Anatomy of Frustration – The 2018-2019 Penguins Review: Part Six

Now it is time to wrap up this series. It is time to grade the Coaching and GM – as if you readers can’t guess my opinions.

The GM;

Jim Rutherford started the 2018-2019 season off with several clunker moves before the preseason with very suspect Free Agent (FA) signings. Jack Johnson was not the worst Defenseman on the team. He did improve his game as the season progressed, but even looking at Johnson’s 5 on 5 Corsi numbers from January 1st onward, they still were horrible (44.8%). With Rutherford‘s signing of Matt Hunwick to a bad contract in 2017-2018, you could have been forgiven if you thought the GM was caught in his own “Groundhog Day”.

Rutherford‘s rocky start also included signing Matt Cullen, Derek Grant, Jimmy Hayes, and Juuso Riikola. If you add all of those FA contributions to the team together they played 215 games for the parent club (Hayes didn’t play any NHL games at all), scored 12 Goals (G), had 31 Assists (A), combined for a +8, with composite Corsi of 41.8%. Rutherford struck out looking in the FA market.

Once the season started, and the team was foundering, the Penguins‘ executive finally went to work on making some trades. Carl Hagelin wasn’t scoring. He only had 1 G and 2 A in the 1st 16 GP. However he was certainly a super asset with his speed and defensive ability, skating on the Evgeni Malkin/Phil Kessel line, freeing those 2-stars to do what they do best – score!! Rutherford got Tanner Pearson in the swap, who was an upgrade in offense scoring 9 G in 44 GP but who added to the Penguins‘ defensive woes with a -6 over that time. When the honeymoon phase of that trade faded Pearson was then flipped to Vancouver for Erik Gudbranson.

Had Rutherford not traded Jamie Oleksiak back to Dallas for a 4th round pick about a month earlier, I may have given the Penguins the edge in that trade. However, Rutherford‘s shipping of the “Big Rig” out of Pittsburgh made the acquisition of Gudbranson pretty much an even up trade.

Fortunately for the Penguins, Rutherford did end up making a couple of trades that did improve the team a little. Even though Daniel Sprong scored more goals than many players on the final roster, Sprong was one of a laundry list of players that ran afoul of Mike Sullivan, so he never got a chance. Getting anything for Sprong represented an upgrade to a roster spot that was never going to get used. So, when Rutherford acquired Marcus Pettersson it couldn’t help but be an upgrade. Furthermore, even though Pettersson is only 22 and made some rookie mistakes he did play better than several veterans, making this trade a win.

Rutherford also made a very significant trade at the trade deadline, acquiring a couple of young Centers; Jared McCann and Nick Bjugstad for Derik Brassard and Riley Sheahan. Not only did this trade represent a win for the Penguins, it may have helped clean up some serious mistakes Rutherford made last year. That trade also saved Rutherford‘s grade for this year.

In the end, I have to give Rutherford a C for the regular season.

For the playoffs, he gets an F. I know there are some readers here who still have Mike Sullivan colored glasses on. Reality set in on me some time back. For the last 2 years, Sullivan has been having problems with one player after another. The signs were there but Rutherford ignored them. It should not have come as a surprise to anyone that the team gave up on him in the playoffs. Rutherford should have fired Sullivan back in December.

The Coach;

After what I just said, I might as well get straight to grading Mike Sullivan, He gets an F for the regular season and an F for the playoffs.

Sullivan was a passenger on the bus that won 2 Cups. It is becoming more and more apparent that the most important coach on those Cup winning teams was Rick Tocchet. Since Tocchet‘s departure, the only adjustments Sullivan makes on the team is shuffling the lines and Defense pairings and he does that with maddening regularity.

Some team PR people try to get fans to think that this is evidence that Sullivan is making adjustments. This is not making adjustments. This is more like being a glorified baby sitter or hall monitor. It is a sign of a coach who doesn’t have any answers after his schemes have become hackneyed and over used. It is a sign that a coach has no plan B when the rest of the league adjusts to his A game.

