Penguins
How Penguins Blew Another Lead; Sullivan’s Blunt Answer
The Pittsburgh Penguins do not like themselves. They have been one of the worst teams at holding leads, especially multi-goal leads, for three seasons running. Through different goalies, lineups, and even coaching tactics, the Penguins’ absolute rejection of their success has crippled them, and they are currently 3-6-1 in vital start to this season.
And so their hatred of leads bit them against Winnipeg last Sunday, again against Vancouver on Saturday, and again against Minnesota on Tuesday.
Multi-goal leads quickly become deficits. Vancouver did it in a Vancouver franchise record of 65 seconds. Minnesota needed just 2:27 to erase the latest 2-0 lead and tie the game.
With some dark foreshadowing, coach Mike Sullivan addressed the topic Tuesday morning, even before the Penguins’ latest faceplant.
Here’s most of Sullivan’s response from Tuesday morning. It must be printed almost entirely because he addressed everything—and multiple things the Penguins did wrong again on Tuesday, such as quick goals allowed and goals in the final minute of the period.
“Obviously, it’s been a challenge because we haven’t solved that aspect of our game. I get asked this question a lot. I think there’s a lot of volatility in scores, not just of our team but others as well, but speaking from my personal experience, I know we can do a much better job at managing the game,” Sullivan said.
“Giving up multiple goals in a short time, there are critical moments that I think teams need to recognize and acknowledge in being able to elevate your intensity, simplify the game, things of that nature that can take risk out of your game and give you an opportunity to get momentum back. We talk about a lot of things–the beginning of periods, the last minute of periods, after goals are scored, and sometimes after a fight happens on the ice–these critical moments in games that teams that manage those situations have a better chance at having success.
“And I don’t think we’ve done as good a job as more capable of at managing those situations. When we get scored against, those next two or three shifts are really important in making sure that we try to grab the momentum back right away. I think a big part of that is just simplifying the game, simplifying the process on the entries coming out of our end zone, putting pucks behind defensemen, getting the puck over the goal line, allowing us to establish a fore-check, putting defense down pressure, get involved physically. I think those are the areas that could help us get some pushback in our game.”
And go back to the first line of Sullivan’s answer. The team hasn’t solved that aspect of their game. No, they have not even made a dent.
The mistakes are mental, glaring gaffes that are fundamental in nature. They have been committed by different lines, different players, and different defensive pairs. If anyone could narrow down the problem to one player and one pairing, that pair wouldn’t see the ice until December after the Penguins score. But it’s everyone, including some typically reliable players.
Saturday, Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust muffed assignments.
Tuesday, rock-solid Lars Eller made a turnover at the offensive blue line.
“It’s happened a number of times. It happened again tonight. There needs to be a commitment to details. We need to stop when we drive back into our zone and not circle. We need to recognize who’s going to get to the puck first,” Sullivan said. “Are we on offense? Are we on defense? We can’t always take the offensive position. We have to think about the defensive side position. As I said to the guys before the game, we’re going to defend our way out of this. We’re not going to score our way out of this.”
If you watch our Coach’s Debrief videos, that’s exactly what coach Francis Anzalone said.
Make no mistake, there’s bewilderment in the Penguins locker room. Sidney Crosby shook his head when he attempted to answer for the problems. Even when pressed to go beyond the “what” to the “how” to avoid the crucial, even Crosby was at a loss.
Crosby wasn’t overly angry, hurt, or crushed. It seems no one in the locker room is crestfallen but stunned. This issue isn’t supposed to happen to a veteran team, certainly not one good enough to repeatedly claim leads.
“Hopefully, these experiences and these games will fast-track that. Especially after we get scored on, we’ve got to find a way not to allow that to come in bunches. And we’ve been guilty of that,” said Crosby. “So you’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to give up goals, but hopefully, we can do a better job of not allowing teams to get back in the game that quickly. It’s happened the last couple for sure, and just little areas like that will go a long way.”
Read More: Sidney Crosby on His Game: I’m Trying to Find it (+)
It’s again a nightmare for the Penguins, well beyond what Tim Burton could imagine. It’s veering more toward a Sam Rami movie. Everyone knows the evil is coming, but you’re never quite sure from where until the jarring shock that, despite expectation, still surprises.
The Penguins have already completed the trilogy in just 11 games this season. The prequel was more of the same, and if there’s a sequel anytime soon, the team is sunk.
Penguins Structure
For what it’s worth, the Penguins adopted a 1-2-2 structure early in the game. Sullivan clearly wanted to ease his new lineup into the game–he paired Crosby with Evgeni Malkin for the first time in years, and the rest of the lineup were entirely new lines as a result.
The 1-2-2 accomplished its mission to settle the game as Minnesota attacked and the Penguins were sliding. It’s probably not a structure the Penguins are built to play for 60 minutes, but it was well used, if underused, on Tuesday.
Not long after the Penguins calmed the temperature, they had a 2-0 lead.
The next wave of mistakes had nothing to do with structure and more to do with terrible decisions with the puck and in the defensive zone.
Lars Eller, Kevin Hayes, Matt Grzelcyk, and some bad luck with a soft goal were the Penguins’ culprits Tuesday. But it was just their turn, as seemingly everyone has taken a turn or three this season … and last.
