It's not unusual for NHL coaches to have a shorter shelf life than raw milk. For whatever reason, players often seem to sour on them faster than their peers in any other team sport.
But even though Mike Sullivan has been coaching the Penguins for nearly five years, he said Wednesday that he doesn't believe their back-to-back postseason flameouts indicate that his message has begun to go rancid with the guys he leads.
"I felt as though the message was fairly clear for a lot of the season, so that would suggest to me that what the coaching staff is preaching is resonating with guys," Sullivan said. "For a lot of the year, we had fairly decent success. That doesn't make the result (of a qualifying-round loss to Montreal) any easier. We understand that when a team such as ours has the expectations that it has and we don't meet those expectations, then all of us need to take ownership for that. But I believe that I have a good relationship with our core guys. It's always been a very transparent, candid relationship, and I will continue to communicate with those guys in that fashion."
Sullivan's effectiveness is just one issue that's been under scrutiny since the Penguins' stunning four-game defeat by the Canadiens. The early fallout from that loss includes assistant coaches Mark Recchi, Jacques Martin and Sergei Gonchar being told that their contracts will not be renewed.
Sullivan's job is safe, but he accepted a measure of culpability, too.
"It starts with me," he said. "I've got to do a better job in making sure that we put this team in the best possible position to succeed."
That doesn't mean he is second-guessing any specific decisions made during the Montreal series, regardless of whether they pertain to personnel or tactics. Not yet, anyway.
"I'm not sure what I would have done differently, at this point." he said. "We try to make the best decisions that we can to try to help the team win. That's the criteria we always try to utilize when drilling down into the details. I thought that for a significant part of the series, we were a pretty good hockey team. There were certain areas where we could have gotten better that maybe would have changed the result, but as far as what we would do differently, that's something we're all going to have to try our best to answer moving forward."
Although Sullivan's assistants and, most likely, quite a few of his players will be different in 2020-21, it doesn't sound as if he's considering any significant alterations to the skating-oriented game the Penguins have played during his tenure.
"We built a certain style of play here that we think gives our core players the best chance to be successful, based on the strengths of the group that we have," he said. "And based on the (regular season) that we had, we feel as though we've had a lot of success playing a certain way. Certainly, we will sit down as a group and figure out what changes we need to make, in order for us to try to continue to get better and improve."
Sullivan didn't dispute Jim Rutherford's contention the players failed to perform with anything close to the expected levels of desperation and urgency when facing elimination in each of their past two postseason appearances, but neither did he offer any specific ways to deal with it.
"The only way to address it is to see it for what it is, and to have a discussion about it, figure out how to get better at it," he said. "That's been my approach in trying to solve all problems with the team. Trying to have a candid approach and an honest assessment of where everybody's at and how we move forward as a group."
That there will be changes to the on-ice personnel is a given, if only because of constraints imposed by the salary-cap ceiling of $81.5 million. Sullivan, though, declined to say precisely what kind of players he would like to add to the mix before next season.
"You're asking me to break down our roster at this point, figure out where we need to improve and get better," he said. "That's a question I'm sure we'll try to answer here moving forward. It's a tough question to answer (immediately) after such an emotional loss."
He did, however, endorse Rutherford's suggestion that the Penguins could benefit from adding some younger players.
"Jim and I have always both been big believers in a combination of youth with our veteran leadership," Sullivan said. "An element of youth on a team is good for a team. Usually, guys are hungry and enthusiastic and they're trying to prove themselves and establish themselves, and that enthusiasm can become contagious."
Mind you, the Penguins' passion for their work was a non-issue for most of the regular season, when they compiled a 40-23-6 record despite having to cope with a seemingly endless series of injuries to key players.
"For such a significant portion of the season, we felt really good about our team, and the direction it was going," Sullivan said. "And, quite honestly, the results we were getting. So we felt like we were, in some of the areas where we needed to improve and get better, we felt as though we were certainly set ... to do that."
The goal, though, is to contend for Stanley Cups, not to simply put together solid regular seasons. Consequently, this does not figure to be a result offseason for anyone inside the organization.
Especially Sullivan.
"It's very disappointing," he said. "It's disappointing for all of us, the players included. This is an emotional time for me, because I know how hard everyone worked to put this team in the best possible position to have success. But hard work doesn't always guarantee success. So we've got to make sure that we all soul-search. I know we've got a committed group, from a work-ethic standpoint, but we've got to translate that into results, and we fell short this year. We all have to take responsibility for it. ... And it starts with me."
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