I love the speed game that Sullivan brought to Pittsburgh in 2015-2016 but he has added no new wrinkles to his game, therefore he has become the biggest reason for the relative lack of speed displayed over these last couple of years. Yes, most of the players aged a little and may have lost a tiny fraction of speed, but opponents can look a whole lot faster when they know exactly where you are trying to push the puck,

Furthermore, Sullivan evidenced his lack of coaching acumen near the end of the season when he was quoted in an interview about Malkin‘s late season slump, he said something to the effect that he wasn’t worried. He said Malkin would work his way out of the funk. Part of the definition of coaching is helping athletes in finding ways to overcome slumps and improve their game.

Perhaps the worst of Sullivan‘s attributes is how he interacts with his players.

Sullivan the hypocrite.

After the Capitals dumped our Penguins from the 2017-2018 playoffs, Sullivan whined about Kessel to the media. This year both he and Rutherford cried that none of the players did what Sullivan wanted them to do. Yet, back in December of this year, at the height of the Dupuis-gate controversy they complained that what happens in the locker room stays in the locker room. They set the expectation, what did they think would happen. And then after complaining about Dupuis-gate, they still didn’t do as they said.

The second problem I have with Rutherford and Sullivan whining, I mentioned several articles back when they fired their first posterior covering volley, a good coach and a good GM may take individual players task behind closed doors but they do not air their dirty laundry in the media. Both Rutherford and Sullivan know in their heart of hearts that they are the ones to blame but are wasting time and energy trying to deflect the blame rather than fix the problem, exacerbating their already severely diminished credibility with their players. No matter who they get rid of and bring in, how can any player trust their own Coach and GM?

The 3rd problem with all of this whining in the media goes back to something I wrote in December as the body count to Sullivan‘s antagonism began to mount; when there is a problem between 1 player and a coach there is a 50-50 chance that it is that player. However, with every player that seems to go into that coaches dog house, the probabilities shift to the problem being the coach. When no player on the team shows up for a single game in the playoffs and the team gets swept and the coach whines that no one wants to buy what he is selling there is no longer a question, it is the coach.

Among the players that is now being cited as not getting with Sullivan‘s program. Yet Letang averaged his 2nd highest regular season ice time per game in 14 seasons and his 3rd highest ice time average over 10 playoff years. If Letang wasn’t buying in, why did he get so much ice time. Don’t get me wrong, I was not a fan of Letang‘s defensive game this year, but Sullivan was the one responsible for putting him out there.

The buck has to stop on the Coach and he flunked horribly!!!!!

Next Season?

If the ownership group is buying the garbage Sullivan and by extension Rutherford is selling, then even though I bleed Black-and-Gold, I will lose more than a little respect for their ability to evaluate their own team.

I have repeated this refrain multiple times here and will so again, you can’t get rid of a whole team. If there is a problem between the coach and the players, you have to sacrifice the coach. A team can’t keep changing large portions of its roster every season because the coach can’t get along with his players.

There is a lot of media spin trying to make Malkin a scapegoat. Malkin has 3 Cups and a Conn Smythe to his name. He has earned his keep. Sullivan road the coat tails of a perfect 2015-217 storm that included not only Malkin, at least 1 other futures Hall of Fame player but several other top stars and real coach (Rick Tocchet). Sullivan is far more expendable than Malkin!!! If Malkin would decide he wanted to leave (tired of the tyrant Sullivan’s blaming others for his failures), that would be a different story, but as it is, Malkin like Crosby, should retire a Penguin

Furthermore, in today’s Hockey, you need depth at Center if you want to compete. There aren’t too many Centers out there that the Penguins will be able to get to replace Malkin. Toronto isn’t likely to trade us Austin Matthews or John Tavares, nor is Edmonton likely to trade us Connor McDavid.

After 2 poor to mediocre off seasons of resting on his laurels, Rutherford‘s job security should also be very precarious. Hockey is a business. Rutherford‘s track record has been declining since the playoff run began for the 2nd of back-to-back Cups when he sat around doing nothing rather than preparing for the expansion draft, entry draft and FA losses that year.

Now with him whining about star players to protect a very average coach, Rutherford is making a good case for his termination. He should have been interviewing new coaching candidates rather than making not so veiled threats against Malkin and campaigning to protect a Coach who has lost his team! My 2 cents, Rutherford gets the sack as well and Bill Guerin gets promoted to GM.

Start 2019-2020 with a new Coach and GM, then really start looking at player moves.