WINNIPEG, Manitoba -- See, Mike Sullivan's been right all along.
It's not so much that the Penguins have been victimized by the NHL's freakish schedule that has them playing 19 sets of back-to-back games, including four in the opening month against rested opponents.
Nope. It's that these back-to-backs are basically picking at existing scabs.
"It's not the back-to-backs. It really isn't. These problems have been there the whole season so far," Carl Hagelin was telling me after his team was flattened by the Jets, 7-1, Sunday night at Bell MTS Place, this on the night after just plain old falling flat, 2-1, at Minnesota. "It feels like we need something good to happen, something to give us that confidence."
Hagelin was sitting at his stall in the tiny visitors' locker room originally built for AHL purposes, most of his sweaty uniform still sticking to him. Many of his mates were doing the same. But despite the close quarters, barely a sound seemed audible beyond Sidney Crosby giving his standard sermon, swarmed by cameras and microphones. In the corridor just outside, Jim Rutherford paced back and forth. In a room down that corridor, Sullivan and his staff met behind a closed door.
To continue reading, log into your account:
