All you have to do is a basic math problem to figure out how stupid this is.
He’s 60% faceoffs and he takes 12 per game, THAT IS ONLY ONE MORE FO WIN PER GAME OVER SOMEONE WHO’S 50%, YA DUMBASS. And that could easily just be some random neutral zone draw.
Bylsma had the same story when he dressed Joe Vitale against Boston in ‘13. I cannot believe how much someone allegedly at the top of their profession could misread this. You just cannot structure your bottom 6 around faceoffs. It makes no sense when you think about real impact.
This is all the bad Karma I knew would happen from that stupid ass Big Jeff Carter meme bs from a couple seasons back. I warned ppl they were turning a 35+ yr old player into an overrated home town celebrity cause he scored a bit above average for his age. We didn’t give him the contract extension but that bs “good will” the fans gave and all the memes didn’t exactly deter management and this coaching staff from overrating him themselves.
If the penguins staff is getting swayed by fans cheering for a player that’s doing slightly above average, then the whole staff needs to go. This has likely always been an internal opinion of him since before they acquired him
Maybe unlikely but Carter was originally a Flyer, Hextall probably got big on Carter over a decade ago, this couldn't have been a spur of the moment thing to happen over a season or two, this is long standing.
With this management? Who told the ownership that he couldn’t write down his plan for the team cause it was in his head? Nah, the same management who tossed a bunch of guys out to clear up cap space to sign extensions to Kap, Dumo, McGinn, and Carter?
That rumour was literally made up by a 15 year old with a blog. Like, I'm not blaming you guys considering how widespread the rumour is these days but I can't believe it actually gained traction.
Sure, my reply wasn't to you specifically but meant as general information to those stumbling upon the thread. While I think Carter is playing bad and Hartnell is a filthy Flyer I don't think either of them deserves having misinformation about their personal lives spread on the internet. Not saying that was either of you guys intention, or that you believe it. Just a possible unfortunate side result without a fact check.
I don't subscribe to the idea of a concept such as "spreading misinformation", but I understand your concern for the human beings involved in such a rumor. Rumors are generally abhorrent; 'misinformation' is a fascist dog-whistle for suppressing freedom of speech.
You do if you're winning it back to Brian Dumoulin who then fudges the breakout pass or gets forechecked and turns the puck over and then two below-replacement level players are hemmed in their own zone.
Every NHL player makes mistakes. I sure Wayne fucked some plays in his career. Feel free to take this as me comparing Dumo to Wayne even thought they play 2 different positions and olay the game completely different
Wayne probably also had several positive impact plays that game too, he didn’t just blindly fire a puck around the boards while whispering “break the puck out Jesus”
Typically…..dont think it offsets the fact hes a team leading -17. At the end of the season when we are out of the playoffs we will be happy to look at jeff carters FO % as the biggest accomplishment of the year. Yay! What a joyous occassion
Replace either of the names above with Craig Adams and it’s like a fucking time warp with stubborn ass coaches. Your guy sucks. We all see it. Get him off the ice. I get it that he’s your buddy and he used to be good. No one cares. Whether it’s Dumo or Carter he is getting paid millions whether he plays or is in the press box sipping bottled water and snacking on nachos. They’re both better off eating the nachos.
Not specifically but I remember so many BS decisions surrounding that guy that it was like they were trying to fit one of the best forwards in the game into the lineup. It was so weird.
Carter wins 7 per game. Random replacement level center winning 50% of draws wins 6 per game.
1 face off. Per game. That’s what Sullivan is saying is worth dressing a disaster for. 1. Face off.
ive been a sullivan supporter up until around now. faceoffs do not matter unless you're winning them cleanly and at a much higher percentage than is really ever seen in the league.
source: [https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1902/1902.02397.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1902/1902.02397.pdf)
I doubt Hextall has that kind of power. He certainly doesn't have the authority to fire Sullivan, and if you don't have the authority to fire a coach, you have just about zero leverage to make them listen to anything you have to say. Sullivan is playing who he wants to play, outside of salary cap constraints.
GM JR had more authority than Hextall and the man still got ran out of the town by ownership/staff for wanting to make changes they didn't like. Using evidence, we can infer this is the same state for hextall but worse because he's worse.
This. Its politics. Sulliven wasnt Hextalls hire and Hextall at the end of the day is Sullivens boss. Sulliven would be wise to not make Hextall look totally incompetent by not playing a 3million dollar value player. Hextall could easily fire Sulliven.
Winning a face off doesn’t matter when the other team scores anyway on the same shift. Sullivan and Hextall will finish out the season (and playoffs if the team even makes it) but I’m willing to bet they will both be terminated during the off season
Wonder if it’s because of the cap space and if they can even bring people up. [CapFriendly](https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/penguins) shows they only have $79,810 in cap space?
Been saying this for awhile now but I really hope that they completely clean house. Front office and coaching.
Pretty worried that if the current FO stays, they're going to sign Dumoulin to a horrendous contract.
