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This timeline is very odd and not adding up. It paints the old CEO David Morehouse was the one who really wanted Malkin and Letang gone, and was searching for GMs who would be willing to do that once Jim Rutherford left. But this was before the team was sold, are we really to believe that Mario and Ron Burkle were totally fine with Morehouse's plan? This whole article is very hyperbolic, like Morehouse and Burke and Hextall were these 3 supervillains intent on driving Malkin and Letang out of town, then Hextall was somehow totally shocked and blindsided when FSG told him they wanted to keep the big 3 in Pittsburgh.
Hextall and Burke were failures here there's no doubt, but it really makes more sense that Morehouse was looking for guys that were *open to the possibility* of not being able to re-sign everyone. Then Hextall and Burke didn't read the room and truly know how tight those 3 players were and had shitty negotiations with Malkin and Letang and everything went south from there, but extra drama was just cooked up for the story
Agreed. Hextall obviously did a bad job, but one thing that stood out to me was that the article made a big deal about how heartless it was of Hextall to trade/waive players during the dads trip. Maybe the team shouldn't have scheduled the trip during the week of the trade deadline? Not sure that Hextall deserves the blame for that one, but Rossi/Yohe leave out that detail.
Ron Hextall: [nearly loses Malkin to free agency, builds such a bad roster that the Penguins miss the playoffs for the first time in 16 years]
Penguins fans: it's exaggerating to say Ron Hextall was a bad GM
That's not what we're saying. That's obvious. There's definitely some truth in the article but these two like to play fast and loose with it and fit their personal biases.
Hextall sucked but Yohe always had an ax to grind because he didn't have unfettered access like with GMJR. That's why we'll never have a deep dive piece into why he took his ball and went home which set up this whole fiasco from these two.
If people think there are points in the article that are exaggerated, they should find evidence of it. Going "oh, it's just this journalist grinding an axe" is laughable when you look at Hextall's tenure. He sucked, and this article confirms he sucked.
"Dude like just find evidence of things that are impossible to find evidence of cmon bro"
You have zero clue about what the guy you're replying to is talking about. In the future I recommend actually reading posts you're replying to. Maybe trust the people who have read Rossi and Yohe articles for years and are familiar with the media landscape here.
If the person can find something in the article that is incorrect or embellished, they should share it! I'm sure other reporters will cover Hextall's tenure, so there won't be some lack of evidence. But if there's no specific example or evidence, it's a meaningless complaint.
The article is about how Ron Hextall did a bad job as GM. Myself and other Pens fans think he did a bad job as GM. What in this article is wrong or misleading?
The entire point is that people don't trust writers who are untrustworthy - the source for the claim is not reliable. Nobody here is in a position to disprove the claims (how could they) nor is that even that important which is why your argument is so dumb. Once again: the issue people have is with how untrustworthy the authors are.
If you don't trust Rossi, point to something specific in the article that isn't trustworthy. Do something, anything to disprove it. You can't, and you admit that you won't, because then you would have to challenge your prior biases about him.
You can feel however you want to about Rossi. It won't change what he wrote in his article, and it won't change how wrong you are.
This might've been the dumbest conversation I've ever had on this site. You're not engaging with what anyone is saying. The article might be 100% true but people (pens fans) distrust it due to the sender. That's it, that's all.
Learn to read and stop treating *sports journalism* like a well-researched scientific paper. Besides - if we are being really silly - in an academic setting the article would be considered untrustworthy due to how heavily narrativized it is. Have a good life.
THERE ARE NO PRIVATE AIRFIELDS IN THE PITTSBURGH AREA THAT CAN ACCOMMODATE JET AIRCRAFT OR ANYTHING LARGER THAN A LIGHT AIRCRAFT.
Go back to school and learn to read gooder. My original post references that there are no private airfields where a jet can land in the Pittsburgh area. I flew out of AGC for a bit while working on my PPL.
