Confirmed with Link: Penguins and Mike Sullivan part ways

[cygnus47]

I do like that it removes an excuse for the players, including the big names that many had for them. And will settle the was it Sully or the players question once and for all.

Sully bad. If only he were gone.

He's gone now. As are the excuses.

Let's see if the usual suspects make the same mistakes that they have for years. Let's see if the team now makes the playoffs.

It is on the players now to prove that it was Sully that was the problem.

Our current team probably still misses the playoffs with a good coach. It will depend on what Dubas does this off-season. If we have another top 4 D or two and get good goalie performances, yeah it's on the players, but if we come back without some combination of Rakell, Rust, EK and they're replaced with Kevin Hayes 2.0, they can't be expected to overcome the lack of talent.

 

[PensPlz]

Reminder that Mike Sullivan has won a Stanley Cup more recently than Mike Tomlin has won a single playoff game.

Steelers are a broken organization.

Good to see the Penguins are at least trying something different.

Can't wait to see where this team goes from here.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Seriously lol. Sid is the GOAT of being a PR robot. Love or hate, Sid is probably writing the exact same email.

Yep Sid is all class. Unless there was something toxic, Sid was staying neutral in all of this.

 

[Tender Rip]

Hallelujah! Back to buying the NHL product.

Damn the front office and various GMs who didn’t do this half a decade ago.

 

[BillyOcean]

Yohe put out a list of candidates. It included MacDonald (who Dubas explicitly said won’t be the HC) and Vellucci (who Dubas explicitly said is free to plead his case with the next coach or look elsewhere lol).

I want his job. He is a glorified HFer.

Yep. He gets to fan boy and be milquetoast and pound down catering.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I mean "the players" whose "excuses" are all gone are like 40 now and are surrounded by a bunch of garbage thanks to some exceptionally bad roster construction both intentional and otherwise. So I don't think this will "prove" much of anything. Those times are like five years in the rearview. Though knowing this team they'll somehow make the playoffs next season when it could be argued they should not be trying to lol

That doesn't mean that this was pointless, though. Mike Sullivan hockey was not just ineffectual but also insufferably boring. And I'll take my chances on whoever the next guy is being at least WILLING to make an attempt at player development.

 

[cygnus47]

I mean "the players" whose "excuses" are all gone are like 40 now and are surrounded by a bunch of garbage thanks to some exceptionally bad roster construction both intentional and otherwise. So I don't think this will "prove" much of anything. Those times are like five years in the rearview. Though knowing this team they'll somehow make the playoffs next season when it could be argued they should not be trying to lol

That doesn't mean that this was pointless, though. Mike Sullivan hockey was not just ineffectual but also insufferably boring. And I'll take my chances on whoever the next guy is being at least WILLING to make an attempt at player development.

The biggest long-term problem imo is the way we lost the institutional winning attitude. The biggest intangible we had in 2016-7 was that we were 100% confident that we were winners and we would do what it takes to win every game. We won a lot of games on being way tougher mentally than our opponents. Since then, we've reverted to a loser team that hasn't been able to close out or get up for important games or set the pace in the playoffs and that shit has infected the whole organisation.

We're 7 years into having the loser attitude, and we only managed to retain the winning attitude for a year or two after the cups. Sid alone isn't enough, clearly. It takes time to build, and way more clarity of vision beyond just drafting and trading well. Some organisations never find that in a cap cycle (see: Buffalo, Toronto, San Jose, Vancouver).

That may be the biggest issue with hanging on to Sully after he ran his course 5 or 6 years ago. Undoing the complacence and entitlement while building a team is a very tough job and Sully stinking it up for so long with the same on ice cast has made it so much harder.

 

[CascadiaPenguin]

Late to the party here, so this is my contribution

View attachment 1025146

ABBA would eat Journey for lunch.

 

[CascadiaPenguin]

somehow making Madden sound dumber than he normally does, and I assume making Josh Yohe cry.

God, Madden is pathetic. Reinforces pretty much every negative Pittsburgh stereotype.

 

[JBose7]

I felt like as long as he was there, the Penguins were just treading water. I want Mike’s Sullivan to be fired after they got swept by the Isles. I knew that no significant progress would be made until they got a new coach who just had a fresh perspective and would allow younger talent to play and make mistakes and learn.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

God, Madden is pathetic. Reinforces pretty much every negative Pittsburgh stereotype.

Yohe, Madden, 99% of these knobs.

For all his experience, Kyle Dubas has never led an NHL coaching search. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this unfolds, because we have nothing to look back on for insight.

Brendan Shanahan hired Mike Babcock in Toronto in 2015. As assistant GM, Dubas was in charge of the Toronto Marlies and he hired Sheldon Keefe - with Shanahan's approval - as the Marlies' coach in 2015.

Dubas became GM under Shanahan in 2018 and in 2019, he fired Babcock and replaced him with Keefe. But that was in-season. It wasn't a full-fledged search, and Shanahan was still looking over his shoulder.

Now he's fully in charge of a search for the first time.

He hired Keefe. He was always the successor he wanted in Toronto. The Babcack issue just sort of fell into his lap. He also went and added Carbery to Keefe’s staff as well.

I do like that it removes an excuse for the players, including the big names that many had for them. And will settle the was it Sully or the players question once and for all.

Sully bad. If only he were gone.

He's gone now. As are the excuses.

Let's see if the usual suspects make the same mistakes that they have for years. Let's see if the team now makes the playoffs.

It is on the players now to prove that it was Sully that was the problem.

