The Sullivan Problem

[E-Ramone]

The other question I am pondering this morning...

At this point, do we just hate Sullivan hockey? Not even the coach specifically, but, his system and his style of play?

If nothing else, it's BORING. When the core was in their prime and surrounded by young guys, their speed made it all click and it was exciting to watch! Oh, and we won back-to-back Cups! I guess the decline in overall team speed has just left us with a sloppy and sad product to watch. Without citing statistics or anything quantitative, it's just like whatever batch of ingredients we have to work with isn't producing what we're expecting to get. I just don't think Sullivan and his system are the right match anymore and haven't been for a few years now.

[Daniel]

The other question I am pondering this morning...

At this point, do we just hate Sullivan hockey? Not even the coach specifically, but, his system and his style of play?

Yes, it's like using a 4 cylinder car for the Grand Prix. One doesn't match the other.

[100565]

I have been thinking…

Crosby’s reputation is outstanding. He is a team player. Never complains. Never says anything bad about other players. Has always stayed in his lane.

If he publicly said coaching is bad, I don’t think his reputation would diminish. Might even strengthen. Sully would be gone within a month.

Not really right to put a player in that position. It would be foolish for any other player to publicly say something like that, but not Sid.

Thoughts?

[Cow_Master66]

The other question I am pondering this morning...

At this point, do we just hate Sullivan hockey? Not even the coach specifically, but, his system and his style of play?

If nothing else, it's BORING. When the core was in their prime and surrounded by young guys, their speed made it all click and it was exciting to watch! Oh, and we won back-to-back Cups! I guess the decline in overall team speed has just left us with a sloppy and sad product to watch. Without citing statistics or anything quantitative, it's just like whatever batch of ingredients we have to work with isn't producing what we're expecting to get. I just don't think Sullivan and his system are the right match anymore and haven't been for a few years now.

I disagree, I laugh out loud multiple times a game watching #58 and #65.

[Admin]

Watching Letang defend a 2-on-1 is always good for a laugh.

[E-Ramone]

The other question I am pondering this morning...

At this point, do we just hate Sullivan hockey? Not even the coach specifically, but, his system and his style of play?

If nothing else, it's BORING. When the core was in their prime and surrounded by young guys, their speed made it all click and it was exciting to watch! Oh, and we won back-to-back Cups! I guess the decline in overall team speed has just left us with a sloppy and sad product to watch. Without citing statistics or anything quantitative, it's just like whatever batch of ingredients we have to work with isn't producing what we're expecting to get. I just don't think Sullivan and his system are the right match anymore and haven't been for a few years now.

I disagree, I laugh out loud multiple times a game watching #58 and #65.

Hey, c'mon now, that's NOT the kind of entertainment I'm looking for!

[ahawk9]

Hadn't thought about the Brassard trade in that way until just now but it actually kind of makes sense. I felt that trade was one that could have really put them over the top, and his game was terrible here. I thnk it's fair to assume that he was well aware that he was going to be the No. 3 center on the team when he came in and was cool with it. I mean, it was a chance to have a legitmate shot at the Cup. It could very well have been systematic where he just couldn't adjust to what was expected and became frustrated by it. It was similar to the Iginla/Bylsma year. That run was decent but Iginla was never used as he should have been. Plus, they really didn't need to trade for him, IMO. They were a legitmate threat and were rolling when the trade occurred. By that time, Bylsma's system was outmoded for his personnel as well.

I disagree. There was nothing about Brassard's attitude, interview, play on ice at the time - nothing that indicated anything other than he didn't want to be a 3rd wheel. If it was simply system, why did he bomb out everywhere else he went afterward?

Plus, I legitimately think he didn't like Crosby or the Penguins. He played for 3 rival teams before coming here and he was always ruthless against the Pens.

I hear ya, and you're probably correct. I just remember being shocked at how horrible he was here. I was truly excited when they traded for him because he was always a standout as an opposing player. Such a letdown. I felt lucky they got the 2 youngersguys from Florida for him later.

[Pitts]

The other question I am pondering this morning...