Fishing for Pucks
When Frederick Gaudreau tied the game 2-2 just 55 seconds after Minnesota scored their first goal, the Penguins did what Sullivan calls “fishing for the puck.” Look at the lunges by Grzelcyk (first) and Hayes (second) and how easily they could have negated the chance/goal.
Gaudreau had time to win the loose puck and turn to his forehand without being hit or otherwise defended.
Either Penguins defender could have taken an extra stride and played the man or puck. Both reached. Gaudreau was mostly unchallenged.
Now, watch Eller turn a three-on-two into a goal against.
It’s also a credit to Minnesota and defenseman Brock Faber, who played a tight gap, giving Eller no room to work. However, Eller needed to know the situation and make the open lateral pass or chip it off the wall before it was too late.
If Crosby was a little tense after the game, it’s understandable. The season is quickly getting away and it’s not opponents beating them, it’s the Penguins beating the Penguins.
And a team with nine players over 30 shouldn’t need “experience” to learn to make simple plays, make fundamental defenses, and be hard to play against instead of reaching.
But here they are. Credit Sullivan for making big changes, including putting Crosby and Malkin on a line together, as well as dusting off the 1-2-2, albeit for a short time.
In the next few days, we’ll find out how many of the changes Sullivan liked, which hold promise, and which will be scrapped. It’s a step forward from last season, when very little changed, creating a spiraling negativity. But the changes need to spur better results, too.
And thus far, they’ve just been changes.
Kinda sad to see Ovie upstage Sid in their twilight years.
Ovi has better line mates. Sullivan puts guys with bad hands that have average less than 15 goals a season on his wing. At least the Caps coach is putting him in a good position to succeed.
Plus Ovi really only scores from one spot on the ice on one timers.
Pretty lame comment dude.
They should just wheel Ovi on a dolly to his spot on the face off circle or center ice when the net is empty. He’s now just hanging on for the record and looks old and tired.
“Look at the lunges”,…”without being hit.” Absolutely their biggest problem. I was always taught to play the man, not the puck and to separate the man from the puck. There are too many of the same type of player on this team – soft, stick-swinging, “we’ll skate our way out of this” players. This team is too slow to keep up with other teams. So what do you do? You slow the other team down. How do you do that? As they used to chant in the old Civic Arena, you “HIT SOMEBODY!” The defense keeps backing in giving the… Read more »
They call this “new hockey”..sigh….I don’t think Florida signed up for this style last year.
It’s been said before — rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic won’t save the ship. The bottom line is that this team simply does not have the talent to win. And it is going to be a few years before they acquire it.
Exactly. We haven’t played good solid hockey in half a decade. Our top players outside of Crosby have lost it. Karlsson is terrible. We need-needed- to move on. But they made a decision, and in a hard cap league it’s extremely hard to remake a team. The turn around begins the minute Malkin, Letang, and/or Karlsson start to move out. It’ll be painful. But, no worse than this.
I’ve been saying that for the past year, but it is much easier to blame the coaching staff. There had been a precipitous decline in talent since their Cup win which was expected since they had traded away all their picks to win again. I would rather have had that, i.e., going for it again rather than the “do nothing” philosophy of the Pirates/Nutting.
waive glass and get Poulin up. See what the market is for Karlsson and get picks and prospects
Nothing changed from last year!!! Same coach, no goalie and losing. Flush it!!!
Maybe instead of running drills focusing on the offense going “low to high” and getting into good shooting position, spend the time focusing on the TERRIBLE defensive zone coverage. Every 5 seconds the coaches scream “Who isn’t being covered?”, “Where’s your man?”, and “STOP WATCHING THE PUCK!”.
I’m sure defense is never practiced. It would be ludicrous for them to do that.
Just say that the plan is to go for a top-3 draft pick .. keep Sullivan, Jarry, Karlsson, every dead weight is needed to tank properly
I can’t believe no one has mentioned just how bad beauviller is. The guy is constantly puck watching, he is responsible for bare minimum 2-3 odd man breaks a game and he has no clue where he should be in the defensive zone. How this guy still has an nhl job is quite honestly impressive.
Because he’s a Sullivan type player, 5’9″ 175lbs. 5th team in 2 years, and hasn’t passed his highest scoring output since his 2nd year in 2018, and career minus player.
But he skates really fast which in Sully’s head means 💡 new winger for Sid!
I don’t understand the defensive structure. It seriously appears that the structure is one of 3 things. 1 – Let the other team get in the zone and then everyone either watch the puck of go to it without care for who is not covered anymore. Kind of like 5 year olds playing soccer. 2 – Everyone try and leak out of the zone for a breakaway and if the score, try again on the next shift. 3 – Actually play a man, back check and get the puck and then either lazily pass it to someone putting them in… Read more »
Dump and chase, dump and chase, that’s all we do. I love how Sullivan says get the puck behind the defense, resulting many times in a odd man rush. If he had any brains which he doesn’t they would play some kind of trap. Sooooo overated.
Getting the puck behind the defensemen never results in odd-man rushes against.
Sullivan stated “get involved physically” 😂. He and Dubas made this team the biggest group of pansies in the NHL. Sullivan has an allergy to hard nose players, he likes them under 6′ and around 180lbs.
Grzelcyk and Graves are complete trash 90% of the game. One is a Smurf and couldn’t clean a toddler from the crease and the other is the biggest physical waste of someone 6’5″ 215 pounds ever.