Hey all. Still trying to wrap my brain around today’s news concerning Mike Sullivan.
To digress, anyone who’s read PenguinPoop for any length of time knows I haven’t always been Sullivan’s staunchest supporter. I think my dissatisfaction with our former coach reached its peak during the Covid playoffs of 2020, when a small ‘n’ speedy Penguins team built to his specifications got muscled aside with ridiculous ease in the Qualifying Round by the 24th-seed Canadiens.
Still, I can’t help but feel for the two-time Cup winning coach. After all, he took over a team that had fallen well short of expectations since winning a Cup in ’09 and instilled a renewed sense of passion, hunger, purpose and direction.
While it’s tempting to blame the team’s slow, inexorable slide since those back-to-back Cups on Sully, IMHO that would be a gross miscarriage of justice.
Beginning with the Derick Brassard deal back in 2018, faulty or flawed roster construction contributed to the black-and-gold failures. Particularly during the latter stages of the Jim Rutherford era and again the past couple of seasons.
The two postseasons we had the best shot of advancing? We were largely undone by goaltending issues. First in the form of an ultra-shaky Tristan Jarry against the Isles in ’21. Second, incredibly ill-timed injuries to Jarry and backup Casey DeSmith that forced (doomed) Louis Domingue to hold down the fort the following spring against the Rangers.
Relying on your third-string goalie is never a recipe for playoff success.
That’s not to say Sully was perfect. I thought he was outcoached by the Caps’ (and then Islanders’) sage Barry Trotz in ’18 and ’19, with a nod to ’21 as well. That was after he bested Trotz during our Cup years.
With the Rangers down, 3-1, and sagging on the ropes in ’22, he strayed from a more buttoned-down approach and it cost us.
There’s a fine line between sticking to your guns and being too stubborn to adjust. I thought Sully toed that line and frequently crossed it, especially in the seasons immediately following our Cups. Sometimes our strengths are the very qualities that can contribute to our downfall if we’re not mindful.
Still, no team stays on top forever and no coach wins Cups year after year (unless they’re Scotty Bowman).
The Caps with a prime-time Alex Ovechkin were ousted in the first round four-straight seasons (and five out of six) after winning the Cup under Trotz in ‘18. The Lightning and Jon Cooper exited in the first round the past two seasons. The Avs under Jared Bednar, Vegas under Bruce Cassidy and the Blues under Craig Berube, accomplished coaches all, likewise bowed in the first round the year after capturing the Cup.
Lots of factors go into winning and not winning. Not all of ‘em, good and bad, rest on the coach’s shoulders.
Having expressed that, it was time to move on. The Pens need a coach who’s more development minded, more willing to ride the kids and let them play through their mistakes and learn.
It’s an odd dichotomy that Sully embraced Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, Tom Kuhnhackl and Scott Wilson when he first arrived and gave them important roles, to say nothing of Matt Murray and a little later, Jake Guentzel, before gradually closing the door on youth.
Again, not all of that falls on him…our prospect pipeline wasn’t exactly teeming with young talent. But you got the sense that kids weren’t especially welcome unless they were basically good-to-go out of the box like a Marcus Pettersson or a John Marino.
To wrap up, with so many coaching vacancies, it isn’t hard to imagine Sullivan landing a gig that’s more in his wheelhouse and to his liking.
At this stage of his career, he’s earned that.
As for our Pens? A fresh start under a new coach sounds like just what the doctor ordered.
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I really didn’t want to engage in any rants after such wonderful news as a new, fresh, positive era in Penguins history. However, I can’t let a lachrymose, maudlin, passive-aggressive tribute go unchecked.
Let’s look at a couple basic facts. Since the team’s last Stanley Cup, over the last 8 seasons, our Penguins record is only good enough for 14th place in the league. That is not the mark of a good coach. He still had the best player of his generation and only managed to be middling. With Malkin still playing well above the average player (22nd in the league in terms of PPG over these last 8 seasons, Sullivan managed to bury this team in the middle of the pack. Bereft of the team he inherited, Sullivan has only been average with the team built.
During the 4 Nations Challenge, Sullivan only managed 500 hockey with the Most complete roster in the tournament. Like the team he coached in league play, his tournament team mirrored the downward slide, starting off great skidding to the bottom the more Teflon Mike’s fingerprints covered the team.
And that is what Sullivan is/was, at best average.
And all of the apologies referencing the roster are not even worth the breath they cost to give voice to them. It has been Sullivan directly or indirectly bringing about those changes.
- Sullivan’s refusal to deploy any deterrents to PK Subban caused JR’s knee-jerk reaction of trading a 1st rnd pick and a very serviceable bottom 6 Center for a Pugilist and a 2nd rnd pick.
- Sullivan’s over-estimation of Conor Sheary’s value gave Sheary a $3.5 mil contract he didn’t deserve, a contract that prevented a legitimate 3rd line center Bonino from getting resigned.
- The loss of Bonino, the aversion to giving Reaves TOI, and Sullivan’s dissatisfaction with stay at home Defenseman Cole as well as Sullivan’s desire for Bressard all contributed to the worse trade so far in the 21st Century.
- Trading for Bressard not only robbed the Penguins of another 1st round draft choice but the NHL caliber Goalie (Gustavsson) whose lack of you blamed the playoff loss because of a lack of quality back-ups.
