Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Things continue to get worse, huh?

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

That's now six losses in a row for the Pittsburgh Penguins as things got worse on Thursday night. To start things off, Hunte roasts the team for their horrendous start in the first period as the game was lost within the opening couple of minutes. He looks at how their legs weren't there, which is unacceptable for a team that just had three days off. He then looks at how Casey DeSmith needed to do a better job keeping them in the game in that first period as he didn't like the second goal that he gave to Eichel. Following that, Hunter gets into how the Penguins looked in the second period before he again roasts the team for not getting anything out of it. He also is wary of the idea of Casey DeSmith getting the starter's reps going forward if Tristan Jarry is going to be out for longer than a day-to-day basis. DeSmith simply has to be better or this team could really fall out of it pretty quickly. Hunter also rips the front office for giving this coaching staff a bottom six that mostly can't score (except you, Brock McGinn, and Josh Archibald) and how the Penguins basically need their top six to score every night or its curtains. Following that, he ends the show thinking about if the Penguins really have any younger players that they can recall from WBS that could make a difference. All that, plus much more on this somber episode of Locked On Penguins.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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 and welcome back to another episode of the Locktime Penguins podcast. Yes, this team stunk again on Thursday night, a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Nights, or I am starting to record this with checks notes on my Penguins app here. Just a few minutes left in the game. That's the Penguins 6th straight loss. We're going to recap everything that went wrong in this game tonight, that disastrous first period, and why this team needs to start starting our games a lot better, the second period and why it just was kind of a waste just because they were not able to finish on any of those chances.

We will get into Tyne Smith and his goal because that was a really nice play that he had. Casey dismissed struggles and why that just cannot be the norm for as long as Tristan Jar is out and so much more. So all that plus a lot more coming up right after this drop. You're Locked on Penguins. Your daily podcast on the Pittsburgh Penguins. part of the Locked-on Podcast Network your team every day Hello and welcome back to another episode

of the Lock-on Penguins podcast I'm your host Hunter Hodes and follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes follow this show's Twitter at and the North of Englands and of course thank you so much for making this your first listen of the day also today's episode

is brought to you by Ben Online, Benalized you covered this season with more probs, odds, and lines than ever four that has been online where the game starts Yes, I'm still a little bit under the weather. My eyes have been very watery today. I think I have the Jeff Petrie guys from the Staling Cup final from a couple of years ago. At least I don't think, I don't think they do.

But it has been a little bit of a struggle. But my voice, I feel like it has to come back a little bit more. And we can recap this game against the Vegas school nights. And yeah, it was a bunch of crap. Also, we'll say, a little bit of a different setup today. I got my double monitor fully set up. Let me know if you think this is a big. of a better setup for those that watch on YouTube compared to the old one where just you know

just you know I look like the graphic was covered me up a little bit more let me know if how I look right now is a better because yeah I can just change some stuff up of course but yeah just a whole lot of vomit from the penguins tonight especially in that first period that they got taken to the complete woodshay in that first period the big of the gold night's at 52% in the shot attempts in that first period they had 62% the schooling chances and 66% of the high danger chances and then of course 56% of these expected goals

and it is not a coincidence that they were up 3-0 heading into the intermission. It was a total buck kicking that the knights gave the penguins in that period. The penguins were just not ready to play this game. And you know, I'm sure the broadcast was saying this like oh well you know the travel from Boston to Vegas

it's like they've had three days to travel there. I don't really. think that's much in a mixed use in my opinion. And the Penguins, they play well in Vegas. Last season, they came back from three goals down to actually beat them. So I don't really care about that. And funny just as I'm recording this, Cindy Crosby just gets his 20th goal of the season, five to the Penguins fall. Officially 5-2. So hey, at least we got Cindy Crosby goal tonight, right, people. But no, official final 5-2. But the Penguins are just never ready to start this game. that I think was the biggest thing for me.

Rife in the opening puck drop, they were not forechecking at all. Vegas was doing whatever they wanted to the Penguins. And then boom, tune that's in, old friend Phil Kessel, the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who, you know, nice guy, tries hard, loves the game,

gets his first, I believe that's his first goal against the Penguins since he was traded about the Penguins. That's not, I think, what anyone wanted to see tonight, just because, you know, I think everyone in this fan base loves Phil. If you don't like Phil, I think you have a serious problem.

