RALEIGH, N.C. -- They say good decisions are rarely made in anger.
They can be wrong.
A few weeks ago, shortly before the Penguins fired Mike Johnston, much noise was being made in the front office about the failures of the team’s bottom six forwards, most pointedly Eric Fehr, Nick Bonino and Sergei Plotnikov. And anyone who’s been paying attention all season can imagine that the pointing wasn’t kind.
Well, to make a long previously-untold story short, once Mike Sullivan took over as coach and all concerned felt more comfortable with making a significant change in the forward ranks, Jim Rutherford and his lieutenants rapidly implemented the I-80 Express approach and summoned Scott Wilson, Tom Kuhnhackl, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust and pretty much any other player they knew Sullivan could — and did — trust.
And yes, they did so, in large part, out of anger.
“We needed to get those guys going,” one team official told me in the past week, referring primarily to Fehr and Bonino. “And the best way to do that is to put a bunch of guys in front of them who are hungry. Right there in the room. Let them look at those kids. Let them think about their jobs. That’s what those kids did. That’s what those kids are still doing.”
Right. Even now that Fehr and Bonino are out with long-term injuries, and Plotnikov has been reduced to an afterthought.
“One thing we knew about all of these kids is that they’ve got that fire, that passion,” another team official said. “We were very confident they’d do what we wanted when we called them, which is to create that push. But they’ve gone beyond that. And good for them. They’ve earned it.”
Now, add into that mix Oskar Sundqvist, who has earned rave early reviews from teammates for his defensive work — Sidney Crosby cited him unsolicited the other night in telling me, “He’s been unbelievable in our end” — and you’ve got the makings of real depth. No, none are big scorers, not even Wilson, who had 22 goals in the AHL but has yet to sniff one at this level. But if they’re swirling around and forechecking as they have, if they’re killing penalties, if they’re diligent defensively, that frees up the Penguins’ top six forwards to do their thing.
Suddenly, everyone’s happy.
• Simon Despres, now with the Ducks, shared this with me the other day as part of a long talk on a lot of topics: Roughly 80 percent of all NHL divorces occur in a player's first year of retirement. He said the NHL Players Association shared that with the entire union in hopes of preparing athletes for the depression that can follow giving up the activity they love the most.
I've obviously got no way of confirming that, but that's just jarring. And at the same time, it's good to know that Don Fehr and the union look out for the membership in some form, if not from each other's violence on the ice.
• The Steelers go almost completely dark this time of year, emerging only occasionally with a public word such as the Kevin Colbert media sessions coming next week. But that doesn't mean the rumbling stops behind the scenes. One very small piece I picked up in the past week is that management has not decided against keeping Kelvin Beachum. That came as something of a surprise given that, even coming off a major injury, he may well see bona fide left tackle money in free agency. But the Steelers believe in Beachum and value his versatility in being able to back up at tackle and guard, and they just might find a way to keep him around.
• The Pirates are not done adding to the rotation, but they might wait until near the end of spring training to do so, I'm told. That, of course, is when all the musical chairs are filled and the occasional useful arm can turn up. It won't be a Cy Young candidate, but it might be someone they covet more than what's now left in free agency. And if there's anything resembling trouble or injury issues in Bradenton, expect that to multiply tenfold.
I'll repeat: The Pirates, from what I hear, are not content to enter the season with the starters they currently have. Nor should they be. They're lacking at Nos. 4-5 in Ryan Vogelsong and Jeff Locke, they might even be lacking at No. 3 in Jon Niese, and their depth consists primarily of Juan Nicasio and prospects who they feel aren't immediately ready.
• Here's a shocker: Pitt alumni are grumbling over Jamie Dixon, enough so that the administration has noticed.
Well, too bad for them. In addition to the fact that Dixon is signed through 2023 to a ton of money, thanks to a 10-year extension thee years ago, he's also a first-class NCAA Division I coach. And any research done by Scott Barnes and the new administration in Oakland is only going to turn up further proof of that.
Nothing but unwarranted noise after a couple of tough ACC losses.
FROM JOSH YOHE IN PITTSBURGH:
• The people inside the Penguins' locker room are impressed with Sullivan. They aren't alone. I've spoken with a number of former Penguins in recent days, guys still close with the current roster. It has been made very clear that many former Penguins believed that this current group needed a firmer hand in charge. In other words, they believe Sullivan is perfect.
