CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- "A lot of meetings," said Olli Maatta.
That was the Finnish defenseman's recollection of the dark days in November and December when the Penguins were hovering at .500 and out of a playoff spot on New Year's Eve. For a team that had known the highest of highs the past two springs, it was a humbling time and one not seen during Mike Sullivan's tenure in Pittsburgh.
Since taking over for Mike Johnston Dec. 15, 2015, it had been all Cups, parades and rings for Sullivan's teams. But when the Penguins stumbled out of the gate this fall, there was talk of a Cup hangover, of fatigue and a brutal early-season schedule that featured eight back-to-back sets in the first two and a half months.
Those concerns, however, were voiced only externally.
Inside the Penguins' meeting room, one booming voice -- in a thick Boston accent -- was heard loudest. In there was a resolve to improve. With Sullivan, it was always about "the next game in front of us."
"We were not playing good and when you're not playing good, you have to find ways to fix it," Maatta said. "We had a lot of meetings. It wasn’t so much about the scores, it’s about the way we played. We knew if we played the game the right way, we start playing like we used to, we’d get the results, they were going to come. The biggest thing was just fix the way we play."
Surely there had to be a temptation for Sullivan to bag-skate his team into the ice after some gad-awful losses at Chicago, at Winnipeg, at Vegas, at Colorado, at Carolina and at Detroit, to name a few.
Thing is, he never did. Publicly, Sullivan was -- relatively -- stoic throughout.
"Same guy," Maatta said. "I think he pushes us hard every day. That’s a big part: To get better daily. And if you don’t, teams are going to catch up. That’s a huge part of it. I don’t think anything has changed. Every day you come to the rink, he demands a lot. That’s part of being a pro."
That doesn't mean the coach was happy about his team's performance and, believe me, it was evident in many of his post-game press conferences. He would talk about his team's "compete level" or lack of one. But, despite ample opportunity, never once did he get his Irish up or point fingers.
"If our coaching staff or myself have points of contention with a player or our team, I believe we're better served keeping that amongst ourselves," Sullivan was saying. "So I think there's a certain level of respect that our players deserve and it's important that I offer them that respect.
"That doesn't mean we don't have hard conversations sometimes. You have to tell players or your team things they don't necessarily want to hear, but they're essential for our team or our players to improve. When our coaching staff has those types of conversations, they're between the coaching staff and our team and that's how we prefer it."
While Sullivan is a John Tortorella protege, make no mistake, he is his own man with his own temperament. He has his view of the way the game should be played, a system he installed in Pittsburgh in 2016 that rewards speed, skill and puck possession.
Two championships later, the first coach to win consecutive Stanley Cups since Scotty Bowman with Detroit in the late '90s, Sullivan has an instinctive grasp of his team and what it needs and when.
He has challenged superstars such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel to somehow elevate their already-sizable games and, despite an offseason of turnover, he's gotten the most out of the team's supporting cast.
"It's just his ability to connect with different guys," Riley Sheahan said of Sullivan. "Each guy brings their own personality and he connects pretty well. He gives guys a lot of opportunity and he relies on guys. He holds you to a high standard but, at the same time, if you can satisfy what he expects of you, he puts you in a good position to succeed."
Yeah, he could have bag-skated his team back in December, but it would have been counterproductive to do so. When the calendar turned to 2018, Sullivan was confident that his team would raise its game as it had in previous pressure-cooker situations like Game 7s against Tampa Bay in 2016 and Washington and Ottawa last year.
Indeed, the Penguins awoke from their slumber, going 17-6-3 over the months of January and February.
And when there were concerns a couple weeks ago about not having home ice advantage in the playoffs, the Penguins responded by winning four of their last five games to clinch second place with 100 points in a tight Metropolitan Division, where the difference between second and fifth place was just three points.
"He deserves credit," Maatta said. "He's done an incredible job."
The Penguins enter their first-round series as a strong favorite to beat the Flyers. Sullivan has never lost a playoff round with Pittsburgh, but the road ahead is potentially fraught with danger. There are still unanswered concerns about team defense and on the penalty kill. But if Sullivan's tenure has shown anything, it's that you shouldn't bet against him.
"I think this group, they’re a fun group to coach, they’re competitive guys, they want to win," Sullivan said. "This has been a challenging year for us in a lot of different ways. But what I love about our group is that when the stakes get high, we play at our best."