Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - The transformation of Teddy Blueger...

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

That's 5 wins in 6 games for the Pittsburgh Penguins and they seem to be hitting their stride at the right time. Hunter breaks down the latest 3-2 win for Pittsburgh over Washington, including the strong play of Teddy Blueger. How has he been able to get so much better offensively from last year to this year? He also touches on Kapanen and what a response game he had after being benched against the Islanders during parts of the last game. Hunter also gets into the play of the power play, as it continues to improve, as well as Tristan Jarry's stellar start again. Finally, we get the listener takeaways segment as a way to bring the fans into the conversation!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 “LOCKEDON,” and you’ll get 20% off your next order.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.IndeedWant your QUALITY short-list FAST? You need Indeed. RIGHT NOW, our listeners get a FREE SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/LockedOn 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, welcome to this Tuesday 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. So Penguins get their fifth win in six games this time coming up against the Washington Capitals. their fourth win in five meetings against the capitals this season. Going even further against the capitals and the Islanders this season, who the Penguins, of course, are battling for a playoff spot in that very competitive East Division. The Penguins are seven and two against those two teams. I know they've given away the two losses, of course.

Well, actually, excuse me, one of those losses they gave away, point. The other one, the Islanders won in regulation. But still, that's a pretty great feat for the Penguins this season. They are now one point out of second place in the East Division. these two teams will meet again on Thursday. But overall for this performance, before we go into some player-by-player analysis, I thought this was a great performance by the Penguins. They were dominating play all night long.

If I'm not mistaken, the Penguins were, they doubled up Washington in shots through two periods. 30 to 15, if you go to Natural Statrick, the Penguins control the high danger chances 11 to 8, the scoring chances for, scoring chances against 33 to 24 in front of the Penguins. For expected goals, they led 2.68 to 1.88, all situations. Even possession-wise, the Penguins had 57.8 coursey-fand-work percentage of the Capitals, 42%, 66, 48 overall for Pittsburgh. This was just a dominant game, I thought, for the Penguins. I was going to be upset if the Capitals had some stupid, fluky goal in the third period to win the game in regulation, because I would have thought that Penguins deserved a lot better, but the Penguins were able to win this game and deserved really so.

If you go to five-on-five and not just all situations, Penguins overall, 55% for Corsi. High danger, they led 9 to 8, scoring chances for 26 to 24 in favor of Pittsburgh. For expected goals, 1.87 for Pittsburgh 1.77 to Washington.

So, like I said, Pittsburgh, I thought, played very well tonight, a much better performance against the Capitals this time than it was last time in Pittsburgh where they were just basically bullied off the ice. The Capitals almost doubled them up

in shots for that game as they won. Three to one, the lone goal, of course, was scored. by Zach Ashton Reese. But tonight, you know, the Penguins flipped that switch, and they were just a better team. And they opened up the scoring in the power play early in the first period. The power play looks great.

You know, I like how the passing is. They're not forcing it into stupid areas. The zone entries are good. There's none of that, like, stupid. They're not doing that drop pass as often as I've seen it in the past. And they're just moving the puck around and just, like I said, they're getting shots on that. You saw what Chris Littang was able to do with that powerplay goal.

Move around a little bit, do a little curl and drag, fire it right to Malkins stick and he gets a tip in to make it 1-0. That's Gino's fourth goal of the season. And again, that's another stellar performance from Crystal Tang. That's a second consecutive game. When he's working like that on the power play, you know good things are going to come. He was able to shoot the puck. I know he wasn't going directly for the net.

But still, good things usually come when Crystal Teng shoots the buck, even though it's right to have getting him allkin stick. They're going to scoring 1-0. Capitals were able to come back and tie it in the second period. You know, this is where I guess I'll get into my case. Matheson will do some more player analysis here. You know what you're going to get with Matheson. You've got to take the bag with the good.

Of course the good, his scanning ability, he's playing in the offensive zone, able to sneak around in areas, kind of do some 200 IQ plays like you saw last week against the Islanders. That's all fine and dandy. It's when you get to the defensive side of the ice where Matheson really struggles,

and you saw that tonight. Nice pass by Charo to Panic, by the way. That was a gorgeous feed. But Matheson basically has Ponick, but then he allows Panic to get around him, caught flat-footed. Matheson needs to play that place so much better. I mean, you can't be letting a career third or fourth-liner in the league doing that to you. I know Tristan Jari probably could have had that back,

but that was just a bad defensive playing by Matheson. He just has to be better than that. I don't think any other defender that's playing tonight for Pittsburgh allows that to happen, but it did, and the Cavalves were able to tie the game. And then for the Capitol's second goal, Connor Scherernery Penguin Killer, basically scored a 600 goal against the Penguins. It's something like that. I honestly think he has like five or six goals against the penguins.