I don’t think the players needed Sullivan as the excuse because Sullivan made them the excuse for years. It was always the players fault. Yohe was the hit piece wanker that would constantly defer blame to the players for them too.

It was always so and so that was the problem. It was never Sullivan.

The thing here is I think the opposite happens, a lot of players will rebound with just not being used the way Sullivan used them, also just a coach that understands how to manage a bench is going to immediately show positive results. Sure some players won’t be a fit. But I am going to say a lot bounce back and a lot look better under a new coach and system. A lot of the Pens issues were Sullivan playing favourites and shortening the bench at idiotic times, weird idea of accountability, not believing in line matching or game planning other teams, and just a lot of other dumb shit.

I just hope we don’t get another coach that wants to come and please Crosby. That’s the opposite of what this team needs. They need a coach that will do what’s necessary to develop and use the roster the best way for the team. Not one bloke. Sullivan only coached the team for one bloke.

 

[DesertedPenguin]

He hired Keefe. He was always the successor he wanted in Toronto. The Babcack issue just sort of fell into his lap. He also went and added Carbery to Keefe’s staff as well.

It wasn't a full coaching search, though. He hasn't had a blank slate to work with.

Yes, he hired Keefe and then promoted him to replace Babcock. He also hired Carbery, as you mentioned, as well as Manny Maholtra (now drawing positive reviews as Abbottsford's head coach in the AHL).

But starting from scratch at the NHL level is different than supplementing a staff or hiring an AHL head coach that you hope will one day become an NHL coach.

 

[ahmedou]

 

[ThosePuckingPenguins]

I still can’t believe they fired him. I was thinking “okay he has two years after this past season, hopefully all parties can agree this isn’t working by then.”

 

[CascadiaPenguin]

Yohe, Madden, 99% of these knobs.

Yohe won't be sequencing any genome for sure, but he doesn't seem to have the same level of redneck malice as does Madden.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Yohe won't be sequencing any genome for sure, but he doesn't seem to have the same level of redneck malice as does Madden.

Yohe still wants you to believe Ron Hextall is the cause of all this. He’s a dipshit of the highest order. He’s right there with Madden. It’s funny, Rossi kind of just became less annoying than those two. Still annoying but those two are idiot supreme’s.

It wasn't a full coaching search, though. He hasn't had a blank slate to work with.

Yes, he hired Keefe and then promoted him to replace Babcock. He also hired Carbery, as you mentioned, as well as Manny Maholtra (now drawing positive reviews as Abbottsford's head coach in the AHL).

But starting from scratch at the NHL level is different than supplementing a staff or hiring an AHL head coach that you hope will one day become an NHL coach.

If you know Dubas you knew Keefe was getting that Leafs job no matter what. That was going to be his guy even if he was given a chance to fire Babs without the controversy and spend time on a search. This time yeah he has a more open mind for it since he hasn’t brought one of his Soo wankers with him. But for a bloke that has hired a ton of good personnel I think he will pick the right coach.

I hope so. He can’t do this and then do something insanely stupid. At least we hope he doesn’t. But he’s saying the right things and the fact he did this is also massive in the way of earning good faith with the fans that wished for this day years ago. I like that he’s saying he’s looking at all options even overseas. Which to me means Olli. Which makes sense since they likely watched Hallander’s development and that he’s coming back and saw how well he and the youth did under Meme Supreme Jokinen.

I do like Olli’s coaching style - https://www.iihf.com/en/news/62745/olli_s_not_joking#:~:text=With%20Jokinen%2C%20it's%20go%2C%20go,Games%20in%20Milan%20in%202026.

But yeah I am curious to see which names pop up.

 

[HandshakeLine]

Lol

 

[HandshakeLine]

Let us not forget the powerhouse 1991-1992 Penguins with Mario Lemieux, Kevin Stevens, Ron Francis, Jaromir Jagr, and of course Bob Errey

 

[TNT87]

Just had to come back to this thread to make sure it was real and not a dream.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

I mean "the players" whose "excuses" are all gone are like 40 now and are surrounded by a bunch of garbage thanks to some exceptionally bad roster construction both intentional and otherwise. So I don't think this will "prove" much of anything. Those times are like five years in the rearview. Though knowing this team they'll somehow make the playoffs next season when it could be argued they should not be trying to lol

That doesn't mean that this was pointless, though. Mike Sullivan hockey was not just ineffectual but also insufferably boring. And I'll take my chances on whoever the next guy is being at least WILLING to make an attempt at player development.

What are you talking about? It's pretty obvious that if 38 year old Crosby and 39 year old Malkin, along with 38 year old Letang, don't lead this team to a playoff spot next season that just proves that Sullivan wasn't an issue.

I swear the mental gymnastics some people use to justify keeping Sullivan (or suggesting there's no point in firing him) just because the team isn't a contender with or without him, is seriously ridiculous.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

Just had to come back to this thread to make sure it was real and not a dream.

Me too.

It’s like waking up on Christmas morning

 

[HandshakeLine]

People love to root for coaches because they were the dorks who looked up to the gym teacher in middle school.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I'm just happy he's been fired, and that the team didn't pull the obviously stupid thing of promoting him to a FO spot. That possibility was a genuine worry of mine for when Sully eventually got replaced.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I'm just happy he's been fired, and that the team didn't pull the obviously stupid thing of promoting him to a FO spot. That possibility was a genuine worry of mine for when Sully eventually got replaced.

I’m under no illusion that the culture of mediocrity Sullivan instilled will go away any time soon after his departure but it’s a step in the right direction. Team still kind is up it’s own ass about things but now that’s Dubas’ job to sort out over the offseason.