CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The voice raised, the eyebrows furrowed, the 'Rs' turned a little more silent, Mike Sullivan got his Irish up after the Penguins’ practice Tuesday while defending his team's system.
"Show me a team that's trying to play slow that's winning? Show me a team that's trying to play on its heels that's winning?" the coach said when asked to answer critics who say that the Penguins aren't as fast as they used to be and haven't made any adjustments to counter it.
"It's easy to throw darts and suggest that the style of play is the reason why we're having the struggles that we're having," he said.
Sullivan said that the Penguins have made — and worked again in practice on Tuesday — some subtle tweaks to the breakout. With opposing defensemen around the NHL increasingly pinching on the walls, it has prevented the Penguins from getting clean exits and not allowing them to get to their quick transition, a tenet of Sullivan's system. He said the Penguins practiced breakouts, not just with traditional dump-ins, but also out of more game-like coverage.
He also doubled down on the fact that he wants his players to be aggressive offensively and take only calculated risks. And though the league might be closing the speed gap on the Penguins, they still have plenty to burn, he said.
"I think there's an assumption out there that we throw caution to the wind, and there's no calculation to our game and of our aggression," he said. "There's inherent risk in being passive, too, and letting teams just come at you.
"When you look at the core of our team, our team can still skate. Now can the other teams skate? Sure they can. But we are by no means a slow hockey team. We can still skate."
He pointed to the Penguins' core of superstars: Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Phil Kessel and Kris Letang as players, who — despite all being in their early 30s — can still keep up with players a decade younger.
Also, he argued, the Penguins have complementary players who can move the puck with velocity, adding to overall team speed.
"We have the ability to move the puck, and there's no better speed game than your ability to change the point of attack because you can move the puck," he said.
• Tanner Pearson had grown accustomed to the finer things in life.
As the son of a Bauer hockey equipment rep growing up in Kitchener, Ontario, he grew up playing with all the latest and best gear. His father's job allowed him to routinely brush shoulders with some of the NHL's biggest stars as a kid.
The former first-round pick then went on to win the Stanley Cup with the Los Angeles Kings after playing in just 25 regular season games as a 21-year-old in 2014.
A 24-goal season followed in 2016-17, the first of back-to-back 40-point seasons while playing on one of the NHL's more productive and colorfully named lines.
Everything had been trending up for Pearson. Until this season, that is.
Without question, he says, this has been his most trying season. He had been mired in the worst stretch of his professional career when he got the call last Wednesday that he had been dealt to the Penguins for Carl Hagelin.
"It's been a whirlwind," Pearson was telling me after Tuesday's practice at the Lemieux Complex. "Have a lot of great memories in L.A. and cherished my time there. It sucks to get that call, but, at the end of the day, maybe it was best for my career. Came to one heckuva an organization, too."
Unfortunately for him, that organization is also going through one heckuva struggle. The Penguins have lost nine of their last 10 heading into Wednesday night's game against the Stars, though Pearson has been around for only three of them.
But he believes that his new team's fortunes will soon change. He just didn't see that happening in Los Angeles, where negativity had seeped in and the Kings have an NHL-low 15 points.
"It's tough losing, honestly," Pearson said. "It's tough to see, it was tough to be part of. Just couldn't really get it going. When that happens, it goes downhill pretty quickly."
Don't worry. Other than Stanley Cup banners, he doesn't see many similarities between his old team and his new one. The Penguins are still young enough and fast enough to win.
The Penguins and Kings — along with the Blackhawks — have dominated the NHL over the last decade, lifting the Cup in eight of the last 10 years. And though each team is struggling, and the Kings and Blackhawks have already fired coaches, Pearson says the difference between Pittsburgh and Los Angeles is more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It's an attitude.
"We're a bit ahead of where the Kings are at when I left," he said. "Just attitude-wise, I think we're close to turning it around here.
"The attitude is good here, and guys are starting to see some results and ready to take that next step and get two points."
Pearson seems to have found pretty strong chemistry with Malkin and Kessel ("all vocal guys"), his likely linemates when the Penguins host the Stars at PPG Paints Arena.
In Monday's 5-4 overtime loss to the Sabres, Pearson recorded a goal and assist, tripling his season points total after recording just a solitary assist in 17 games with the Kings this season.
In just three games, Pearson already has one point fewer than Hagelin recorded in 16 games. Also, the 6-foot-1, 201-pound left wing has added some size and physicality with nine hits.
"A long time coming," Pearson said of the goal, his first since March 19. "As of late, my game's pointing in the right direction."
• Crosby was a full participant in practice Tuesday and appears close to returning after missing the previous three games — all losses — with an upper body injury. He skated on a line with Jake Guentzel and Patric Hornqvist.
Will he play tomorrow night vs. Dallas?
"We'll see," the captain said when I asked. "I think it's just kind of day-to-day and see how I feel. But it was good to get out there."
• Malkin did not take the ice. Don't worry, the Penguins are not down yet another center. He was given a maintenance day.
• Jamie Oleksiak could laugh about it Tuesday morning and even asked to see the replay of himself getting kicked in the face late in the second period of Monday night's loss to the Sabres. The defenseman said he was sporting a swollen upper lip underneath "Lanny," his name for his "Movember" mustache. All things considered, he said he counts himself lucky. He originally thought he might have lost teeth.
"That was scary," he said. "Yeah, if I was standing up a little higher, and his foot was a little bit higher, it would have been the blade. Cutting it close there."
He seemed most amused by the reaction of linesman Bryan Murphy, whose skate boot hit Oleksiak as he was falling into the Buffalo bench.
• Here are the lines and pairs used in practice on Tuesday.
Guentzel -- Crosby -- Hornqvist
Pearson -- Brassard -- Kessel
Aston-Reese -- Sheahan -- Simon
Rust -- Grant -- Sprong
Dumoulin -- Letang
Maatta -- Riikola
Johnson -- Oleksiak