The Pittsburgh Penguins: last in the *East* after *9* games.

[SomeDude]

Mike Sullivan, meet Paul Maurice.

Always thought of Sullivan as a more flexible, new-gen coach -- but I guess unless you watch a team a lot the coaching warts aren't easy to see.

That bottom 6 looks brutal. Maybe the waiver wires will spill some bounty that isn't Jansen Harkins.

Sully initially got the reputation of being young player friendly because of the "Sid and the kids" line during the Cups. The part lost to outsiders is that he only played younger players that he had in WBS when he was coaching there, and most of them (Rust, even Guentzel) only stuck due to injuries to crappy players like Kevin Porter and forced his hand to not send them back down.

The famed HBK line only existed due to necessity from injury as well. He spent the whole season trying to force Malkin and Kessel to work until Malkin got hurt and the rest is history. That line was also history next season when he went back to shoving Geno and Phil together like a round peg in a square hole.

 

[Mike Jones]

Rebuilding was not an option , Dubas has bosses too you know

I agree - which is too bad. When this group really bottoms out fans are going to wish that the new owners had seen the handwriting on the wall and kick started the renewal process sooner.

 

[DieSendungmitderMaus]

Ownership that are Massholes love their fellow Massholes. Sully also loves his Masshole rejects he loves to give a longer rope to, even as camp invites to pro contracts.

That's a nice theory, but none of the people in charge of FSG are actually from New England

 

[MCR74]

How long is Dubas signed on for? The pain ain't over.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Old soft and slow is not a great combo. Was hoping Karlsson could inject some life into the team but so far not happening. It's still early but it could get ugly.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

Dubas was never able to get bottom 6 scoring for the Leafs. Why waste assets and 10m cap hit on someone like Karlsson which doesnt even address the major issues the Pens had last year (shit depth scoring, goaltending, team defence etc).

View attachment 758092

Are you really telling me a new coach will be able to get scoring out of this bottom 6 lmao?

Well at lest try, do something, and at the very least give that guy a jersey... ffs

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

How's Karlsson ?

 

[Empoleon8771]

Now they're up 2-0 on the Avs while dominating in the 1st, as the Avs are on a 15 game road winning streak. If they win today, they'll same the same exact record as the Hurricanes.

Aka calm the hell down, the season is like 2 weeks old.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Now they're up 2-0 on the Avs while dominating in the 1st, as the Avs are on a 15 game road winning streak.

Why would you post this

 

[Empoleon8771]

Why would you post this

Adding a dumb post to a dumb thread.

The Penguins will have the same record as the Hurricanes if they win tonight.

 

[MilkofthePoppy]

God I hate these threads. This will age like milk. We are 6 games into the season lol.

 

[philip]

It would be such a Caps vs Pens thing that whilst we are both shit, we somehow manage to finish to somewhere mid-table which doesn't really help us one iota, and Pens finish rock bottom and draft the next Sidney Crosby. Which does somewhat creep in a debate, that I'm sure has been had before, around whether or not it's worth even trying when utter mediocrity is rewarded with a higher draft pick.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

That's a nice theory, but none of the people in charge of FSG are actually from New England

It's a Boston Based operation. But thanks.

 

[Metroid]

Shut out vs the avs lol

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

You’re right. The solution is to wait until they really suck, and have Bettman fix the draft of the next generational player so that the Penguins’ ping pong ball comes up, like that was done with Crosby in 2005.

The solution absolutely is to wait until the core retires and suck into a few lotto picks. It's the Penguins way.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

They're clearly missing Jeff Petry.

 

[66-30-33]

How's Karlsson ?

Amazing as ever. But PP sucks even with him on it.

 

[orby]

The jury is still out on the Pens. They have looked wildly inconsistent so far this year. I'm not ruling out any outcome after 7 games.

 

[Hockeyholic]

OK not a massive decline from Crosby. If just looking at stats.

But yeah...he looked like this before Therrien & Johnston were canned.

I don't think another mid-year coaching change will work this time. Core players are no longer 30 and under. And most times when they were playing bad, they were underachieving. I don't think this team is underachieving. They aren't a good team. Nothing has really changed from last year.

 

[Shark Finn]

It's basically the only thing that makes me happy as a Sharks fan at this point

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Adding a dumb post to a dumb thread.

The Penguins will have the same record as the Hurricanes if they win tonight.

It was too early in the game to possibly jinx

 

[SEALBound]

It's basically the only thing that makes me happy as a Sharks fan at this point

Because of 2016 or Karlsson (and by that I also mean Rutta and Granlund).

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

…. Nothing has really changed from last year.

 

[PaulD]

Crosby has seen a massive decline. Letang is always injured/inconsistent. Ditto Malkin. Karlsson is new.

Not surprising results.

Too late to fire Sullivan now. They had that opportunity years ago & did not do it.

agree on Sullivan.....keeping him Llowed this team the best parts of this team to go completely stale.
Even Guentzal looks like he will never score again , and looks like he isn't going to the hard spots anymore. Perminter guy. Playing more like Danton Heinen than Jake Guentzal

Not trying to shift blame off of Sid, but outside of that strong series against NYR (which had Rakell on Sid's RW) the entire line of Jake-Sid-Rust was just awful and Sullivan would never make a change and continually played the worst line they were icing 20+ mins per game.

bang on

 

[PaulD]

JMO but I don't think Karlsson is a good fit for this team. They needed an all-around defensive defenseman.

yup