• Speaking of Sullivan, you should hear people inside the organization speak about this guy. Everyone -- and I mean everyone, from Jim Rutherford on down -- already has complete trust in this guy. They've seen what he's done with the Penguins through eight weeks and they're blown away.
It's Sully's show.
• Of all the AHL players faring well, Rust is the one getting the best reviews. Rutherford made the determination earlier this season that the Penguins were too slow. This, in part, is why he traded for Trevor Daley and Carl Hagelin. It's also why they're especially pleased with Rust. He's made them a faster team and a better team, and it appears he's in the NHL to stay.
• Teams lie about injuries a lot. But from what I've been told, the Penguins aren't lying about Evgeni Malkin's situation. He's not 100 percent, obviously. But nothing I've heard leads me to believe that this is a major injury.
• What a scene it was in the locker room after that incredible win in Florida last Saturday. The last two people in the locker room were Crosby and Jeff Zatkoff. It was Crosby who willed the Penguins to the victory, and Zatkoff who gave them a chance for the victory with a wonderful performance. While the two were sitting there, Rutherford walked in and offered each a hearty handshake.
You remember some games at the end of a regular season. This was one of them.
FROM ALAN SAUNDERS IN PITTSBURGH:
• This fall, the Pitt football team will play a challenging and exciting non-conference schedule with 10-win teams Oklahoma State and Marshall joining traditional rival Penn State.
Of course, each team's individual schedule can be bit of a crap shoot, with games scheduled as far as a decade in advance. That's a progress that Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes would like to see reversed.
"I'm not a proponent of scheduling that far out," he said this week. "I think the more nimble you can be, (the better). You've got a little bit of risk the longer you wait to fill that date, but you also tend to have more opportunities. You can strike, you can have an opportunity where maybe if you scheduled 10 years (out), you didn't have because you're already inked. If we can be a little more nimble in that regard and look at more of a five-year horizon or even closer, we'll do it. Because it's so far down the line, you just don't know what it looks like. That's my opinion."
Even at five years out, though, Barnes and his staff don't always have a great idea of what that opposition will look like when the teams finally meet on the gridiron.
"You sort of look at it and say, 'All right, over time, what does this program look like?'" he explained. "It's a crystal ball, right? You don't know. ... You do the best you can and you have to look at historical performance, what it looks like. The closer it is, maybe you look at (recruiting) classes and what you're doing if it's within a two-, three- or four-year window."
The changed selection method for the College Football Playoff from a mathematical poll to a committee has heightened the need for teams to play more quality non-conference opponents. At the same time, several conferences have decided to go to a nine-game conference schedule, which means there is less "real estate" out there, as Barnes put it.
"It's not something that we as ADs have suggested is an issue that has to be solved," he said. "There's still games out there and we'll continue to pursue it this way (and) see what materializes over time."
The one big exception to that rule, in Barnes' opinion, is rivalry games and it's a reason he didn't hesitate to pull the trigger with the resumption of the Backyard Brawl despite the four-game series not starting until 2022.
"For rivalry things and whatnot, those are scenarios to me that you can go out forever, in perpetuity," he said.
Apparently, that sentiment is not universally shared, as Barnes reported "no progress" in his pursuit to extend Pitt's four-year agreement with Penn State that will begin this fall. It was also one of the few one-sentence answers he gave in what was a lengthy session.
• Barnes also touched on the attendance issues that have plagued the Pitt men's basketball team, which just sold out its first game of the year against Virginia last weekend.
While admitting that Pitt has some work to do in returning that program to its former state, he said that attendance at Division I basketball games on and off campus is down nationwide.
"It it's certainly something that we have our eye on, and it's not unlike our conversations around the NCAA Tournament," Barnes said. "We were slipping there, as well. You've got to continue to dial in on what the fans want, and what their expectations are. What does a fan experience mean? We've got to continually be in tune with that."
Barnes feels that part of the solution may be more marquee non-conference games being played on campus as opposed to at neutral sites, both nationally and with the Panthers specifically.
"You want to bring some marquee games home to your fans," he said "You can do both. If it's the right opportunity, a neutral-site situation is fine. It's good, but we also don't need to break it and rebuild the mold. We just need to tweak what we're doing in the non-conference and bring an extra game or two of a higher caliber in terms of marquee value."