Brief and to the Point ...
So wait, Mike Sullivan was lobotomized?
He actually did bench Patric Hornqvist in Game 5 with the Penguins needing two goals?
And he did that so he could bump up the roles of the Wilkes-Barre kids?
Oh, wow, no. Just no.
Let's presume no one was lying after Monday's practice, including Sullivan when he reiterated all of the above, and Hornqvist when he went along with every syllable. Both certainly came across as sincere.
That still leaves a ton of questions about Sullivan's call, doesn't it?
If Hornqvist is such a 'warrior,' as the coach repeated Monday, was there really no way to drill home a message without benching and embarrassing him?
How bad could Hornqvist have been in just 11 shifts -- his total through two periods -- when he wasn't on the ice for any of Washington's three goals, when he wasn't charged with a giveaway and he didn't commit any of the Penguins' various dumb penalties?
Seriously, did he have bad intermissions?
For that matter, if he did something wrong during the game, why was he left off the Penguins' top power play in the first period?
Bad warmup?
Sorry, but something's either way out of whack here, or this coach terribly overreacted to an issue that could have been handled infinitely better than it was.
You know, kind of like this:
Pull the fire alarm too often, and the building's occupants eventually tune out.
• Leave the panicking to Barry Trotz. He was doing plenty enough of it early in the series, and his history shows he's liable to resume at the first sign of trouble for Washington tonight.
• Brooks Orpik returning for the Capitals isn't a big deal in isolation. The Orpik effect on John Carlson, their best defenseman and his partner, very much is. Carlson is a cocky sort who can get a little too comfortable on the ice. Orpik keeps him in check, according to people on that side, and it works well.
• Justin Schultz is the best bet to get scratched when Olli Maatta returns for Game 6. I'm all about Maatta's future. Love the kid. Love his potential. But Schultz wasn't on the ice for a single Washington goal in Game 5, wasn't on the ice for a single New York goal in his only game of that series and -- get this -- has been on the ice for only five goals in the 18 regular season games he played after the Penguins acquired him from the Oilers.
Five!
What's an offensive defenseman have to do to demonstrate he can defend?
• Say what you will about fighting in hockey, but Tom Sestito is awesome.
#WBSPens forward Tom Sestito talks about the scuffle between the two teams during warm ups and his views on O'Brien. pic.twitter.com/UhJNxffxxu
— Russ Hryvnak (@RussWBS) May 10, 2016
• Congrats to the Lightning for buzzing through the Red Wings and Islanders, teams with a combined plus-3 goal differential in the regular season.
• This playoff format is awful, and Tampa Bay's path is only the latest illustration. Drop the divisions altogether, simplify the standings for newcomers to the sport, and go straight conference, 1 through 8. No one will mind the extra flights to Florida in mid-winter.
• The Pirates won't say it, so I will: Major League Baseball never had any business even contemplating the now-canceled series for Puerto Rico. Nothing about the current situation there is any different than it was over the winter. I Googled the Center for Disease Control's initial travel advisory regarding the Zika virus, and it was issued Jan. 15 of this year. That's the same advisory that's still in effect.
What were they expecting to transpire in the interim, complete eradication?
• Jon Niese is a ground-ball pitcher in the same way that Bartolo Colon is a slugger: Including Monday night in Cincinnati, he's gotten 50 groundouts and given up 49 hits in 40 innings. And 10 of those 49 hits have cleared fences, including these three Monday:
On the bright side, Niese is taking up roughly 10 percent of payroll at $9,050,000.
• Special players do special things at special times. Dissect sports with all the data in the world, but sometimes the mythology really does dwarf all the rest.
What Jung Ho Kang did the other night in St. Louis was truly special.
Let's not forget he was the star of stars in South Korea.
• Before the Steelers drafted, both Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin talked more than I could remember about the value of intangibles. The context was this: Football games are won with speed, skill and strategy, but football drafts often are won on what both men called "hearts and smarts."
I really admired the point. Because football, maybe more than any other sport, requires that 100 percent reckless buy-in, and that all by itself can be a separator between who sticks in the league and who doesn't.
I admired all the more when their draft delivered all kinds of hearts and smarts.
• Nothing about the past week's news related to the Jerry Sandusky scandal changed a solitary thought I had about Joe Paterno's complicit role. Only more cement for the wall.
• Yeah, I'd like for all the good people at Penn State to have a fair shot at moving past it. As our Audrey Snyder proves day after day, there are great stories there to be told. But when the current university president, Eric Barron, pens a rambling letter blathering on about 'rumor, innuendo and rush to judgment,' that only damages the cause.
How is this still the university's fight?
Barron actually wrote this: "I have had enough of the continued trial of the institution in various media."
No one is trying the institution. Anywhere. That's over and done.
Barron, his administration and the Board of Trustees are the ones who need to move on. Go run the school, and leave the Paternos to fend for themselves.
• The Riverhounds were hit with unprecedented negative publicity for Romeo Parkes' sickening spikes-to-the-back assault Saturday at Highmark Stadium. But the front office reacted professionally and powerfully by cutting their leading scorer -- heck, their only scorer to this point in an 0-3-3 start -- and actually might have set an example for how any franchise should deal with such an incident.
• Why does soccer frighten some?
Not joking here: The most bizarre reaction I ever get in this role is from readers who go apoplectic at the mere mention of the sport. And the latest examples were stranger still, as I'd comment or tweet on the above incident and some of the response was just ... wow, nasty. Not about the incident but just that I had the audacity to discuss soccer.
How did these people get this way?
Are they afraid it will someday supersede traditional American sports?
Is it akin to shunning the metric system?
Does it mean the 'Commies' are coming?
Is it generational?
I find that most younger people, even if they don't care for soccer, at least don't have blood bursting from their eardrums when the topic comes up.
It's just a game. Relax.
But, by God, if the sport of soccer ever does attack our shores, I'll trust our fighting men and women to keep us all safe.
• Just a reminder: Penguins in six.