Sullivan Strongly Defends Dumoulin and Carter, ‘Easy Guys to Pick On’

NEW YORK  — Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan didn’t rush to defend his beleaguered veterans, Jeff Carter and Brian Dumoulin, but when called to account for their performances, Sullivan drew a hard line and pushed back on media criticism of the players and his handling of them.

The Penguins were thrashed by the New York Rangers, 6-0, Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

Sullivan didn’t wiggle out of the question as he did when asked about his concern for the team’s “lack of urgency” on Thursday.

He didn’t dodge the questions many fans and media, including Pittsburgh Hockey Now, are asking, as we did Saturday morning by advocating for scratching Jeff Carter.

Sullivan both forehanded the question back to us and made clear the difficult circumstances in which the pair are often engulfed.

“You guys like to pick on certain guys. You go to them all the time,” Sullivan said. “And we respectfully disagree with you in a lot of circumstances. When goals are scored, we look at a lot of the details on the hows and the whys. And the reality is it’s more than one person when goals are in the back of your net. Those guys are easy guys to pick on, but I will tell you, all year long, we’ve put them in difficult circumstances that are involved. It’s not just any one guy.”

In fairness, it was Carter who created the game’s first scoring chance Saturday, when he set up Josh Archibald in the slot. However, it also was Carter who spun away from Mike Zibanejad when he scored the first Rangers goal.

Dumoulin’s exasperating gaffe at the end of the first period allowed another wide-open chance and resulted in a Rangers’ power-play goal with just 11 seconds remaining.

A great period for the Penguins, in which they out-chanced the Rangers, 15-5, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, produced a 2-0 deficit. And it went south from there.

“They got a late one in the first — (It) gets momentum and we still had lots of time,” Sidney Crosby said. “Then they got the third. I’d say at some point in the second period (it got away from us). I don’t know when, but, 6-0 is a pretty hard deficit to come back from.”

Just one big mistake and the game would have been salvageable, but two in the back of the net after playing so well had an air of finality.

Of course, Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry could have made a save on either shot, too. Both were open looks, but neither was unstoppable.

Jarry has been pulled four times in the past 11 games.

Carter’s first-period minus upped his season total to a team-worst minus-17. For some context, defenseman Kris Letang is behind Carter at minus-13 but plays, on average, 10 minutes more per game.

But Penguins fans continue to ask about Carter and Dumoulin, so Sullivan provided the answer in a lengthy explanation that spanned nearly two minutes.

“Those guys play against top players in defensive situations all the time. ‘Carts’ going into tonight’s game was sixth in the league in faceoffs. Sixth,” Sullivan repeated for emphasis. “Overall, he wins a lot of faceoffs. If we don’t win the faceoff, we don’t get the blue line. There’s a number of circumstances that are involved.

“It’s not just any one guy. So what I would say to you guys is I think it’s easy for you to pick on one or two guys, and what I will tell you is that I respectfully disagree with all of you. Are we making some mistakes? Sure. But when you get put in those situations as often as those guys do — there was a stretch of 20 games leading up to the last little while where they were doing a pretty admirable job in that same circumstance.”

You can also read the last two sentences to see that Sullivan admitted Carter and Dumoulin have been on the hook for more than a few goals over the “last little while.”

But the larger assertion from Sullivan was clearly to push back on the thundering criticism of those two players, specifically.

The bigger picture and issues are catching the Penguins, who didn’t put up a meaningful challenge in two games against the New York Rangers this week after an ugly loss to the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday.

The Penguins were outscored, 10-2, over two games in New York and never led.

Pittsburgh Penguins Playoff Situation

The Penguins are two points behind the New York Islanders, who were 4-1 winners in San Jose Saturday night, in the battle for the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference playoff field and lead the Florida Panthers by just one point.

Defenseman Jan Rutta missed the game Saturday due to injury. The Penguins made Mark Friedman an emergency recall.

Worsening the situation, defenseman Marcus Pettersson didn’t finish the game Saturday. Sullivan said he’s being evaluated for a lower-body injury. Even if Sullivan wanted to make changes on his blue line, that would seem to be impossible at the moment.

But he left no doubt he had no intention of making changes.

“I think the answer to the question is a little bit deeper than than just scratching the surface like you guys do. It’s never any one guy’s fault when those types of things happen,” said Sullivan. “It’s a team game out there. There’s six guys on the ice and it’s all of those guys’ responsibility to execute and we didn’t do it in certain situations.”