My colleague, Other Rick, is fond of saying if he ever wins the Powerball Jackpot, the first thing he’d do after buying the Penguins is fire Mike Sullivan.
After watching Friday night’s 4-1 loss to Winnipeg on home ice, I second that sentiment.
It’s not that our boys played horribly. Actually, for who we currently are as a team, I thought the effort was there and that we acquitted ourselves at least reasonably well against the league’s best team. That includes frequent scapegoat Tristan Jarry.
Rather, it was an incident that occurred at the outset of the third period that set my blood a boilin’ and triggered the anti-Sullivan rant to follow.
Our captain, Sidney Crosby got dumped in the corner on a cheapish reverse hit by Jets forward Kyle Connor. Crosby pursued the Connor and delivered a cross-check in retaliation. Connor came back at Sid. Before you knew it, the gloves were off and the stars engaged in a brief tilt.
As I watched the fight unfold, something in me snapped.
Simply put, I’m tired beyond tired of watching our stars put in a position where they feel compelled to defend themselves. While Sid, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang will always answer the bell, it just shouldn’t be…
…and most assuredly isn’t on other teams. Anyone who witnessed Alex Ovechkin’s brutal five-punch demolition of fellow Russian Andrei Svechnikov a few years back knows Ovi can fight with the best of ‘em. Yet he’s rarely had to defend himself thanks to the heavyweight presence of Caps bodyguard Tom Wilson.
Not so with Sid, Geno and Tanger, due almost entirely to Sullivan’s abject refusal to employ anyone resembling a tough guy. The few who entered the door during his watch—Ryan Reaves, Jamie Oleksiak and Erik Gudbranson—were each given the heave-ho in short order. Basically forcing our stars to fend for themselves physically in a way they shouldn’t have to.
Sid and Tanger are 37, for goodness sake. Geno’s 38.
I’m not the only one who thinks that way. While Max Talbot expressed his undying admiration for his old sidekick on the postgame show, he concurred that Sid shouldn’t be tasked with providing a physical spark and fighting the team’s battles.
Although I’m sure they bite their tongues for fear of being cashiered, I wish Jay Caufield and Mike Rupp—heavyweights both during their playing days—would man-up and express how they really feel like radio counterpart Phil Bourque, rather than toeing the organizational line on the issue.
Like Other Rick, if I gained control of the club, I’d fire Sullivan immediately. I think in his own way he and his philosophy have become as detrimental and toxic to the team as Bob Nutting is to the Pirates. I’d then sign rugged Baby Pens forward Jagger Joshua to a contract and recall him post haste, along fellow tough guy Boko Imama.
We may not be better than we are now. Hell, we might be worse. No big deal…this team isn’t going anywhere no matter what. But we’d darn well be capable of delivering a hit and fighting back. And we’d sure as heck protect our stars.
As Flyers founder Ed Snider once said, “We may not be able to outskate everybody, but we can certainly get guys that can fight as well as anybody else.”
I wonder how many times, especially over the past few seasons, an increasingly vanilla team that can no longer rely solely on goal scoring to provide a spark might have received an emotional lift from a big hit or a fight, much as Sid’s scrap provided?
We’ll never know for sure.
I do know this.
I’m done with Sullivan and his “Just Play” mantra.
It’s time to make a clean break.
