I hate to even say this out loud, but its just facts at this point but Beauvillier is not even remotely a good as Acciari right now.
It's funny how St Ivany who played well, was taken out as a healthy scratch and so was Jesse Puljujarvi who was also fine in his games.
But Beauvillier, scores a goal and does not much else and this bloke gets top usage somehow. I feel bad for Cody Glass, he's been a trooper on that 4th line as the C and that 4th line has been pretty decent this season, but he keeps getting shafted for minutes. He can PK but they don't seem to want to use him there consistently at all and this is where Sullivan never f***ing gets it with using his bench properly.
If Eller is getting a lot of ice time on the 3rd line, you can cut his PK minutes and spread them to Glass, in this game, Glass had 0mins on the PK, all 8 of his mins this game were 5v5. Meanwhile, should a 35yr old be playing as much as Eller is? It's the same idiocy that Sullivan showed with Carter, as much as he has a hard on for vets, they are also vets for a reason, they've got a lot of mileage so managing their ice time is hugely important.
Here's the other players that are similar age (37-39):
Crosby: 20:21 (ES 16:42)
Kopitar: 19:30 (ES 12:50)
Malkin: 18:41 (ES 15:05)
Ovechkin: 18:20 (ES 14:26)
Giroux: 17:03 (ES 12:43)
In the case of Ovy and Kopitar, they play 2-4mins ES less than Sid & Geno. Kopitar plays almost 2mins a game on the PK while also playing over 4mins on the PP. Kopitar and Giroux are the only ones out of that group of top 6 players that does that (Giroux plays half as many on the PP as Anze though). Sid & Geno are still elite at this age, but I would hope for better management of their minutes, as desperate as Sullivan is to win, you need to spread those minutes out, it's not like the other players on that list who have more youth on their teams, the Pens are literally all veterans except for St Ivany and Blomqvist.
And of course, Rust is the Pens leader on forwards for TOI/G at 20:31 and ES he plays as much as Sid with 16:45 and of course Rust has as many points as Noel Acciari while getting that usage right after being back from an injury no less. Geno producing like he is, is absolutely incredible right now when you consider how little Bunting and Rakell have produced as his wingers so far. Bunting has 1 assist in 5 games and Rakell has 3 goals, all 3 are ES goals. Yet somehow Rust who is useless offensively right now, is getting a f***ton of PP minutes doing jack shit.
They should be trying this in the next game imo:
Bunting, Crosby, Rakell
O'Connor, Malkin, Puljujarvi
Hayes, Eller, Rust
Acciari, Glass, Puustinen - of course, if Lizotte is healthy, he'll just go Lizotte-Glass-Acciari.
Not sure why Puustinen hasn't been traded or waived yet, Sullivan has no intention to use him at all, just keep praying Beauvillier becomes useful again like that one game for a few shifts.
I still get a laugh out of Puljujarvi being benched, has incredible underlying numbers, even his P/60 is incredible for a player like him bouncing back, he's put up pts in all but 1 of his games and is actually deserving of top 6 minutes right now and some PP time over Rust.
I mean if we are to understand how accountability works and not the version Sullivan implements.