Confirmed with Link: It's Started! (Management firings)

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Please go back to Philly Hex, that way your buddy Carter can request to hang in the tree fort with you.

 

[eXile3]

It is kind of wild that you miss the playoffs once in 16 years and you're ready to burn it all down

Pens are in a weird spot. Hextall re-signed your cornerstone oldheads, which of course left the team fairly hamstrung, but nostalgia continued.

Unless the owners wanted to let Malkin/Sid go, that's a tough one to get around. Probably for the best he and Burkey were canned.

Way out of your depth here. Those oldheads carried the team as far as it went. It was the garbage surrounding them that hurt them.

 

[vikingGoalie]

What about the 5 years before this year where he had a competent roster?

so metrics wise and eye test wise. our last two playoff runs we were the vastly superior team on the ice and lost primarily due to goal tending.
I saw one stat where stats wise last year we dominated the Rangers on par with 2016 levels. But not having reliable stopping of the puck doomed us. you played goalie I believe, you know that a team with bad goal tending never wins in the playoffs, like never.

 

[Icarium]

If Sully remains the team is going to be a circus anyway, so we might as well hire Pierre McGuire to be our GM.

 

[Josey Wales]

it would be very sully like to pick himself.

Cognitive Dissonance on full display

 

[Deport Ogie]

It is kind of wild that you miss the playoffs once in 16 years and you're ready to burn it all down

Pens are in a weird spot. Hextall re-signed your cornerstone oldheads, which of course left the team fairly hamstrung, but nostalgia continued.

Unless the owners wanted to let Malkin/Sid go, that's a tough one to get around. Probably for the best he and Burkey were canned.

"I didn't really watch this team but just...really wanted to comment here" would have been less keystrokes man.

There's a lot of extreme concerns in this thread. I get it, I don't know how much faith I have in this process either. I do feel somewhat certain however, that FSG is not going to have Mike bygawd Sullivan sitting in the room when they interview GM candidates. They may consult him. They may even take his opinion into consideration. But Sullivan will not be hiring his own boss.

 

[ColePens]

I f***ing cannot stand Burke and am so happy he's fired. That dude... I never once heard him talk about the Penguins from a perspective. All i ever heard him bitch about is all the NHL bullshit drama. Never once did I hear him talk about the agenda for the Pens and how we were going to be good. lol. I cannot stand that guy. I am so happy he is fired.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

It is kind of wild that you miss the playoffs once in 16 years and you're ready to burn it all down

Pens are in a weird spot. Hextall re-signed your cornerstone oldheads, which of course left the team fairly hamstrung, but nostalgia continued.

Unless the owners wanted to let Malkin/Sid go, that's a tough one to get around. Probably for the best he and Burkey were canned.

The two best things about the team were Sid’s line and Geno’s line. Letang had an up and down season, but a stroke was part of that. What we need is a decent bottom 6 and decent goaltending and decent special teams. Those were the issues.

 

[bathroomSTAAL]

I'd like to put my name forward for the position of general manager

 

[Josey Wales]

Thing is, they should not have missed. Incompetence led to us missing the playoffs. The roster was so badly constructed that we ended up losing.

Re-signing Carter, acquiring Granlund, never figuring out how to use Kapanen, acquiring Bonino and Kulikov (who never played, but they were dumb adds).

We had space after getting out of a few contracts... and we used it on f***ing Granlund.

The problem was never re-signing Geno, Letang and even Rust (even though he has underperformed this year)... it is everything else that management team has done.

YES The Players shit the bed against the f***ing worst team in the league play on the backend of a back 2 back & they blew the Pens out. IN A "DO OR DIE" Game

 

[Deport Ogie]

I'd like to put my name forward for the position of general manager

Forget GM man, I want to be President of Hockey Operations. It's the "overpaid 3rd QB holding a clipboard" of the Penguins front office!

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

I'd like to put my name forward for the position of general manager

 

[Sidgeni Malkby]

Awesome news!!

I know many of you don't agree, but the problems start at the top, and that's what we got rid of.

