Penguins: It runs down hill.

It is an old saying. I have said it many times, heard it many times in different contexts and in slightly different ways, but it must be said again; “Victory has a thousand fathers – defeat is an orphan.”

Like most Penguins’ fans, out of morbid commiseration I have been reading post-mortem after post-mortem these last couple of days, in the wake of the Islander disaster. Media personalities and fans are all weighing in on what went wrong and where they think the blame lies. Some of the sources try to lay the blame on GM, and some on the coach but by far most of the finger pointing has been thrown at the players.

To their credit, I have yet to read any player looking to deflect the blame to the coaches or the GM In fact, most of what I have read from the players is an attempt to insulate the Penguins’ brain trust from scrutiny.

Unfortunately, and what is starting to disturb me is I haven’t seen that same level of leadership and loyalty coming from Jim Rutherford and Mike Sullivan. Instead of taking ownership of their own gaffes, Rutherford wants to talk about the players being “complacent” and that “maybe they need to go” while Sullivan talks about there “not being enough buy into the system” and players’ “high risk offense” and “not enough” defense.

Everyone here knows that there are players whom I have criticized, so I am not going to disagree that some of the blame should go to the players. There are more than a couple of players on this current roster who would not have been on this past season’s opening night roster or who would not have made it to the end of the season. I am not going to dispute the need for a roster shake up. However, I am also going to scrutinize the Coach and the GM

When I start looking at both the Penguins’ roster and the Organization, yes Rutherford and Sullivan did win 2 – Cups with our favorite flightless fowl, but there are still 2 – players that have 3 – Cup wins as Penguins. If I am going to give credit based solely on the number of Cups won in the ‘burgh, Sidney Crosby and  Evgeni Malkin get more “cred”.

Fortunately/unfortunately, depending on your perspective, I don’t have that type of sentimentality, like some people who try and deflect blame away from and defend Sullivan and Rutherford.

Who built this Team?

Of course it is the same person who built the Cup winning team, but it was you Mr. Rutherford who assembled these players. There are precious few players left that you inherited.

Yes, you made some great trades to construct the Cup winning teams; Phil Kessel (with Toronto retaining a good portion of that salary), Trevor Daley (Highway robbery), Carl Hagelin, and although it didn’t pay off immediate dividends, Justin Schultz, to win that first Stanley Cup.

The next year, you probably broke even in your moves. As great as Daley was the year before you wisely didn’t throw big money at him when he went Free Agent (FA) and picking up Ron Hainsey was shrewd. I am not sure if you tried and/or it would have been possible to resign Ben Lovejoy, but he was missed. Add to that not trying to sign Nick Bonino to an extension between the 2-Cups would seem to balance out your good moves.

An article I read on Yahoo hit the nail on the head. They said that this 2019 debacle was 2-years in the making and they were right. After that 2nd Cup, rather than working toward positioning the team for the coming expansion draft and FA during May and June of that year, nothing was really done. You rested on your laurels. Finally you paid Vegas a draft pick to take Marc-Andre Fleury, as if they weren’t going to take him. If they didn’t take him, who would they have taken; Conor Sheary? Tom Kuhnhackl? They are both gone. Bryan Rust? Okay that one may have hurt a little but it still wouldn’t have been as bad as paying Vegas to take Fleury.

On Entry Draft day you traded Oskar Sundqvist (you do know he has 4 points in his 4 games played this playoff year, which is what Crosby and Malkin have combined?) and flipped your 1st round pick for Ryan Reeves and St. Louis’ 2nd round pick. I was hoping for you to take Nicolas Hague, who was still available when the St. Louis used the Penguins’ 1st pick,, but the Penguins had to settle for Zachary Luzon several picks later. (I know he didn’t play at all last year due to injury. Question: Was that a career ending injury?)

Then you turned around and traded Reeves and Ian Cole (by the way, Cole has the best +/- of all defensemen right now in the playoffs), with several other assets to Ottawa for Derick Brassard and Tobias Lindberg. Many people on these boards correctly argued that even last year the team should have been sellers not buyers at the deadline – but you bought and paid a heavy price.

You may have salvaged some of your recent blunders when you unloaded Brassard and Riley Sheahan for Jared McCann and Nick Bjugstad, but let’s remember you are also the one who signed Jack Johnson, Patric Hornqvist, and Domink Simon to at least questionable (if not bad) deals so the Salary Cap bind the team now faces is in part your making.

