I'm completely done with this jerk off. I will never defend him again when Pens fans say that he should be executed by firing range because he's all that's wrong with the world.
I'm about as done with him as I was with Gallant by the time the Rangers had him.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think he was a never-was like Gallant. It became pretty apparent that Gallant wasn't really ever a particularly great head coach at the NHL level.
I think Sullivan was, but he's either lost it or he's just became numb being stuck on a dead end Pens team where there's nothing he can do anymore to make them better. I don't think he's definitely gonna be bad forever, but I'm not too scared of the Rangers next year when he's coaching there and I'm starting to think we dodged a bullet if those rumors were true last year where he apparently wished to be released by the Pens to join the Devils. I think that was a bullet dodged, along with not hiring Gallant in 2020, who we definitely were in on. The Sullivan stuff may have just been someone playing insider who took a wild guess that Sullivan was sick of being on a dead end Pens team and wished to be released to join one of the more up and coming NHL teams who had no head coach at the time.
Either way, it's not his fault the Pens are trash, but I don't think he did a bang up job at this tournament, despite Friedman going out of his way on the podcast to say he did a good job and showed he can still be a good head coach lol.
Sullivan made mistake after mistake throughout the tournament. I don't dislike him personally so this isn't a grudge thing. But benching Connor was... insane. The guy is electrifying and is a top-10 Hart Trophy candidate this year.
I think mistakes were made by management as well -- particularly, not taking Tage Thompson or Clayton Keller in lieu of Brock Nelson and Vincent Trocheck. Again, I really like Nelson and Trocheck -- but they're not game breakers, Thompson and Keller are. Starting Hanifin over Sanderson early in the tournament was... not wise.
But all of these mistakes were superceded by benching the NHL leading American goal-scorer on the team in Connor in favor of a very-very-struggling Kreider with the championship on the line. It wasn't as if Connor was ever put in a position to succeed -- he played maybe 3 or 4 shifts on the top 6 with virtually no PP time.
When I was envisioning the lines prior to the tournament, I thought it would be pretty simple to put together three, well-balanced and explosive scoring lines with Matthews centering Connor and Matt Tkachuk, Eichel centering Guentzel and Tage Thompson, and Hughes centering Boldy and Brady Tkachuk. A terrific 4th line could have been assembled for 10-minutes per game with Larkin, Keller and JT Miller. Well, not Sullivan's fault Thompson and Keller weren't invited, but even so you could've replaced Thompson with Miller and plugged in Nelson and Trocheck on that 4th line and still been fine.
Instead, Sullivan panicked a bit and eschewed any line structure with a rotating carousel of players. After Matt Tkachuk was forced out of the final game (which he by all means should have been scratched for, apparently), Sullivan seemed to just be throwing guys over the boards. Were Kyle Connor in the lineup, you could've just plugged him into that top line role and rolled three lines while mostly benching Kreider and Nelson, who both really struggled immensely in that final. But every USA roster mistake seemed to come back and bite them in a tournament where every team was an all-star team playing their hearts out. There's just no margin whatsoever for error.
Hockey is not math, it's a very Zen sport. The players need some familiarity. How many slick feeds by Hughes were botched by line mates who couldn't believe the puck was on their stick when Hughes got it to them in the first three games alone? 12? 15? They could have at least thought to pair Hughes with Boldy, who had played with Hughes extensively at the US-NTDP, but Sullivan decided Boldy was only a LW (he's played both wings in Minnesota) and Hughes was a LW (um, he's a natural center) and so they saw no time together.
I'm not complaining -- that's not my style -- I'm just saying certain things need to be fixed for the Olympics next year if the USA is to be victorious. Sullivan should not be head coach. Tortorella should not be anywhere near that Team USA bench. Their inability (apparently Tortorella was in charge of defensive changes) to get a struggling Fox/Hanifin pairing away from the McDavid line late in the game was very, very costly. Cooper pretty much dogged them -- 1) put out a lower line against Fox/Hanifin with a face-off ace, 2) win the draw, 3) get it deep with Fox and Hanifin chasing, 4) switch on the McDavid line, 5) repeat.
Anyway, that's all for my 4 Nations commentary. It was an outstanding tournament, and I really enjoyed it. Kudos to Canada for winning big. Also kudos to Finland for a heroic win vs. Sweden and kudos to Sweden for playing their hearts out with nothing on the line vs. USA. I hope we see it again, and I hope the USA learns and continues to improve and establish themselves as a perennial hockey power.
