After ‘digesting’ Penguins’ loss in St. Louis, Mike Sullivan may have more than stomach issues with Stars, Avs up next
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After his Pittsburgh Penguins lost 4-2 versus St. Louis on Saturday night, head coach Mike Sullivan said he needed some time “to digest” what had happened.
On Monday, presumably after knocking back a few bottles of Pepto-Bismol, this is what he came up with.
“I don’t think it’s a game that’s emblematic of what this group is about,” he said. “I don’t think we were at our best, and we didn’t play the game with a sense of purpose that’s necessary to have success.”
Specifically, Sullivan’s indigestion was a result of the amount of scoring chances his team allowed off the rush.
“We want to put a game on the ice that gives us a chance to win each and every night,” Sullivan continued. “A big part of that is making sure that we’re hard to play against. And we don’t give teams free offense — we make them work for any sort of chances that they’re going to get. There’s a lot that goes into that. I think that has to be an important aspect of our team identity if we’re going to become the team that we hope to become when we started training camp.”
The power play may be giving Sullivan a bit of an ulcer as well. It’s only registered two goals so far in 13 attempts. The success rate of 15.3% is comically low for an assembly of talent that features the likes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and, now, Erik Karlsson.
So, Sullivan appears to be tinkering. At practice Monday, he had Bryan Rust working with the top unit instead of Rickard Rakell. He thinks that’ll improve the Penguins’ puck retrieval ability.
“Go out there, work hard, get pucks back, get to the net,” Rust said of his job duties with the top group. “Work for those guys out there. They are world-class talents. Make plays when they are there.”
Now I’m the one with an upset stomach.
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“Addressing” the power play concerns by swapping out the fifth guy on the unit? C’mon. Please.
If those other four guys are on the ice and in the spots they should be and approaching the man-up situations with the proper mentality of looking to score instead of looking to make highlight passes, it shouldn’t matter who the fifth guy is.
Unless that fifth guy is a Patrick Hornqvist net-front type. That’d be nice. But the Penguins lack that type of player right now.
Indeed, Rust’s puck-retrieval skills should be an asset. So, agreed there. It’s probably a good move by Sullivan.
But, it’s also an easy one. It’s so typical of Sullivan — and, frankly, just about any Penguins coach before him dating back to the early 1990s — to over-manage the middle and bottom of the roster and just let the stars manage themselves without repercussion.
Actually, when he first got here, what made Sullivan atypical compared to his predecessors was that he didn’t do that. He actually leaned on the stars a bit. But, hey, eight years and two Stanley Cups later, that edge has gotten naturally dulled over time.
But I digress. Back to Sully’s G.I. issues.
“We’re still young in the season,” Sullivan said. “We’ve had mixed results. There’s been a lot of hockey that we’ve liked. There’s been some that we haven’t. Consistency is, really, I think, the operative word that we’ve got to start to establish in our game.”
Now would be a really good time to establish that. The Penguins have four home games in a row. The first three are definitely going to be tough. Tuesday, the Dallas Stars are in town; they are 3-0-1 to start the year. Then the Colorado Avalanche make an appearance Thursday; they are 5-0-0 so far.
After that, the Ottawa Senators visit Saturday night, with six points in their first five games. They’ve also scored 21 goals. Only the Detroit Red Wings (30) and Carolina Hurricanes (28) have more in the Eastern Conference so far.
Perhaps the load will lighten a bit on Oct. 30, when the 1-4 Anaheim Ducks come calling.
With the Penguins at just 2-3, Rust knows it’s not time to panic. However, the team needs to start turning it on.
“It’s very important. There’s going to be ebbs and flows early on when teams are trying to get their feet under (themselves). But the sooner we can get some consistency, the better we’ll be,” Rust said.
Until then, it might be wise for the training staff to have some Tums ready for Sullivan, especially with the Stars and Avs on the other bench.
Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk about the Penguins’ up-and-down start to the season in this week’s “Breakfast With Benz” hockey podcast.