Locked On Penguins - Daily Podcast On The Pittsburgh Penguins - What can the Penguins learn from Tampa Bay's Stanley Cup win?

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

With the NHL season over and Tampa Bay winning the Stanley Cup, it doesn't mean this podcast stops rolling. Hunter is back with another episode and touches on what the Pittsburgh Penguins, specifically general manager Jim Rutherford, can learn from the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup. He talks about how the Penguins just need to keep adding pieces and addressing their weaknesses to just go make another run at a Stanley Cup, just like how the Lightning did. What other kinds of trades should they look for as well. He also touches on some more line combinations for next season in the next segment. Is Sam Poulin ready to make the team? If so, where is his best fit in the lineup? Finally, he talks about what the NHL can do for next season with potential hybrid bubbles or just regular travel to arenas with no fans (or some fans) in them.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.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 $10 off your first order. 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, welcome to this Tuesday episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. I'm your host, Hunter Hodes. Follow me on Twitter at Hunter Hodes. Follow the show is Twitter at L0 underscore Penguins. Today's episode is brought to you by rocko.com. Amazing selection. Lively low prices, all parts of your car will ever need. So hockey season, we are now officially over with the Tampa Bay Lightning are your Stanley Cup champions.

Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Lightning and to all of their fans out there. That was a long time coming. They stuck with it. They didn't overreact. And, you know, they were able to get the cup and just basically steamroll everyone. So that was a lot of fun to watch in that final. Honestly, just that whole tournament was just a lot of fun to watch. The 24 team thing.

I was skeptical about it going into just, of course, with this virus and everything. But, you know, I think they administered 33,000 tests. No positive test. The NHL did an outstanding job with this bubble. And they were able to award the Stanley Cup like they always hoped that they could. And now we are now shifting our gears fully now to the all season. is going to be a lot of fun to see what chaos ensues from this. I would be pretty surprised if we don't see some trades this week.

The draft is next week. I think it's actually in about a week from today, if I'm not mistaken, or a week from tomorrow, something like that. And then free agency is next Friday 10 days away. So, yeah, there's going to be a lot of chaos coming. But to start with on this show for this segment, we're just going to talk about, you know, what the penguins can take away from the lightning winning,

especially Jim Rutherford, you know, with how he navigates his off season. You know, we'll also talk about the game as a whole last season. night and we're also just going to talk about some other offseason things as well. So let's just get into it. So I mean, I think the biggest takeaway that I will get from Tampa Bay winning the cup is that they stuck with it. You know, we all know they got embarrassed last season by the Columbus Blue Jackets, but you know, they didn't go out and be like, oh yeah, let's trade Nikit Kutrov. Let's trade McElurgichet. Let's trade Victor Hedman. They didn't go out and make a pan trade.

Instead, they added to it and they were like, hey, you know what? Random shit happens in the playoffs all the time. We got swept. It happens. Let's just go add to the already stacked team that we have and go make a run at it again next year. They did exactly that. They got Blake Coleman for basically peanuts. They signed Patrick Rune, who just won the Cup of the St. Louis Blues. And you know what? It paid huge dividends and they basically steamrolled everyone to winning the Stanley Cup.

So next time a GM basically says, oh yeah, there's going to be like a lot of big changes coming in like a core player trade. That does not need to be the case. So Jim Rutherford, if you ever somehow listen to this podcast, you don't need to go out and make a trade for the sake of making. a trade. I know they went out and got Kisbury Captain. I know they traded Patrick Hornquist, and part of that deal does make some sense. But, you know, you don't need to go out and trade like a player like Chris Lattang. You don't need to listen to Afghani Malkin trade rumors or anything of that nature or Brian Russ like that. Keep your, the host of your team intact, add to it, make the necessary changes you need to make, like for the third pairing and getting the third

line back to rolling, and go make another run at it again next year. It's really not that difficult. Jim Rutherford just, I guess, doesn't get that at some times. But I think that's the biggest takeaway that I would get from Tampa Bay winning this cup is, you know, they just didn't panic. They went out and made some moves. They added to their already stacked team and they absolutely just crushed everyone. And, you know, this was just the peak revenge tour by the Tampa Bay letting. A lot of people like to, you know, say, oh yeah, so this player missed last season. He's going to be on a big revenge tour, you know, especially with Ben Rothensburg or the Pittsburgh Steelers. he's already off to a great start with seven touchdowns and interception.