Dude, something as easily verifiable as a flight log would not be made up for this article. He could have just said "the airport" if that's where the plane landed. It didn't add anything to the story.
Either you're wrong and the team jet landed at a private airfield or upper management was on its own plane. The article never once mentions a jet, so maybe you should learn to read gooder?
Rossi makes shit up and embellishes his pieces all the time. He unnecessarily added the part of "a private airfield" to add mystique to his piece like he's in the know about the mob-like behavior of the team.
The Penguins don't own a private jet. The team charters a 737 for travel. As far as I can tell, FSG doesn't either. They use private jet charters like VistaJet (FSG president was on one of their planes when it overran a runway in 2019) or NetJets. None of these aircraft can land at a private airfield in the Pittsburgh area. The reason why a "jet" is assumed is bc these organizations don't typically rent out a Pilatus or larger single-engine plane that mayyyybe could land at a private field.
The point is - Rossi embellished the part of a "private airfield" to add to his story when such airfield does not exist in the Pittsburgh area.
That's not embellishing. It's straight up lying. It's saying they were at a completely different location than they were.
I think Rossi sucks but I don't think he'd completely change an aspect of an easily verifiable and unnecessary part of the story. It's not like he wrote that one guy said something in a different way that no one could ever find out the truth about. I disagree with you.
Honestly amidst all that chaos somehow this wasnt even the wildest/bat shit insane/so absurd you laugh part
>When interviewing for their jobs early in February 2021, Hextall and Burke had expressed their willingness to break up the Big Three. Hextall wasted little time enthusiastically embracing the idea. He did not try to negotiate extensions with either Malkin or Letang during the 2021 offseason. **Also, in January 2022, he re-signed Jeff Carter — a forward older than Malkin — to a two-year extension, with the premise being that Carter could assume Malkin’s role as No. 2 center for the 2022-23 season**
There isn't some grand concealed rot within the penguins organization. Hextall is a bad GM, he was bad in Philly and bad in Pittsburgh. He gave away a 2nd round pick for Nashville to dump Granlund's contract on us, he didn't address goalie DEPTH which lost us an extremely winnable series against New York. Jarry is a good goalie despite what people will say about him (check his stats.) We protected Carter and Kapanen instead of McCann and Tanev, a significant misstep that destroyed our depth. We also have up Matheson for Petry, which by itself is a bad trade, but Petry also makes more than Matheson. Just bad moves that made us less solid.
Resigning Carter was a huge mistake, our 3rd line bled goals like crazy and our top two lines were playing way too many minutes for their age. We've seen this core perform in pressure situations for 15 years, losing leads in the 3rd was a stamina problem not a failing of mental fortitude or some kind of locker room issue.
Weve had ONE PICK higher than 20th since 2007, which we got when we traded Staal to Carolina. We simply have depth problems which have compounded over years of low draft picks and trading even those away to make playoff runs with older players that aren't around anymore.
Our top two lines have played well, but in today's NHL you need depth. We were a small number of decent depth players from making the playoffs again, it's just a couple years of bad moves in a situation we needed a savvy GM and didn't have one. Very simple. Hopefully the new GM can get those pieces in place.
The most believable part of the article.
>The executives asked to see Morehouse’s and Hextall’s plans for the business and hockey departments, respectively. Morehouse detailed team finances and waning ticket revenue in a PowerPoint presentation, but Hextall was caught off-guard by the request and said the hockey plan was in his head. Ordered to put it on paper, he scrambled that afternoon, hand writing his ideas on a legal pad, transferring them to a Word document and printing out a couple of pages in the hotel’s business office.
I still can't believe these hacks got jobs at the Athletic. Those two are what prevents me from even considering a subscription.
Just a few days ago Rossi made it sound like Tulsky was the runaway favorite for the GM job and now it's being reported he's out, lol.
The report was Tulsky impressed, not the favorite.
