Speculation: Offseason coaching thread: Should they stay or should they go?

[SomeDude]

If Boston can be competitive with their roster. We can too.

I think Boston having 2 goalies better than anything we have and like 5 dmen better than we have helps.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Imagine if the Penguins had a top nine forward like this guy Danton Heinen in Boston.

Yes, and Hextall deserves blame for butchering the depth that JR left him and Dubas deserves blame for failing to improve the depth that Hextall left him.

Again, literally the only innocent person in the entire organization is Crosby.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

IF WE JUST HAD A 20M DOLLAR THIRD LINE THIS WOULD ALL BE FINE!

Boston's trotting out guys like Patrick Maroon, John Beecher and some dude named Brazeau in their bottom six and we're talking about lack of depth being the reason we've been a failure the past handful of years.

Oh, and that's on top of them losing their top two centers from last season and replacing them with Coyle and Zacha.

 

[Gurglesons]

Yes, and Hextall deserves blame for butchering the depth that JR left him and Dubas deserves blame for failing to improve the depth that Hextall left him.

Yeah, maybe we can get this guy Mikael Granlund out of San Jose? Seems like he wouldn't cost much and he's added a lot to their powerplay and in their top six.

I think Boston having 2 goalies better than anything we have and like 5 dmen better than we have helps.

Yeah, that's it.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Boston's trotting out guys like Patrick Maroon, John Beecher and some dude named Brazeau in their bottom six and we're talking about lack of depth being the reason we've been a failure the past handful of years.

Oh, and that's on top of them losing their top two centers from last season and replacing them with Coyle and Zacha.

Sun comes up... sun goes down... Penguins fans stroke out over their damned bottom six.

You can set your watch to it.,

 

[Empoleon8771]

This website has been screaming non-stop about how horrendous guys like Carter, Harkins and such were this year while playing, but all of a sudden depth players weren't a problem for the team? Uh, what?

I know what this is, it's people not wanting to give Sullivan any sort of excuses for why this team has stunk. But you can have nuance here, you know. Mentioning that their depth stinks and both of the last 2 GMs haven't done anything to improve that doesn't invalidate that Sullivan has been horrible and is making the bottom-6 worse with how he's using it.

 

[SomeDude]

Yeah, that's it.

Their vastly superior system and coaching staff also helps and that their organization seems to prioritize winning as opposed to making sure no players or coaches has an uncomfortable moment.

But seriously, give me Hampus Lindholm on our blue line and we’ll be a playoff team again.

 

[Gurglesons]

Sun comes up... sun goes down... Penguins fans stroke out over their damned bottom six.

You can set your watch to it.,

February 2nd, 2016

Is PIT's team-building model flawed?

I'm still not a fan of first time coaches. Sullivan is not a first time NHL coach.

forums.hfboards.com

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

This website has been screaming non-stop about how horrendous guys like Carter, Harkins and such were this year while playing, but all of a sudden depth players weren't a problem for the team? Uh, what?

I know what this is, it's people not wanting to give Sullivan any sort of excuses for why this team has stunk. But you can have nuance here, you know. Mentioning that their depth stinks and both of the last 2 GMs haven't done anything to improve that doesn't invalidate that Sullivan has been horrible and is making the bottom-6 worse with how he's using it.

You can like or dislike Gurgs as much as you want but he's not wrong. This team has had plenty of perfectly serviceable bottom six options over the years. Between that and the AHL (and better player evaluation) they could be doing just fine. But they choose poorly. They preference (often expensive) vets. They get attached to the wrong kind of players. Dubas, Hextall... doesn't matter. I'm not picking favorites, here.

It's not that they are unlucky or aren't spending money on the bottom six. They are poorly managed and coached and can't evaluate players for shit.

 

[Gurglesons]

You can like or dislike Gurgs as much as you want but he's not wrong. This team has had plenty of perfectly serviceable bottom six options over the years. Between that and the AHL (and better player evaluation) they could be doing just fine. But they choose poorly. They preference (often expensive) vets. They get attached to the wrong kind of players. Dubas, Hextall... doesn't matter. I'm not picking favorites, here.

It's not that they are unlucky or aren't spending money on the bottom six. They are poorly managed and coached and can't evaluate players for shit.

They obviously can evaluate players because everyone that goes through the Penguins system somehow finds roles on other teams usually ones in the playoffs over us while we are consistently icing randoms going back to 2015-16 that come up from the AHL and blaming it on GMs.

 

[Pancakes]

I mean let's be real, it's both Sullivan has been shit and the Penguins have had shit depth. It's not an either/or thing here.

Pretty much every player on this team outside of Sidney Crosby can be accurately blamed to some level for what this team has become in the last 2 years. Some have more blame than others (Sullivan obviously, Jarry, depth guys), but Crosby's the only truly innocent guy with this team.

Not sure I'd call him truly innocent when he pouted as hard as anybody after the Pens traded Jake. He got his shit back together (as did the team) after that, but it was sadly too late by the time they decided to try making it again.