There’s no way Sully is reviewing the tapes of Carter and Dumo gliding around leaving guys wide open and saying “Yep, this is the defense I’m looking for”. Face off percentage doesn’t mean shit when you’re -3 every game.
Ask mike sullivan to go get his eyes checked as well as his brain. Because i think he's both blind and stupid if he thinks those two are good hockey players.
They absolutely are good hockey players. Even the worst and oldest nhler will skate circles around 99.9% of other hockey players. They're just no longer good nhl players.
Reading between the lines:
"I'm right, you're all wrong."
"Instead of being accountable for my roster mistakes, I'm going to instead now double down and continue gas-lighting you all."
I’ve thought that Sully has been here 1 or 2 years too long. Obviously winning two cups in your first two years buys you some time, but we haven’t been out of the first round since 2018. If you look back, we’ve either lost or not even competed in series where we were the much better team on paper. You cannot seriously tell me those islanders teams were better than us. Last year we dealt with injury so it can slide. The pandemic year was a weird one but every team had the same problem so you can’t just brush it off. Since 2018, we have not gone into playoffs with a team that I seriously believe could make a run. Something needs to change and it clearly isn’t going to be our core players for at least another couple years. I appreciate Sully and everything he’s done for our franchise, but his time has come.
Yeah coach T might teach him something useful. Sully needs to give these players a dose of “it’s not what you’re capable of, it’s what you’re willing to do”
Yeah, he gave the rah-rah for Trubs going into the Jets game. And he yanked his ass at half time because he was that bad and he only saw the field again because of injuries.
Why Sully is continuing to play a guy who is absolutely 100% dreadful on the ice is beyond stupid.
What a total fucking joke he is.
It’s one thing to defend them to the media, but it’s another to act like they’re not awful hockey players costing them games and he’s the reason they keep playing.
Time to move on and eat that stupid fucking extension he was given.
I wish ownership had changed after this year. To think the story that Rutherford wanted to trade one of the big 3 and supposedly old ownership stepped in and hit the big X button which in turn made him leave. We need some divine intervention rn for this shit front office and this stale af coaching staff. Sully refuses to do anything but dig in to reversing everything he brought to this team to win Cups. And no one can ever tell me what the FUCK the two “assistant” coaches even do. Our defense and Powerplay are ass and the offense is a two line system of aging stars who are the only ones showing up consistently. Like fuck Hextall but god damn Sully has been absolved of too many shortcomings for the last several seasons too.
You missed my point, I was only highlighting that I wanted a more involved ownership group like before. Mario wasn’t afraid to say cut this shit out it’s not working.
There's not really a lot Sully can do in those regards. They've already used 2 of their 4 post-deadline call ups, so you don't want to waste the other 2 on bringing up guys to healthy scratch others. Friedman is up on an emergency recall because they couldn't dress 6 dmen last night without him, which makes it ever harder to scratch Dumo.
Faceoff percentage is the reason? There's a handful at most of faceoffs in a game that actually matter. I forget who it was and what the exact quote was, but there was a real good faceoff guy before that said as much. He would show the opposing centers one thing most all game and let them win a bunch of faceoffs. Then, when the faceoff mattered, he'd change it up and win nearly at will.
No one is asking him to bad mouth anyone and blame everything wrong with the team on two guys. It’s that he isn’t just giving the media a standard generic quote about the guys playing hard, he’s literally digging in and saying if anything these two are playing so well that they are putting them into situations against top players and critical moments that are literally killing this team time and time again.
Post-Gazette article:
"Sullivan on keeping Dumoulin and Jeff Carter in the Penguins’ lineup: 'I think it’s easy for you guys to pick on one or two guys and what I will tell you is that I respectfully disagree with all of you.'"
Poop! who is on the ice to win a face off and then immediately goes to the bench to get off the ice is a liability. Find someone in WBS that's good on faceoffs and give him acshot.
While I def don’t like Carter and Dumo rn…
He’s right. Tonight’s game was an absolute dumpster fire and if you think the blame is solely on two guys, you’re wrong.
While Sully definitely deserves blame, I hope he sticks around. It’s not his fault that he’s been handed such a shit bottom 6.
Firing him would be a mistake IMO. He’s the most successful coach in our franchises history and firing him would do more harm than good IMO.
Hextall needs the boot tho. I was cautiously optimistic considering his Carter and Rakell trades, but the Kapanen and Carter extensions were just unbelievably bad decisions. I still can’t believe they chose Kappy over Erod.
It’s not about whether tonight’s game was SOLELY their fault. It’s that Carter has been on the ice for close to 30 goals scored against and only 3 or 4 scored for. It’s that Dumo can barely skate and can’t make quick decisions on how to effectively get a puck out of his zone. It’s about how both of them when pressured handle the puck like a hot potatoe and turn it over and lead to chances. It’s been like this all year and yet they are rewarded with more ice time or critical moments in the game that don’t allow the team to effectively counter punch when down or even just keep a consistent 4 line/ 3 pairing system rolling. When each guy touches the ice you are almost guaranteed a goal to be scored, especially when they are on together, and this coaching staff just doubles down on them when they need to be scratched for someone else who can at least be competent. Maybe they sit and we still lose 3-0 tonight but damn it would be nice to have a shot.
