Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - Welp, that was a stinker for the Penguins...

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Another stinker by the Penguins...well Jacob Markstrom made it that way. Hunter starts the episode off by shouting out Jack Bushman from Locked On Blackhawks as he's done an incredible job covering the latest awful situation there before going into the team getting goalie'd. He explains why this game really is nothing to worry about considering how well they've played, plus how reinforcements are on their way hopefully soon. Hunter then brings up the standouts from the game, and yes, that includes Jason Zucker. What is fueling his hot start? Other topics discussed: Was this a step in the right direction for Kapanen? Does the team need more from Jake? Is Hunter worried about Brian Dumoulin?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.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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. Hello and welcome to this Thursday evening episode of the Locked-on Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow those shows Twitter at L.O. underscore Penguins.

Do we have a couple things to get to before I get into what the hell happened with the penguins tonight. First off, you know, if there's one episode that you listen to before mine, please go listen to Locked-on Blackhawks. You know, Jack over there does one hell of a job, and his episode on Thursday was, it's a hard one, but, you know, he lays out the facts and just puts everything out there. I know most of you are probably aware of what's going on with the Chicago Blackhawks

and with everyone resigning, just because of, you know, everything that's been going on with Kyle Beach. You know, he's basically a hero for coming forward. I encourage every one of you to listen to the episode that I retweeted onto my time. I'm going to put it on the Lockdown Penguin's Twitter account as well. You know, he explains it a lot better than I could. Please go listen to that. And then there was also a discussion, I believe, on the national show a couple days ago with Sarah and Jess Belmasto as well. So those are the two places.

should go for I guess your first listen of the day you know I'm not going to say you know the locked on penguins podcast should be your first listen when all of this is happening right now and I'm not going to spend a whole episode talking about this just because you know I think there are better people that can talk about this that mean I've been quote tweeting retweeting a whole bunch of stuff regarding Kyle Beach's awesome heroics coming forward you know Joel quendble just resigned Kevin Shevoldebb is probably up next but please go listen to jack's episode of locked on Blackhawks. He does a phenomenal job breaking everything down and really just, you know, hammering the organization for all the wrongdoings because it really is disgusting what happened

all those years ago. There's no sugar-coating it. That's for sure. So I just wanted to take the first couple minutes of my episode to, you know, bring that up a little bit and I encourage you all to go check out one of my colleagues' episodes for a full breakdown on that. But okay, getting back to what happened tonight, I guess you can just call this being goalied. Yeah, that is the second straight game now where the opposing goaltender the Penguins have faced is God. I mean, that literally, that's your episode. Thank you all so much for listening. No, I'm kidding.

We have to spend another 20 minutes dissecting this performance. But in all honestly, there really wasn't much else that the Penguins could do. I mean, sure, Casey and Smith probably wanted two of those four goals back, and especially when it was two nothing, that third goal. That can't happen. I think that's a stable puck. The fourth one, they're letting Milan lose. Loochitz come in on you and score five. That honestly looked like a carbon copy goal from the Islander series of Tristan Jari allowed a goal.

I think it was in game six and it just, there's no reason that puck should be going. It looked like one of the slowest two-on-ones I've ever seen. And, you know, when you have someone like Milan Luchy's scoring on you, one, it's not your night. And two, you should just stop being a team in the NHL anymore in all honesty. But, yeah, I mean, Jacob Markstrom was just sensational. I did not think that he had that in him considering how bad he was last season. I think his goal, his Sabres sentence was like

905, 906, goals saved above expected, was pretty low. But, you know, after the first two periods tonight, he had three goals saved above expected. The Flames expected goals again. So if you looked at Moneypuck was, I think, 3.1. He won them that game. Going into the third period,

I would say Pittsburgh outplayed Calgary for 30 to 35 minutes. I definitely didn't like the way Pittsburgh started the game. You know, they were definitely on their heels those first five to six minutes. There were some nice pushback after that. Marksham was making some great saves. And then the second period when it was 1-0. Calgary, it was all Pittsburgh.

