Salary Cap: Pens '23-'24 Salary Cap Thread: "Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about hockey"

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I think Dubas knows Sullivan is the problem, but FSG loves him. I think he needs to show FSG a year where he gave Sullivan everything he asked for and got poor results. Adding the Norris trophy winner and getting worse isn't the sign of a bad GM.

Fingers crossed. I think if/when Sullivan is fired, it'll be a tearful goodbye and a "we had absolutely no other choice". Dubas likely adores Sullivan, like pretty much every single person in the hockeysphere outside of this board.

But if push came to shove, FSG would definitely let Dubas fire Sullivan. He's their new golden boy, and they signed him for 7 years. The issue, again, is that I don't think it'll come to that until I see it confirmed by Lebrun or someone.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

If true the team still cannot afford to just burn a year on evaluation. It isn't unfair to Sullivan. He's established a pretty solid track record of losing and underperformance versus the roster he's been given at this point.

 

[chethejet]

The coming rebuild is beginning faster than most expected or wanted. Now this process is beginning with Guentzel and then after next year due to either contractual issues or when such player or players can be seen as attractive due to costs and or ability. Rust Karlsson, maybe Geno for his last year as well. The goal here is to finish in the top 10 as to draft order and lottery opportunity to move up. This is going to take a while since the system is pretty barren and prospects take time.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I just hope Jake's injury isn't serious and he's able to be dealt. I mean, they still have to find the spine to trade him, but the one (1) thing I wanted accomplished this season is trading Jake before he's either re-signed to an asinine contract, or is allowed to walk under the guise of "He's our TDL rental!" or some dumb bullshit.

f*** the wins and losses. Trade Jake for a haul, limp through the rest of the season, nuke the coaching staff, continue to replace the scouting depts, and kick SJS this year's pick because next year's won't be easier to give away. Imagine this team without Sid playing at an 85-90pt pace. Yeah...

 

[HandshakeLine]

I think Dubas knows Sullivan is the problem, but FSG loves him. I think he needs to show FSG a year where he gave Sullivan everything he asked for and got poor results. Adding the Norris trophy winner and getting worse isn't the sign of a bad GM.

Man, FSG killed their own hard ass reputation in record time, those f***ing dorks.

 

[Sideline]

This is as stupid as the "Mike Sullivan hates Jeff Carter and Ron Hextall is making him play him" narrative.

This team and management group worships Mike Sullivan.

Ownership clearly loves Sullivan. Dubas needed to get ownership to like him before they agreed to pay him 50MM over 7 years to run this team. I think we've all had to play along with our bosses dumb ideas long enough to stay in their good graces on occasion.

Dubas didn't hire Sullivan. If we were on year 8 of Sheldon Keefe I might be inclined to believe Dubas is putting loyalty ahead of objectivity. If after missing the playoffs again, Mike Sullivan is still the coach this time next year I will believe Dubas actually drank to Kool aid too.

 

[Nakawick]

I think Dubas knows Sullivan is the problem, but FSG loves him. I think he needs to show FSG a year where he gave Sullivan everything he asked for and got poor results. Adding the Norris trophy winner and getting worse isn't the sign of a bad GM.

I mean, a coaching change has sparked a Stanley cup two separate occasions with this core. I can’t understand why it has not happened this year. It is too late now.

 

[pistolpete11]

It's been said a million times, but they've overhauled the roster numerous times and are still getting the same results.

When is upper management going to get the message that the roster is not the only problem nor is it the biggest problem?

 

[Josey Wales]

Ownership clearly loves Sullivan. Dubas needed to get ownership to like him before they agreed to pay him 50MM over 7 years to run this team. I think we've all had to play along with our bosses dumb ideas long enough to stay in their good graces on occasion.

Dubas didn't hire Sullivan. If we were on year 8 of Sheldon Keefe I might be inclined to believe Dubas is putting loyalty ahead of objectivity. If after missing the playoffs again, Mike Sullivan is still the coach this time next year I will believe Dubas actually drank to Kool aid too.

FSG gave Dubas a 7 Year 42 Million $ contract & complete control of Hockey Operations because they have admitted they are beginners in Hockey, BUT Yeah stick with the BS theory of they have prevented him from Firing Sullivan

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

It's been said a million times, but they've overhauled the roster numerous times and are still getting the same results.

When is upper management going to get the message that the roster is not the only problem nor is it the biggest problem?

It's both, imo. Everyone (myself included sometimes) tries to make it one or the other, but this team's had dogshit coaching and dogshit roster construction since JR decided back to back Cups weren't good enough and he had to flip things on their head starting in the summer of '17.

They're not mutually exclusive. JR's last few years sucked. Hextall's entire tenure sucked. Dubas' first summer sucked. Sullivan's coaching has sucked since he was like a deer in headlights when faced with Trotz's Islander forecheck in 2019.

 

[Gurglesons]

It's both, imo. Everyone (myself included sometimes) tries to make it one or the other, but this team's had dogshit coaching and dogshit roster construction since JR decided back to back Cups weren't good enough and he had to flip things on their head starting in the summer of '17.