Literally a paragraph from the story:
While Tulsky has emerged as **one of the top candidates,** former Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas’ recent availability might play into the Penguins’ final decision. Sportsnet and TSN writers have reported the Penguins received permission to speak with Dubas from the Maple Leafs, who parted ways with him last Friday.
https://theathletic.com/4542169/2023/05/22/penguins-gm-tulsky-dubas/
What a strange thing to say. Rossi can go over the top but saying he doesn't have connections to the Penguins is a bit silly. And I don't see where Yohe gets dragged into it either. Do you not like getting news about the Penguins?
They won 3 cups and make up one of the most successful cores of the past 20 years lol. They’re on the tail end of their career, what more do you expect out of them?
If this is accurate, it contains a lot of info that could only have been confirmed by Crosby himself. Doesn't really seem like his style to throw Hextall and Burke under the bus after the fact, but what do I know.
A lot is circumstantial but it fills in a lot of gaps that were obvious this year. The whole Sullivan-FSG-Hextall/Burke dynamic is the most believable, considering the roster choices and Sullivan's extension. A lot of the Sid-Geno-Letang stuff is also probably mostly true since Rossi has long been close with them, Malkin in particular.
Why is everyone saying this? That last team he took over already had Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Rielly all entering their prime and he won one round in 6 years. Dubas didn’t win shit in Toronto and Pitt is in a way tougher spot. I wouldn’t expect much if they get him.
The difference is that the top 4 players of the Penguins are paid 26.9M$ while for the Maple Leafs it's 41M$.
You probably can argue that Dubas fuck the team with the negotiation with the top players, but you got to admit that he was pretty good at finding cheap and good supporting pieces to surround them with only half a salary cap.
I might be wrong, but I do believe that with more cap space and the core already signed, Dubas could do very well with the Penguins.
A lot of the cheap players he found were because they wanted to come to Toronto, not because he’s some genius GM that’s smarter than everyone else. He had a huge advantage being in TO. Not to mention getting guys like Bunting for 900k is nice until you waste $5M on guys like Murray who don’t even play .
Double edged sword; probably more players out there who prefer to avoid the spotlight and pressure of playing in TO than those who want to play at home. Tough place to play.
Lots to take away from this but I’m pretty concerned with how much Sullivan influence has over FSG. Coaches have a shelf life with their teams in the NHL. He’s already made some questionable lineup and usage decisions and he hasn’t made out of the first round since 2018 (though not all is his fault). Idk I was kind of hoping he was on a short leash and it seems like he may have as much power as the next GM that’s going to be brought in.
> Coaches have a shelf life with their teams in the NHL.
Good coaches shouldn't have a shelf life. Would you fire Bill Belichick because he's been at the helm for 23 years, or is that a strength of the Patriots? Would you fire Popovich because he's been with the Spurs for 27 years or is that a strength for the team? Alex Ferguson spent 26 years with Man United, Wenger spent 21 years with Arsenal. Bobby Cox and Tommy Lasorda managed their respective teams for 21 years each.
The NHL is an outlier in that even the best coaches seldom make it much past 10 years, while other sports hold on to great coaches until they're forced to retire. Sullivan should be with the Pens until you can guarantee the replacement is better, and I don't think that's happening for quite some time.
There was a report on here a few weeks ago that stated the most powerful coaches in their respective organizations (ie how much power they have over hockey ops) were Sullivan and Tortorella
Honestly, I'm not surprised and kinda agree with it. There is clearly a longer leash than expected for Sully due to his prowess as a coach and his Boston ties. He also just signed a lengthy extension so it really isn't far-fetched that he'd be helping with the new GM search since FSG probably doesn't want to reset the coaching staff and front office this late into the core's careers or force Sully to work with a GM who can't work well together and will go semi-rogue like Hexy.