But, you know, really nice job for him to get that goal. Vegas quickly makes it 2-0 right after that. Jack Ako comes in, Jack Aikol, excuse me, he comes in all alone on a mini-breakaway to Smith. You know, would be nice for him to make that save there. Sorry, I know it's a little bit of a partial breakaway, but when the team is not playing well, he needs to be able to come up with that save. It may sound like I'm being a little unfair. I'm not trying to be.

But in my situation, you know, we've seen Tristan Jari, the starter, of course, make that kind of save time after time after time for the penguins. But, you know, I get that, dismiss the backup. But he's probably going to be getting quite a bit of starts here moving forward if this injury to Jari is a long term. He's still being evaluated. But, you know, DeSmith needs to be a lot better on that goal. Needs to be a lot better overall.

tonight. You know, I'll go into that a little later on for this episode of Vegas. Quickly makes it 3-0. After that, really nice passing play to score a power play goal against the Penguins. You know, the PK has been mostly pretty good throughout the last few months, but, you know, it also didn't help that Teddy Bluger was basically just hobbled for most of that sequence. He blocked a shot. Do not look right coming to the bench. He was able to finish the game, but, you know, in typical Penguins fashion,

I'm kind of expecting him to miss a practice, just because it did not look well for him. But he was barely able to skate on. that sequence. Vegas basically had a five on three and a half. They would have quickly make it 3-0. And I'm not willing the game's basically over. The Penguins have not really shown an ability to come back from a lot of multi-goal deficits. This season, usually, you know, under Mike Sullivan and teams past, you know, they've

been the comeback hits under them. But so far the season, when this team goes down, it's pretty hard for them to climb back at them, especially if it's a multi-go lead. Sure, they did, they done it to Columbus. They did it. They came back against Buffalo a couple times. That was only one goal deficit. to when you're playing a team like Vegas who is just really, really good,

they have a great head coach. I know they're not playing the best goaltender. Still, you're up a creek in that point. Most teams that go up 3-0 end up winning the game. And we saw that tonight. But these bad starts have got to go away. They were fine against the Bruins. They probably should have had a goal or two after the first period in the Winter Classic on Monday.

tonight, this was unacceptable. You've had three days off. You're going up against a team that, you know, they're playing well. I get it. But also at the same time, you have more of the rest. You should be coming out to a faster start. We saw them come out to that start in a second period. Why are you not starting games like that?

That is my biggest thing. Why are you not starting games? games like that, I think I almost just lost my point. But then when you go down, you start turning it up. I think that's the point that I was trying to make there. It just does not make any sense to me. Do you really need a massive buck-kick-in in the locker room when you go down two or three goals heading into an intermission?

And then, oh, guess it's time to start playing now. You should be doing that from the opening pop job. I know it's easy to say, but, you know, that start is just not acceptable in the Penguins. They're not going to win any games like that moving forward if that's the start that they're going to get. from everyone, not just the goaltender, not just from the forwards, not just the defense, everyone is accountable for that. And, you know, the second period, I'll get to that in just a second, but, you know,

just they were doomed from the start with how they played, and it's not good enough. This is unacceptable right now. This is another six-game losing streak this season. One more loss, they'll tie this season long, and it'll tie the longest winning streak in the Mike Sullivan era. None of this is okay. Oh, nor is it acceptable, you know, but both words work now. But that does it for this first segment of these episode.

Coming up in the next segment, we're going to get into the second period. Things I liked, things I did not like. We also get into Casey DeSmith's performance, Ty Smith's goal, Cindy Crosby's goal, all of that as well. But before we get into that, Benwine.com. is your number of source for sports spending info, stats, news, and analysis. You can get the latest odds and trends for every professional neighborhood league out there. For pro football to college bowl season to basketball and the World Cup,

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Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow the shows Twitter at Altersville, and, of course, thank you so much for making this your first listen of the day. So second period, penguins come out like a house on fire. They are dominating the nights, those first five to six minutes. But Aidan Hill, for some reason, he's standing on his head. And this is just another making game goaltender who wants to play like God against the penguins. I believe after that period, he had 30-something saves.