They're not mutually exclusive. JR's last few years sucked. Hextall's entire tenure sucked. Dubas' first summer sucked. Sullivan's coaching has sucked since he was like a deer in headlights when faced with Trotz's Islander forecheck in 2019.

It's weird how players involved in our dogshit roster construction are continuously having success away from Mike Sullivan.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I think we should all realize that the idea of having a winning hockey club is a difficult concept to grasp, so we’d better give FSG lots of time to figure out that more wins is better than less wins.

They’re used to other sports, after all, which weirdly enough believe exactly the same thing.

 

[Gurglesons]

"dogshit roster construction"

Evan Rodrigues. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Panthers.

Danton Heinen. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Bruins.

Sam Lafferty and Teddy Blueger. Currently the bottom six centers with the Canucks.

Daniel Sprong. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Red Wings.

Kasperi Kapanen. Currently playing a top six role with the St Louis Blues.

Weird how all these dogshit players somehow find roles with playoff teams...

 

[HandshakeLine]

I would much rather see Kapanen back than White or Harkins.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

"dogshit roster construction"

Evan Rodrigues. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Panthers.

Danton Heinen. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Bruins.

Sam Lafferty and Teddy Blueger. Currently the bottom six centers with the Canucks.

Daniel Sprong. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Red Wings.

Kasperi Kapanen. Currently playing a top six role with the St Louis Blues.

Weird how all these dogshit players somehow find roles with playoff teams...

Yeah man, Kap's 4 goals in 45 games and 27pt pace on the season is positively gaudy for St. Louis! A real beauty, maybe the team can use a third 1st round pick in re-reacquiring him.

E-Rod's who he was when he walked, a streaky 40-50pt guy. Heinen's who he was when he walked, a 30-35pt guy. Sprong, Blueger and Lafferty have done well, but the team got its only defensively capable d-man for Sprong, while Blueger and Lafferty weren't getting elevated beyond a 4th line role because of dorks like Carter and the aforementioned Heinen. Because the guy you weirdly (and stupidly) come to the defense of, Hextall, kept the bottom-6 packed full of trash.

This myth that all the players who leave kill it elsewhere is dumb. The guys this team's targeted for years, pro and amateur, have been f***ing awful. Going back to JR's pursuit of Reaves, Brassard, Zucker and Kap.

 

[SEALBound]

For those people that think the 15-16 roster was such a lightning rod compared to what we iced tonight.

Weird how a new coach completely helped remake a roster.

First, I agree. No doubt. But I will say, 2015-16 Sullivan had a lot better talent in WBS than what we currently have there. There is no Sheary or Rust. There might be a Wilson and Kuhnhackl. More over, there were two major injuries that opened up roster slots - Porter and Dupuis. That said, you can look at the likes of Carter, White, Harkins, etc and easily see where a new comes in and says "...yeah, benched. Give me Poulin, Puustinen, and Hinostranza" and we'd likely be better off. If you had a major injury to Carter to open up $3mil in cap space, you could bring these guys up but we are so tight at the moment that it's tough.

Man, I'd love to know what a new coach would do. For example, Boudreau. I'd love to see what the lines would be after 1-2 weeks here. One of the most depressing things about Sullivan is knowing that the willingness to make changes that we all loved about him is long gone.

Fingers crossed Sully wants to GM this summer. (I'm not being serious, but that would be sick.)

I've often said that potentially the best way to get "rid" of him is to promote him upward.

"dogshit roster construction"

Evan Rodrigues. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Panthers.

Danton Heinen. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Bruins.

Sam Lafferty and Teddy Blueger. Currently the bottom six centers with the Canucks.

Daniel Sprong. Currently playing a bottom six role with the Red Wings.

Kasperi Kapanen. Currently playing a top six role with the St Louis Blues.

Weird how all these dogshit players somehow find roles with playoff teams...

Not resigning ERod was such a major mistake. Man oh man, would I love to have him as 3C right now. Not that Eller is bad but I think ERod would be providing more of what we need. A Sullivan-less team could have opened the door to a Sprong return as well. How great would be to have a 3rd line of DOC-ERod-Sprong? That has the make up of a solid bottom 6 line.

 

[Andy99]

BTW, one of the biggest reasons Sullivan should be fired is because of his hand in having the last two GMs bring in terrible players for a low event bottom six we shouldn’t even have been attempting except for him

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

That second tweet hits the nail right on the head. This team's run a 1st line, a 3rd line, and two 4th lines for years and consistently f***ed up their reshuffling of the blueline on top of sticking with a coach who was exposed in that 2019 Isles series when he couldn't solve a forecheck, and went full fraud when he rode the JJ-Schultz pairing into nuking this team against Montreal in 2020.

But yeah, we really miss Kapanen or something.