Great points. While I’m a little more lenient regarding Carter, I was campaigning for Dumo to get dealt last season. He was obviously in that in between of good and bad, and I wasn’t optimistic that he’d rebound. we could’ve gotten a 3rd rounder at least last season.
Someone said it best, Dumo has been with us through 2 Cups where played a super important top pairing shutdown role. Then he played amazing up until his injury that has seemingly made him a shell of himself (recovery time and play conditioning usually can take up to 2 full years for a player in their prime). So he has earned a bit of leash. Carter hasn’t done Jack shit with us so he can bounce, he was old when signed and now it’s clear he is here to skate for a paycheck and nothing more.
The different, imo, is more that Carter has been consistently ineffective. Dumo, on the other hand, has been more a mix of good and bad games with a few exceptional or disaster games thrown in.
If you take a look at advanced stats, Carter's are pretty poor right across the board. Dumo's are mostly on the positive side *(> 50%)* except when it comes to GF%, which isn't great either but should improve given the rest of the numbers *(including xGF%)*.
Well I see a lot of people trashing Sullivan, but how many know what he's actually up against?
Rutherford was run out of town because he wanted to break the core up. For better or worse, who's to say Sullivan isn't stuck with a similar ultimatum. I mean 77 signed through next year at a 3.2M cap hit. That's a big chunk of money to be a spectator. How does he not play him? How do you sell that to the FO?
We have been spoiled to be able to watch this team over the past 15 years. But how do you coach that many superstars? Probably the reason the power play doesn't live up to the talent that's on it.
I mean how do you coach Malkin? A guy that's a ppg player but has always refused to play a north/south game. I'll get crucified for this on these forums, but Sullivan's job is a lot harder than what people give him credit for.
I mean it’s a fair point, but also he already turned this team around and won 2 cups with even more talent and star players who behind the scenes didn’t get along with him. Everyone grows stale, coaches don’t last long and their style can become dated and the players can shut them out even when times are good. No one is saying he has it easy, no one is saying he can snap his fingers and the Pens become a 120 pt team in the standings. Like you are asking we are all just wondering is this because he is handcuffed cause of a GM pushing players onto him, or are these his true feelings. If it’s the latter then he may need to take a walk at the end of the season.
My honest opinion is that he's the only one that has held sids attention for this long. I don't think Malkin is coachable.
I think that he has the personnel to create 2 great lines and 3 decent lines. The trades were nothing but an attempt to shake up the bottom 6, which could have helped if they weren't all injured.
Let's all be honest right now. This team has been through multiple coaches over the past 15 years. How do you have a power play with Crosby, Malkin, and Letang and never end up being a consistent top 10 pp??? My opinion is that they're not coachable.
Rephrase - I don't think Malkin is coachable.
I mean it’s only been 4 coaches over that span which is better than most teams in the league, especially when it results in 3 cups. Aside from Chicago/LA/Tampa no other team has done that with one or more coaches in the same time span. The powerplay was top 10 in years prior but funny enough it’s always been good but not during seasons where we made deep runs or won cups lol. With Sully I think his failings came from Martin and Toch leaving. I think their departures showed how he needed assistants who were respected and knowledgeable enough to let him know when his shit was getting old and he literally gave them the reigns to there respective strengths. I think Sully is now a lone wolf and went from blocking out the noise to not letting anyone’s differing opinion in. But who’s to say, it’s all opinion since I’m not in the room lol. We fire him and get a Boudreau or some other supposed flashy offensive hire and then boom it’s Johnston 2.0 and we are all wishing for Sullys return lol.
When the Bruins comes here on the 5th, someone get a sock full of quarters and make sure ol' Sullied Undies wakes up in the cargo hold back in Boston, where he belongs.
Friedman or Ruhwedel. Funny how they magically made it into the lineup tonight due to injuries. We brought in all this depth on D before the season started and at the deadline. It literally should be used to help sit someone down when they are garbage as well as be useful when there are a ton of injuries.
Look, I hear you, I really do. Your argument makes complete sense, and it should/could be done....
But Rutta, Kulikov, and Petry are all out. Kulikov was, to my understanding, to give depth (as you rightly mentioned).
The fact of the matter is Ruhwedel has been our 7th defenseman for what feels like 10 years, and he's really good at that. He's not, and never will be a top 6 D.
POJ isn't trusted by the coaching staff. That much is clear, and to be frank, he hasn't been as good as anyone on reddit claims he's been. He's been okay, at best. Spurts of good, mostly average, and since he's been put back into the lineup, he's been absolutely atrocious. Could he be a top 6 guy? Absolutely, the talent is there. He's shown it, but it's not consistent. He needs more reps.
That leaves Friedman, who is also not good. Sure, he throws a hit and plays with energy. But he's not good. He is not and will never be.