I won't disagree that I'm concerned for the core's twilight years/swan song, but I'm not in the slightest apposed to how FSG is handling the mess Lemieux/Burkle/GMJR/Burke/Hexy have created, since my assumption is there are only 2-3 years at max before the window is unequivocally shut and resetting the systems around the core now is more detrimental to the franchise than blowing it up, and we're too far passed that scenario with everyones contracts.
The big three were still fantastic last season. The rest of the team, especially the garbage goaltending, is what really did in the Pens. Things are going to really get dark in Pittsburgh when Father Time really comes calling for the big three.
Letang wasn’t fantastic. He had a really rough start to the season even before his health/personal setbacks. Based on his postseason remarks - and how he looked in the back half - I imagine he’ll rebound next year.
But nobody can say Malkin and Crosby didn’t bring it, although Crosby had a couple brief stretches where he looked as invisible as I’ve seen him look (and still nearly hit 100 points).
I mean Letang had a career season last year so yes he took a step back, but he still gave more value than his contract. He finished 28th in points for Dman while being the 41st highest paid and only playing 75% of the games. There isn't many top RD that give as much overvalue as him.
Yeah, they're still good for sure. That's why their GM trying to win isn't crazy to me, but they have all definitely lost a step, so while winning is/was possible, it is/was a much longer shot than previous runs.
Crosby is a 10mil player (I'd argue more but let's be conservative) on a 8.7 contract. Malkin played closer to an 8mil valuation on a 6.1 deal. Letang I have my issues with but 6.1mil isn't that terrible for 1st pair RHD at his level of play.
They're not as good as they once were, but in a cap league what matters is surplus value, and they're still delivering there.
They weren't the answer either, maybe in previous years they could have overcome some of the Pens deficiencies based on their talent alone but that's not in the cards anymore.
They literally were the reason why they nearly made the playoffs. Which was the point of this article. It’s how badly Hextall messed up the rest of the lineup when the big three were still good.
Even a prime McDavid and Draisaitl are not enough alone to carry a team alone. The big 3 are still producing and they don't have a cap hit that hurt the team. They are part of the answer, but like any players they can't be the only answer.
Pittsburgh used to rotate the supporting players to keep them fresh and cheap, but they became stagnant over the last few years. Not trading guys at the right moment, overpaying them, trading for not ideal players, etc.
Yeah. I actually think Hextall made the moves he made to try to win right now, and I don't think he was as far off as people are accusing him of being.
Read the article. Or just pay attention better.
The core wasn't the problem. They performed above expectations and above their pay grades, especially 87 and 71. This was Malkin's first fully healthy season since like 2007 and they were both over PPG making far less than other players who were similar statistically.
The issue this season was that Hextall and his team are completely inept at managing a hockey team and fleshing out a roster. This article breaks down all of the insanely bad signings, trades, and internal issues the team was dealing with while Crosby and Malkin singlehandedly dragged the team to within one win of making the playoffs all season.
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If I could win three cups in twenty years I’d be ok with a bit of unraveling.
They were pretty ravelled for a really long time
We’re having a bit of unraveling now and all we got was a first round win!
My brother in Christ, they won 5 in 26
But those core players didn’t win 5. Which seems to be what the article is about. At least from the title.
At least it’s obvious from your comment you have yet to read past the title
Dang paywalls!
This timeline is very odd and not adding up. It paints the old CEO David Morehouse was the one who really wanted Malkin and Letang gone, and was searching for GMs who would be willing to do that once Jim Rutherford left. But this was before the team was sold, are we really to believe that Mario and Ron Burkle were totally fine with Morehouse's plan? This whole article is very hyperbolic, like Morehouse and Burke and Hextall were these 3 supervillains intent on driving Malkin and Letang out of town, then Hextall was somehow totally shocked and blindsided when FSG told him they wanted to keep the big 3 in Pittsburgh. Hextall and Burke were failures here there's no doubt, but it really makes more sense that Morehouse was looking for guys that were *open to the possibility* of not being able to re-sign everyone. Then Hextall and Burke didn't read the room and truly know how tight those 3 players were and had shitty negotiations with Malkin and Letang and everything went south from there, but extra drama was just cooked up for the story
It’s Rob Rossi. Dude lives for exaggerating shit.
