Sullivan to Buffalo?

[Skinnyjimmy08]

Very weird and very specific thread

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Who the hell would the pens replace Sullivan with? That's the problem, there just aren't any quality coaches out there.

Clark Donatelli, obviously.

Yeah...this seems like a bad idea.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

the blame is more on jr and the fo for not building a good playoff team. the defense isn't that good. I mean every one of our caps pens games were like 7-6

Maybe after another year at least you start pondering about firing him. Another first round exit in 2020 would not be very good for PGH fans. But there is no way IMO he is fired after this series. Pittsburgh fired Mike Johnston rather fast though, but Sullivan is much better than he was.

From an outsider perspective the Penguins have no tolerance for failure, again Johnston was fired really fast. Bylsma was given a leash but years of underachieving led to his downfall. I would be surprised though if they had enough of Sullivan and fired him if they got swept.

The defense could obviously be better, but that was never our main strength, even during the back-to-back Cups.

The forward corps is more than good enough to get the team over the hump if used properly. The problem is that when Sullivan gets an idea in his head about line combos, he's too stubborn to go with what clearly works even when his lines aren't accomplishing anything.

He refuses to put McCann back on L1, despite it doing wonders for both McCann and Crosby. He refuses to use Rust on LW and defaults to playing him with Crosby even when they're oil-and-water. He refuses to go back to Simon-Bjugstad-Hornqvist which was dominating possession prior to his playoff shake-up. These are unforced errors that have put the Pens behind the 8-ball every game.

I doubt the Pens will dismiss Sullivan this summer no matter what happens. But if they want to stop being a punchline like they will be after this series, something needs to be done to address how the line-up is used.

 

[Note Worthy]

The guy won 2 Cups in a row just a few seasons ago. You have to be kidding.

 

[Ignatius]

From an outsider perspective the Penguins have no tolerance for failure, again Johnston was fired really fast. Bylsma was given a leash but years of underachieving led to his downfall. I would be surprised though if they had enough of Sullivan and fired him if they got swept.

Its funny how you will suggest that Johnston was fired too quickly yet the result was a Cup win. Same thing happened when we fired Therrien.

I would suggest that it is more a matter of not wanting to get caught in the mindset of complacency. After having realized that complacency had set in during the Bylsma years the reaction was no tolerance for continued failure. After the perfect storm that lead to the 2009 Cup win we saw 5 years of regular season success followed by embarrassing playoff exits followed by the same old complacent mindset of, "well he won a Cup for us so let's cut him a break." How many times should the same problematic pattern repeat itself before enough is enough?

Mike Johnston only made matters worse, everyone was relieved when Bylsma was fired but soon realized that their complacency was replaced with frustration from having to deal with ineptitude.

With Sullivan our frustration, I believe, is in the fact that we've seen what he has become accustomed to all before and we don't want to relive those frustrations again especially since it wasted several prime years in the careers of Crosby and Malkin. What Sullivan is doing now are things Bylsma and Therrien got canned for.