 

[pistolpete11]

It's both, imo. Everyone (myself included sometimes) tries to make it one or the other, but this team's had dogshit coaching and dogshit roster construction since JR decided back to back Cups weren't good enough and he had to flip things on their head starting in the summer of '17.

They're not mutually exclusive. JR's last few years sucked. Hextall's entire tenure sucked. Dubas' first summer sucked. Sullivan's coaching has sucked since he was like a deer in headlights when faced with Trotz's Islander forecheck in 2019.

I said it's not the only problem which implies it's still a problem

But I'd argue:

1. The rosters have been better than the results.
and
2. They keep churning over the roster because they aren't getting the results.

If they didn't have to churn over the roster every year, maybe they could just make some adjustments here and there and it wouldn't look so bad.

 

[SEALBound]

This myth that all the players who leave kill it elsewhere is dumb. The guys this team's targeted for years, pro and amateur, have been f***ing awful. Going back to JR's pursuit of Reaves, Brassard, Zucker and Kap.

I disagree here. I think a lot of players here who underperformed under Sullivan were pigeonholed into a bad situation where there was no relief. Last year, the third like of McGinn-Carter-Kapanen that was run into the ground is Exhibit A in "a coach past his due date". Even the media was like, "Sully...WTF...explain yourself," and he frankly had zero answer for it. Worse, he had zero ambition to try and fix it. Lafferty was kept up WAY too long. Kapanen was ridden into the ground and cast aside. Sprong needed more development and coaching. It's that, after 2017 and going B2B, Sullivan's coaching ability has steadily gone to shit.

Now the other guys you mentioned, I don't have an issue with any of the trades, except maybe Kapanen. Each of them were targeted for specific reasons to address specific needs. The fact that they didn't work out doesn't negate the fact that they were good targets.

Reaves - JR came out and said that physicality would become a part of well built teams and he was tired of seeing us get bullied.
Brassard - We needed a new 3C and we got the best 2C that was available on the market. We were in a very good place to 3peat.
Zucker - Jake was recently injured with a separated shoulder and we needed a top 6 LW to go into the playoffs with. He had one good season and then two injury-riddled seasons. He got the recovery time he needed and tore it up the last year he was here. Him being a target based on availability, performance, and play style was exactly what we needed. So, to suggest that targeting him was awful is mind-boggling to me.
Kapanen - We needed a fast, skilled top 6 RW. He was awesome the first year here. Then...Sullivan. But targeting him based on what we needed and what he provided at the time, was very understandable. Most of us just didn't like the price which is fair. If he kept up the 30pt in 40gp pace, none of us would be saying anything bad about it.

So yeah, a lot of hindsight in your assessment there.

 

[SEALBound]

That second tweet hits the nail right on the head. This team's run a 1st line, a 3rd line, and two 4th lines for years and consistently f***ed up their reshuffling of the blueline on top of sticking with a coach who was exposed in that 2019 Isles series when he couldn't solve a forecheck, and went full fraud when he rode the JJ-Schultz pairing into nuking this team against Montreal in 2020.

But yeah, we really miss Kapanen or something.

What won us B2B cups?

Scoring Line 1
Scoring Line 2
Scoring Line 3
Defensive Line

What does Sullivan insist upon now? The super old school:

Scoring Line 1
Scoring Line 2
Defensive Line
Checking Line

This past off-season, there were players available to help create the three scoring line model. They intentionally chose the latter.

But man, to think that Hextall tried to do Pettersson+Bleuger for Petry. Dear god where would we be if Montreal caved on that. Ooof.

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I said it's not the only problem which implies it's still a problem

But I'd argue:

1. The rosters have been better than the results.
and
2. They keep churning over the roster because they aren't getting the results.

If they didn't have to churn over the roster every year, maybe they could just make some adjustments here and there and it wouldn't look so bad.

I wish they'd actually churn over the roster instead of shuffling the deck chairs and swapping out parts in lateral moves constantly. This team's been so petrified to f*** something up that they've convinced themselves that the steady and ugly decline that they've been on for years is preferred over taking one last swing and striking out. They'd rather watch as the era dies than potentially end it by botching a huge buncha moves.

I couldn't care about wins and losses for a team with realistically ~0% shot at the Cup anymore. Just don't be so damn lame. This team's f***ing lame, and next year if/when Sid's not playing at like a 90pt pace, they're gonna be f***ing gutter trash. I can't wait.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

When you count up all the assets and cap used on middling to garbage players from ‘17 on, it’s depressing. Not including Brassard. Could’ve added another high end piece instead of JJ, Zucker, Kap, Gudbranson, Bjugstad etc

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

Anyway, fingers crossed Jake's just got a stinger and the organization finds the spine (and brains) to move his ass for a haul at the TDL. Then they can politely ask Sidney Crosby if it's okay to call the era dead and begin dismantling this summer, starting with replacing the coach he seems to adore.

 

[TKalltheTime]

If you don’t start by firing this idiotic coaching staff from top to bottom… NO AMOUNT of player change is going to matter. PERIOD. End of story. This coach is easily 4-5 years past expiration.