I know he had a couple in Buffalo. He already has two or three this season. So yeah, it's got to be around five to six. That was a nice feed. I think it was some Cousnetsov that found Sherry. And, you know, I did see some tweets during the game from people, you know, you could have had Connor Sherry on your fourth line. I mean, yeah, I get it.

But I didn't really think, well, I don't think the Penguins management at the time foresaw, you know, Jankelski, Lafferty, and, you know, Cibier being this. bad. And it don't even make a lot of money. Severe is the highest paid player on that line and makes $1.2 million. So, I mean, I know Sherry makes only $7.35K and he's done pretty good this season, but it's mainly been against the Penguins and the Sabres. So I'm not really going to get too mad at Penguins management. Well, former Penguins manager because, of course, it was Jim Rutherford that let him go for that one. Though, you know, basically 10 seconds later, that this was a funny story, actually, you know, where I'm watching the game with my mom.

And, you know, Crystal Tane gets the puck. And she's like, No, excuse me, it was John Moreno, I had mistaken, let hang for him. And she's like, all right, I score right here. And, of course, you know, right on cue in milliseconds. Jake Gensel gets that tip in for it to make it two to two. That is an awesome tip by Gensel. You just, you don't teach that at hockey school. It honestly reminded me of kind of like a Pachel Hornquist play in front of the net,

as he was so great at tipping shots in. But, you know, this was from further out. It looked like it was going wide. Like, Gensel just completely changed the direction of it, and Vannich just had no shot. And it's tied up just like that. in the third period. You know, the biggest thing I was noticing in that period, honestly, was how bad the ice was.

There was no good passes by either team. Everyone was slipping and falling. It was just really kind of embarrassing ice. It's pretty cold still in this region. They don't have the heat excuse, you know, like there is in Nashville during the Stanley Cup final and all that in June. So there's really no excuse for the ice to be that bad. Obviously, late in the third period, we did see the Jason Zucker injury. It did not look good.

My first immediate reaction when I saw it, I think he did something to his foot. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the ankle. If I had to guess, though, it's probably a fractured ankle. He's probably going to be out for 8 to 12 weeks, something around those lines. But remember, Brian Dumon was out with a fractured ankle last season, seasons before that, and he was out, I think, for three full months. So still not sure. I don't think there's been any update from Sullivan yet.

Apparently, though, Chris Lattang left the bench. during the game of the injury, but he also played in overtime. So I don't think it was that bad for Lattang, but I'm sure Sullivan's just going to do the day-to-day stuff. No update on Zucker yet, it looks like. I'm sure Sullivan, he's just going to be evaluated, as he always likes to say.

But with Zucker being out, and that looks like it's going to be the case for a long time now, it wouldn't surprise me if Jared McCann slots into that second line left wing spot with Gino and Ross, because, I mean, I don't want to break up the Austin Race Blue Gertana line. We're going to get to Teddy Lugar in the second segment with how he's been doing. But I just wouldn't break up that line. You have Jared McCann who's getting close to coming back from injury.

I think he's been skating with the practice squad. The taxi squad. He hasn't appeared in a full practice with the team yet. I know he made the road trip with Pittsburgh. So we could see him in a practice tomorrow. And if he's getting close to returning, like I said, I think he makes the most sense to play up there with Gino until Zuckar comes back. You know, Ron Hextel is probably not going to go out and make a trade for a winger right now.

Although, if Zuckar is out for maybe three months or something like that, and he's out way past the deadline, I could see Hextel going out and getting another winger for this team because he's not an easy player to replace. I actually thought Zucker was playing well tonight. I think he had three to four high danger chances from what I was watching. Vanhochuk made some really high 10-bell saves on him. And it was just an unfortunate play.