 

[mephisto1812]

That's pretty much exactly my point. People make too much of winning in the playoffs. It's really frickin' hard to do.

Ok, so then let's lower the bar... how about simply making the playoffs.

 

[Pancakes]

You can like or dislike Gurgs as much as you want but he's not wrong. This team has had plenty of perfectly serviceable bottom six options over the years. Between that and the AHL (and better player evaluation) they could be doing just fine. But they choose poorly. They preference (often expensive) vets. They get attached to the wrong kind of players. Dubas, Hextall... doesn't matter. I'm not picking favorites, here.

It's not that they are unlucky or aren't spending money on the bottom six. They are poorly managed and coached and can't evaluate players for shit.

My take on it is the bottom sixes that Dubas and Hextall put together have sucked but both bottom sixes were adequate enough to get the Pens into the playoffs.

Like the Pens missed by the narrowest of margins the past two years. The margins were narrow enough that one could pin a lot of that on some of the shitty coaching decisions that Mike Sullivan made like playing Jeff Carter and Harkins too much, etc.

Doesn't mean the bottom sixes he got weren't still shit, but the roster should have been able to overcome that and make the playoffs anyways.

Do anything once they got there? Eh. Probably not.

Ok, so then let's lower the bar... how about simply making the playoffs.

The roster this year and last certainly should have been capable of doing at least that. No arguments here.

 

[mephisto1812]

You forgot the infinitely repeated "He'll be hired the second he's available and make more money, to boot". It is well past absurd, more just sad these days.

Here's the thing... that's exactly what would happen, and quite quickly at that.

 

[Empoleon8771]

You can like or dislike Gurgs as much as you want but he's not wrong. This team has had plenty of perfectly serviceable bottom six options over the years. Between that and the AHL (and better player evaluation) they could be doing just fine. But they choose poorly. They preference (often expensive) vets. They get attached to the wrong kind of players. Dubas, Hextall... doesn't matter. I'm not picking favorites, here.

It's not that they are unlucky or aren't spending money on the bottom six. They are poorly managed and coached and can't evaluate players for shit.

But he's also not right. Yes, the Penguins have completely whiffed on player evaluations and usage with numerous bottom-6 players who have gone elsewhere to have success. But they have also had some genuinely bad bottom-6 players who don't play anywhere else after leaving the Penguins.

Yes, guys like Blueger, Heinen and Granlund (it's hilarious to bring up Granlund after all of the "McCann is a nothing loss" arguments that Gurgs has made, though) found success after leaving the Penguins and showed they weren't as bad as they were with the Penguins. But at the same time, guys like ZAR, Simon, McGinn and Kapanen didn't do that. They have both had bad players in their bottom-6 along with having decent players being misused and misevaluated. Both of those are true, which goes back to my point of "you can have nuance in this".

The Penguins have both had bad players in their bottom-6 groups while Sullivan, Dubas and Hextall have also mismanaged and misevaluated decent players in their bottom-6. Both are true.

 

[mephisto1812]

I mean let's be real, it's both Sullivan has been shit and the Penguins have had shit depth. It's not an either/or thing here.

Pretty much every player on this team outside of Sidney Crosby can be accurately blamed to some level for what this team has become in the last 2 years. Some have more blame than others (Sullivan obviously, Jarry, depth guys), but Crosby's the only truly innocent guy with this team.

Crosby does get a bit of blame for his performance and noticeable attitude after the Jake trade, though that could be said for the entire team. Not that I think they would have made any noise in the PO's, but they would have been in had the entire team not caved there for a bit.

Beyond that however... yeah, he has been the constant positive over the years.

 

[DesertedPenguin]

Imagine if the Penguins had a top nine forward like this guy Danton Heinen in Boston.

This is such a superficial and shallow example.

Heinen had 17 goals and 19 assists in 74 games for Boston. Two years ago, he had 18 goals and 15 assists in 76 games for the Penguins.

Heinen stunk in the year between those two seasons. Scoring 8 goals and 14 assists in 65 games tends to not lead to a lot of opportunities.

Coincidentally, the same kind of Boston cost him his spot in Boston the first time around. The same kind of performance cost him an opportunity in Anaheim, too.

He's inconsistent. He had a solid year for Boston. He's disappeared in the playoffs (one assist in five games), and now 's hurt. How much you want to bet he doesn't get a contract from Boston? They'll have other options.

Danton Heinen's performance this season has nothing to do with leaving Pittsburgh.

 

[Gurglesons]

This is such a superficial and shallow example.

Heinen had 17 goals and 19 assists in 74 games for Boston. Two years ago, he had 18 goals and 15 assists in 76 games for the Penguins.

Heinen stunk in the year between those two seasons. Scoring 8 goals and 14 assists in 65 games tends to not lead to a lot of opportunities.

Coincidentally, the same kind of Boston cost him his spot in Boston the first time around. The same kind of performance cost him an opportunity in Anaheim, too.

He's inconsistent. He had a solid year for Boston. He's disappeared in the playoffs (one assist in five games), and now 's hurt. How much you want to bet he doesn't get a contract from Boston? They'll have other options.

