Kovacevic: Sullivan, Penguins need accountability

Full, open and essential disclaimer: Patric Hornqvist is exempt from absolutely every syllable I'm about to type.

All clear on that, right?

OK, here goes: These Penguins have become a maddeningly inconsistent mess, and we're well past the point where significant accountability must be applied.

No, not just because they lazed through a 4-2 loss to the upstart Ducks on this Monday night at PPG Paints Arena. Nor because it saw their third blown two-goal lead in as many games. Nor because they committed two lousy penalties to turn the tide. Nor, even, because they're incapable of sustaining success of any kind for more than a couple days.

No, it's actually all of that. And more. And less.

And it's maybe all the more discouraging at this stage that no one involved can seem to come close to pinpointing a problem, much less addressing it.

Evgeni Malkin gave it a shot: "I think it's our problem this year, like we score a couple goals, and we try, like, play casually, you know? We need to understand, we play against a good team, and they try to come back. We play at home, we need to control game. We take a couple bad penalties, and they change the game quick."

Hey, he speaks his second language better than I do, and he still couldn't have pushed his meaning across better. That is, if we're talking about one game.

But sorry, this can't be about seeking comfort in isolation. They've done this same stupid stuff in Newark, Ottawa, Denver, Chicago and, more than anywhere, right here. This was the Penguins' 33rd game and, at 15-12-6, they've now lost three more than they've won. They're ninth in the Eastern Conference, a slot outside the playoff picture. They can't score consistently, can't defend consistently, can't tend goal consistently, can't apply a system consistently ... man, they can't even try consistently.

What does one do with all that?

Start pointing fingers?

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Everyone loves a scapegoat when things go wrong. It's human nature. Anger is never as satisfying when vented at some collective entity, so we'll target an individual or two. We'll grumble their names with each failed touch of the puck or each goal conceded. If, say, Jack Johnson is spotted in the same camera shot as a goal-against, he's just the worst, regardless of whether or not he was doing his job.

This is why I'm normally loathe to cite only one individual when talking about team sports.

Because if I picked one in this game, it'd be Zach Aston-Reese.

I mean, this ...

... this just can't happen. It's the start of the second period, the Penguins still have their two-goal-lead, everyone just had an intermission to regain their legs, and a rookie flat-out stops skating on a backcheck -- before these frames -- prompting him to hook 34-year-old, damaged-goods Ryan Kesler.

Aston-Reese deserved both the penalty and the long, awful skate back to the bench after the Ducks' Adam Henrique converted on the power play.

Don't think he didn't know it.

"It was lazy," the kid told me afterward. "It kind of started the momentum shift toward Anaheim and ... I'm pretty disappointed with it, to be honest with you."

Full marks for candor there. He and I had a good talk the other night after his two-goal breakout about the importance of keeping his feet moving. His heart's always in the right place, as we agreed, but he often forgets to do that.

If not Aston-Reese, then, I could pick on one of the most respected athletes in hockey history for this ...

... which also can't happen, but did. Sidney Crosby tripped up Ondrej Kase less than a minute after Henrique's goal, ensuring the momentum stayed with Anaheim.

And then, less than a minute after the ensuing power play, the Ducks tied it up because of another player I can pick on for this ...

 ... which definitely can't happen, but did. Jake Guentzel crossed the attacking blue line and senselessly flung a lateral pass right back out of the zone that old friend Carter Rowney seized to set up Kiefer Sherwood's tying goal.

That got Guentzel benched for most of the rest of the period, a rarity under Sullivan.

"When you look at one of the goals tonight," the coach began in describing Guentzel's lapse without naming him, "we try to make a play on the entry and there's no ice really to play on. We have to be more disciplined in that area. We have got to be willing to put pucks behind them and generate offense in different ways. Our team, of all teams ... I think we learn it the hard way. It's something we talk about daily with our guys. But at some point it has to become part of the fabric of our identity if we're to win games more consistently."

He's right. Which is why the micro approach doesn't help much. Aston-Reese is a terrific young man who'll learn. Guentzel's all that plus an established scorer. And Crosby's always at the bottom of anyone's list of problems in any walk of life.