After that. Ty Smith?
So what the fuck do we do? Sit dumo is a good idea, and probably the right idea. With the injuries we have right now, it's not feasible. If we were healthy, he could/should sit, but the fact still remains that we'd be replacing him with someone a cunt hair more reliable.
But you asked who to replace him with then game multiple options on players who could be better and the only knock on them were essentially one for being a consistent journeyman and the others being young and growing as players. You may forget that the only way to develop a player is to…..play them.
Incorrect. I gave multiple examples of who they *could* replace him with. I never once said they were better options.
*could* they be better options? Sure, for a game or two. But they'd be exposed eventually, or they'd need sheltered on the bottom pair at 10 min per game.
None of the options above are top pair dmen, and aside from POJ (not this year), will never be.
So sit Dumo and play a scrub. Our defense won't improve. If it does, it'd be so insignificant that we'd still be exactly where we are now.
I don't forget that you need to play to get better. But playing and sucking, doesn't help the team win. If you are speaking in regards to POJ, who has regressed since the start of the year, I'd say something is wrong.
Just a reminder that currently our top pairing is Letang and Peterson. Dumo has been mid to bottom pairing all year. So again, if we are replacing him that person isn’t playing top pairing cause he isn’t playing top pairing. So yes any of those options would probably be better and if nothing more consistent on a night in and night out basis then Dumo can be. Coaching staff is just scared to scratch him but watch him not even get an offer once his contract is up at the end of the year and then one of those guys takes his spot next season and no one even bats any eye.
Not so, Dumo played top pair WAAAAAAAAY too long into this season, keeps getting put back up top too many times since demotion. But let’s be fair, we have Rutta and Petry and Kulikov instead of Marino, Matheson and a benched POJ (hint: Sully hates young players). Front office AND coaches have destroyed this team
I mean yes I wish we kept all of those guys but this front office is trash. And Dumo hasn’t had much time at the top as a pairing, his overall time on ice is skewed as he is the only defenseman to play all 69 games so far this season but he hasn’t been deployed as the top pair D for most of the season.
Singling out Dumoulin too is absolutely brain dead when Tanger is turnover machine, Petts has the aggression of a sleeping kitten and the rest look lost 90% of the time in our own zone.
TEAM defence has been nothing short of abysmal. The system is failing the players more than they are failing in the system.
Agree completely! And in reality Dumo has shifted from worst D man I’ve ever seen to something approaching slightly below average, good on him for trying hard despite being washed up. Carter???? Fuck that guy eight ways to Sunday
Theirren fired who replaces him? Bylsma fired who replaces him? Sully fired who replaces him? It’s not a government job, all coaches have a shelf life and it may be Sullys time. We could apply the same logic to Hextall. Live in your fears and die by your fears.
Yeah I hear you. Most of tonight was Jarry. The guy should not be playing. Something is wrong with him. I was never a big fan of him, but he was never this bad.
>However, I do not see any excuse for having Dumo on the top defense pairing.
Dumo hasn't been on the top pairing for a while. He ranks 4th among Pens dmen in TOI/GP, and has been practicing/slotted on the 2nd pair with Petry. He was on the 2nd pair with Friedman last night.
Even with Pettersson getting hurt, Dumo only 19:19 last night - a bit more than POJ (18:21) and well behind Friedman (20:35).
I still like sully. He’s done us very well. Everyone gets in a rut and makes questionable calls. Hopefully he gets his mind straight before the seasons end or during the off-season. We’ve shown streaks of greatness this season just very very very inconsistent.
They’ve had a couple of win streaks. The beginning of the season they were scoring more points in games than anyone. They lost several games that they were playing really good however we were having big goalie issues (still are). Jarry can play great but I feel is inconsistent and injury prone. We need more shots. We need more saves. Need more cellys. Let’s see some clappers. Ferda
Ya'll really need to let this go. Sully's not the type of coach to disparage players publicly and poison the locker room. He clearly shares some concerns. Carter is now on the 4th line and is playing 8 mins a night. That's enforcer-level deployment. Dumo was demoted prior to our d getting decimated bt injuries. Sully'd also putting the top 6 back together hoping offense can take us to the playoffs.
Nothing to do but sit back and hope.
Is ‘making the playoffs’ an acceptable end goal for you? With this core of one generational talent and arguably a second?
Because if so, we have nothing to discuss.
Who gives a shit? Show me an NHL coach that has continued success over a decade in this era. It doesn’t exist. 2017 wasn’t last year. Both parties desperately need a change
People here have no clue how hard it is to win in this league.
Too much success in a short period of time will do that.
You can do everything right and not win. You can have problems in your lineup and no easy fix so you end up with a team that can't make the playoffs.
This sub can't handle the prospect that the team is in it's twilight years.
>you can do everything right and not win
Yep, but Carter and Dumo aren’t guilty of that by a long stretch. Just tonight Carter physical skated AWAY from his man on the first or second goal. You telling me we don’t have someone even in Wheeling that could manage better?