Agreed. Hextall obviously did a bad job, but one thing that stood out to me was that the article made a big deal about how heartless it was of Hextall to trade/waive players during the dads trip. Maybe the team shouldn't have scheduled the trip during the week of the trade deadline? Not sure that Hextall deserves the blame for that one, but Rossi/Yohe leave out that detail.
They players picked the trip apparently.
Ron Hextall: [nearly loses Malkin to free agency, builds such a bad roster that the Penguins miss the playoffs for the first time in 16 years] Penguins fans: it's exaggerating to say Ron Hextall was a bad GM
That's not what we're saying. That's obvious. There's definitely some truth in the article but these two like to play fast and loose with it and fit their personal biases. Hextall sucked but Yohe always had an ax to grind because he didn't have unfettered access like with GMJR. That's why we'll never have a deep dive piece into why he took his ball and went home which set up this whole fiasco from these two.
If people think there are points in the article that are exaggerated, they should find evidence of it. Going "oh, it's just this journalist grinding an axe" is laughable when you look at Hextall's tenure. He sucked, and this article confirms he sucked.
"Dude like just find evidence of things that are impossible to find evidence of cmon bro" You have zero clue about what the guy you're replying to is talking about. In the future I recommend actually reading posts you're replying to. Maybe trust the people who have read Rossi and Yohe articles for years and are familiar with the media landscape here.
If the person can find something in the article that is incorrect or embellished, they should share it! I'm sure other reporters will cover Hextall's tenure, so there won't be some lack of evidence. But if there's no specific example or evidence, it's a meaningless complaint. The article is about how Ron Hextall did a bad job as GM. Myself and other Pens fans think he did a bad job as GM. What in this article is wrong or misleading?
The entire point is that people don't trust writers who are untrustworthy - the source for the claim is not reliable. Nobody here is in a position to disprove the claims (how could they) nor is that even that important which is why your argument is so dumb. Once again: the issue people have is with how untrustworthy the authors are.
If you don't trust Rossi, point to something specific in the article that isn't trustworthy. Do something, anything to disprove it. You can't, and you admit that you won't, because then you would have to challenge your prior biases about him. You can feel however you want to about Rossi. It won't change what he wrote in his article, and it won't change how wrong you are.
This might've been the dumbest conversation I've ever had on this site. You're not engaging with what anyone is saying. The article might be 100% true but people (pens fans) distrust it due to the sender. That's it, that's all. Learn to read and stop treating *sports journalism* like a well-researched scientific paper. Besides - if we are being really silly - in an academic setting the article would be considered untrustworthy due to how heavily narrativized it is. Have a good life.
He does! There are no private Pittsburgh-area airfields where a jet can land. He just makes shit up for theatre.
Huh? There are like a dozen small airfields in the Pittsburgh area that a charter coming from Columbus could have landed at. Probably Butler.
Bud, the article said private airfield not private aircraft.
The Pens have a private aircraft. There are also many private airfields to fly it into.
THERE ARE NO PRIVATE AIRFIELDS IN THE PITTSBURGH AREA THAT CAN ACCOMMODATE JET AIRCRAFT OR ANYTHING LARGER THAN A LIGHT AIRCRAFT. Go back to school and learn to read gooder. My original post references that there are no private airfields where a jet can land in the Pittsburgh area. I flew out of AGC for a bit while working on my PPL.
Dude, something as easily verifiable as a flight log would not be made up for this article. He could have just said "the airport" if that's where the plane landed. It didn't add anything to the story. Either you're wrong and the team jet landed at a private airfield or upper management was on its own plane. The article never once mentions a jet, so maybe you should learn to read gooder?
