Kovacevic: Should Sullivan ever let up?

Nov 4, 2017 • 3:54 am

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- One of these days, Mike Sullivan will run out of steam.

And that, by my estimate, will occur at roughly the same time the Earth is formally bankrupt of fossil fuels.

If there's one particular trait of the Penguins' coach of which I've been powerfully reminded over this five-city, eight-day, all-time-zones trip that concludes here tonight against the Canucks at Rogers Arena, it's this: He's got only one gear, and he expects the same from everyone around him.

Get a load of this response when Sullivan was asked a couple days ago in Calgary if the team's ridiculous opening-month schedule has allowed him to analyze any of what's happened with a grain of salt.

"Uh, yeah, it's hard for me to take things with a grain of salt," he began, with a knowing grin that suggested he couldn't even process valuing something above the two points available on a given night. "You know, this has been a challenging first part of the season for our hockey team, and for a lot of reasons. We're trying to navigate through it as a group. We're trying to find ways to get better every day. At the same time, we're trying to assess what kind of team we think we have and where our needs might lie. But we're trying to improve as a team. That's where my focus is right now."

If that isn't the most Sully quote ever, I'm not sure what is. Meaning that first part up there.

As ever, it's nearly impossible to dispute what he says or does. When the 2016 team ran into a string of sizzling goaltenders in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the man's focus was to put pedal to metal. More shots, more chances, more, more, more, until finally Andrei Vasilevskiy or Martin Jones would finally crack. When the 2017 team was savaged by injury and no longer was running up wildly lopsided shot advantages, that pedal was pushed through the floor in the subsequent playoffs. Go harder, harder, harder.

Here again, on this trip, St. Paul and Winnipeg were awful, and Sullivan's solution was to crank it up, scratch Carl Hagelin so that he can crank it up, and just keep cranking until the results were far better in Edmonton and Calgary. There was nuance in there, too, but the foundation was fire.

Again, the results can't be disputed. That's paramount in this discussion.

That said, most of these Penguins are now headed on their third lap around the track. And this opening-month schedule won't compare to the impact that all 82 will have by next spring. To which I'd be lying if I didn't confess wondering if another gear might not be needed at some point.

At various points in the first three games on this trip, Sullivan's had his players in a 1-2-2 trap. That's not new. He's brought it out in the past, including in the aforementioned playoffs when he felt it best fit the score or the scenario. And I mention this only because I hope it doesn't come to that on any full-time basis. The Penguins are the Penguins. They're the NHL's marquee franchise for their star power, and their players, individually and collectively, feed off that. It's been the franchise's foundation for the better part of the past three decades.

But ... and this is an important but ... a downshift in approach, in style if not substance, just might be something that benefits all concerned.

I'm not about to preach specific strategy to men wearing really big rings, but there are all kinds of ways to play the game in a winning way, and the Penguins have both the skill and the smarts to adapt. In fact, I'm betting they've got more skill and smarts than most of the opponents they face, and those opponents might be thrown totally off the scent by any changes they'd experience, especially once divisional play turns serious.

Mix it up. Move it around. Do more than simply seeking out the right lines and pairings. Set it up in a way that the Xs and Os can serve as their own preservation model.

• There's no point overstating what Frankie Corrado's done in two games, but I will toss out casually that, if he continues to look as aggressive as he has defensively, coupled with his cool inside the blue line -- three pucks through traffic on one shift the other night in Edmonton -- he's got a chance of bumping Chad Ruhwedel from No. 7 when all the defensemen are healthy. Or more.

• The most water-must-find-its-level stat on the entire roster is Bryan Rust having one goal in 15 games. He's performed far, far too well for that to stay put. If anything, he's a goal waiting to happen, as he seems to agree.

"All I can do is keep working hard," he told me the other night after more frustration in the loss to the Flames. "I know it's there. I know it's coming. Just can't let up."

• For all the fair fussing over the Penguins already having four sets of back-to-backs against rested opponents, the bigger issue might be that they've played 15 games of any kind, more than anyone in the league.The season started a month ago, so that's basically a game every other night. Seven teams have played 14, three of them just 11.

• Professional athletes in any sport dread the flight home following the final game of a long trip ... if they lose. That's been true forever, and it'll be true in this one. Heard a lot of that on the way out in Calgary.

• Sidney Crosby for the winner. I've seen it before in this building. Plus, he's really ticked off.

WHAT'S BREWING?

• The new Site Stuff is essentially a reader survey. But it's also got word of our next big PNC Main Street Meetup one week from today in Indianapolis.

• Today at 9 a.m., you'll see Christopher Carter breaking down the Steelers' first half -- grades and all because, you know, it's a Classroom -- in video form. Dale Lolley's working on his own analysis, in written form.

• If you're a Penn State fan and you're not checking out the live file produced by Audrey Snyder and Waiss David Aramesh, I dare say you're doing it wrong. Their work throughout the day is extraordinary.

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