But this was like a full-won team revenge tour. You get embarrassed by Columbus. It's basically just the biggest heartbreak ever. You come back into the playoffs next season with a very, very good record from the regular season. You play Columbus in the first round. You get revenge on them. You crush them in five games. Then you play the Boston Bruins.

I know it's without Tuka Rask, but still, I don't even know how much a difference Tuka Rask would have made in that series because Tampa dominated them so bad. You crush them in five games. Then you go out. you crush the Islanders in six games and the Islanders were playing some damn good hockey too. I mean, they crushed the Flyers and they beat the Capitals pretty bad. So to beat

the Out Islanders team in six games, that honestly should have been in five games. That was no easy task. They went out and beat them. And then honestly, Tim, they should have won the Stanley Cup in five games against the stars considering how much they just flat out dominated them, but they were able to get the job done last night. And watching that

third period with how they defended against Dallas, it just reminded me of Game 6, Pittsburgh, San Jose, when the Penguins just did not give the sharks anything. I remember the sharks only had one shot on net during that third period, and the Penguins were just employing their 1-2-2-neutral zone trap to just such an effective way, and they were just shutting down the sharks. Like I said, that's what it just looked like last night with Tampa and Dallas. Dallas just could not even game the offensive zone.

They had a couple power plays late in the third period, and they were just not even getting any offensive zone time, no shots on net. Tampa's penalty kill was just smothering. them to such a degree. It was like, wow, you know, just like I said, shades of game six of that third period with the Penguins and the Sharps of 2016. And, you know, that's the kind of great defense that I love to watch. You know, we all know how much I hate the trap. And I'm sure a lot of you guys that listen to this podcast hate those little traps too that would just make the game really, really boring. But, you know, when Tampa is playing the defensive style that they were last night,

that is really, really good defense. And you can appreciate that a lot because Dallas was just not getting anything done. And, you know, I do feel bad for Dallas. I'm not sure if. any of you guys watched Jamie Ben's press conference. He basically answered three questions. He couldn't even answered like two out of the three of them. He was just very, very heartbroken. I mean, those interviews are just so hard to watch. It honestly reminded me of Cindy Crosby sitting on the ice after game six of the 2008. Stanley Cup final against Detroit where he just looked like he had seen a ghost. He was lost, beaten down, just, you know, gasped. And, you know, I'll just always remember that picture when NBC cut to him sitting on the ice, right.

after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup at Mellon Arena arena. And it was just like, it honestly reminded me of that because Ben was just out of answers at that press conference. And I mean, can you blame him? I mean, you're two wins away from ultimate glory, something you've worked your whole life for, and you get that close to it. And now the state of doubt comes in potentially that you may never get back there again. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, it absolutely sucks.

Like I said, it just was really, really hard to watch Ben, just not really be able to answer those questions and just be really. really upset after the game, but you know, I'm sure that's how all those Dallas stars and they were feeling. You know, that was a hell of a run by them. I mean, you beat not one, but two Western Conference juggernauts. And they were honestly outchanced in both of those series. I mean, the analytics and the underlying numbers were not kind to them against the avalanche and the Vegas goal nights where they were able to get through them. And, you know, they played Tampa pretty hard, but Tampa's just a different beast. They're just a better

team than Colorado and Vegas. And it's just, lightning was not going to strike three times for that team. But still, you know, Hots off to them, they played a hell of a series, a hell of a playoff run by the SARS. I do think they're going to be back here at some point before Jamie Ben calls it a career as well as Tyler Sagan. I think Tyler Sagan was playing through a bunch of injuries. I think Darren Dregor was talking about who he was playing through like a knee, a groin injury, a couple other ones that potentially, he just, he didn't really look right during the playoffs at all anyway. So that would definitely explain it. But you know, to bring this all together and just related to the Penguins, Jamie Rutherford.

please do not do anything more rash this off season. We already have seen the Packerhorn Quist trade. I know trading a core player sucks. And we all know he said there was going to be big changes. But you don't need to trade a core player for the sake of doing it. You have the makings of a great team in front of you. I mean, Jake Gensel, Cindy Crosse, because Barry Caput and Jason Zucker, Gennie Malk, and Brian Russ.

You have the Ashton-Reeze Tanna-Bluger line. You have a top four with Dumlin and Latang and Pedersen-Marino. You have Mike Matheson on your bottom here. You can put Chad Roodle there if you dump Jack John. And then you have Jerry McAnne as your third line center and to just figure out his wingers. Do you want to put Dominic Simone there? Do you want to put Colton Cavier on its other wing? You have the makings of a pretty good team.