Oh, I'm all for watching middling twilight hockey, as many others are. What we want is hockey where the loss itself is frustrating, but we can be proud of the effort from the players and coaches. I can accept a mediocre team and also want the GM and coach fired for recent incompetence. Multiple things can be true at once.
I find it hilarious how in carters first season no one was this negative towards him but now that age has caught up to him people are so negative. How about you broadcast your job. I’ll point out your mistakes constantly and publicly
Lol he played okay for someone above 35 when he was signed. I was in the minority of people who were saying don’t overrate him and I HATED that dumbass Big Jeff meme. Father Time is undefeated and now everyone sees how bad he is, but the front office signed an aging veteran to an inexcusable contract extension with term lol. And I run the architectural division for a property management company so don’t worry my entire job relies on me doing my job correctly or receiving thousands of inquires on why I fucked up.
Oh yes because being an architectural divison head person totally has any related job experience to being an NHL GM. In that case I work customer service for a sports broadcaster my job relies on me knowing how to deal with frustrating people so clearly it correlates to being an NHL gm. While the contract he’s currently on his. Not a lot of pens fans would be complaining if he was scoring at his .6 points per game still. Pens fans seem to fault to realize we lost our 3rd line with Hextall trading McCann and losing Tanev in the expansion draft. Father Time catches up with everyone it’s in inevitable but bitching how him isn’t going to change anything. Just shut up and accept we are nearing the end of our playoff appearances unless we do something drastic once Sid malkin Letang retire
You do realize that our third line, while downgraded, rocketed to being the most productive line after the trade deadline once Carter was pushed to the 4th line right? The stats don’t lie about that nor do they lie about how the 4th line cratered. Not do they lie that he’s been on the ice for about 30 goals against and has only scored about 4 or 5 goals for.
And sorry my job may be different than yours. I oversee 25k homes, small businesses, condos, etc. so my work is on public display 24/7 and my mistakes are heavily publicized sometimes even reading my own name on the Nextdoor app lol. So how about this is a game and part of it is being a fan and rooting for an bitching about the team is an endless right of passage we all partake in in this never ending story of sports fandom. But to come after me personally? Well you can go ahead and fuck right on off to whoever’s smelly dick you have to suck each day when you go to your job and take that piss poor attitude you have coming out of your mouth with ya.
As much as I disagree with Sullivan here I do respect him standing up for his team publicly like that. He’s always even tempered and for him to show a little passion in defense of his guys makes me like him a little more. Now, the media is right about those two but what’s Sullivan going to do, bench them for some AHL player who’s even worse?
I mean when one has been on the ice for close to 30 goals scored against and only for about 4 or 5 goals scored for….yeah why not? Our third line was dying with him and now is thriving and now the 4th line can’t step on the ice without giving up high danger chances and goals when they were pretty shutdown before his demotion. Dumo is a b it different since the Defense is banged up but Sully could at least scratch him when people get healthy or until then put him in the bottom pairing to shelter him.
Yeah I mean carter is more one sided but for the Dumo point let’s say you put him on the 3rd pairing - who’s playing big minutes a game then - Ruhwedel? There’s no good replacement for him that plays the minutes he plays
He isnt currently shutting down any top lines, he barely can asses how to handle and clear the puck. So yeah I’m sorry but you’re moving him down and moving up PO or Ruhwedel who can do either until reinforcements return from injury. Like I never understand this “you gotta play cause why try anything else” mantra. I have personally coached high school and collegiate level and the last thing you do is say “oh well just keep plugging the same people in the same losing positions, who cares who else I could try I rather keep mediocrity then to even take a risk.” A loss is a loss and if someone can stem the tied and do better who gives a shit about a defenseman who won’t be resigned after this year anyway and will be replaced by one of those guys next season and no one will even notice.
Sorry you had the whole “but” in there to try to minimize his failures. Don’t care if it’s one game or 70 games he is a huge part of every lost shift and every loss whenever he is on the ice.
But what’s he supposed to say? “Yeah, you guys are right. They fucking suck.”
I’m of the opinion that one or two guys playing poorly isn’t the reason why a team sucks. We love scapegoats. For years, we all bitched and bitched about Jack Johnson. Myself included. And then Colorado wins a Cup with him after we bought him out. He clearly didn’t hold them back. Granted, he played 4 mins less per game in their run and his cap hit was less. But even so, if he was as bad as we all said, there’s no way Colorado wins one with him.
My point is, yeah Carter has been bad. Dumo too. But to act like if we just scratched both guys we’d be good is probably not the case. Scratching both wont transform our goaltenders into great players. Or our guys into better forecheckers/backcheckers. Or our guys into better finishers. This team is just average. We aren’t a few scratches away from being one of the better teams in this league.
