PITTSBURGH, PA - NOVEMBER 15: Toronto Maple Leafs Right Wing Mitchell Marner (16) celebrates after scoring a goal past Pittsburgh Penguins Goalie Casey DeSmith (1) during the first period in the NHL game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Toronto Maple Leafs on November 15, 2022, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA. (Photo by Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
On November 11, 2015, our Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was the 16th game of that season. After that loss, the team’s record was 10-6-0. Mike Johnston was the Coach of that team.
All through the end of the previous season and through the first part of that 2015-2016 I was beating the drum for a change in Coaching. Everyone whined that I was crazy. Johnston was a good Coach. “And besides who would the team get to replace him?” they demanded.
Just a short 12 games later, the 28th game of the that season, on December 11, 2015, Jim Rutherford pulled the trigger and Johnston was fired. The team’s record at that point was 15-10-3.
This season, after 16 games, Mike Sullivan has our hometown heroes 1 game below 0.500 at 6-7-3, 5 points below Mike Johnston’s team. For Sullivan to at least tie Johnston’s record, the record that got that Mike fired, he would have to go 9-3-0 over the next 12 games.
There are teams that could possibly manage to go 9-3-0 or even 9-2-1 or better. However, it is hard to imagine this team running off a 12-game stretch at that level of play.
Even harder to imagine is a team as old as our favorite fightless, flightless fowl having anything left in the gas tank come March to make a stretch run if they can only eke out a 6-7-3 record in the first 16 games, when their legs are far fresher.
I have been back on my drum since Sullivan’s 2nd round loss to the Washington Capitals in 2018 when said Coach disrespected his GM (Rutherford) who said that Phil Kessel was injured throughout the playoffs. Sullivan vocally refuted that statement in the media. I have continued to proselytize the winds of change ever since
Even in the throes of defeat, my call for change was shouted down, often rudely by fans not willing to critically look at the team. Even after the team’s 4th consecutive 1st round loss, many, many fans and even the current GM, Ron Hextall were unwilling to look closely at our seafaring Sphenisciformes. Hextall gave Sullivan a 3-year extension and I have heard many fans advance the idea of Sullivan for the Jack Adams award. Wow
The only Jack I can associate with our Penguins’ Coach is the medicinal Jack Daniels, required to get a fan through the third period of game he is coaching the team he built.
The team Sullivan took to the Stanley Cup was built by a combination of Ray Shero, Dan Bylsma, Jim Rutherford, Jason Botterill, and Mike Johnston. It takes more than a season or 2 for a Coach to make a team HIS TEAM. The team that lost last night was pretty much the team that Sullivan wanted to come out of the preseason with. This is now HIS team [Sullivan’s], a team struggling to play 0.500 hockey.
It has been obvious to anyone willing to look, the Black and Gold has needed a change behind the bench for the last 4 seasons. How many more seasons will this organization waste toiling under a failing, falling, backward looking vision, a vision that has taken steps backward for at least 4 season and now is in danger of missing the playoffs if left unchecked? How many more seasons will this organization wait before they adopt a new vision, a growing vision, a forward moving vision?
I don’t have a problem with Hextall keeping the “Core” intact. Nor do I have a problem with this team losing, even with the “Core”, if they are losing while developing kids (Sorry, Pierre – Olivier Joseph is not who I mean. Joseph is still too light to play in this league. He gets his head handed to him in front of his own Goal by every opposing Forward).
What I have a problem with is seeing a foundering Coach not making any changes and expecting different results.
Mixing up line combinations and defensive pairings is not change. This team is too old to play a high tempo, high energy fore-check. This team needs a Coaching staff that knows how to coach the team it has not the 2015-2016 team or a team they wish they had. This team needs a Coaching staff willing to play the best players in the organization, not their favorite players. This team needs a Coaching staff that knows how to identify the strengths of the players they have and develop strategies to exploit those assets. This team needs a Coaching staff that can take an honest look at the players weaknesses and come up with tactics that hide or insulate their players from those limitations. This team needs a Coaching that staff that isn’t too lazy to coach and develop young players and not so inert that they have to find and rely on aging veterans that they assume don’t need coaching.
Deck shuffling card sharps with two aces in the hole (Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in their prime) may get away with dealing from the bottom of the deck to win a couple of Cups. However, the last thing this team needs is a mountebank who now lacks a true pair of aces, trying to bluff his way to a pot without enough chips to cover the bet.
If the Coach doesn’t change – change the Coach
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Hey Other Rick.
WOW. Very passionate and detailed. You didn't hold anything back. You've compelled me examine my own feelings on the subject.
I guess I'll start by stating that I don't think all of this rests on Sullivan's shoulders. At the risk of sounding like I'm typing with forked fingers, I'm not absolving him of responsibility, either.
I do agree 100 percent with your following statement: "This team is too old to play a high tempo, high energy fore-check. This team needs a Coaching staff that knows how to coach the team it has not the 2015-2016 team or a team they wish they had." I think that's spot-on.
It's part of the reason I'm concerned with the three-year extension given to Sullivan. With us aging out and trending toward a bit of a heavier lineup, it seems like the wrong move at precisely the wrong time. Give Sully a fast, young team and I think he'd be very successful. But as you so aptly pointed out, that's not where we're trending.
Regarding past playoff disappointments, I sort of absolve him of the past two first-round exits....sort of. I think both can be attributed to an extent to goaltending issues, injuries and a bit of rotten luck, especially last season. However, I do think he was outcoached in 2018, '19 and again in '21 by Barry Trotz, who seemed to know exactly how to counter Sullivan's damn the torpedoes, full-speed ahead approach.
