Short and sweet, I didn’t stay up to watch reruns from last year, I still remember the how that turned out.
So now let’s see,
Only 4 players remain on this roster since the Pittsburgh Penguins won their first Cup, Captain Sidney Crosby, Assistant Captains Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, and Bryan Rust. Every other player has changed, and the team hasn’t been past the Divisional finals since 2018.
Missing from the current roster is Chris Kunitz. He won 4 Stanley Cups, but only 2 of them under Mike Sullivan.
Also missing from the roster is Marc-Andre Fleury. He has had 5 Cup Finals appearances, with 3 Cups. Only 2 of those appearances and Cups occurred under Sullivan.
Matt Cullen is no longer with our Penguins either and he has 3 Cups with only 2 under Sullivan.
Of the players still on the roster, Crosby, Malkin, and Letang all have 4 Cup appearances with 3 Cups, only 2 of which came under Sullivan.
Mike Sullivan only has 2 Cup appearances all of them while having Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Fluery, Kunitz, and Cullen on his roster. He has 89 playoff games under his belt as a coach, 82 of them with Crosby, Malkin, and Letang on his roster; his record without them 3-4, his record with them 44-38.
50% of the roster was changed out since last season and our favorite flightless fowl still lost to the team that helped put a dagger in their playoff streak, the Chicago Blackhawks, in their season opener this year. Sullivan’s crew yielded 4 unanswered Goals (G) to blow a 2 Goal lead. How has this team changed again?
New Head of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas went out and threw away another 1st round draft pick to get Sullivan a Norris trophy winning Defenseman, and our Penguins head Coach still managed to lose a game against the Blackhawks, at home, in their opener, after last years humiliation. How can that happen?
Fifty percent of the roster has changed but the Coach is the same. The Coach was given all of his veteran forwards and the opening night’s roster was older than last years opening night roster – that is how.
I wish I could play Mark Antony and bury this Coach; I certainly don’t want to praise him. Unfortunately, the people who make the decisions and even a large number of the Penguins fans and media would rather still believe the earth is flat with the sun revolving around it and sing songs to a Coach that was a passenger on the bus, rather than face the truth.