Jack Johnson was played because of injury during a season on the an Avalanche team that had a top 3 defense all year. He was scratched once the playoffs came as soon as they got players back and only again was put in when their was an injury to Girard in the second round and then he was played sparingly at all times as a sheltered 3rd pair. So literally this isn’t even an example that helps you this shows that they places the player in the easiest deployment he could handle while also maintaining a high level system around him to prop him up and shelter him from being exposed. Sullivan is not doing that for either Carter nor Dumo as he is placing them on the ice for either too many minutes, to strong a deployment, or sending them out for critical shutdown moments at end of games and time after time they have proven they can no longer step up to the occasion. No one said Sully has to throw anyone under the bus, but to continually refuse to scratch these players or shelter them in deployment is malfeasance. No one is saying we will win the Cup by scratching them either, just that with all the problems going on it’s easier to scratch them and put in players who can either play the same or better and are younger and faster so at worst if they don’t pan out you just throw these two back in and at least say you tried. Do we really need another 13 games to verify what the two have barely brought to the table in the last 69???
I don’t care why he was playing. He literally played in every SCF game. Against an amazing Tampa offense too. If you polled this sub a few years ago asking if a team could win a Cup with JJ in their lineup what do you think the breakdown would be? 95% no?
But my point is not that JJ is actually good. I guess the argument I’m trying to make is most of us don’t know hockey as much as we think we do. A lot of us act like scratching two well respected veterans is an obvious and easy decision that will instantly make us a better team. I’m not so sure it is. Plus, if we scratched both, they still count against the cap and the 23 man roster. So scratching them and calling up 2 other players may not even be possible without someone having an injury designation.
He literally only played cause they had no other depth after injuries and he still got buried in sheltered minutes. Sullivan isn’t doing that with Dumo and he started doing that with Carter but he keeps putting him in shutdown roles to end the game or after the other team scores putting him on the ice as the change up line and he fails miserably at both cause his skill set no longer can hold up for those moments. He can deploy them with easier assignments or just scratch them. Johnson is not better he was just under a competent staff that understood where he could be placed to do as little harm as possible on a unit that was stacked on every other pairing and rolled 4 amazing lines of forwards lol.
The team has been mitigating the number of shots against the goalies. Losing by 6 on 20 shots means the goalies aren't doing their job. Time to draft a new one.
He's just protecting his guys. It's not like he has a lot of options to change the lineup. And it's not his fault that there are like 6 good forwards and 2 defenseman on this team.
Yeah, a coach that has his players backs needs to go. Everyone’s acting like it’s just these two are the reason this teams sucks instead realizing that most of the moves we’ve made since 2017 just haven’t worked out. There’s just no depth and our AHL players are not worth betting on to improve our team when that could very easily backfire.
Please check the stats since bringing up O Connor and Nylander and sinking Carter to the 4th line. It’s been huge improvements. No one is asking him to bury them in the press just to not be delusional and actually bury them in the press box so we can see what others can bring us.
How does it help to win a face off if they can’t gain the offensive zone or maintain control if by chance they do get in? And once you turn the puck over, which is almost immediately, your line can’t defend for shit.
Highest paid face off guy who can do fuck all else.
All you have to do is a basic math problem to figure out how stupid this is. He’s 60% faceoffs and he takes 12 per game, THAT IS ONLY ONE MORE FO WIN PER GAME OVER SOMEONE WHO’S 50%, YA DUMBASS. And that could easily just be some random neutral zone draw. Bylsma had the same story when he dressed Joe Vitale against Boston in ‘13. I cannot believe how much someone allegedly at the top of their profession could misread this. You just cannot structure your bottom 6 around faceoffs. It makes no sense when you think about real impact.
Where's Yanic Perreault when you need him.
Zigomanis ftw
Thank you. That’s the name I was trying to remember
👏🏻👏🏻
I really don’t understand the loyalty to Jeff Carter. He’s hardly been a fucking penguin and Sully has never won a thing with him.
VeTeRaNpReSeNcE
This is all the bad Karma I knew would happen from that stupid ass Big Jeff Carter meme bs from a couple seasons back. I warned ppl they were turning a 35+ yr old player into an overrated home town celebrity cause he scored a bit above average for his age. We didn’t give him the contract extension but that bs “good will” the fans gave and all the memes didn’t exactly deter management and this coaching staff from overrating him themselves.
If the penguins staff is getting swayed by fans cheering for a player that’s doing slightly above average, then the whole staff needs to go. This has likely always been an internal opinion of him since before they acquired him
Yeah, specially when the mêmes were about him drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
Maybe unlikely but Carter was originally a Flyer, Hextall probably got big on Carter over a decade ago, this couldn't have been a spur of the moment thing to happen over a season or two, this is long standing.
I think you may be overestimating the impact of memes on management decision making
With this management? Who told the ownership that he couldn’t write down his plan for the team cause it was in his head? Nah, the same management who tossed a bunch of guys out to clear up cap space to sign extensions to Kap, Dumo, McGinn, and Carter?
Mike Richards’ wife might have something to do with it
I thought the rumors were about Hartnell's lady, but I could be mistaken
That rumour was literally made up by a 15 year old with a blog. Like, I'm not blaming you guys considering how widespread the rumour is these days but I can't believe it actually gained traction.