At this point, do we just hate Sullivan hockey? Not even the coach specifically, but, his system and his style of play?

I have a hard time even understanding what it actually is any more. They have ZERO structure to the game. It's as free-wheeling as it ever was in the mid 90's. I think they all believe they can simply get by on talent. Clearly that is no longer the case.

[Pitts]

Hadn't thought about the Brassard trade in that way until just now but it actually kind of makes sense. I felt that trade was one that could have really put them over the top, and his game was terrible here. I thnk it's fair to assume that he was well aware that he was going to be the No. 3 center on the team when he came in and was cool with it. I mean, it was a chance to have a legitmate shot at the Cup. It could very well have been systematic where he just couldn't adjust to what was expected and became frustrated by it. It was similar to the Iginla/Bylsma year. That run was decent but Iginla was never used as he should have been. Plus, they really didn't need to trade for him, IMO. They were a legitmate threat and were rolling when the trade occurred. By that time, Bylsma's system was outmoded for his personnel as well.

I disagree. There was nothing about Brassard's attitude, interview, play on ice at the time - nothing that indicated anything other than he didn't want to be a 3rd wheel. If it was simply system, why did he bomb out everywhere else he went afterward?

Plus, I legitimately think he didn't like Crosby or the Penguins. He played for 3 rival teams before coming here and he was always ruthless against the Pens.

I hear ya, and you're probably correct. I just remember being shocked at how horrible he was here. I was truly excited when they traded for him because he was always a standout as an opposing player. Such a letdown. I felt lucky they got the 2 youngersguys from Florida for him later.

I was the same. Over the moon about adding such a gritty, hard-nosed 3rd line center who still had some offense. I thought he was the "missing piece." How utterly disappointing.

[dark_forces]

I have been thinking…

Crosby’s reputation is outstanding. He is a team player. Never complains. Never says anything bad about other players. Has always stayed in his lane.

If he publicly said coaching is bad, I don’t think his reputation would diminish. Might even strengthen. Sully would be gone within a month.

Not really right to put a player in that position. It would be foolish for any other player to publicly say something like that, but not Sid.

Thoughts?

Maybe behind closed doors, but he's typically not one to air out dirty laundry in public, especially through the media.
I'm sure Sullivan knows he is on the hot seat.

[Puck-Lurker]

I have been thinking…

Crosby’s reputation is outstanding. He is a team player. Never complains. Never says anything bad about other players. Has always stayed in his lane.

If he publicly said coaching is bad, I don’t think his reputation would diminish. Might even strengthen. Sully would be gone within a month.

Not really right to put a player in that position. It would be foolish for any other player to publicly say something like that, but not Sid.

Thoughts?

Maybe behind closed doors, but he's typically not one to air out dirty laundry in public, especially through the media.
I'm sure Sullivan knows he is on the hot seat.

Sullivan would be nuts and an idiot to not realize he's on thin ice. He's neither.

Crosby is a class act. Not the guy to slam his fist on a table, not even behind closed doors. Strikes me as the guy that will speak softly, but the words carry all the more weight.

I really really doubt he's done with Sullivan. If he were and said so to Sullivan and Dubas in some kind of off the record capacity; Sully would be packing his bags. As much as Crosby will let the GM do their GMing, if he were to indicate that maybe Dubas should look to replace their coach, he will.

Sad part is that he'd try to find another Sullivan, but that's neither here nor there.

Sid doesn't want him gone and that's that.

[brwi]

It's not the Sullivan system that changed at least twice in the past 3 years, it's the players simply will not or cannot consistently play it. It SHOULD look like how a Cassidy coached team plays or how Montgomery has continued in Boston. Pens can't do that for longer than about 20mins a game before they fall back into doing/not doing whatever they want. The beauty of that system is you don't need much team speed to execute it. The Bruins have been an average at best skating speed team for years and years and that hasn't stopped them from being successful .

You can replace the players and/or replace the coach. There's been plenty of replacing players except for the core, so the only course of action left is replacing the coach.