Some individuals do struggle and/or underachieve more than others. Malkin's been a massive disappointment five-on-five. So has Phil Kessel. The supporting cast of forwards took forever to contribute, and we're all still waiting for Derick Brassard to do absolutely anything. Kris Letang's been strong but occasionally the other Letang. Olli Maatta's looked soft at times, not least of which is that generous gap up there on the Sherwood goal. Matt Murray, Casey DeSmith and Tristan Jarry ... eh, we could do this all day.

So, to repeat, who or what is really to blame?

And if that single person or even that singular concept can't be identified, what can be done about it?

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I'll offer 10 suggestions right here, as unsolicited and unwanted as any suggestions ever, toward a solution.

In no real order:

• Get Brassard out.

This point's been made. Emphatically. Even though he's been no less invisible in the two weeks since I wrote that, there's no reason to pound the horse seven feet deep. The Penguins feel no differently than I do on this. Time to act.

• Stop rewarding Brassard for bad behavior.

As long as he's still here, he sure as hell shouldn't be put in prominent roles. When Guentzel was benched in the second period, Sullivan elevated Brassard to Crosby's line, which is just about the only time he's ever seen skating with anything special to his stride. As soon as he was returned to his usual third-line duties -- the reason he was acquired -- he reverted immediately to the standard spinning and stalling.

• Get Teddy Blueger up here.

Sure, this is small. But he's done his part to support Jim Rutherford's statement over the summer that he's ready for the NHL by leading Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in scoring, he's creative in tight quarters, he's contentious at both ends, he showed me more in training camp and the preseason than Brassard has in months and, judging by his interview with our Taylor Haase over the weekend, he sure sounds like he won't exactly be intimidated.

He'd be newer, younger and, most important, different than whoever he'd replace. Think of it that way.

• Catch everyone's attention.

Benching Guentzel for half a period gets noticed. Scratching Riley Sheahan for a full game gets semi-noticed. But one thing Sullivan's yet to do -- and, really, not many coaches in the Penguins' star-studded history have been able to do -- is to make that major move that demands attention from everyone.

I'm not sure what that is, though I did think so little of Malkin's showing in Chicago that I at least flung out a healthy scratch as a preposterous possibility. But Sullivan knows his room. He knows the dynamic. He knows what would work and what would backfire. And he should have the license, built through two championships, to make the call he feels is right.

For sure, this was jarring to hear from the man after this game: "There has to be a level of accountability, and that falls on me. Sometimes the biggest hammer a coach has is ice time. There have been situations over the last little while where the coaching staff has utilized that. That's not something that this coaching staff likes to do. We want our guys to take ownership for their own respective games. We want them to take ownership for the way this team is going to play. I think that's an important message, as well. But certainly, we have to start heeding the lessons if we're going to start getting consistent results."

Good. Go for it.

• Support this coach.

The above can't happen until Sullivan's got everyone's complete backing. That runs down from Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle to David Morehouse to Jim Rutherford and even Crosby. That doesn't mean making some sort of silly public declaration like the dreaded vote of confidence. It simply means letting him know he's got the authority to operate as he sees fit.

When the coach publicly states he's considering cutting some players' ice time, that also might be a plea for help. Just saying.

He's worth it. He's not a good coach. He's a great one.

• Weigh physical play.

He can still get better as a coach, though, and here's one way how: See what happens when he encourages physical play.

Yeah, it's a little out there, given the NHL's unprecedented shift toward speed and possession. But just as the Penguins were near the forefront of that shift, so, too, could they be at the forefront if/when the pendulum swings back. And it will swing back to some degree, as it does in all sports over various eras. Someone somewhere is going to decide they've had enough of chasing around 5-foot-7 waterbugs, and they'll simply try to squash them.

Or not. This one's spitballing, really.

But hear this out: The Penguins weren't more engaged in any game over the past month than the other night against the Bruins. And when I canvassed the room afterward, they all spoke -- with vigor -- about having been pumped up knowing that Boston likes to come out hitting. The same has applied when they've faced the Blue Jackets, the Jets -- both of whom they beat, by the way -- and any other team that still finishes checks.

There might be something there.

• Rotate the defensemen.

There isn't always a convenient candidate as a healthy scratch, but there is always a benefit to competition. As things stand, Juuso Riikola, a passionate competitor with boundless energy among his many engaging traits, has become the default choice for the press box. That makes no sense for a team looking to get better, not stay stagnant.