For those that didn't see it, if you're listening to this, and didn't see the injury. Basically, his skate hit Nick Jensen's, and then he went into the boards awkwardly, right by the bench and you could just see him like screaming in pain. He knew right away that something was screwed up with his foot or ankle and I'm sure we're going to have an

update tomorrow after practice with Mike Sullivan or on Thursday before the game. But yeah guys, I just do not expect Jason Zonker be playing for like the next month or two or maybe even three months just because that injury looked really bad. If he is it would be nothing short of a miracle. But I think we'll wrap up this first segment

of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We still have a whole bunch to get to for this episode. So coming up after this commercial break, we are going to touch on Teddy Blugher at the overtime goals because of how awesome it was. But before that, it is time to talk about rock aisle.com. It's a family business, serving auto-part customers online for 20 years. You can go to rockado.com to shop for auto and body parts of hundreds of manufacturers. The catalog is unique or remarkably easy to navigate.

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Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows Twitter at L underscore Penguins. So, like I said, nothing much really happened in the third period. That was a pretty fast-paced their period. I think it ended in like 35 minutes or something like that. And then we get to the overtime. The penguins were kind of being a bit boring with it the first minute and a half. They were just being very cautious, very careful. I mean, it's not a bad thing, but they, I mean, they obviously weren't changing chances. But right as the capitals got their first chance, Orlov shot at wide, you get that two-on-one, Teddy Blugers coming down. He had that chance earlier in the game where he passed it to Zach Ashton, Reese, Spanner-Tick made the save.

So I was like, hmm, is he going to shoot it here? Is he going to try the pass again? You know, tried the pass, and this time to work because that was one hell. of a feed to Casperry Capon who gets another goal for the Penguins. I believe that's his fourth or fifth this season. Actually, excuse me, I just looked it up. That is his third goal. So he now has eight points in 14 games in a Penguin uniform. And, you know, that's a big bounceback game for Capon.

He was benched in the third period for a lot of that game against the Islanders. And yes, I'm going to count him being on the bench for that game because he was being shifted on the fourth line with a bunch of guys who just don't do anything offensively. So, yes, I am going to count that as being benched. But, you know, the big part of that play was Teddy Blue because that feed was so incredible. The leap that he has made from last year to this year in terms of offensive playmaking is something that I didn't see coming. And he's looking like a third-line center that, you know, this team has lacked ever since Nick Benino left. A lot of people like to say, you know, myself included, all the Penguins still need to replace Nick Benino.

Where's that third-line center coming from? Remember, they got Derek Brassar to try to do it, Riley Sheehan. freaking Greg McKeg was a candidate for a while. Maybe Mark Janowski was going to be that guy early season after those first couple games. But no, guys, I mean, it's looking like Teddy freaking Bluger is that guy right now, and you can't even argue with it. I mean, he's playing some of the best hockey of his career right now.

All of his underlying numbers are through the roof. If you look at Bluger from tonight, so he played 1443 all situations. His possession was at 56%. That was one of the top marks on the team tonight. His expected goals for was on the ice 0.61. His expected goals percentage, I know it's a little low at 46.5%. But scoring chances for 9 to 6 in favor of Teddy Blugher.

The leader for the Penguins, though, tonight was Sidney Crosby. 17 chances four and five chances again. So that line was just absolutely buzzing. I know in high danger, it didn't look as pretty for Bluger, four against two four. But just overall, you know, possession-wise, like I said, 56%. You know, and then if you just go to 5V5, even,

56.5%. He was a rock tonight, and he's been like this all season, guys. He's one of their leaders in the expected goals share this season. I saw that tweet from Danny Shirey Irving of Penn's blog this morning. I mean, he's up there. That is just how good Bluger has been this season. Like I said, it's just been a huge leap from last year to this year in terms of his offensive playmaking that, you know, I didn't see coming.

I don't think some others saw coming because we're all just used to like seeing him as like, oh yeah, he's like got shut down, fourth line center, good on the pennies. kill. Good defensively. He doesn't bring him much offensively. But that has been completely different this season. He is transforming before our very eyes. And he makes that line with Ashton Reese and Blugher that much better when he is humming like this. I know I've said Austin Reese is the glue to that line. But I mean, we're going to maybe have to start talking about Bluger being just as good on that line with what he's been doing lately. He's been something else. And it's been great to see him really come into his own this season. As for the

goaltending, I thought Trishinjari, another stellar performance. everyone. I mean, that's now what? Five straight starts of Jari being 900 or better. I mean, going into this game, he had been 930, 933 in his last four starts tonight, only gave up two goals. I'm not going to fault him too much for that first goal. I thought he was a little bit passive on the play. He was a little too deep in his net. But that goal was mainly on Matheson. The second goal, that was just a nice release from Sherry as a one-timer. I'm not a lot of goals are going to stop that. But, you know, when the Cap rules had some good chances, Jari was right there when he needed to be and he made those timely saves, especially in the third period.