I just hope the players aren't rewarded by replacing Sullivan with a coach that has no real system at all and let the players do whatever: Bruce Boudreau. He usually gets excellent results right away when he takes over, but the lack of structure eventually drags down the success. Just replace with a somebody like Vellucci to try and get a respectable effort every night and prepare for the trade deadline moves and the upcoming off season with a top-10 draft pick.

[maopens]

I posted this in tonight's game thread.

The Pens have now played 14% of their regular season. If they don't do something, anything, very soon and start stringing together some wins, this season will be lost before we make it to Thanksgiving.

Is Dubas willing to just go into a fetal position for 6 months and do nothing? Watch this thing burn down with nobody in the seats? Is that his idea of keeping the core together?

How many times can Dubai say "we think Mike is a top 2-3 coach in the league" before the results prove him to be unworthy of his own paycheck?

I don't know enough to know if a coaching change would make any difference at all. I just know that not making a change isn't going to change what we are seeing. This team is BAD.

[KBone]

I think Dubas laid out his 2 courses of action when he said he would give the team a chance to show him what they were.

1) Team plays well - he gets them more help
2) Team plays like garbage - he's going to strip it down

[FLPensFan]

I posted this in tonight's game thread.

The Pens have now played 14% of their regular season. If they don't do something, anything, very soon and start stringing together some wins, this season will be lost before we make it to Thanksgiving.

Is Dubas willing to just go into a fetal position for 6 months and do nothing? Watch this thing burn down with nobody in the seats? Is that his idea of keeping the core together?

How many times can Dubai say "we think Mike is a top 2-3 coach in the league" before the results prove him to be unworthy of his own paycheck?

I don't know enough to know if a coaching change would make any difference at all. I just know that not making a change isn't going to change what we are seeing. This team is BAD.

Listening to Sullivan postgame, it's very apparent to me that 1 of 2 things need to happen:

--Fire Sullivan and bring in a new coach, not even a name coach, but someone, anyone, that they think can work well and help develop young players.
--Keep Sullivan, and start benching guys that continue to make the same mistakes. Quite frankly, I'm not talking about the Glass, Acciari, Puljujarvi level players (not saying they are making them). I'm talking Sid, Geno, Letang, Karlsson level players.

Rust is out week to week. They put him on IR. Put him on LTIR, and call up some players from WBS. Whoever Sullivan thinks can actually run his system, even at the expense of sitting or giving less playing time to the star players.

To hear Sullivan speak tonight, he actually sounded somewhat intelligent. We give the puck away too much, and we put our own players into too many bad spots. We've seen before when we've had a rash of injuries, no names come up from WBS, and while they may not win the game, the actually look to be playing the system well and competing well...they just don't find enough offense to win.

SOMETHING has to change.

[Puck-Lurker]

I posted this in tonight's game thread.

The Pens have now played 14% of their regular season. If they don't do something, anything, very soon and start stringing together some wins, this season will be lost before we make it to Thanksgiving.

Is Dubas willing to just go into a fetal position for 6 months and do nothing? Watch this thing burn down with nobody in the seats? Is that his idea of keeping the core together?

How many times can Dubai say "we think Mike is a top 2-3 coach in the league" before the results prove him to be unworthy of his own paycheck?

I don't know enough to know if a coaching change would make any difference at all. I just know that not making a change isn't going to change what we are seeing. This team is BAD.

Listening to Sullivan postgame, it's very apparent to me that 1 of 2 things need to happen:

--Fire Sullivan and bring in a new coach, not even a name coach, but someone, anyone, that they think can work well and help develop young players.
--Keep Sullivan, and start benching guys that continue to make the same mistakes. Quite frankly, I'm not talking about the Glass, Acciari, Puljujarvi level players (not saying they are making them). I'm talking Sid, Geno, Letang, Karlsson level players.

Rust is out week to week. They put him on IR. Put him on LTIR, and call up some players from WBS. Whoever Sullivan thinks can actually run his system, even at the expense of sitting or giving less playing time to the star players.