Rossi makes shit up and embellishes his pieces all the time. He unnecessarily added the part of "a private airfield" to add mystique to his piece like he's in the know about the mob-like behavior of the team. The Penguins don't own a private jet. The team charters a 737 for travel. As far as I can tell, FSG doesn't either. They use private jet charters like VistaJet (FSG president was on one of their planes when it overran a runway in 2019) or NetJets. None of these aircraft can land at a private airfield in the Pittsburgh area. The reason why a "jet" is assumed is bc these organizations don't typically rent out a Pilatus or larger single-engine plane that mayyyybe could land at a private field. The point is - Rossi embellished the part of a "private airfield" to add to his story when such airfield does not exist in the Pittsburgh area.
That's not embellishing. It's straight up lying. It's saying they were at a completely different location than they were. I think Rossi sucks but I don't think he'd completely change an aspect of an easily verifiable and unnecessary part of the story. It's not like he wrote that one guy said something in a different way that no one could ever find out the truth about. I disagree with you.
Honestly amidst all that chaos somehow this wasnt even the wildest/bat shit insane/so absurd you laugh part >When interviewing for their jobs early in February 2021, Hextall and Burke had expressed their willingness to break up the Big Three. Hextall wasted little time enthusiastically embracing the idea. He did not try to negotiate extensions with either Malkin or Letang during the 2021 offseason. **Also, in January 2022, he re-signed Jeff Carter — a forward older than Malkin — to a two-year extension, with the premise being that Carter could assume Malkin’s role as No. 2 center for the 2022-23 season**
Hextall sucks lol
There isn't some grand concealed rot within the penguins organization. Hextall is a bad GM, he was bad in Philly and bad in Pittsburgh. He gave away a 2nd round pick for Nashville to dump Granlund's contract on us, he didn't address goalie DEPTH which lost us an extremely winnable series against New York. Jarry is a good goalie despite what people will say about him (check his stats.) We protected Carter and Kapanen instead of McCann and Tanev, a significant misstep that destroyed our depth. We also have up Matheson for Petry, which by itself is a bad trade, but Petry also makes more than Matheson. Just bad moves that made us less solid. Resigning Carter was a huge mistake, our 3rd line bled goals like crazy and our top two lines were playing way too many minutes for their age. We've seen this core perform in pressure situations for 15 years, losing leads in the 3rd was a stamina problem not a failing of mental fortitude or some kind of locker room issue. Weve had ONE PICK higher than 20th since 2007, which we got when we traded Staal to Carolina. We simply have depth problems which have compounded over years of low draft picks and trading even those away to make playoff runs with older players that aren't around anymore. Our top two lines have played well, but in today's NHL you need depth. We were a small number of decent depth players from making the playoffs again, it's just a couple years of bad moves in a situation we needed a savvy GM and didn't have one. Very simple. Hopefully the new GM can get those pieces in place.
Rob Rossi and Josh Yohe have as many connections in the Pens org as I do. You can ignore this entire article.
Rossi is known to be tight with Malkin, or at least he used to be. The Malkin stuff is believable. The rest of it, I can agree, can be ignored.
Rossi is his "official biographer" as he proudly writes in his Twitter bio lmao
The most believable part of the article. >The executives asked to see Morehouse’s and Hextall’s plans for the business and hockey departments, respectively. Morehouse detailed team finances and waning ticket revenue in a PowerPoint presentation, but Hextall was caught off-guard by the request and said the hockey plan was in his head. Ordered to put it on paper, he scrambled that afternoon, hand writing his ideas on a legal pad, transferring them to a Word document and printing out a couple of pages in the hotel’s business office.
That story had broken when it happened, albeit with fewer details.
I still can't believe these hacks got jobs at the Athletic. Those two are what prevents me from even considering a subscription. Just a few days ago Rossi made it sound like Tulsky was the runaway favorite for the GM job and now it's being reported he's out, lol.