- Sullivan’s constant war and Media campaign to shove Kessel out of Pgh. He contradicted his GM after the 2018 playoff loss saying that Kessel was not injured. Stuck Malkin in between the himself and Kessel in is little High School mean girls war. Called Dupuis out when Dupuis leaked the truth to the media. Stripped JR of any real bargaining power so all that the team could get in return for Hot Dog king when he was traded was POJ and Galchenyuk.
- The war with Kessel and Sullivan’s drawing Malkin in between also led to the Pens getting swept by the Isles the year after the Capitals debacle with Sullivan whining “No one is listening to me!” Not only was that another fire-able offense: losing the ear of the team, but what did he expect with his open feud with Kessel?
- The make of last season’s defense is 100% on Sullivan. He was the one who ran defensive and gritty defensemen like Oleksiak, Gudbranson, and Freidman out of town, in favor of puck moving pylons like POJ and Grzelcyk.
- It was Sullivan telling Dubas to sign Jarry at all costs.
No, everything from the roster make up to the tactical failures fall squarely on Sullivan and all of the tears being shed are nothing more than a fear of change, even though change needed to happen.
No, Rick, good riddance. I have come to bury Sullivan not to praise him. The good that he did was minimal – a hair better than Kevin Porter to those Cup teams. He was a small coach standing on the shoulders of giants (Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Fleury, Kessel, Kunitz, and even Murray (for that brief point before he had his melt down). He took the credit for their labors and used that misplaced cred to inflict the evils of denuding this team of grit and talent for milquetoast utility knife forwards, puck moving defensemen, and a turnstile goalie.
I wanted to just celebrate a brighter future quietly, but I cannot let the fear of change cling to delusions of the end of great Coach. He was average at best.
Hey Other Rick,
With all due respect my friend, while I may agree to some degree on certain aspects, I strongly disagree with your overall assessment of Sullivan.
You seem to search for…and then cling to…every negative you can dig up, perceived or otherwise.
It’s easy to forget that the Pens were in complete disarray when Sullivan took over in December 2015. It looked like the promise of our core would NEVER be fulfilled. Sidney Crosby got off to a terrible start that season and had fewer goals than Bobby Farnham at one point. Bobby Farnham!
Credit Sully for turning that team around and getting the players to believe again, to say nothing of leading them to those two Cups.
FYI: Here’s what Sid had to say in a text. “He (Sullivan) did an amazing job over his last 10 years here with his preparation and his commitment to winning. Personally, he pushed me to be better every day and I learned so much from him. We shared some great memories together and I’m grateful for his time here and everything he did for me.”
Doesn’t sound like the worst coach in the universe, does it? If anything, the exact opposite.
In a 2020 interview, Scotty Bowman also was complementary.
“He’s a no-nonsense guy. He has a blueprint, and he asks players to follow. He’s also ahead of the game. He was one of the first coaches–he built a racetrack team.
“(Sullivan) has a feeling of the game. He knows when guys are playing above their peak. You can’t teach that. You have to know your players. That’s (hockey) IQ.”
You don’t get asked to Coach Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off (or the Olympics) by being incompetent.
As I write, other teams are lining up to interview him.
Is Sully perfect? No. Does he have his warts? Like any other coach/human being, yes.
But honestly, if he were as bad a coach as you insist, the cat would be well out of the bag by now. And that simply hasn’t happened. He’s still very highly regarded.
Rick
Actually Rick, I do not forget much at all, I got paid big money for that very reason.
I was clamouring for Johnston’s replacement. You were clinging to Johnston. You kept saying the team isn’t that bad, they are still in the playoff hunt. And technically you were right. The Penguins were 15-10-3 at the time, good for 14th in the league. They were far from being in disarray. They were transitioning from a high-flying offensive team to a very lock down defensive team. The team Sv% was 3rd best in the league at 0.9396 5-on-5.
Sid’s poor offensive start was due to an all-out team commitment to defense.
As for what Sid said, Sid has always been diplomatic about everything so he may not have meant what he said but simply Paul-Parroted Dubas’ sediments. Unlike when Sully contradicted JR over Kessel, Sid was professional enough to mirror his boss. However, if Sid does truly feel that way, then maybe he is party of the problem. Just because he is a generational talent on the ice doesn’t mean he knows what it takes coach a team. Bart Starr was a singular talent at QB in the NFL but stunk as a Coach.
And no, Coaching All-Star teams is as much a popularity contest than anything else. Furthermore, Bylsma was asked to Coach team USA and tanked just like Sully (as I noted above, Sully only managed 500 hockey with the most complete roster in the Tourney).
As for teams lining up to hire him, that means absolutely nothing. Bylsma got hired pretty quickly also, and now he has been canned by several teams. That argument is as useless as asking “Who are you going to get to replace him?” like you bemoaned when I pressed for Johnston’s replacement. Coaches are a dime a dozen in hockey. Precious few, maybe 5 or 6 in the history of the game actually meant something to their teams. The rest are glorified doormen.
I do hope a divisional rival takes him so that he can destroy them like he destroyed us.
Bottom line is Sullivan is average at best with an overblown ego borne on the back of generational talents, Hall-of-Famers, and All Stars. He has been credited with far more than he deserved and an end needs to come to the mooning over the biggest reason behind the Penguins demise.