Sully?

It will come down to the new GM, which I bet FSG will ask for a plan before hiring. Smart questions have to be whether Sully's style of team that he wants to coach, is that achievable? Realistic? If so, what pieces would the move to achieve it? Specifics!

 

[PensandCaps]

I don't think i can handle another year of watching Bryan Rust play with the last remaining years of an elite Sidney Crosby.

 

[RSPens]

I'm not here to stick up for Hextall but the roster he assembled was still one win away over one of the worst teams in the league, at home, with the other team on the second half of a back-to-back, and they lost, just like they've lost every game they've needed to win under Mike Sullivan for the past five seasons.

Exactly. Sully needs to be wearing the blame for this season as much as if not more than Hexie. Sully is a great coach and when he ends up on a different team, he will likely win the cup again. But he has failed this team, whether it's misplaced favoritism or poor decisions on deployment. I am not going to pretend that the top line wasn't playing well in the last 3rd of the season, they did play well enough as a top line. However, lets look at how the season progressed. They started the season with Rakell on the top line, lost one game and replaced him with Rust. The team then proceeded to lose 10 straight before Rust was dropped off the top line. The team then went on a winning/points streak. They started to earn their spot in the playoffs. Then for some strange reason, Sully screwed around and put Rust back on the top line. The team then proceeded to be a .500 team at best. Sully then proceeded to move Rakell around, move Carter to the 4th, but primarily left the top line alone. It's not the only reason the team lost, but it would be telling to see the stats where Rakell was on the top line vs Rust on the top line. I have a feeling the teams winning percentage craters when Rust is on the first line.

So even though Hexie brought in the wrong players, by getting older, not improving the cap situation and doing nothing to help the Goaltending, Sully did a horrible job deploying the lines.

 

[bathroomSTAAL]

Also for everyone freaking out about Sully, this is usually how shit works now. They fire the GM and let the new guy decide what to do with the coach. Same thing happened in the Shero to Rutherford transition.

Now that said, I unfortunately won't be surprised if he's retained.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Im not shocked to see both them go. Also not shocked to see Sully stay and be involved in the hiring process. Sully and Hex were not on the same page at all. Hopefully whoever is brought in is and they bring in players Sully will utilize properly.

 

[mpp9]

Bylsma got 5 years after the Cup. So I guess Sullivan gets 10? Yikes.

 

[The Old Master]

Being involved and clueless is better than being absentee and clueless?

got that backwards no?

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Sullivan’s villain arc is getting crazy. He’s successfully assumed full control of the organization

 

[PensandCaps]

If Washington cans Laviolette I’d prefer him. But Sullivan seems very unlikely to get fired.

Yuck. Career loser and underachiever.

 

[Turin]

I f***ing cannot stand Burke and am so happy he's fired. That dude... I never once heard him talk about the Penguins from a perspective. All i ever heard him bitch about is all the NHL bullshit drama. Never once did I hear him talk about the agenda for the Pens and how we were going to be good. lol. I cannot stand that guy. I am so happy he is fired.

Seriously. The only thing about the team he said all year was that he was proud of them for dealing with adversity in the midst of like a 4-5-1 stretch.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Also for everyone freaking out about Sully, this is usually how shit works now. They fire the GM and let the new guy decide what to do with the coach. Same thing happened in the Shero to Rutherford transition.

Now that said, I unfortunately won't be surprised if he's retained.

That happened because Mario didn't want Shero and Bylsma teaming up on a new team together.

Not only that, but the Rutherford to Hextall transition included an explicit mention that Sullivan was their coach and wasn't going anywhere. It's way more likely that is the case this time around as well.

 

[The Old Master]

Im not shocked to see both them go. Also not shocked to see Sully stay and be involved in the hiring process. Sully and Hex were not on the same page at all. Hopefully whoever is brought in is and they bring in players Sully will utilize properly.

how many non-skilled guys do we need?

 

[eXile3]

I’m not going to let the bad news of Sullivan still being here ruin the good news of Hextall not.