There were a couple of chances that the capitals had that could have had the penguins losing regulation when they didn't deserve to, and Jari was right there. So again, another good performance from him. Expect him to start on Thursday and moving forward, especially if he's going to play like this. And again, everyone, I mean, all they need is this kind of goal tending and average special teams, and this team is going to go a lot of places. You also saw Albany Malkin have a good game tonight. This is a step in the right direction for him.

Like I said, his fourth goal of the season. I know he struggled a little bit in that game against the Islanders, but he had a lot more jump tonight, didn't make any stupid mistakes defensively. You can kind of see him coming into his own here. We'll have to see if this can continue on Thursday and into the weekend against the Islanders. But right now, you know, I really like Gino's performance tonight, and I really hope that's a big stepping stone for him moving forward. Already touched on Crystal Tang.

I thought that was a good performance from him. Cody Cici, always reliable. If you look at his numbers on Natural Static Trek tonight, 52% for possession for basically his expected goals for well 40%, which was pretty bad but I mean he's not going to be on the ice for a lot offensive zone shifts but he was on the ice for

five scoring chances for and four scoring chances against for high danger two chances for three chances against but still you know possession wise he's above 50% that's what you need from him 18 minutes of ice time at 5E5 overall he played 20 minutes was basically 50% there as well so you know I'm not going to be complaining about Cody Cece with these performances.

He's giving the Penguins exactly what they need right now on the third period. Marcus Pedersen, always steady there. He already touched on Gensel. He's really coming into his own these last few games with his goal scoring ability. Brian Rust, again, had a great game. I mean, it looks like he's going to score a hatching every game at this point. And, you know, for the most part, I thought everyone played a good game, but, you know, there's got to be a little bit of negativity on this episode.

I have to call it out is. The fourth line on this Penguins team is so bad. It is cringe-worthy to watch them get on the ice. They cannot keep doing this rotation of Colton, Severe, Drew O'Connor, Sam Lafferty, Mark Jankeowski for too much longer. I mean, just put Jordy Bellew in there, whoever the hell he pronounces last name. I mean, he can't be any worse at this point. I know O'Connor was a scratch tonight. Lafferty had a couple okay chances.

It looked like he was going to score a couple times, but Van Goghik made a couple nice saves. But Mark Jankeowski is just so utterly terrible. there was a play tonight that actually made me almost throw the remote at the television he had full possession of the pop with ruined his state too I mean he can just flip it into the one of the capital zone or something

make a line change or just you know dump and chase it no he just iced it for no reason no speed nothing like that and it's just like what the hell is his purpose out there he's not doing anything offensively he's not doing anything defensively he's just playing for reasons that I don't understand I know he only makes 700K

it was a high, low risk, high reward signing, but he just can't be playing moving forward. He's that bad. He's been god-awful after those two games against the Flyers. And, I mean, if you're going to keep scratching Drew O'Connor, I mean, I don't know why you're not going to be scratching Mark Jankowski. Just put Drew O'Connor over a Jankowski. And I think that's honestly a little bit of an upgrade to the foreflying.

Colton Severe doesn't do anything. I wouldn't be surprised if Ron Hextall deals him at some point for a winger. Though I've been saying that for a while now. But yeah, I mean, it's just like every time I see the four. fourth line on the ice for the penguins, they are just getting caved in their own zone. It's not a friendly sight to see. But so that wraps up this segment of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. We'll do the listener takeaways in the next one.

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Welcome bonus on your first deposit. That's Bet Online, your online sportsbook experts with a promo code, Locked On. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Locked On Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodeys. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hote. So all this show is Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins. So it's time for the always fun listener takeaways. and I love doing these.