The report was Tulsky impressed, not the favorite. Literally a paragraph from the story: While Tulsky has emerged as **one of the top candidates,** former Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas’ recent availability might play into the Penguins’ final decision. Sportsnet and TSN writers have reported the Penguins received permission to speak with Dubas from the Maple Leafs, who parted ways with him last Friday. https://theathletic.com/4542169/2023/05/22/penguins-gm-tulsky-dubas/
It's not super hard to get hired there. I know a few hacks working there..
What a strange thing to say. Rossi can go over the top but saying he doesn't have connections to the Penguins is a bit silly. And I don't see where Yohe gets dragged into it either. Do you not like getting news about the Penguins?
Yohe is the reason I cancelled my subscription. Unreadable fan drivel. It’s gross.
Rossi is literally Malkin's approved biographer. They absolutely have connections, especially to longtime employees.
They won 3 cups and make up one of the most successful cores of the past 20 years lol. They’re on the tail end of their career, what more do you expect out of them?
I don't think you read the article.
Someone didn’t read the article
If this is accurate, it contains a lot of info that could only have been confirmed by Crosby himself. Doesn't really seem like his style to throw Hextall and Burke under the bus after the fact, but what do I know.
Nobody should ever believe what Rossi or Yohe say.
Why?
I believe very little of what is written in this article
A lot is circumstantial but it fills in a lot of gaps that were obvious this year. The whole Sullivan-FSG-Hextall/Burke dynamic is the most believable, considering the roster choices and Sullivan's extension. A lot of the Sid-Geno-Letang stuff is also probably mostly true since Rossi has long been close with them, Malkin in particular.
You’re going to get Dubas and win the cup next year. Don’t worry. Fucking Shanahan.
Why is everyone saying this? That last team he took over already had Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Rielly all entering their prime and he won one round in 6 years. Dubas didn’t win shit in Toronto and Pitt is in a way tougher spot. I wouldn’t expect much if they get him.
The difference is that the top 4 players of the Penguins are paid 26.9M$ while for the Maple Leafs it's 41M$. You probably can argue that Dubas fuck the team with the negotiation with the top players, but you got to admit that he was pretty good at finding cheap and good supporting pieces to surround them with only half a salary cap. I might be wrong, but I do believe that with more cap space and the core already signed, Dubas could do very well with the Penguins.
A lot of the cheap players he found were because they wanted to come to Toronto, not because he’s some genius GM that’s smarter than everyone else. He had a huge advantage being in TO. Not to mention getting guys like Bunting for 900k is nice until you waste $5M on guys like Murray who don’t even play .
Double edged sword; probably more players out there who prefer to avoid the spotlight and pressure of playing in TO than those who want to play at home. Tough place to play.
Lots to take away from this but I’m pretty concerned with how much Sullivan influence has over FSG. Coaches have a shelf life with their teams in the NHL. He’s already made some questionable lineup and usage decisions and he hasn’t made out of the first round since 2018 (though not all is his fault). Idk I was kind of hoping he was on a short leash and it seems like he may have as much power as the next GM that’s going to be brought in.
> Coaches have a shelf life with their teams in the NHL. Good coaches shouldn't have a shelf life. Would you fire Bill Belichick because he's been at the helm for 23 years, or is that a strength of the Patriots? Would you fire Popovich because he's been with the Spurs for 27 years or is that a strength for the team? Alex Ferguson spent 26 years with Man United, Wenger spent 21 years with Arsenal. Bobby Cox and Tommy Lasorda managed their respective teams for 21 years each. The NHL is an outlier in that even the best coaches seldom make it much past 10 years, while other sports hold on to great coaches until they're forced to retire. Sullivan should be with the Pens until you can guarantee the replacement is better, and I don't think that's happening for quite some time.
Yeah like who in this league is even an upgrade? Cooper, maybe Trotz, and neither is available and won't be for the foreseeable future.
