Yeah if any player gets scratched by Sullivan the 99% likely answer as to why they're getting scratched is that they aren't defending the way he wants them to.
Sullivan doesn't give a shit about offense. Malkin will put up like six points in a game and Sullivan will talk about how Geno is defending harder and that's why he's putting up points this season.
Sullivan would love it if he could turn the Pens into the Hurricanes and just play a suffocating grinding forechecking style of hockey. What Sullivan fails to realize is that style is only possible when you have the youth/skating legs to pull it off. Once upon a time the Pens had that and had success with Sullivan's style, but they haven't had the ability to play that way for years.
In one of the powerplays, I had to laugh seeing all the bigger players allergic to the front of the net and there's Puustinen, causing havoc and being a net front presence for that shift and then finally Bunting comes in the last few seconds like oh shit I should be there too. Then in another Bunting finally parks his ass there and Puustinen is high slot and of course, they play hot potato.
As long as Sid scores, he doesn't care if anyone does anything as he'll limit their minutes in the middle of the 2nd and then in the 3rd he's basically using 2 lines to death and a rotating winger.
Predictable as shit. It works against teams where the coaching is worse than his but all playoff caliber teams dunk on his ass lol. And then he just blames it on Puljujarvi for literally doing nothing wrong.
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