To hear Sullivan speak tonight, he actually sounded somewhat intelligent. We give the puck away too much, and we put our own players into too many bad spots. We've seen before when we've had a rash of injuries, no names come up from WBS, and while they may not win the game, the actually look to be playing the system well and competing well...they just don't find enough offense to win.

SOMETHING has to change.

DK was scathing in his assessment of our D, for the last week really.

Pettersson, Letang, Karlsson are playing badly. Everyone else is not an NHL defenceman in his estimation. A bit harsh, but there's reason to be. He's very down on Grzelcyk, which I get..

Still defends Sullivan, but he's edging slightly towards maybe fire him.


When the season started, the D is what terrified me most of all. I think the forwards group is improved, goalies we have sufficient to the task. Defence ughhh.. no coach in existence can fix that. Dubas can't fix this level of stink either, not midseason. Yeah he didn't fix it before. He probably expected our top 3D to actually perform.. Graves to recover a bit on bottom pair, figured Grzelcyk rounds out the top 4 and JSI is a solid 6D. Only Graves has met expectations in that regard.. it's sad

[Dynasty1970]

So just how bad does the Penguins record need to be before they finally pull the trigger and fire Sullivan. Perhaps that needs to be the poll of the week. How many games under .500 before they fire Sully?
A) 10
B) 15
C) >15
D) They will never fire Head Coach Mike Sullivan

[pekkasteele]

I think the direction forward should be:

- Keep Sully until the summer, so we can get a high drafting position for out 1st.
- Trade everyone we can for draft picks, I don't care who, just as long as we get 1-2-3rd picks. We can take on a bad contract to make it a better pick.

Then next season:
- Get a new coach that is good at developing players, and just play the youngsters and scrubs we could not trade.

[Cow_Master66]

A different coach isn't going to "fix" this team. There's no way whatsoever to fix the D....You have the 2 more irresponsible Dmen in the league logging 40+ minutes a night, and there's simply no way to cover for that. If you think a different voice is going to change the way those 2 play, then you haven't watched them play for the last 15 years. Just like a different voice is not going to help the PP....you're never going to stop this collection of players from having a pass-first mentality.

[KG]

Listened to DK's pod this morning. Seems like he's another of the local media giving a pass to Sullivan. The latest is that Gryz, St. Ivany and Graves aren't NHL d men and shouldn't be in the league.

I mean how many more players do we have to list to show that players, much more often than not, come here to die in this system.

Obviously nobody is going to confuse the Pens D men with the 95 Devils, but defense is not just the D men. It's team defense and if the team doesn't know how to defend, or refuses to defend a certain way, then you must fire the coach and bring in someone that can work a new system that will get players to buy in.

How many years are we going to blame the GM for roster construction instead of passing blame to the head coach and his system.

So if it's all about roster construction and lack of talent, that means Sullivan is only a good coach when they Pens are a contender?? That doesn't make you a good coach... Again it's not about wins and losses entirely. It's how you play the game. They play the game like they either don't care, or don't know what to do. They also know there are zero repercussions, unless you're Puljujarvi for some reason.

Change. It. Up.

[FLPensFan]

From a defensive standpoint, for me, the biggest problem is Karlsson. He's paid 10M by us. He is nowhere near a 10M defenseman. He's not even on Letang's level right now. That is the biggest defensive drag on this team. I do not blame Karlsson 100%. I did not expect 100 point Erik Karlsson on this team, but, he's never been good defensively. His offense generation has to outweigh his poor defensive work. Karlsson either can't, won't, or isn't allowed to play Erik Karlsson hockey, so we aren't getting what we need out of him.

The other big problem from a defenseman standpoint is, if nobody is going to clear the crease and we're just going to "front" the players...why do you think we've given up so many high danger, in tight goals against and chances against? This has been a Sullivan problem for years.

Sullivan teaches bubble-wrap hockey. Don't touch anyone, don't fight, don't risk a penalty.