You know, you had that 5-on-3 power play. That was honestly a big turning point in the game, you know, one of the biggest storylines for me, at least. You have the 5-on-3 for almost a full 2 minutes. Yes, I understand a lot of the big guns are not on the ice for it. You still need to find a way to score. They had some good chances. I like the puck movement.

I don't like all the point shots. That cannot keep happening. Those are low percentage scoring chances. You have to get to the high danger areas and get it to the freaking nets where you can just crash the goal. They were not doing that on the 5-on-3. Again, I like the movement. I don't like the shot choice.

That's not going to work for any team on a 5-on-3. This isn't the freaking Montreal Canadians over here from the final where they're just launching point bombs. I know the Islanders like to do that same thing as well where they just rely on Frick and Anders Lee to tip everything in and that's basically where all their power play goals come from. That is not, that's not how this goes in Pittsburgh. You know, you get to the high danger areas. You crash the goalie and you see what happens

and I did not see that all tonight when it came to the Penguins Powerplay. So they definitely failed in that regard but they were also some, again, more amazing saves. The one on Drew O'Connor was just, I don't even know how he got that paddle across. I mean, that was clearly going in. That was about to be O'Connor's, what, fourth goal this season, way out of position just sticks his stick out

and was somehow able to save it. I think in the third period, Jason Zucker, whether it was 1-0-0-0-0-0, Marksum doesn't even know where the puck is, goes off his shoulder and he was about to clearly go in the net. I'm just like, it's just not when you're making saves like that. You know, right when the O'Connor one didn't go in, I'm like, yeah, there's just no way they're winning this game.

I've seen this so many times. And the funny thing is, you know, sure, this team has been outscored 9 to 1 these last two games, but that is not indicative of how they've played. I will die on the hill. I don't know if some of you all will, that this team played pretty freaking good these last two games. I mean, you go to natural stat trick for the last game against Tampa Bay, five on five. It was pretty freaking even-squarene chances. I think Tampa Bay had a little bit of an edge, high danger was.

close to even but you know shot attempts basically right on par and then tonight it was especially all pittsburgh at even strength they had 55% of the shot attempts 54% of the scoring chances 10 high dangerous four it is not often that a team can get 10 high danger chances for on 45 what how many ever shots 41 to 45 shots and does not score I mean that just really does not happen that often that again, goes to show how freaking good Jacob Markstrom was. Here's another mind-blowing stat. I knew this was going to be painful to look at.

If it's going to be painful for me to look at, it's going to be painful for you all to listen to. Penguins expected goals for in this game, 2.9. The Flames expected goals for 585, 1.91. The Penguins expected goals for, 60.3%. The expected goals for Calgary, 39.6%. Again, this team got goals.

lead. That's what happens. Every team gets goal lead more than once during an HL season. Sure, this team got outscored 9 to 1 these last couple of games, but it has not been indicative of how they have played. I thought Pittsburgh had better to play for, I would say, 45 of the 60 minutes, maybe even upwards of 50. I guess obviously they kind of tiled off a little bit in the third period, but even after Calgary made it 2-0, I did notice that Pittsburgh was still pushing. It was really when they made it 3-0. off of I think Dylan Dube scored that one. That I think they kind of left the foot off the gas.

I mean, that's a backbreaker. You know, you're getting all these chances on a goalie who's just playing his ass off. And then to come back and have Casey to Smith kind of allow a little bit of a howler there, definitely not what you want to see. Was also very surprised that he got the start tonight. I was not expecting Sullivan to go to him, considering how good Jari has been. But I guess he wanted Tristan to reset his head a little bit and then have him come back for Saturday's matchup against New Jersey Devils.

I would have to think Cindy Crosby comes back in that game. I was a little bit surprised that he did not play tonight. And you can just tell that they are badly missing all these players right now. You know, the magic has kind of run out a little bit. They're three and two and two. Yes, they've gotten a lot of points. But sooner rather than later, you need your top players to come back and, you know, just start willing to seem to win.

They have 35 freaking million of salary cats pay sound down. They'll sign up right now. You're not going to win a lot of games. You know, with Evan Rodriguez is your Top Line Center. Everyone knows that. Hopefully, Sidney Crosby and Jeff Carter are back for Saturday. It sounds like Carter might be activated tomorrow. He did not have symptoms at all during this COVID, during while he had COVID.