And this is a guy who just got pulled against the Anaheim ducks. And the ducks are one of the worst teams in the lake. So in typical fashion against the penguins, he decided to stand on his head, made some nice saves, so the penguins didn't challenge him as much as I wanted them to, though they still got some decent chances through. But I even tweeted this when I was watching, I had just, I had never seen a team attack like that shift after shift after shift and just come up empty. And that was what the penguins were doing in that period.

They were getting all kinds of quality chances, odd man rushes, you know, chances as far on the net, Chances from the point, chances from the slot, anything, you name it. They just were not going in the front of the night. If they're able to get just one net period, heck, even two, to make it a three, two game. And some of those world quality chances, this is a potentially completely different game heading into the third period. And maybe that other goal with just nine seconds left, maybe that puck does not go in the neck to make it full nothing to really put this game out of reach.

It's just the penguins, they put all that pressure on, but they completely wasted that second period because they were not able to get a bounce to go their way. They had a couple decent chances of getting Malkin, I believe, hit the post-slash crossbar. And another couple of chances when Crosby was right in from the net. Somehow it was not able to get that puck to go in. Jake Genslaw thing had a chance where he just completely fanned on it, and he's showing right now that he just cannot buy a goal.

Dan Hinen had a chance, or actually had multiple chances from the slot area. He also cannot buy a goal. He has not scored since October. And you had all that up, and it was a complete waste of a second period for the penguins. They did a lot of things right. I would like to see them start out the game like that

because it could have been a really different game. But, you know, it's just, they wasted that second period. I'm going to say the waste. And just, you know, backtracking a little bit to the first period. Just overall with Casey DeSmith, I don't think this performance was good enough for him. I did see a tweet tonight from, I believe, you know, his expected goals against was like,

1.5, something like that, but, you know, he allowed four goals. That is, yeah, it was 1.60, excuse me, in 39 minutes. This was after the second period, four goals, four goals again. So his goal stayed above expected tonight, minus 2.4. That's not good enough. I understand you're the backup, but, you know, you are allowed to make a save. Even on that fourth goal, you know, there's less than 20 seconds remaining in the second period. And I understand that Ty Smith did not look good on that play.

but again make a save find out where the puck is so many times you just does not know where the puck is whether it's like around the net you know behind him to the side wherever you know his pipe you know his puck you know his puck you know I don't want to say it's like management control whatever it's not the greatest at times so it's somebody he's going to need to work on it and again I'll say this he needs to be a lot better you know if he's going to keep starting games for as long as Trishon Jury is out. The Penguins do not have the number one goaltender to bail them out in games where they start back. Because tonight, you know, maybe Jari does make that save on Jack Eichol when it's 1-0.

If Jari is starting and he makes that save, you know, who knows where that game goes? You know, maybe he even makes the save. Well, the first one you really can't make the save. The third one, probably on either. But I would say at least two of those goals tonight, DeSmith would walk back, and I think Jari would have. So, you know, and I understand I'm not trying to really bag on in and making the scapegoat and all this stuff. But what I am saying is he needs to be better. And just his last, some of his last few starts just has not been the greatest in my opinion.

The game against Detroit, I'm not really blaming him for that, even though he allowed five goals. That was just a whole collapse by the team after they went out four goals. But I will say, you know, just tonight, did not really help out his team means to be better. And, you know, this game was also a classic case of, you know, when the top six is cold, the bottom six is not there to help out. And I understand Yings. I understand, excuse me, Josh Archibald is out.