[largegarlic]

A different coach isn't going to "fix" this team. There's no way whatsoever to fix the D....You have the 2 more irresponsible Dmen in the league logging 40+ minutes a night, and there's simply no way to cover for that. If you think a different voice is going to change the way those 2 play, then you haven't watched them play for the last 15 years. Just like a different voice is not going to help the PP....you're never going to stop this collection of players from having a pass-first mentality.

Yeah, that's where I'm at too. Sullivan deserves to be fired, and a new coach might be able to get modest improvements out of this roster, but I still think absolute best case for this roster regardless of coach is a wild card spot. Not that Dubas was trying to tank this season, but I also don't think he was really trying to win either. With Graves stinking, they clearly needed a top 4 LD, who was super defensively responsible, if they wanted to win, and Dubas brought in Grelzcyk. There's no way he actually thinks Grelzcyk can do that job, but he didn't want to spend the resources to get someone who could.

This season is about the core guys hitting some milestones, the younger, promising guys getting time in the AHL and some cups of coffee in the NHL, and stocking up on more picks and prospects. If a lot of things break their way and they sneak into a playoff spot, great, but that's not the focus. Then my hope is that some of the young guys can be impactful players next season and give the core one last playoff shot while laying the foundation for the next era.

[Antonio]

This team isn't making the playoffs. Just like last year, the math doesn't lie. Last year I'm pretty sure it was early November when the probability at that stage was like 8 percent... it was already over. Same here. Yes it's still possible but extremely unlikely already based on the math. I know I've been saying this for years but the sooner this organization accepts the old days are long gone, the team is **** and real ACTUAL changes need to be made involving gutting the entire coaching staff and a full rebuild that is now years over due, the better.

[Daniel]

From a defensive standpoint, for me, the biggest problem is Karlsson. He's paid 10M by us. He is nowhere near a 10M defenseman. He's not even on Letang's level right now. That is the biggest defensive drag on this team. I do not blame Karlsson 100%. I did not expect 100 point Erik Karlsson on this team, but, he's never been good defensively. His offense generation has to outweigh his poor defensive work. Karlsson either can't, won't, or isn't allowed to play Erik Karlsson hockey, so we aren't getting what we need out of him.

The other big problem from a defenseman standpoint is, if nobody is going to clear the crease and we're just going to "front" the players...why do you think we've given up so many high danger, in tight goals against and chances against? This has been a Sullivan problem for years.

Sullivan teaches bubble-wrap hockey. Don't touch anyone, don't fight, don't risk a penalty.

The biggest problem with Karlsson is Sullivan. I can't remember the exact quote but something like Karlsson needs to play better defense. Leave him alone, tell Pettersson to play defense and not worry about pinching and you likely solve both players.

[Daniel]

A different coach isn't going to "fix" this team. There's no way whatsoever to fix the D....You have the 2 more irresponsible Dmen in the league logging 40+ minutes a night, and there's simply no way to cover for that. If you think a different voice is going to change the way those 2 play, then you haven't watched them play for the last 15 years. Just like a different voice is not going to help the PP....you're never going to stop this collection of players from having a pass-first mentality.

Yeah, that's where I'm at too. Sullivan deserves to be fired, and a new coach might be able to get modest improvements out of this roster, but I still think absolute best case for this roster regardless of coach is a wild card spot. Not that Dubas was trying to tank this season, but I also don't think he was really trying to win either. With Graves stinking, they clearly needed a top 4 LD, who was super defensively responsible, if they wanted to win, and Dubas brought in Grelzcyk. There's no way he actually thinks Grelzcyk can do that job, but he didn't want to spend the resources to get someone who could.

This season is about the core guys hitting some milestones, the younger, promising guys getting time in the AHL and some cups of coffee in the NHL, and stocking up on more picks and prospects. If a lot of things break their way and they sneak into a playoff spot, great, but that's not the focus. Then my hope is that some of the young guys can be impactful players next season and give the core one last playoff shot while laying the foundation for the next era.

I think the right coach can setup a more defensive system and good goaltending, which this team has. Play a less aggressive system is more in line with the skillset of the team. Clearing the crease, forecheck, cycling, etc. Those are things this team can do with a proper system and better line combinations.