Penguins/NHL
Penguins GM Jim Rutherford held a pre-Eastern Conference Finals presser this morning and touched on a number of subjects. Here are some highlights:
— Sometimes in a coaching search, the second or third choice ends up becoming the best choice at the end of the day. When the Penguins initially went into their search for a new Wilkes Barre coach last summer, the job was Todd Nelson’s if he wanted it.
Nelson chose Detroit and the Penguins would end up hiring Sullivan whose close ties to other coaches in the organization played a big part.
Rutherford said today Rick Tocchet went “to bat” for Sullivan and it’s been widely known that Mark Recchi also gave a glowing recommendation of Sullivan.
When Rutherford hired Sullivan in the summer he knew there was always the possibility Sullivan could be behind the NHL bench.
“You always as a General Manager anticipate there could be a change,” said Rutherford.
One of the great things Sullivan has done is transform the Penguins into winners again from a mental standpoint. Yes, the Penguins won a lot of games in the past but they always seemed to have this losers mentality when it came to dealing with adversity. It’s like when things got tough, they expected to lose.
“The thing I like the most is that he [Mike Sullivan] wins,” Rutherford said of Sullivan. “He treats his top players like he treats his depth players. All of the players respect that.”
On making the coaching change in December, Rutherford said today that in training camp he could see there wasn’t something right with this club.
“There was something about this team that wasn’t right,” Rutherford said. “We weren’t playing the [type of] style to make us successful. We had to change.”
“When we made the coaching change, there was an immediate change between players and the coach.”
Good thing Rutherford didn’t go with Randy Carlyle who the Penguins kicked some tires on in the weeks prior to firing Mike Johnston.
— One glaring issue with this hockey club that was obvious to everybody was how slow the Penguins were.
“Coming out of training camp, I knew we had to get quicker,” said Rutherford.
The character in the room with the likes of Matt Cullen, Trevor Daley and others is something Rutherford said can’t go unnoticed.
“We were very fortunate the guys we added were real character players,” said Rutherford.
Rutheford even indicated the character in the Penguins room is very similar to the type of character the 2006 Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes had.
— Rutherford is almost always honest even if it’s not the politically correct thing to say. The Pascal Dupuis situation, Rutherford was spot on in that it ended up being a “good fortune” To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!
The more I think about the goalie situation the more I feel for Sullivan, it really is a lose/lose situation unless the Pens win the Cup. If they lose to TB with Murray in net everyone will question/call him out for going down while hing a proven goalie on the bench, if he makes the switch to Fleury and they lose he will get questioned/called out for making the change. Basically anything short of winning the Cup and his decisions will be questioned.
Since Yodummy is on his Murray outplayed Holtby kick, let’s take a second an look at Game 6 again in Game 6 Holtby had to make 5-7 great saves to keep is team in the game, Murray was rarely tested throughout the game and gave up 3 goals that were all saveable shots. Breaking it down for those who have a hard time understanding what they are watching when they watch the games, Holtby was much better than Murray but the Pens as a team were much better than the Caps and prevailed.
High danger chances were 18-10 Pens.
Even more so, OV says it was the goalie and not the team speed… any wonder this guy has not been out of the second round? Like yoda he looks at the easy piece to blame. Going against the speed is hard work, OV only brought that for about 4 or 5 periods!
Yoda going full yoda here again hey
Not surprisingly I am having significant problems confirming yoda’s claim to what OV said. I mean you think they would have that in print somewhere
see instant buzz: Ovechkin’s Response: “No, I think it was their goalie,” said Ovechkin via Zac Boyer of the Washington Times.
Whoops lol… I stand corrected… not available anywhere online oddly
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/11/capitals-penguins-stanley-cup-win-difficult/
For what its worth, this is the only piece from the reporter in question I could find!
I have read two articles in the times post game 6 so far D… what is the source of what Ovechkin said?
It was a closed door twitter response… “Ovechkin may not feel like the Pens speed was an issue, but the Caps bottom 6 and a few of their d-men may have disagreed with that.” was a reply by Bill West of the Trib… on twitter… “To be fair, Ovi’s view of Pens speed is prob a little different than Caps’ bot-6 forwards. Still notable quote tho.”
ovechkin said matt murray was the difference not the pens speed. every st.bleury lover in pgh will tell you differently, it was the pens speed not matt murray. i’ll take the word of the best goal scorer in hockey over dk or the fat pig mark madden or the fan boy rob rossi.
And the opinion of a fat pig Henrik Lundqvist fan boy should be taken more seriously?
Because professional athletes are always 100% truthful with the media. Anyone that watched the game and actually knew what they were watching would know that the difference was the entire team, not the goalies.
completely hilarious that rutherford still had to answer questions about who is starting, murray or st.bleury. the fan boy love by the media is completely out of control. st.bleury must donate $hit loads of cash to the sports writers chairites. it is the most bizarre thing i’ve ever seen in sports. a goaltender out performs the guy who is going to win the vezina and they still want st.bleury in there so bad. it’s so weird.
The Pens outperformed the Caps, Hotlby was actually quite superior to Murray in all but 1 game but it wasn’t enough to overcome the advantage the Pens held on the Caps everywhere else.
Dude you spew the same shit multiple times a day in multiple different articles. Are you this bored? What do you do for a living? Seriously.
Your so funny i forgot to laugh bro
since the 09 cup win, st.bleury’s series winning percentage is 29%. vokoun’s is 67%, murray’s is 100%. this story fails to mention the #1 reseason why the penguins are advancing. they now have a reliable goaltender in the net who you can depend on.
Kessel is the #1 reason. #America
how about this, the pens get a new goalie and go to the conference finals. that hasn’t happened since the last time the pens had a different goalie other than st.bluery. maybe st.bleury is the loser. when the team does great he isn’t in the net.
Yep that’s the only thing that has changed so it has to be the only factor in why they’ve made it this far.
i need you to respond with a one word answer. i bet you are too much of a coward to do it. since the cup win in 2009, st.bleury is 2-5 in playoff series, vokoun is 2-1 and murray is 2-0. true or false?
What’s sid’s record….
that statement is illogical. skaters are not awarded wins and loses only goaltenders. if you’d like to participate in the question, simply write true or false.
You know what sounds illogical? Awarding merely goaltenders wins and losses. I’m pretty sure that was the point.
True. What’s the point though?
actually, the team got worse. the 2010-2012 pens were by far better than what we have now. the goalie has the biggest impact on the game. no st.bluery, now they are winning.
Holy shit do you ever stop
I see npl you are doing good in the Bracket challenge on the nhl site
btw who is ZTD