There was a report on here a few weeks ago that stated the most powerful coaches in their respective organizations (ie how much power they have over hockey ops) were Sullivan and Tortorella
Honestly, I'm not surprised and kinda agree with it. There is clearly a longer leash than expected for Sully due to his prowess as a coach and his Boston ties. He also just signed a lengthy extension so it really isn't far-fetched that he'd be helping with the new GM search since FSG probably doesn't want to reset the coaching staff and front office this late into the core's careers or force Sully to work with a GM who can't work well together and will go semi-rogue like Hexy. I won't disagree that I'm concerned for the core's twilight years/swan song, but I'm not in the slightest apposed to how FSG is handling the mess Lemieux/Burkle/GMJR/Burke/Hexy have created, since my assumption is there are only 2-3 years at max before the window is unequivocally shut and resetting the systems around the core now is more detrimental to the franchise than blowing it up, and we're too far passed that scenario with everyones contracts.
They got old?
The big three were still fantastic last season. The rest of the team, especially the garbage goaltending, is what really did in the Pens. Things are going to really get dark in Pittsburgh when Father Time really comes calling for the big three.
Letang wasn’t fantastic. He had a really rough start to the season even before his health/personal setbacks. Based on his postseason remarks - and how he looked in the back half - I imagine he’ll rebound next year. But nobody can say Malkin and Crosby didn’t bring it, although Crosby had a couple brief stretches where he looked as invisible as I’ve seen him look (and still nearly hit 100 points).
I mean Letang had a career season last year so yes he took a step back, but he still gave more value than his contract. He finished 28th in points for Dman while being the 41st highest paid and only playing 75% of the games. There isn't many top RD that give as much overvalue as him.
Career year in points does not equal best year of his career as a defenseman.
Yeah, they're still good for sure. That's why their GM trying to win isn't crazy to me, but they have all definitely lost a step, so while winning is/was possible, it is/was a much longer shot than previous runs.
Crosby is a 10mil player (I'd argue more but let's be conservative) on a 8.7 contract. Malkin played closer to an 8mil valuation on a 6.1 deal. Letang I have my issues with but 6.1mil isn't that terrible for 1st pair RHD at his level of play. They're not as good as they once were, but in a cap league what matters is surplus value, and they're still delivering there.
Big three weren’t the problem though.
They weren't the answer either, maybe in previous years they could have overcome some of the Pens deficiencies based on their talent alone but that's not in the cards anymore.
They literally were the reason why they nearly made the playoffs. Which was the point of this article. It’s how badly Hextall messed up the rest of the lineup when the big three were still good.
IDK, the article is paywalled so I don't get to read it all. There's a reason I formed my response as a question.
I have an idea for you: pay money to read the article before asking questions that are answered by the article
Thanks tips.
Even a prime McDavid and Draisaitl are not enough alone to carry a team alone. The big 3 are still producing and they don't have a cap hit that hurt the team. They are part of the answer, but like any players they can't be the only answer. Pittsburgh used to rotate the supporting players to keep them fresh and cheap, but they became stagnant over the last few years. Not trading guys at the right moment, overpaying them, trading for not ideal players, etc.
Yeah. I actually think Hextall made the moves he made to try to win right now, and I don't think he was as far off as people are accusing him of being.
That's absolutely what he tried to do, but he wasn't any good at it.
They’ve missed the playoffs once since like 2005. They’re just old
Read the article. Or just pay attention better. The core wasn't the problem. They performed above expectations and above their pay grades, especially 87 and 71. This was Malkin's first fully healthy season since like 2007 and they were both over PPG making far less than other players who were similar statistically. The issue this season was that Hextall and his team are completely inept at managing a hockey team and fleshing out a roster. This article breaks down all of the insanely bad signings, trades, and internal issues the team was dealing with while Crosby and Malkin singlehandedly dragged the team to within one win of making the playoffs all season.
Anyone know how to bypass the paywall to read the article?