I get that Ryan Paling is out. But also I'll argue that Ryan Palin'alling outside of being a solid poundy killer is not really that good of an offensive player. He's not really contributed much in the goalswring department this year. I know Archibald has, and he's been actually one of the better bottom sixers, and I've made a crow on that. But, you know, you look at some of these other players on the bottom six. You know, it's a bottom six that's designed to just play low-event hockey

so the top six can go out there in win new games. And when the top six is not doing that, and they're in the dry spells that they're in right now with a Vinnie Malkin, with Jake Gensel, even Cindy Crosby, before he had his 20th goal tonight, McCarrow, Raquel, Brian Russ. When all those guys are not scoring, this is the kind of game that you get.

where it's just U-G-L-Y. Ugly. And relying on this team to win games with their bottom six right now, it's not going well, and it hasn't gone well all season because the GM in place, who was in control of this team, did not do enough to get them a better bottom six over the off-season. You did not spread out the resources to the best of his abilities,

and I think you're really seeing that right now. And I even tweeted about this during the game tonight. I said this. You know, you can sit there and blame Mike Sullivan, and you can question him all you want. I have no problem with it. He has his issues right now with Jeff Carter, Brian Duhlund, a couple other things.

But at the end of the day, who gave him the roster? It was this front office. And I don't think they did enough this off season to really help him. What was once a strength of this team? bottom six-wise is now, I think, their biggest weakness. Because outside of Bronch, again, this season, and Josh Hartford, he got hurt, who has been scoring goals in the bottom six? Dan Hayden hasn't scored since October, because very competent's heated up,

but that's only for the last couple of weeks, and it's a small heater, if that. Jeff Carter's not scoring for you. Brian Paling's not scoring for you. Teddy Blugher's not scoring. You have a lot of passengers down there. And outside of one or two players in that bottom six, you know, no one else is doing anything. You know, you go back to those other bottom sixes that they had towards the end of the Jim Rutherford era and the start of the Bon Hectual era. You know, Avondarigis, he would usually pitch in from, you know, more often than this.

Ray Nantanav, he would pitch in more often. Heck, you know, even sometimes Zach Nasson Reese would chip in and from time to time. But, well, I mean, we won't go there. He would, he scores probably, about as much as some of these players. do. So that's probably taking it a little too far. But you know, you all see what I mean. Freddie Goodrow even. You know, he's picked up, he's been really good, I would say, since going to Minnesota. I think the thing was definitely sure about him back. But you see the point I'm trying to make. It's just not enough of an offensive oomph down there. And I think it's really causing

the penguin some of these games right now. So that's what I really wanted to end this segment, touching on that. Coming up in the final segment, we'll get into a couple of other observations I had about this game before probably ending this episode or maybe looking ahead to the game against Arizona. But, but before I get to that, I can find this here. If you're looking for a delicious treat but don't want all that fat and calories,

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brownie batter, and churro. You can thank me later. All right, I'm back here on this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I am your host, Hunter Hodes. We're going to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow on the show's Twitter at Arnold's Opinclans. And of course, thank you so much for making this your first list in the day. Again, I apologize if I just keep going up to my eyes so much, I have no idea what is going on. I literally might have the Jeff Petriyes. I think that's just maybe, maybe it's just because of the Pinky's. England's game between me tonight. But, you know, I legit think I have the Jet Petriyes right now. But other things I noticed from this game, nice to see Ty Smith get his first as a penguin.

I didn't really like his play on the fourth goal that Vegas wore with just 10 seconds left. But really nice shot through traffic early on in the third period. Nice screen. I believe it was from Jake Gensel. Thought his work on the power play was fine. I would still have POJ up there. But it looks like Mike Sullivan does not want to do that, at least right now. Cindy Crosby gets his 20th of the year. goal that he had towards a late stage's regulation. If he's able to wake up here at some point, I do think this team is going to be fine. And while I understand that these losses are annoying, I get it.

It's Jack on High. It's a seesaw. Up down, up down, side to side, all that stuff. Again, I try to be as positive as I can. I don't think they're cooked. I think this is mostly a really bad spell. I think some of these issues are fixable. What I don't think is fixable is how, you know, again,

the front office has really screwed over some of the coaching staff with some of the decisions they made over the offseason and how they are you know they're kind of stuck with Carter and Doolin right now you know can you scratch them yeah but you know has Mike Sullivan shown an ability to do that yeah no no he really hasn't and I get that Duman should probably not be playing right now I mean Mark Freeman is your number seven guy he probably gives you a better chance to win at this point but I just don't think Mike Sullivan um sees it that way at least not yet. And I know everyone's going to say this guy is falling and all that stuff that they're going

to miss the playoffs. You know, I do think at the end of the day, they are going to be, okay, I said this in my last episode, but, you know, time is, you know, time is ticking right now. You know, the streak that they had early on, right, it was early in the season, October and November, you know, it's fine. You know, everything was, you know, they rebounded, they won 50 in the next 20 games. but now you're into the new year. This is when, you know, you start to see teams separate from the rest of the pack.