Excuse me, so we could be seeing so much needed reinforcements coming for the Penguins. But overall, I'm not going to be too worried about it. I don't think any of you all should be either. sure it stinks to get shut out. It stinks to not have your chances go in. But sometimes that's what happens. We always say this is the devil's sport for a reason. And any given that your goaltender can play like God. That's exactly what Jacob Markham did tonight. I tip his hat off to him. He's been really freaking good this year. Here's another stat actually for you all. This comes courtesy of West Crosby. Marksham has stopped 102 of his last 130 shots that he has

faced. Is that good, everyone? My sources can confirm that that is really freaking good. I mean, that's, what, 990s on the same percentage. So he was on a heater coming into this game, and he continued that heater. I really hope he continues it even more going into that game against the Flyers, I think, on Saturday. I think Philadelphia is on their Western Canada road trip right now. But yeah, that's all I have to say about the goaltending situation. It stinks when that happens, but, you know, I'm sure the Penguins are going to do it back to someone else this season and then we're all going to be laughing our butts off. But still have a lot more to get to coming up for this episode. We have Jason Zulker because he was fantastic. John Marino, I thought,

played well. We're going to touch on some Brian Dumlin talk. Kisbury-Captan. Before we do that, though, Bell of mind is back and better than ever. A new web interface for the start of the basketball season and more props, odds and lines than ever before. It remains your number one spot for all the basketball and football action this season. You can head to the new updated desktop or the website to sign up today and receive your 50% off welcome bonus on your first deposit. Just use the promo code locked on to receive your bonus from basketball, football,

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of the Locktime Penguins Podcast. I'm your host, Hohde's. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes follow this, shows Twitter at L0 underscore Penguin. So getting into some of the more underlying numbers from tonight. I know I wanted to touch on Jason Zucker a little bit. His line with Captain and O'Connor was really good. They were on the ice for 64% of the shot attempts if you go a little bit further here. 0.63 of the expected goals. Again, it's the expected goals for them. 66.3, 54% of the scoring chances. They split the high danger. So this was, I think,

the best line for Pithsburg tonight outside of the Gensel, Rodriguez-Hin-Line-line. Again, you're starting to see Zulker shoot the puck a lot more. That's something that I had been talking a lot about in the off-season and to start this season as well. It's really nice to see him playing better. He honestly could have

had two goals tonight. He just, he was all over the ice and Markstrom was making a lot of 10-bell saves as I talked about the last segment, you know, just one of them shrugs off his shoulder, doesn't even see another one. I think he went side to side, makes a save there. Another one I think was on Danton Hinen, and he went side to side as well.

I think it was on a two-on-one, and it was just like, oh, my goodness, like, get this guy a freaking steak dinner after this game. But in my opinion, I think Zulker was the one who really stood out tonight, and I really have liked his start through the first seven games. Again, touched on Drew O'Connor a little bit, continues to not look out of place at all. I mean, he keeps saying that until he starts to look out of place, but I don't think that's going to happen at this point. and he continues to really make a strong push to keep playing, and I think he will. Kisbury Kappanin. I will go a little more positive with Kappin in this game.

You know, you all know me if you'll listen to this podcast for a long time. I tell it how it is. I don't sugarcoat stuff. I did think Kappan had a little more juice to his game tonight. He fired a lot of pucks on net. Markstrom was just there as he was for every shooter. Had a really nice, low-key move. I think this was in the first,

period kind of just walked around one of the flames defenders, did not get enough on the shot. If he's able to get a little more, I think it potentially goes in. He was flying around the rink. Every shift he was on there. A few of the shots did go a bit wide, which was a bit annoying, but I thought, honestly, this was his best game of the season. I know it's not a high bar to cross, but hopefully this is the start of him putting together some better performances. I really liked his game tonight, at least in my opinion. Jake Gensel, I would like to see him start producing a little more. His line with Rodriguez and Hinen tonight, 60% of the scoring chances for, if you go a little

more here on Natural Statrix, 62% of the expected goals. Actually, almost every Penguin line tonight was really good with the expected goals. Even the Brian Boyle line was Samoverting and Dominic Simone, 67.8% of the expected goals, but in the one that I was talking about just now, Gensworth, Rodriguez, and Hinen, 62% of the expected goals. and then high danger chances for 4 to 2 expected goals for 0.69. The best line with expected goals for was Boyle-Simonovale-Avri. 0.81, excuse me, expected goals for.