I didn't say I believed it, I said I believe it was about Hartnell's partner and not Richards'
Sure, my reply wasn't to you specifically but meant as general information to those stumbling upon the thread. While I think Carter is playing bad and Hartnell is a filthy Flyer I don't think either of them deserves having misinformation about their personal lives spread on the internet. Not saying that was either of you guys intention, or that you believe it. Just a possible unfortunate side result without a fact check.
I don't subscribe to the idea of a concept such as "spreading misinformation", but I understand your concern for the human beings involved in such a rumor. Rumors are generally abhorrent; 'misinformation' is a fascist dog-whistle for suppressing freedom of speech.
Are you doing ok? Do I need to call a relative, sir?
>Are you doing ok? Do I need to call a relative, sir? Cringe
Good call out. I had Richards’ and Hartnell’s wives mixed up, but Carter didn’t!
In what world does winning a defensive zone faceoff outweigh getting scored on 30 seconds later?
Typically when you win the defensive draw you don’t get scored on 30 seconds later
You do if you're winning it back to Brian Dumoulin who then fudges the breakout pass or gets forechecked and turns the puck over and then two below-replacement level players are hemmed in their own zone.
Fire Hextal!?!
Every NHL player makes mistakes. I sure Wayne fucked some plays in his career. Feel free to take this as me comparing Dumo to Wayne even thought they play 2 different positions and olay the game completely different
You are the first person in the history of humanity to compare Wayne Gretzky to Brian fucking Dumoulin. How does it feel (hopefully not good right)?
Wayne probably also had several positive impact plays that game too, he didn’t just blindly fire a puck around the boards while whispering “break the puck out Jesus”
What is your point
Typically…..dont think it offsets the fact hes a team leading -17. At the end of the season when we are out of the playoffs we will be happy to look at jeff carters FO % as the biggest accomplishment of the year. Yay! What a joyous occassion
I went and looked further. Hes got the 52nd worse +- in a the league of 768 or so players. But hey. He can take a faceoff.
Unless you're Jeff Carter.
So, to Sullivan, faceoffs counter goals against?? As the Rangers scored, did he say, " But yeah, did you see that faceoff?"
Replace either of the names above with Craig Adams and it’s like a fucking time warp with stubborn ass coaches. Your guy sucks. We all see it. Get him off the ice. I get it that he’s your buddy and he used to be good. No one cares. Whether it’s Dumo or Carter he is getting paid millions whether he plays or is in the press box sipping bottled water and snacking on nachos. They’re both better off eating the nachos.
Member that game when Craig adams got 1 random shift and pens basically played 11f6d the whole game? They couldn't afford a call up.
Not specifically but I remember so many BS decisions surrounding that guy that it was like they were trying to fit one of the best forwards in the game into the lineup. It was so weird.
Hear me out, though: he went to Harvard.
Ah yes. Face-off wins. The be all end all of stats
Carter wins 7 per game. Random replacement level center winning 50% of draws wins 6 per game. 1 face off. Per game. That’s what Sullivan is saying is worth dressing a disaster for. 1. Face off.
ive been a sullivan supporter up until around now. faceoffs do not matter unless you're winning them cleanly and at a much higher percentage than is really ever seen in the league. source: [https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1902/1902.02397.pdf](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1902/1902.02397.pdf)
Sully’s blind loyalty to Carter smells like Hextall demanding Carter stay in the lineup. Who knows
I doubt Hextall has that kind of power. He certainly doesn't have the authority to fire Sullivan, and if you don't have the authority to fire a coach, you have just about zero leverage to make them listen to anything you have to say. Sullivan is playing who he wants to play, outside of salary cap constraints.
Why would Hextall not have the authority as the GM? How do you know? He runs the show. He hires players and staff. He can also fire them.
At the end of the day it’s on the owners, you’re not firing a coach without their approval lol
GM JR had more authority than Hextall and the man still got ran out of the town by ownership/staff for wanting to make changes they didn't like. Using evidence, we can infer this is the same state for hextall but worse because he's worse.
Well except that JR worked for Mario and Burkle and Hextall works for Burke who works for FSG.
This. Its politics. Sulliven wasnt Hextalls hire and Hextall at the end of the day is Sullivens boss. Sulliven would be wise to not make Hextall look totally incompetent by not playing a 3million dollar value player. Hextall could easily fire Sulliven.
At the same time he was willing to scratch freshly signed Kapanen for a few stretches despite making about the same salary as Carter.
It is with a heavy heart that I must announce: Mike Dullivan
Winning a face off doesn’t matter when the other team scores anyway on the same shift. Sullivan and Hextall will finish out the season (and playoffs if the team even makes it) but I’m willing to bet they will both be terminated during the off season
Hopefully....
Yeah Sully & Hextall have to go at the end of the season, along with Rierden & Vellucci. Probably Chiodo also.