You know, the Islanders tonight, they lost to the Oilers. That was big for the Penguins, so they still stay two points out of a playoff spot. But the Rangers won. The Hurricanes lost, which was good. But the Capitals won again. You know, you've got to start, you know, making up some doubt. You know, you have the games in hand. But those only matter if you win the games that you have in hand before you eventually catch up to those teams.

So right now, it's not good enough. It hasn't been good enough for the last week. And I get it. Jeff Petrie's out. Cress Tangs out. Tristan Jari is out. But, you know, this team has shown an ability to win a lot of games over the years when a lot of their top players are out. You know, I just don't want to keep hearing the same old excuses.

Change some stuff up. Now, that said, I keep seeing a lot. This is why I'm going to end the show with here. I keep seeing all these people on social media say, oh, yeah, look, insert all these. these young guys in the lineup and stuff. Who? And I'm not trying to be like a total, like a rude person here. Who?

Who would you insert into the lineup here? They just put Drew O'Connor in tonight. He's been fine. Like, are people asking for them to recall anyone from Wilkesbury here? Like, I'm trying to be as clear as I can. Do people really think that someone like an Alex Neelander, thou Terry Pustinan, Drake Cajula, any of those guys are just going to magically save the day for the penguins.

Not to mention they don't even have the cap space to call them up right now just because, you know, Jeff Petrie is probably going to be returning in the next week or two. He's already been skating. So they don't even have the room, but again, do people really think that that is going to make a main difference here? Because I've been seeing that all over social media lately, just like in the penguin subreddit and stuff. I just don't understand that. You know, maybe if anyone wants to prove, if someone wants to do it. just talking about that. I would love it. But in my opinion, I just don't see how players in the

HL are just going to make a huge difference. And I know some of you guys will say, well, look what happened in 2016 and 2017. And I get it. You know, Connor Sherry came up was great. You know, Jake Gensel came up was awesome. Brian Rust, all those guys, Tom Creen, Uncle. But I will also say this about that. Who is the head coach of those teams in 2016? Don Wilkesford. Mike Sullivan. He knew those players, so he was like, okay, I'm going to bring them up. The same is not, you can't really say the same thing here. He doesn't really know those players that well. He hasn't really coach them down here.

You can get scouting reports from the Wilkesbury coaching staff. You can watch their games to obviously, you know, say like, oh, they're worthy of a call it. But, you know, they're not there in the lock. He's not there in the locker room with them, seeing them on a day-to-day basis and all this stuff. So I think that also plays into it at least a little bit. But I just also don't think, you know, some of these. players down there are like just going to have the penguins all of a sudden flip a switch you know i think if they want to get some help it's going to have to be from the outside dollar in and dollar

app that is how i see it personally if you disagree i totally understand that but i just i may be not as high on some of the players and will experience some other people are but that's how that's how i see it um that'll do it though for this episode of the locked on penguins podcast i really appreciate all of you listening to this one, even though the team has just been stinking lately. I'm going to have another episode, actually, later in the day on Friday, we're going to preview the game against Arizona, go over some practice notes as well. So this is kind of going to be a double dose of the lockdown payments podcast because I didn't really have a full episode for a Thursday, even though this is technically a Thursday episode,

but it's going to be posted on Friday. But my true Friday episode will be posted later in the day on Friday, so you're going to have a double dose here, if you will. But again, thank you all so much for listening. really appreciate it. I apologize and I'm still under the weather. Hopefully on Friday, or later in the day, I'm going to be feeling better. And then hopefully for next week, I'm fully back to 100%. But again, thank you all so much for listening. I'll talk with you all in just a few hours.