Kingerski: Undoing Sullivan Mistakes; Players to Salvage?

Mike Sullivan is now the New York Rangers head coach. Winning will be the immediate priority even as he deals with a couple of younger players who are struggling to find their full potential.

Winning was also the most important thing with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and thusly multiple general managers shuttled draft picks and prospects for instant lineup help. In turn, Sullivan presided over a lengthy gap between young players graduating from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to the NHL. After the wave of talent that included Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel in 2016 and 2017, there was … ummm … yeah.

The next wave of talent showed just how dramatic the drop was in the talent pool. Dominik Simon, Zach Aston-Reese, and Teddy Blueger were the next young players on deck. If you’d like, you can include Sam Lafferty and John Marino on the less-than-All-Star list of newbies who stuck around.

All got their deserved chances.

Despite the vociferous external carping that irked the coach, there just wasn’t a lot of youth to salvage from the Penguins’ system. While attention turned to other players, such as Jesse Puljujarvi, who were then mistakenly classified as young in order to perpetuate the criticism that was a masked vehicle for expressing frustration, a couple of prime examples slipped past.

And there will be a chance for the new Penguins coach to salvage a few young players who probably have value to give but were on the outs or misused by Sullivan in the pursuit of winning.

While the Penguins’ general manager Kyle Dubas kicked about the world over the past year looking for players who need a little more opportunity or a different situation, such as Philip Tomasino, he already has a few on his roster who could well flourish in the different situation that a new coach will provide.

Expounding upon a question in Thursday’s Penguins Q&A, a couple of players were underused or miscast.

The first is restricted free agent defenseman Conor Timmins. Dubas acquired Timmins and Connor Dewar from the Toronto Maple Leafs just before the 3 p.m. March 7 trade deadline in exchange for the handsome sum of a fifth-round pick.

Toronto needed the cap space, and the Penguins needed some players with more than a foggy idea of how to play a physical game. Timmins is a bigger defenseman at 6-foot-3, 213 pounds and showed he’s not afraid of contact near his own net.

However, Sullivan used Timmins most peculiarly by pairing him with fellow right-side defenseman Erik Karlsson. For years, Sullivan espoused the importance of righty on the right side and lefty on the left side, but broke his rule not once but twice by pairing the two righties and two lefties on the third pairing.

Sullivan brushed aside questions on his reasoning, reverting to the standard, “the lineup that gives us the best chance to win,” answer.

It would be fair to say the Timmins-Karlsson, or Karlsson-Timmins, pairing was a disaster for Timmins. Sullivan saddled Timmins with hockey’s most unpredictable defenseman and asked one of them to play on their offside, though which one was actually collared by playing on the left was unclear from shift to shift.

Not exactly the best situation for the 26-year-old Timmins.

A new coach and a little TLC in the reclamation project could quickly find the Penguins have a player worth keeping around through the next phase of the revamp.

P.O Joseph would be the next defenseman worth saving. He, too, is a restricted free agent, and indicated to Pittsburgh Hockey Now that he would not make it difficult for the team to re-sign him.

For whatever reason, the criticism that Sullivan brushed aside young players never applied to Joseph, though he would be the best example. Joseph struggled to get the call-up from WBS, languishing for an extra season, maybe two. He was quick to be scratched, and quite clearly was not the coach’s cup of tea.

It’s hard to forget Sullivan’s thinly veiled broadside of Joseph, who couldn’t play due to injury in a game against Carolina in November 2023. Joseph had been out of the lineup, and he was to return that night, but reported an injury.

Quite uncharacteristically, Sullivan said it was the player’s decision and then kept him out of the lineup for a couple of months. Though being scratched for infractions both large and small wasn’t uncommon for Joseph, the situation was rife with read-between-the-lines commentary.

When Joseph finally returned to the lineup, necessity forced Sullivan to play him on the top pair with Kris Letang. Somewhat unshockingly, the pair worked. Joseph played the best hockey of his career … but then Dubas reversed his stated course and did not provide a qualifying offer. Joseph was forced to sign for the minimum with the St. Louis Blues.

Dubas brought him back in December, but that didn’t mean Sullivan had changed his evaluation of the 25-year-old D-man, who shuffled around the struggling defensive pairings and the press box.

Joseph showed he belonged in 2023-24. His run beside Letang was confirmed in shorter stretches this season. He’s still prone to bouts of sagging confidence or soft play, but the upside is a solid all-around defenseman.

A new coach could do wonders for Joseph.

We began to wonder if prospect defenseman Owen Pickering might find himself in the same situation after he wasn’t recalled despite an obvious need for left-side defensive help last season.

The third player who could most benefit from the coaching change is under contract but has not performed nearly well enough to justify it. Ryan Graves is a physical, hulking D-man who signed a six-year free agent deal to replace Brian Dumoulin.

Two seasons into that transaction, Dubas has essentially expressed buyer’s remorse. Graves was healthy scratched at the end of the 2023-24 season (before he suffered a concussion), and this season.

Quite simply, Sullivan’s breakout schemes are a godsend to some defensemen who like options and to play with the puck, but the system was nothing more than a pair of cement shoes for Graves. In fact, his indecision in the face of options often made him look like he was playing in cement skates.

Was it Sullivan’s mistake that Graves struggles so mightily? Well, not really. But a little.

The Penguins’ defensive corps underwent significant changes over the past few years. Veterans who fit the scheme moved along. Former Penguins defenseman Erik Gudbranson gushed when he arrived in 2019. Sullivan’s system unlocked Gudbranson’s ability to move the puck, and he flourished before salary cap issues and Jack Johnson’s lack of trade value forced former GM Jim Rutherford to trade Gudbranson to clear cap space.

Graves was the exact opposite. With a corps that was, at best, terrible this season, surely a few simplifications or adjustments to fit the available talent (or lack thereof) were in order.

On the forwards side, prospect Vasily Ponomarev was vanilla pudding and white wallpaper with the Pittsburgh Penguins this season. He was an aggressive, physical agitator with some offensive flair with the WBS Penguins. New coach, new system, new chance to finally plant his flag permanently in the NHL?

Penguins’ 2019 first-round pick Sam Poulin is another player who was hopelessly swallowed up in the Penguins’ attack scheme. Poulin was a heavy, defense-first forward in the AHL who provided some offense. He’s been irrelevant in short stints in the NHL. He wasn’t fast enough to play in the Sullivan system, but perhaps the next coach’s system is a little more defense-oriented (Mitch Love?), and both Ponomarev and Poulin find new opportunities.

Sullivan didn’t necessarily squelch young players, but those who didn’t find favor or didn’t fit now get another shot. For some, their last.