Let's just get into it right now. Irish A.J. says, after Zucker went down, Ashton Reese and Lafferty move up on a line, and the penguins are flying the rest of the game. They dominated the corners. Hopefully, Zucker is back soon, but a trade may have to be pulled off if he's out long term. Yeah, I mean, I think Ron Hextall's going to make a trade regardless,

because I think this team definitely needs a winger, especially on the fourth line, when McCann comes back and when Zucker comes back. But for now, when McCann does come back, and I think that's going to be coming in the next game or so, he's going to be the guy that slides up to play with Malkin and Russ, but, you know, I still think Hextall is going to make a trade, and, you know, he deserves to with how this team is playing right now.

Clark says, well, Zuckar going down, opens up a nice place for Matheson to play his natural position. Yes, I have seen a lot more talk about Mike Matheson the forward. Lately, he plays like one just because his defense in his own zone is so terrible. So, yes, you know, the Mike Matheson forward talk is truly never going to die. Bride Time says, fantastic work by Bluger on the game winner, a great shot by Captain, and another solid wind. Hopefully Zucker's injury isn't as bad as it looked. Yeah, Frighton, I'm really hoping it's only just a few weeks to a month for Zucker,

though that injury looked like that's going to be like an 8 to 12 week thing. You could see him screaming in pain there. But yeah, you said it too with the Blugher and Caputon in play. Great execution on the two-on-one, and I've loved what I've been seeing from Teddy Blugher this year. Okay, moving on from that, Ryan King 702 says, Captain looked faster on the ice tonight than other games. Blueger is taking that next step. Again, 100% agree with you.

It looks like whatever Sullivan said to Caputin after that game, it worked wonders tonight, that's for sure. And yeah, 100% agree with you on Bluger as well. I really like that he's taking that next step. Lastly, we get to Alan Teyodor. Nice way to put a cap on that game. Yes, perfect fun there, man. All bad puns aside, hopefully Zucker is okay. Another game that may not have had the best execution, but still happy with the win.

I'm starting to think the Penguins had their usual slow start of the season that they always seem to have. Yeah, that's what's looking like right now, you know, five out of their last six games, they've been wins. you know, they're getting the hard part of their schedule out of the way. They still have two more games against Islanders later this week. They have Philadelphia after that. Of course, they have Washington on Thursday. But this team still has 16 combined games against the Sabres and the Devils, the two worst teams in the division.

So the Penguins have that to look forward to. I know that we could see them trap in those games by still think the Penguins should be able to win most of those games against those two teams. And that, in reminder, guys, they still have four more games against the New York Rangers as well. So, like I said, it's good that the Penguins are getting their tougher matches. out of the way at the beginning of the season so that, you know, basically half of their games from March 1st onward are against the three bottom feeders in the East Division. Just a couple more before we do call this an episode.

Gilbert the Goat says Malkin was buzzing that whole game. Jari still looks great as well. Really hope Zoker and Latangor okay. Great shot by captain in overtime. The caps will always be Pittsburgh's little brother. Yeah, that's four out of five now against them. Very unfortunately gave them a point, but still a great win and it was well deserved. Yeah, 100% agree with you on all those points.

I thought this was one of Malkin's top three games. of the season. Another great start from Jari. I think Latang is going to be okay. He finished the game. Though Zucker, like I said, man, he's going to be out a while, I think. And then, yeah, Caponin gets his third goal of his penguin's career, and that was just a rocket. He was winding up that shot from the blue line.

That was awesome. And then finally, from Robert Wolfson, I was impressed with how much more confident they look defensive with their period. Not as many high-dated chances for the Cavils. Amazing how good cold-hanging settles the rest of the team. And then he finishes with what the F is Jankelski doing on the second power play unit.

So, yeah, I don't know why Jankelski is on the second power play unit man, let alone playing. He is just that bad defensively, that bad offensively contributes nothing to the team. And yeah, I mean, the Capitals really didn't generate anything in the third period. I honestly don't think the Capitals generated much overall, even strength outside of their two goals. I mean, Jari, he had to make some good saves, but it wasn't like he was under siege that entire game. A lot of these games, the Capitals have just looked slow against Pittsburgh. I'm just not out of. I just don't think the Capitals are that good this year.

They always seem like they're slow playing against Pittsburgh and yeah, you know, good goaltending Sandhills the rest of the team. Who knew? You know, this team needs average goaltending and they're going to go a lot of places. But that'll do it for this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I really appreciate you guys listening to this one

and we'll be back tomorrow on Wednesday with another episode. So I'll see you all then.