Also, Rutherford’s comment in the recent season’s ending joint press conference (with Sullivan) in which you stated that the Penguins’ Defense right now is the “best defense that it has been since [you] have been here” was absurd. During your tenure, the best the Penguins’ defense has been was the 1st Cup year with Cole, Lovejoy, and Daley on it. That may have been the last time the team was able to hold opponents to less than 30 shots per game with any regularity.

If there is any lack of speed on this Penguins’ team, as some evidence strongly suggests, you, Mr. Rutherford, share in the guilt for that decline.

“Nobody wants to listen to me!”

Put your big boy pants on and own up to your culpability, Mr. Sullivan. If nobody is listening to you, it is your own fault.

Back in December, during Dupuis-gate I wrote that if there was a problem between you and 1 player, it could very well be the player. If there was a problem between you and a couple of players it could still be the players but with each and every new player added to that list, the probability now shifted to you, Mr. Sullivan. Now in your season ending Press Conference you throw your entire team under the bus complaining that they weren’t playing the way you wanted them to play. You whined that they weren’t listening to you. That makes it definitive. It is you, Mr. Sullivan, not the players.

This is not the Juniors, nor is it the College ranks where you can turn over your roster by 50% or so each year as players get drafted or graduate. The onus is on you, the coach, to play nice with your team. The onus is on you to identify the leaders on your team, the players who organize the poker games that everyone gets involved in, the players who have voices in the locker room and get them to buy into your system and they will hold the rest of the team accountable. If no one is listening to you, it is on you.

You can’t play favorites. Sheary shouldn’t have gotten all of the top 6 minutes he got last year, dragging Crosby’s line down. Simon may wow in practice (at least that is what I have heard from some sources), but he is a dud on the ice during games. What is the old saying, he hasn’t scored since the 8th grade picnic? Kris Letang just kept getting minutes and more minutes last playoffs despite gaffe after gaffe; nothing changed this playoff. Did you really expect it to change?

Many people thought Teddy Blueger beat out Matt Cullen, Sheahn, Brassard, and Derek Grant in the pre-season, but was he the 3rd line Center on opening night? No. Was he the 4th line Center on opening night? No! Was he even the 13th or 14th Forward on that roster? No! He started the season in Wilkes Barre – Scranton.

Rutherford may have traded speedy assets out of Pittsburgh but there still were fresh, young legs to put on the ice but you, Mr. Sullivan, opted not to use them. And if there were players not listening, why didn’t you sit them and play one of the kids. Ethan Prow was a 2nd Team AHL All Star, led the team in Points and +/- but he never even got a sniff of the NHL. He is a FA this summer. Do you think he is going to want to stay? Or will he leave like Lukas Bengtsson and Andrey Pedan did last summer?

A coach needs to coach the team not be a glorified baby sitter. Shuffling the deck isn’t coaching, it is babysitting. The Penguins used basically the same breakout from 2016 until December of this year. How much of the Penguins’ breakout was the players and how much of it was that the other teams knew exactly what the team was going to do? When Barry Trotz’ and Lou Lamoriello’s defense stymied the Penguins’ Zone entries, fore-checks, back-checks, and breakouts and the players looked to you for answers what was your response? Let’s switch the line combos and defensive pairings?

Perhaps the players did age a little and slow down a tad, but how much of their slowness was really from lack of speed and how much was lack of confidence in their coach and/or the trepidations of trying to figure out the opposition on their own? What is the saying “He who hesitates is lost?”

For their part, from what I have read the players are trying to protect a failing middle management but middle management is trying to throw them under the bus. The players are taking the high road and trying to remain a team. The coach and the GM are actively or passive/aggressively trying to cover their own posteriors.

He who controls process is accountable for outcome. The players do not control process. I am not saying that the roster stays exactly the same. Some changes always need to be made. Even if the team won the Cup, every season is a different season and teams eventually adjust. However, before the roster changes – changes need to occur off the ice. Even if the Personnel don’t change, their mindset needs to change. And with FAs like Erik Karlsson, Artemi Panarin, Jeff Skinner, and Matt Duchene available it is going to be a whole lot easier to change a coach and GM rather than any high profile players.