever he just comes from behind that net or, you know, comes into the zone with speed with the puck, the puck is just, it's gone instantly. So I really don't understand what is going on with Cappy there. So it's something that, you know, it definitely needs fixed. and I'm not really sure what it's going to take at this point. I don't even know if any Malkin is going to be the cure to that. It's just, it's a big problem right now. I understand that there are some people in the Penguins fan base that just do not want to criticize Captain for whatever reason.

I don't get it. But, yeah, he has been a tire fire this season, to say the least. I think definitely the biggest disappointment for me, in my opinion. Overall, though, I guess going around the league a little bit, I mean, a lot of teams that have been surprising so far, especially the California teams, The ducks have been really good. Troy Terry, I think, is almost on a 20-game point streak.

The Kings have been pretty good to start the year. The sharks have been a bit strong. You know, my Canucks pick is looking really bad right now. I have no idea how Jim Benning is not fired, to say the least. Philadelphia is definitely playing some better hockey. Carter Hart, I will say, has played well to start the season. The Rangers, they did lose tonight, but overall. They're playing pretty well under Gerard Golan.

The Blue Jackets have played good so far, but I don't really expect that to last too much longer. But, you know, overall, this is going to be a really tough division. for Pittsburgh. I know I've said that a lot lately, but they just got to continue to bank points as much as they can. If they do that, this will be a Booker-McFarland statement. They will be going to the Stanley Cup finals

for a 16th straight season. So, big two points tonight against Montreal. We'll see if they can repeat that against Toronto on Saturday a team that they beat pretty handily a few weeks ago when the season first started. But that'll do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We'll have another one on Friday,

and we will preview the game against Toronto and look in to how they have been playing ever since Pittsburgh demolished them a little bit. So thank you all so much for listening to this one. I'll talk to you all on Friday.