Maatta and Jamie Oleksiak both have responded with gusto after healthy scratches this season. Imagine if the whole corps, aside from Letang and Brian Dumoulin, worked with that anvil overhead. Sure, Johnson, too. He gets scapegoated obscenely and unfairly, but he's hardly at the Letang/Dumoulin level.

• Let Murray earn his net back.

That's not throwing DeSmith out. That's not anointing Murray. The emphasis here is on earning back his No. 1 status. But he can't reasonably do that if the backup's getting the bulk of the starts.

I'm a big believer in this: The general fragility of these Penguins begins with what they feel about their goaltending.

No, of course, no one would ever speak a syllable of such a thing, on or off the record, probably not even to their dog or cat. That's the hockey culture. But that doesn't mean it isn't part of the thought process on the rink. Ask anyone who's played the sport, and a team's confidence, its swagger almost invariably begins in the very back. If they've got faith about what'll happen behind them, they're that much more effective at what's happening in front of them.

Murray's the best hope for that. And even if he isn't, that's got to be determined now, not later.

He should play Wednesday in Washington and Saturday in Raleigh, with DeSmith facing the Wild here Thursday.

• Challenge these leaders.

This is where it gets uncomfortable.

Because as respected -- no, revered -- as Crosby is, the cold fact is that this team's ugliest characteristics to date are coming onto the ice flat. Or, as they have of late, getting complacent on those occasions they do take a lead. And referring again to the hockey culture, a team's collective on-ice behavior is more commonly connected to the captain rather than the coach.

Crosby leads by example as well as any captain in the sport's history. He's proven that at a nearly indescribable level, from here to Vancouver to Sochi. But sometimes leading by example isn't enough.

Same goes for Malkin. As nice of a departure as it was to see him speaking after a loss, as he did on this night, he's got to stand up more often. He's got to be a presence, both on and off the ice. And more important by a mile, he's got to shake out of whatever's been dragging him down for nearly six weeks now at even-strength.

But there's more.

Remember that striking remark by Rutherford when he brought back Matt Cullen about how he felt the 2017-18 Penguins had been "missing some leadership?"

Well, Cullen's here now, and this team's as dysfunctional as it's been since Mike Johnston was behind the bench.

Bottom line: Whatever Crosby, Malkin, Cullen and anyone else is doing in there, it isn't working.

This was Malkin's reply when asked after this game what it'll take for messages to start resonating: "It's tough here because, like, we need to understand. Every game is important for us. Every game we need to play the right way. But we take a step forward ..."

Yep. And two or three back. Light another fire another way.

• Don't stop at Brassard.

The more I see, including those steps forward, the less I like about the existing roster. Even if Murray were to straighten out. Even once Justin Schultz returns. Because there isn't enough speed here to apply Sullivan's system, and there certainly isn't enough energy. It's one thing to rightly hope Bryan Rust will snap out of it because he's got what it takes when he's at his best. No one could say with a straight face that applies to Derek Grant, Garrett Wilson, maybe even Tanner Pearson.

And given that Blueger and a couple others are all that's realistically available from Wilkes-Barre, the cavalry won't come from within, as it did in the two recent Cup years.

That means Rutherford getting active.

This part of the problem, I'm convinced, can be salvaged with the right moves, not necessarily draconian ones.

There's a mounting sentiment around the NHL that blowing up is the way to go. We've seen it in New York, Vancouver, and now St. Louis is about to undertake its own. They'll send out sappy letters to the season-ticket holders bracing them for the change ahead, they'll ship out all their biggest names and promise eventual growth through youth.

But I had a fun talk after this game with the Ducks' Ryan Getzlaf. He's spent all 14 of his NHL seasons with the Anaheim franchise, going way back to when they were still 'Mighty' and including a sophomore experience of raising the Stanley Cup in 2007. He's seen the current core built around himself and Corey Perry forever but, as he brought up on his own, he's also seen the team reinvigorated -- 11 wins now in their past 13 games -- by Bob Murray making moves to support them rather than toss them out.

You know, like Rutherford did around this Pittsburgh core just a couple years back.

"I give credit to our hockey ops people for going and getting the kind of young, fast players we needed and for making it work," Getzlaf told me, regarding the Ducks. "We never felt like we needed to start completely over. We just needed to get the right players, help them along and be patient. That's starting to pay off."

Maybe Rutherford can go out and get another Hornqvist. Or 19 Hornqvists.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY