In the aftermath of a 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Sunday, Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan sounded like a guy who was at the end of his rope.
Sullivan was asked about the team’s slow start in that game.
“Slow start? It was a slow game. Period,” Sullivan snapped back. “We had one guy that I thought — our goaltender (Tristan Jarry) — was terrific. The rest of it? It’s hard to find a positive.”
It’s been a slow season too.
Slow to end. Slow to fade away. For all practical purposes, it has been over for a while now, and everyone who follows the team has been seemingly waiting for a conclusion.
Mercifully, that will happen Thursday when the Washington Capitals come to town for Game 82. Although, it feels like Game 802.
The Pens are 33-36-12. That third column in the NHL standings for overtime and shootout losses masks how rough of a year it has been for Sullivan’s team. That number, in reality, should read 33-48.
That’s a lot more representative of what 2024-25 has felt like. With just 78 points, the Pens are only two points out of last place in the Metropolitan Division, with one game remaining.
There have been a few decent stretches over the course of the calendar. The club won four in a row in late November. It won five of six in mid-March. After Sunday’s defeat, Sullivan was asked what went right during those chunks of time that allowed this collection of skaters to gain momentary stretches of traction.
His response was significantly more in-depth than his first one.
“When we were at our best, I think it was a collective effort and a commitment to play the game the right way,” Sullivan said. “I think that’s a conscious choice. That’s an attitude. That’s a decision that players make. But it’s hard to play the right way. You’ve got to stop on pucks. You got to win puck battles. There’s an element of physicality associated with defensive play.”
Implied in that response is that when the team is not at its best, those qualities are lacking. Sullivan added that he meant more than just looking for a highlight hit.
“I’m not just talking about body checks,” he continued. “I mean getting into people and separating people from the puck, boxing out at the net front and having a certain grit to your game. There’s an honesty to that. I think that’s a conscious choice that each individual player makes on how much honesty they want to bring to the game at all levels.”
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Seeing as how the Penguins have lost 48 times in 81 outings with the worst goal differential in the Eastern Conference (minus-53), it’s fair to assume that hasn’t happened enough.
Indeed, the players are culpable for failing to bring the necessary level of defensive effort, desire and competency. But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard such a speech from Sullivan. He’s rolled out some iteration or another of those same talking points with a similar clipped tone innumerable times after losses this year.
One would imagine that the message to the players has been similar behind closed doors.
Although maybe it isn’t. Maybe Sullivan is using his press conferences to vent to us in the media, but he is holding back from peeling the paint off the locker room walls because he’s got too much respect for the veterans within them.
Or, it’s possible he is doing exactly that, and the players simply aren’t listening.
Either way, it’s a problem.
There is a third possibility — that Sullivan is driving home his point, the players are listening, and they aren’t capable of delivering what Sullivan is asking of them.
That’s the worst potential of all. That, then, becomes a problem for general manager Kyle Dubas to fix.
Somewhere along the way, though, someone has to feel some consequences.
Sullivan seems to be immune from them at the ownership level. Dubas largely seems to be immune from them on a local media level, and the veteran leadership in the dressing room is immune from all negativity because of their association with Stanley Cups of days gone by.
However, that grace really should only extend to the likes of Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin. Frankly, with three straight non-playoff years under their belts, any latitude those guys are receiving should’ve hit its sell-by date a long time ago, as well.
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With no playoff appearances since 2022, that organization isn’t allowed to have any sacred cows anymore. The stench of another mid-April end to the season is on everyone within it.
The playoffs begin this weekend. They are going to last until June. And the Penguins won’t be on the ice again until October. For as long and slow as this season has been, the offseason is going to feel even worse.
Unfortunately, it’s also going to feel very familiar.