But I still would like to see Jake produce a little more. I understand that his top line center is out. I know he is not a product of Sidney Crosby, but he is getting paid a lot of money. I would like to see some of these chances going in a bit more. He really has been a bit more quiet than I thought he would be since coming back. I know he had that good game against the Panthers where he tortured Sergey Bobrowski as he's done his entire career. But I still want to see a bit more from him.

I'm not really seeing the normal Jake Gensel. Again, that's probably going to return. One Sid, I think, hopefully comes back on Saturday. But it's definitely a bit slower of a start than I expected for Jake this year. Hinen, I thought he was good tonight. He had a couple really great A scoring chances that were saved by Mark Schum Rodriguez. He continues to play well. I've really enjoyed watching him lately.

He also, again, continues to battle for an every-night roster spot, and he'll be in the lineup. If this team ever gets healthy, obviously it would be our conversation with that. But I really liked his game tonight as well. The Ashnery's Blue Dream again line was really the only one that struggled to even strength, which is a bit weird. They were on the ice for 45% of the scoring chances. not swing chance excuse me shot attempts scoring chance wise it was if I go here

50% high danger 50% but expected goals for 44.8% of those so very uncharacteristically I guess bad night from them but I think Mike Sullivan was also deploying them in a more defensive manner they only had 10 minutes and 54 seconds of ice time at 5E 5E 5 which was

third among the four Penguins line so I think he was mainly again just deploying them in the defensive zone and, you know, why wouldn't you? You have two of the best defensive forwards, not just on this team, but in the league, in my opinion. Now, here is a topic that I did not expect to be discussing this early in the season. I'm a little bit worried about Brian Duhlin right now. I understand that Chris LaTang is not playing due to COVID, and obviously we hope that he gets better soon with all the health issues that he's had in his career.

But even when playing with John Marino, who is a pretty good defenseman in his own right, He has struggled mightily. I'm on natural statrick again right now. As I'm recording, you know, 5E5, Brian Dumlin while playing with every player on the ice night. You know, you have the schooling chances or shot attempts with, shot attempts without. And all of the players, well, with a course C percentage without, for Brian Dumlin, it's all in the 30s to 40s. Which means that when the players are not having Brian Dumlin on the ice, they're performance. performing better, which is something that I did not expect to be talking about.

You know, his skating looks a step slow. He's making too many errors. And it's just really weird to see him play like this. You know, there's a couple of odd man rushes that I think the team gave up tonight where he made a mistake with a bad pinch or just being out of position a few times. And it's just like, yeah, this is not the Brian Dimlin that I remember. I'm not going to go out here and say outlandish takes or say, oh, you know, look to see what's on the market for him. I mean, that's just ridiculous.

They're not going to trade Brian Dumlin. But I am a little concerned about him right now. I know Matheson has also not had the best start to the season like, you know, some people were expecting him to. But I will also say that Dumlin is starting to worry me a little bit. His underlying numbers have really slipped so far. And even if you just watch him and not even look at the underlying numbers, it's been a serious problem. So I'm really hoping that gets corrected.

When Chris Latang comes back, I'm going to see. if it does, I'll start looking at those numbers a little more closely when that ever happens. And now do it for this segment coming up in the next one. We're going to go over some of the listener takeaways from tonight's game. I'm sure it's just going to be about Jesus Christ himself. Then we'll also touch on what you can expect on Friday's episode of Locked on Penguins. Before we do that, though, you can save time and money when using Rock Auto. Why should you choose to spend 30% and 50% or even 100% more for the same parts from a chain store car dealership? Rock Auto is a family business serving do-it-yourself for over 20 years.