I will put the 2020 loss to the Canadiens squarely on him and Jim Rutherford. I'm sure with Sullivan's blessing (urging?), they basically tried to recreate the '16 Cups winners (small and speedy) and came up with the ultimate perimeter team.
Sully's unwillingness to adjust is another factor that, in my eyes, mitigates against him. Under his watch, we've been pretty much a one-trick pony. I think you need to be able to play different styles, or at least more of a hybrid game to succeed. For all their talent, Toronto's embraced a more buttoned-down style this season in an effort to get past the first round and it's working for them. Tampa Bay's played a similar style in recent seasons. Wish we could do the same.
If we do move on from Sullivan (which I don't see us doing), I wonder who we'd get to replace him? Todd Reirden and Mike Vellucci are both capable coaches, but would they just perpetuate Sullivan's system or make needed adjustments.
I like Rick Tocchet. Would he be able to get this team's attention? Especially the core?
Here's a thought. Bring back Michel Therrien. (He'd at least instill some structure and discipline.) Can you imagine the sour faces? But it might be kind of entertaining to hear him repeatedly call out this team for being "sof."
Kidding, of course.
Anyway...great stuff!
Rick
Hey Rick,
I know I am not going to change anyone's minds, at least not yet - the team may not have gotten bad enough for some fans to get get angry enough to look at the team honestly. And I know, even though you and I have disagreed in the past, you were never one of the rude voices in dissent. But I am going to keep piling on evidence that Sullivan really is the wrong man for the job.
Harken back to this past preseason when it came out in the mainstream media sources that our head coach had our GM extend a contract offer, over this past off-season, to the human pylon himself, Dominik Simon. Fortunately for Pittsburgh fans Simon opted not to accept. Instead he return to his mother land and steal time and air from the Sparta Praha bench of the Czech league. Since he isn't providing a road block on an NHL team and didn't make your ex-Penguins cut, allow me to catch our readers up on the exploits of this ersatz winger, 2 G, 1 A and a -6 in 17 GP.
Now tell me, should anyone trust the judgement of a Coach that offers a contract to a player that only has 3 points and is a -6 in 17 GP in any league, let alone a non - NHL league? Sans Crosby and dragging down Sid's line, Simple Simon can't do anything on his own. However, Sully wanted him for this season.
Hey Rick,
I understand, it is a hard consideration, changing Coaches. At least some Coaches. I do find it interesting how many fans that continually call for Mike Tomlin's head give Mike Sullivan a pass. Several Pittsburgh Steelers drafted in the Tomlin era have made the Pro Bowl. Not a single player drafted by Sullivan has come up through the Penguin's farm system. Only Sullivan era draftees Calen Addison and Filip Gustavsson have actually made it to the NHL but they went straight from their armature team to another team's farm system. Filip Hallander, Valterri Puustinen, and Sam Poulin have had whistle stops and are on an NHL/AHL merry-go-round but never really given a chance. But yet, as I said, everyone wants to give Sullivan a pass.
The first Super Bowl Tomlin won may have been Cowher's team but Tomlin also took a team he built to a Super Bowl. Although he lost, he still took a team he built to the dance. Sullivan has never gotten out of the first round with a team he built. His Springsteen "Glory Days" are with someone else's date.
Do I think Sullivan bears all the blame? No. JR must own up to a lot of the blame for indulging his petulant child of coach (giving him his gutless team) and not sitting on him when he disrespected him in the media in 2018. And Hextall bears some blame for giving Sullivan an unearned contract extension.
This is real life and not a Disney Fairy Tale. The NHL has not yet succumb to the WWE mentality of story lines over facts like some other team sports.
In the end, if the team does not have the 8th best Pnts% in the Conference (not division), then the Coach has to go whether or not it is a hard thing to do. This team looks like a block of swiss cheese, it has so many holes. We are not going to be allowed to call misdeal to overhaul the team enough to fill those holes with trades. The only logical step is to bring in Coaching that can Coach the team it was dealt and build for the future.
Did you see Sully's solution, destroy the 2nd line to fix the 1st line - shuffle the deck mentality is alive and well in our Coach. Rather than actually make a change, he plays musical chairs with the players. And in this case, destroying the chemistry the 2nd line has. He wouldn't think outside the box and grab a player from another under performing line or WBS to fill a Wing slot, no he breaks up the line that is working. That is not a very smart move, not the move of a good Coach. It is the move of a Coach at sea, just poking and hoping.
Hey Coach,
Bravo my friend.Well said.....This post is not going to make you many friends in the Burg as you already know. With our short memories and a 24 hour news cycle, we all forget the past and only live in the illusions of the 2 back to back Cups wins.
This Fenway Group must have rocks in their head.First they over paid for the Pen's team and now signed their Coach to a long term extension and we both know that is a HUGE MISTAKE. .
Cheers
JIM
Thanks Jim,
You are probably right, I doubt I won over many friends with my rant. However, I would rather see this team win games than me win friends and get tons of likes in social media. No body likes to have that hard conversation with or about anyone. Unfortunately, there are times when that hard conversation must come to move forward.
Also, your point about management and many fans laboring under Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" blinds them to rotted corpse of a team that our Penguins are fast becoming. Rather than getting back into the gym so to speak to get this team back into shape, our Coach and those particular fans would rather go through the old year book and reminisce over what great shape the team was in back in the day.
One thing that is hard to watch, my friend, is watching an accident that doesn't/didn't have to happen, happen.
I wonder how far this team will have to fall before management makes the change. I have already written my first deadline in a rely to one of friend Rick Bs posts, Thanksgiving. If the team is not at least 8th in the Conference in terms of Pts% by Thanksgiving I pull the trigger. If we are 8th, I consider extending him extra time until the end of January.