You don't need to go out and trade a core player just for the sake of doing it. Just, oh yeah, we lost four games of the Montreal Canadiens in a 2014 playoff that will probably never happen again. I mean, Gary Batman even said just I think about a week or a week and a half ago, you would have to really, really convince me to do expand the playoffs from 16 teams in a regular year. So yeah, guys, this is probably not going to happen again. So, yeah, you really just don't need to make a lot of harsh judgments for a four-game sample size after you were just out of playing for five months. So, you know, hopefully Jim Rutherford realizes that,

especially as the draft is next week where there's surely going to be a bunch of trades and free agency is in a week and a half, and there's going to be some teams overpaying for some players. Just rest be sure about that. But before we get to our next segment, and it is time to talk about rockado.com. It's a family business serving auto park customers online for 20 years. You can go to rockado.com to shop for auto and body parts from hundred to manufacturers.

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Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts of cover whatever we need. That is rock auto.com. I'm welcome back to this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. So we're going to deviate a little bit from the original plan that I teased in the opening segment of the show. We're just going to talk about some of the lines that I could see potentially happening for the penguins going into this season. This is based off just a couple of Twitter conversations that I've been having.

You know, with Nation Penguins, Jake, please give him a follow. he's absolutely incredible. And of course, Mad Chad 412, Chad did a great podcast with Jesse Marshall and his co-host. I am now forgetting the name of his co-host. Let me go to it real quick here. Eddie, yeah, his name's Eddie. So yeah, please go follow them. Both great follows on Penguin's Twitter.

So basically, Jake was just looking at some of the lines that he could be seeing. And, you know, the one thing that I totally forgot going into this next season is, is Sam Pullen going to make the team. And I think he definitely has a shot. We're going to find out really, really quickly in camp if he has a real shot at making this team. I still think the most likely scenario is that he plays down in Wilkesbury next season. But if he has a really good camp and a really good preseason, assuming the NHL does have a preseason, unlike the NFL did with their season, they didn't have a preseason, I could really see people in making the team and potentially being the third line left winger. Now, you know, Chow was basically saying,

this big, big Twitter that it doesn't really make sense to play Poulin on the third line since you really want to see what he's made of in the top six. But I think at the start, it really wouldn't be too bad to play Poulin on the third line. I mean, Jared McCann is still a good center, I think. I think his shooting percentage is going to come back next season and it's not going to be nearly as bad as it was. I think McKenna is going to have a big bounce back season next season. That's just really what I'm thinking right now. And I think starting him out with McKinney's. can would pay dividends and then, you know, if he continues to play well, you can move him up with Sydney Crosby, with Hvgeny Malkin. It would probably be maybe of getting Malkin to start.

But then that's also if you bummed Jason Zucker up to Sydney Crosby's line and you go Gensel Crosby and Zucker. I don't really mind if Jason Zucker plays on the right wing even though he's a left-handed shot. I know he's purely a left wing, but still, I think he played a little bit of right-wing last season for the Penguins, and it was mostly fine. The results that he was getting was still pretty good. So I really wouldn't have a problem with it. And then you can honestly put Kaepinin down a little bit, maybe under the third line. I was actually listening to Chad's podcast with Eddie and they had Jesse Marshall on.

And Jesse was basically saying that he doesn't really see Kaepin as a top six winger. I mean, obviously the team does because, I mean, look what the price they paid to get him was. But I still think the best bet maybe for Kaepin is to play him with Jared McAnon. And, you know, that's just to see how it goes. I mean, obviously I think he is going to start the season with Sydney. Rosby, mean, that's really the biggest reason why they got him. Jim Leverd has been talking about as a top six-winger, but I think if you really want to get more out of Jared McCann and hopefully, hoping that he can get a balanced back season, even though

I do think he will have one, putting Capitan down there with him will play huge dividends. You can put Dominic Simone down there, maybe a Simone McCann, Capon, third line would be pretty mint. I would think so they just, they have a lot of line combinations that they could potentially use. Jake was basically saying, I mean, you know, he'd maybe go, Jake Gensel, Cindy Crosby, Dominic Simone, Zucker with Malkin and Russ. He maybe put Sam Lafferty on the third line. I'm just not sure if Sam Lafferty is going to get every night minutes.