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I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Remember to follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes, follow those shows Twitter at L.O underscore Penguins. So getting to a few listener takeaways here, Jackson Hollister says, yep, you said it. George Vesna, aka God, was in net tonight. Penguins also had some defensive lapses, so I really feel like it just comes down to missing the top five players. Yeah, Jackson, I mean, when you have 35 freaking million of your salary cap space,

out of the lineup, you're going to usually lose. lose more games than you win. Yes, God himself was in net. I'm glad you brought the defensive lapses. I know a couple people on Penguin's Twitter have been tweeting about this. I've got a couple texts as well as some of my buddies, excuse me. I've not liked the odd man rushes

that the team has given up these last couple of games. I think if I counted correctly, mentally, it was around 9 or 10 combined. You're not going to win a lot of games like that. You know, Johnny Grudeau actually opened the scoring tonight basically on an odd man rush. If you give him that time and space, he will make any goal he pay.

He's one of the best players in this league. So Pittsburgh's got to clean those up. Again, I understand that a lot of these players are being, just playing more minutes, I guess, is the way to say it. But you still got to clean up these on man rushes. You're not going to win a lot of games by giving those up. I'll say that. And then let's see here.

Overdone Reactor. Sometimes it is not your night. There's a lot of shots, but nobody in front of the net. Yep, 100%. A lot of these shots that Pittsburgh were taking from the point where they're getting blocked by Daryl Sutter's team. There was no traffic in front. And obviously, you know, they're missing a big body such as Carter, Sid loves going to the net as well. Brian Russ too.

But, you know, they just weren't getting enough traffic in front of Marchum, which was making his job a bit more easier than it should have been. He also says the power play was missing the big guns. Yep, Hope 87 and 77 are back for Saturday. 100% agreed, man, if they get at least both of those two. back. It'll go a long way. And don't quote me on this. I think you might be seeing Brian Russ come back sooner rather than later. I have not been told that.

It's just a hunch that I have. He's been really ramping up. Just skating before practice, it looks like he's ready to start practicing with the team, in my opinion, with the videos that I have seen. I'll start between some of those onto both of the Twitter accounts, but would not be surprised if Rust is back sooner or rather than later to make it three players back. And then hopefully, Chris LaTang is able to come back.

if he does get fully healthy and I'm sure he will. And then Gilbert, the goat says this team has come back to Earth. You can't win them all when you're this depleted. One positive is that Zokker has looked amazing. Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, Zoker, I think, has been one of their top two forwards, to say the least this season. You know, him and O'Connor have really separated themselves from the pack. And, yeah, definitely expect more out of Gensland, Cappan.

More so Cappy, I think, just because there was such high expectations. for him this season, and he has not live up to that yet. Hopefully, when one of the three big centers come back, he can actually start playing there, and potentially getting some more scoring chances, which, you know, obviously leads to more goals. But, you know, he needs to find his confidence because it is not there right now.

And I think, honestly, that might do it for this episode. I'm sorry, it might be one of the shorter ones, but there really, it was just not much to say, other than Jacob Marksson played like a prime Dominic Hasick. The team played well. I will commend them for that. These last couple of games, they have not been rewarded enough, but that's what happens when you go up against A, the best goaltender in the league,

and then B, one of the hottest goalies in the league right now. You get goalieed multiple times a season. It's happened two games in a row. It's not going to keep happening. I'm sure they'll get a few on Saturday when they play McKenzie Blackwood. We'll have to see, and hopefully we will see Cindy Crosby return for that game as well. For Friday's episode of Locktime Penguins, I will be doing a crossover with Tray Matthews of Locked on Dables

to get the scoop on how New Jersey is playing this season. I don't think Jack Hughes will be in the lineup tomorrow just because of that shoulder injury that he suffered. At least I don't think he's back yet. I think that will be a pretty quick recovery, but this team still has quite a bit of talent. They signed Dougie Hamilton in the offseason. Nico Heeshire is back.

They still have Zaka. Obviously, Suban is still there. They signed Tomas Tatar over the offseason, etc. I believe they also traded for Ryan Graves. from B. Call our Avalanche. So that should be a fun game. That will be Friday's episode. It will be a full preview for that matchup to wrap up this week.

And then starting on Monday, we will have a full game recap of that Devils game. So thank you all so much for listening to this one. And we will talk to you all tomorrow.