Kovacevic: Shortest-ever Penguins rant

Brief and to the Point ...

So wait, Mike Johnston is outright refusing to listen to his boss, Jim Rutherford, who is so disgusted with the Penguins' coach that he aired it out Sunday night in Anaheim to our Josh Yohe at the significant risk of undermining pretty much the whole operation?

And Johnston is still employed ... why, exactly?

Man, I won't even make it past three paragraphs with this one, will I?

• Nope, guess not. Oh, well, let's move on ...

• The most qualified choice to replace Johnston, should it come to that, is obviously Jacques Martin. Plus, he's already on the payroll and familiar with the personnel. He'd step in without missing a beat, he'd command instant respect and, although he always preached defense-first in Ottawa, his Senators always scored plenty.

But the most inspired choice and one that's no less likely?



That would be Mike Sullivan, current head coach in Wilkes-Barre. He floored the front office with how he took charge in development camp, he's gone on to a 16-5 start in his first season with the Penguins' AHL affiliate, and he's got a lengthy resume as an NHL player, head coach and assistant coach at age 47.

Say what one will about John Tortorella as a nemesis, but the guy knows his business. And he knows and worked, for nearly a decade, with Sullivan. When the Blue Jackets passed through Consol three weeks ago, Tortorella called Sullivan “the full package” and one of the most "underrated coaches in hockey," adding, “He should be back in the league soon.”

Maybe he will be.

• You'll be relieved to know that the NHL's Board of Governors met, as they always do, in Pebble Beach early Thursday night, no doubt intent on addressing the game's many woes. For an hour or so, anyway. I've covered this thing, and that's pretty much what it is: Eat, golf all day, eat some more, listen to Gary Bettman for a half-hour and hit the bars all night.

They almost never discuss the actual game, and they didn't this time, either: It was mostly Bettman talking about coming salary caps and expansion to Las Vegas and/or Quebec.

Improving the game is left to the general managers, the guys who already have built their rosters based on the current boring model and would be loath to change.

• Sidney Crosby ranks 81st in the league in scoring. Eight defensemen are among the 80 players ahead of him. He's 28, he's completely healthy, he hasn't missed a game, he's barely missed a shift, and he's spent much of that time sharing ice with world-class talents.

The Penguins have many legit fingers to point in many directions, but the only place for this one is the mirror.

• I'm trying to think of the last time a local team embarrassed itself with a single personnel decision as much as the Penguins are currently doing with Rob Scuderi.

Craig Adams?

Maybe, but his position wasn't as important.

Ike Taylor?

Yeah, that final season was tough to watch, but Mike Tomlin eventually cut the cord.

Sean Rodriguez?

Not at all. He took all kinds of flak because Clint Hurdle put him in some conspicuous positions, but the heat came from fans who showed zero awareness of what he meant to the Pirates on a consistent basis.

No one could say that -- or even come close -- regarding Scuderi, who's genuinely hurting the team night after night with no sign of even a modest reduction in ice time. It's insane.

• One of many reasons Cam Heyward has become the unquestioned leader of the Steelers' defense is that he's openly welcomed opportunities for the defense to be the reason the team wins. He's talked to me about that for years now, and there he was again Sunday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjX5IiqhlGs

• Another reason Cam has become what he is: "I played like crap."

That was his assessment of another terrific performance Sunday, one in which he and Stephon Tuitt created such a push up front that the Steelers seldom had to blitz, one in which he shoved one of Indianapolis' linemen back with such force that the poor guy knocked his own quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, from the game.

I called bunk on that one, but to no avail.

"Sorry, man, I know I can do better," he came right back. "And I will. I've got to."

• There was nothing more predictable after the victory over the Colts than Tomlin not giving credit to Brandon Boykin's addition for sparking the secondary, but that's par for the course with coaches and managers. With precious few exceptions, they see admitting mistakes in public as weakness. All that matters, in this equation or any other, is that the right move eventually gets made.

• Top performer on the Steelers who isn't being mentioned by absolutely anyone anywhere, maybe not even in his own home: Marcus Gilbert.

It's impossible to imagine that only a year ago Tomlin still was benching him on merit, even making him inactive for a game. Gilbert's been so dominant on the right edge that teams are now weighing much more to the other side to try to pick on Alejandro Villanueva and one barely notices Gilbert is even playing.

He's also been intensely emotional, and I say that in a good way.

"You have to care about your teammates, your brothers," Gilbert told me Sunday. "If you do that, the rest takes care of itself."

• Anyone who complains about Antonio Brown's celebrations should be condemned to six straight days of Cleveland sports radio. Those are complaints.

• There's more from the Pirates that both Neil Walker and Mark Melancon will be kept, including Neal Huntington's remarks to our Matt Gajtka Monday in Nashville.

The 2016 Pirates are the better for that common sense. To replace Walker and/or Melancon, they'd basically need to acquire another Walker and/or Melancon.

• Funny, but the No. 1 topic among the Pirates' fan base remains, as it's been for years now, the payroll, even while the No. 1 most forbidden topic is attendance, a prime generator of revenue that leads to payroll.

Coincidence?

It's as if payroll should increase right out of ownership's wallet rather than the business itself, something that occurs ... um ... well, nowhere. Not in any sport. Not in any league. Not at any level.

No matter what you think of Bob Nutting and how he handles the Pirates' finances, to ask him to increase the payroll from his own wallet is something that only happens in fantasy-land. And it makes anyone who espouses such an act come across as if they know nothing about the business of professional sports.

• The two most recent teams in the National League to publicly acknowledge engaging in deficit spending -- meaning not that their owners paid from their pockets but rather that they just took on debt -- were the Brewers and the Reds.

How's that working out?

All that's missing from the ongoing fire sale in Cincinnati are the marshmallows.

• GM for a day: Acquire Todd Frazier from the Reds, move Josh Harrison to second, sign Neil Walker to an extension and slide him to first. If Josh Bell matures into more of a power bat, trade him for pitching.

You're welcome.

• This Pitt basketball team won't be Jamie Dixon's best. It would be nuts to think that. But I will say, based on our talk the other night, this is as happy as I've seen him with any of his teams at this point in the out-of-conference schedule. He really likes this group.

• Just for fun, I try every year at the City Game to identify every Duquesne player who could legitimately be part of Pitt's top 10.

The only one this year: Derrick Colter. And when he's at his best, he could start.

• I'm sure I'm in the minority, but I've never had any use for the college bowls. Less now than ever. Four teams qualify for the NCAA's new playoff format. That's it. And that means, other than Clemson, Alabama, Michigan State and Oklahoma, everyone else has already been eliminated.

The rest is either the NIT or the CBI or whatever other basketball equivalent.

• James Conner will run out of that tunnel at Heinz Field next fall. And when he does, after the battle he'll have fought and won, there shouldn't be an empty seat or dry eye in the house. Initial indications are that the entire Pitt community will stand by him through the whole process.

Best wishes to Conner and to David Morehouse, the Penguins' CEO undergoing heart surgery this morning. Good, good men.