I think he's probably going to be the Penguins 13th forward. I like Lafferty as a player, but I mean, I would probably play Colton Severe over him. I mean, why would you out and get Colton Severe and just not play him and you're just going to put $1.2 million in the press box every night? It just really wouldn't make a lot of sense to me. But also the forward of the four lines are not going to be at full strength going into next season. season anyway, even if the season starts in January, Zach Gaston-Reece, I don't think it's going to be ready until February with his surgery. I think the same is going to be said for Dominic Simone as well.

They're going to be out going into next year, well into next season. So there's going to be a lot of interesting conversations about what you're going to do with the lines going into training camp. I just wanted to preview that a little bit in this segment. I mean, there's just, there's a ton of options. And it's going to be, it's a good problem to have. Also, Jim Rutherford could potentially go out and get someone. I don't think they're going to be making a move in the first 24 to

48 hours of free agency. They do not have any money right now to do it. They still have to go out and sign Tristan Jari. That's probably going to be a two-year deal, maybe a four-year deal with maybe a couple million per season. Still got to sign Dominic Simone, and I think Sam Lafferty is a strict of free agent as well, but he's not going to cost too much against a salary cap.

So, I mean, yeah, they just don't have the money to go out and sign another forward for free agency. But the biggest thing, I will continue to say, besides the third pairing for this team going to next season, that is an issue, is the third line. What do you do surrounding Jared McKay, can do you go out into free agency when you maybe free up a little more money and get a player like a craig smith to play with him or do you just use all your options internally move caspari capon

down there put dominic simone on the other wing maybe put colvin colt and seivier on the right wing simone on the left wing sam pulin on the left wing maybe capon on the right wing there's just a lot of different options the penguins will have for this line going into next season and i'm really excited to see what mike sullivan does especially if poolan is going to be ready and has a very good training camp and preseason. But I just wanted to touch on that this segment just because, you know, I was having a really great Twitter conversation

with Jake and chat about the line, so I figured I would talk about it more in depth on this podcast. But before we do get to the next, I mean, I did want to bring up something about the final that I forgot to talk about in the previous segment, and that is about that weird little picture around the cup to start with the entire Tampa Bay Lightning team. It was just pretty odd to see,

and honestly, I got a bit triggered by it because they were just deviating from a long-standing tradition. I know some people were like, oh, yeah, well, screw tradition. It's 2020. It's a much different year. But still, you know, I would have rather seen Batman just give the cup to Stamcoast. I mean, he did at the end after they did take the picture with the teams surrounding them. And that was a cool moment to see Stamcoast lift the cup.

But I would have rather have just been like the regular tradition and just have the captain come over, shake his hand, take the picture, and then just skate with the cup towards the team, skate it around a little bit, and then just give it off to whoever you want. So it was definitely a bit weird to see them deviate from it, but I'm sure, honestly, they're probably not going to do that again. But coming up in the next segment, we're going to talk about a Frank Cerevelli article that he wrote just the other day with the NHL is potentially going to consider a concept of hybrid bubbles

for the 2021 season and how that could potentially affect the Penguins. So stay tuned for that after this commercial break. All right, welcome back to this episode of the Lockdown Penguins podcast. So this was a pretty interesting article, I would say, by Saravelli. I mean, he also has the quote in here from John Cooper. You know, the best part about this thing, the bubble that they were in now is Bill will be when they check out. I mean, they were just totally done with it. And I mean, can you blame them? I mean, being away from your family for over two months, you're not really allowed to go out of the hotel at all hell. Even your room, you're

just eating hotel through the whole time. So I can definitely understand that. But to the article itself, Seraveli writes in one of the paragraphs, one concept for a hybrid bubble that has been kicked around on a preliminary basis, but not in a formal moment. or yet includes four to six bubbles in various locations around the NHL, preferably in cities where fans will be allowed inside arenas. I'm not really sure the NHL is ready to allow some fans back into arenas. I know the NFL is starting to do it now, but in case anyone did not see the news today,

the Pittsburgh Steelers will probably not be playing the Tennessee Titans this weekend because the Titans just had three players test positive and five staff members test positive for the coronavirus, and they're allowing some fans in their stadium. So, I mean, it's just, it's really, not a good idea for i think honestly they would need to have a bet much better control on the virus in this country that is to allow fans back into the arenas and i really don't think they're going to be doing like a two bubble system again i mean obviously with the article that came out from

greg wejinnskin emily caplin last week about um they just interviewed some players who would not be named in the article and they just talked about bubble life and how you know basically they don't want to do this again just because of how like taxing it was on teams and players and how Some players, it just looked like they did not even want to be there at times. So I really can't see the actual doing that. But four to six cities I could definitely see them doing. Of course, he talks about in the article, fans are already being permitted to attend NFL games in places like Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, Tennessee, and Missouri. So I get that, but like I said, I just really don't see them allowing fans back in, but I'm just going to be skeptical about that.