Danton Heinen's performance this season has nothing to do with leaving Pittsburgh.

Player looking good at first and sucking ass under Mike Sullivan? Shocker,

 

[Empoleon8771]

Idk, I just have the opinion that you have to be crazy to try to simplify the multiple issues with this team into one specific issue, as if everything else is completely fine beyond that one problem. I can think of a dozen significant and legitimate issues this team has had in the last 2 years without even trying. There is very little on this team that is actually consistently going right for this team, and trying to get rid of some issues with saying stuff like "the bottom-6 players haven't been an issue because Heinen, Granlund and Blueger were decent after leaving" to whittle it down to one or two issues is something I just don't see as legitimate.

You can make pretty much any argument about any player, coach, managers or owners for why this team is struggling and have at least some merit to it. You even saw it posted in the past hour, I said "Crosby is the only one truly innocent" and people still responded with merited criticisms of him. At this point, there really isn't anything on this team that you can say hasn't contributed to the state of the team to some degree at this point.

 

[Darren McCord]

I mean let's be real, it's both Sullivan has been shit and the Penguins have had shit depth.

Not really. They had fantastic depth up until maybe 22-23 season.

Also when you chose to play harkins over other guys in the system you actively kill depth more. They have had bad depth the past two years but sullivan has made it worse than it actually was too.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Not really. They had fantastic depth up until maybe 22-23 season.

Also when you chose to play harkins over other guys in the system you actively kill depth more. They have had bad depth the past two years but sullivan has made it worse than it actually was too.

I was referring to specifically the last 2 years, where they have objectively had shit depth.

And yes, Sullivan wanting to play crap like Harkins and refusing to give young players a chance is exactly why he is to blame as well. Just like his usage with bottom-6 players not being good for pretty much anyone to have success.

Like I said, it's both.

 

[DesertedPenguin]

Player looking good at first and sucking ass under Mike Sullivan? Shocker,

Most of the players who looked good at first and then started sucking under Sullivan have continued to suck elsewhere or have established track records of being inconsistent.

Heinen has always been inconsistent. Granlund is a pass-first, pass-second volume point scorer reliant on heavy usage he won't get on any contending team. Kapanen has completed cratered his career.

McCann never sucked here. He was pushed out. Sprong? Mishandled from the start and took a while to figure things out. You can even point to Blueger as being impacted by injuries his final year here.

There's always more context than, "Sullivan bad!"

Seriously, I'm struggling to think of someone who was good as a Penguin, started sucking, left, and rediscovered their game for more than a season.

Sullivan clearly has a style he prefers with his bottom six and that preference may ultimately cost him his job in the long run. But he's simply not responsible for every player's failure in a Pens uniform.

 

[Empoleon8771]

I mean, I would absolutely consider how they handled McCann to be a completely and utter failure by both Sullivan and Hextall. McCann is the perfect example of Sullivan's bad player usage and bad player evaluation, and that usage (along with Hextall's idiocy) is why they lost a good young player for nothing.

The part that confuses me though is that Gurgs has argued time and time again that McCann is a nothing piece and losing him was absolutely not a loss. So I'm not sure that he's a guy that would be mentioned here.

 

[Andy99]

Lol…it’s amazing…to the media it’s like the last two years never happened…he needs yet a third chance to improve things to start next season lol…

Kingerski: Why Penguins’ Mike Sullivan’s Seat Should be Warm

The Pittsburgh Penguins have not won a playoff series in six seasons and have missed the playoffs in two straight. And a lot of heat has landed heavily on coach Mike Sullivan. Although the heat has come solely from the outside, that doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate. And it doesn’t mean Sullivan...

pittsburghhockeynow.com

Here was Friedman on NHL Network today talking about Toronto firing Keefe who he said probably did his best coaching job in the RS: “when you win one playoff series though in 8 years, change happens.”

Then here’s everyone in Pittsburgh…”let’s give Sullivan another chance”…

 

[AuroraBorealis]

This is such a superficial and shallow example.

Heinen had 17 goals and 19 assists in 74 games for Boston. Two years ago, he had 18 goals and 15 assists in 76 games for the Penguins.

Heinen stunk in the year between those two seasons. Scoring 8 goals and 14 assists in 65 games tends to not lead to a lot of opportunities.

Coincidentally, the same kind of Boston cost him his spot in Boston the first time around. The same kind of performance cost him an opportunity in Anaheim, too.

He's inconsistent. He had a solid year for Boston. He's disappeared in the playoffs (one assist in five games), and now 's hurt. How much you want to bet he doesn't get a contract from Boston? They'll have other options.

Danton Heinen's performance this season has nothing to do with leaving Pittsburgh.

Heinen year 2 in Pittsburgh How horrible!!!

Only triple the rate of 2023-24 Harkins and more than double of Carter, Acciari and Bemstrom.
When you average 2 mins per game less than the previous year and get healthy scratched for a big block of games, you generally generate fewer points.

Sigh. Your takes suck.