This was the most interesting part, I think. The bubble concept would include a rotation of two weeks inside one of these bubbles, followed by one week at home where players can regroup with their families and then rotating back in for another two weeks before returning home again, the process can continue. I think maybe you can get away with that. Two weeks of playing inside one bubble, then you can return home for your families and see them. And then just repeating the process, I think, would potentially be okay. But I think in all likelihood the players are just going to want to do kind of like what the NFL is doing right now,

where they're playing in their home or stadiums or they're traveling to like all the other stadiums with business like usual, but you know, not allowing fans in. I honestly think that's what the NHL is going to do. But I also would not be surprised if they did do a four to six hybrid bubble system where two weeks in, one week out, two weeks in one week. I think that's honestly the best way you could do it. Just so, you know, it's just not as like taxing on the players so that they can't be like away from their families for as long as they were in this bubble, especially with the Dallas Stars and the Tampa Bay. lightning. And of course, they still need to figure out when the hell the next season is going to start. We've seen rumors maybe December, but though that's probably not likely right now. We've seen rumors about January, February.

Who knows at this point? I don't think the N. N. N. H. H.S.L. wants to play well into July again, that's for sure. I mean, people forget that the Olympics are next year now. I think it's July 22nd. NBC is going to flip to coverage of the 2021 Olympics, assuming they do go on. So, yeah, they're going to probably try to want to finish this season early July at the latest. I would say. So we're going to have to see about that.

But before we do end this episode of Locked on Penguin's podcast, I did want to say a couple things. One, tomorrow we are having a special guest on the podcast. Danny, who is Shiree Irving on Penguin on Twitter. He does stuff for the Penn's blog and just does outstanding writing for them. He is going to be on the podcast. Tomorrow night, we're just going to be going over the Patrick Hornquist deal, get his thoughts on that and just get his thoughts on what the rest of the

off season could look like for Pittsburgh. It's obviously going to be very, very busy for Jordan Rutherford and Company. in. Last but not least, this Damien Cox tweet last night just really set me off and I'm sure set a lot of people off as well when people read it. It was actually showed to me by John Tarbett

who is a great follow on Penguin's Twitter. His Twitter at is J. Tarbit, J-T-A-R-B-E-T-T-T. But basically Damien Cox tweeted this. It's not as difficult to win a cup when there's no road games, no travel. Still a difficult thing to win at all. Tampa gave lots of sweat and blood to make this happen,

but let's not compare bubble hockey with the real thing. And it's like that tweet is just total garbage. I mean, honestly, I mean, I was skeptical about the NHL getting this whole thing done, but this cup was definitely a lot harder, I think, to win than a normal one. Because, I mean, the players, they're away from their families for so long. They can't even go out and do anything normally. I mean, they barely can even leave the room. They're getting hotel food every night. And trust me when I say this, people, hotel food is absolute dog shit. It's not good, especially, and you're eating it for two full months. Yeah. No, no, no, no. And you know, you just, you can't even escape and socialize with people.

And it's just like, no, this was honestly way harder to win. Especially when this guy has no idea what the players are going through mentally during these two months of being in the bubble, being in their hotel rooms every single day. It's just a really dog shit tweet. I'm glad Damien was getting ratioed pretty bad. He was the quote tweets for it are through the roof. Glad everyone is calling him out for this garbage take. As it was just a much hard or grind with just all the other factors going on. Like, yeah, sure, there is no travel, but, I mean, you're not even sleeping in your own bed. You're not even seeing your family, barely even having a life for two full months. I mean, Damien, I bet you've never gone two full months without seeing any of your family

members. So, I mean, you can just take that take and just delete it, shove it up your ass, whatever you want to do with it. But that's just a terrible tweet. And, you know, on that note, I think we're going to end this episode of the Locked on Penguins podcast. I know it kind of ended on a sour note. But I just wanted to call out Damian Cox for just another terrible tweet of the business because he just can't seem to stop tweeting out a bunch of bad things.

But we will be back tomorrow night with an episode. Danny from Penswell will be on and we'll be talking a lot about the patron-holing with steel and what is going to be next for the penguins in this crazy, crazy all season that is about to come. So stay tuned for that. Hope you all have a great day and I will talk to you all then.