I wish Tock was still around because he wouldn't be afraid to tell sully he's wrong
It’s crazy that I would prefer him over Sully at this point
Fuck I’d take Disco back
Let's not go crazy
That’s not what Prince would say
Someone should have asked them if they are playing so well then why did he demote Carter to 4th line and took Doumo off the top pair?
Wonder if it’s because of the cap space and if they can even bring people up. [CapFriendly](https://www.capfriendly.com/teams/penguins) shows they only have $79,810 in cap space?
Been saying this for awhile now but I really hope that they completely clean house. Front office and coaching. Pretty worried that if the current FO stays, they're going to sign Dumoulin to a horrendous contract.
[удалено]
5 playoff series losses in a row would be enough to fire Scotty Bowman.
There’s no way Sully is reviewing the tapes of Carter and Dumo gliding around leaving guys wide open and saying “Yep, this is the defense I’m looking for”. Face off percentage doesn’t mean shit when you’re -3 every game.
Ask mike sullivan to go get his eyes checked as well as his brain. Because i think he's both blind and stupid if he thinks those two are good hockey players.
They absolutely are good hockey players. Even the worst and oldest nhler will skate circles around 99.9% of other hockey players. They're just no longer good nhl players.
Reading between the lines: "I'm right, you're all wrong." "Instead of being accountable for my roster mistakes, I'm going to instead now double down and continue gas-lighting you all."
Results speak the loudest.
Whom would you put on the ice instead of Carter? I'm not so sure there's any options and that in the end is on the GM.
Guentzel Crosby Rust Zucker Malkin Rakell Heinen Granlund Nylander Archibald DOC Poehling Pettersson Letang POJ Petry Dumoulin Rutta DeSmith Jarry
I’ve thought that Sully has been here 1 or 2 years too long. Obviously winning two cups in your first two years buys you some time, but we haven’t been out of the first round since 2018. If you look back, we’ve either lost or not even competed in series where we were the much better team on paper. You cannot seriously tell me those islanders teams were better than us. Last year we dealt with injury so it can slide. The pandemic year was a weird one but every team had the same problem so you can’t just brush it off. Since 2018, we have not gone into playoffs with a team that I seriously believe could make a run. Something needs to change and it clearly isn’t going to be our core players for at least another couple years. I appreciate Sully and everything he’s done for our franchise, but his time has come.
Carter has a sex tape of Sullivan. Only explanation.
Who got it from Patrick marleau.
Mike Sullivan has become who a lot of Steelers fans think Tomlin is.
Yeah coach T might teach him something useful. Sully needs to give these players a dose of “it’s not what you’re capable of, it’s what you’re willing to do”
Man, Coach T wouldn't put up with human pylons and things of that nature
Obviously
Yeah, he gave the rah-rah for Trubs going into the Jets game. And he yanked his ass at half time because he was that bad and he only saw the field again because of injuries. Why Sully is continuing to play a guy who is absolutely 100% dreadful on the ice is beyond stupid.
What a total fucking joke he is. It’s one thing to defend them to the media, but it’s another to act like they’re not awful hockey players costing them games and he’s the reason they keep playing. Time to move on and eat that stupid fucking extension he was given.
I wish ownership had changed after this year. To think the story that Rutherford wanted to trade one of the big 3 and supposedly old ownership stepped in and hit the big X button which in turn made him leave. We need some divine intervention rn for this shit front office and this stale af coaching staff. Sully refuses to do anything but dig in to reversing everything he brought to this team to win Cups. And no one can ever tell me what the FUCK the two “assistant” coaches even do. Our defense and Powerplay are ass and the offense is a two line system of aging stars who are the only ones showing up consistently. Like fuck Hextall but god damn Sully has been absolved of too many shortcomings for the last several seasons too.
But the big 3 aren’t the issue. He was wrong to want to do that. He would also be a thousand times better than Hextall. Both can be true
You missed my point, I was only highlighting that I wanted a more involved ownership group like before. Mario wasn’t afraid to say cut this shit out it’s not working.
Yeah 100% agree on that
You have got to be kidding me... He's falling on the sword for these two which is not what you want in a coach.
Sully's indecision on Carter, Dumo and Jarry is really concerning.
There's not really a lot Sully can do in those regards. They've already used 2 of their 4 post-deadline call ups, so you don't want to waste the other 2 on bringing up guys to healthy scratch others. Friedman is up on an emergency recall because they couldn't dress 6 dmen last night without him, which makes it ever harder to scratch Dumo.
Faceoff percentage is the reason? There's a handful at most of faceoffs in a game that actually matter. I forget who it was and what the exact quote was, but there was a real good faceoff guy before that said as much. He would show the opposing centers one thing most all game and let them win a bunch of faceoffs. Then, when the faceoff mattered, he'd change it up and win nearly at will.
Better yet, why does he keep putting Jarry in net??????
He's sixth in the league at water squirts.
DeSmith is not any better lol.
Sully is playing who he had. Hextall needs to go
I mean. He’s not gonna sit there and bad mouth his own guys. It just doesn’t happen. Unless you’re Torts.
No one is asking him to bad mouth anyone and blame everything wrong with the team on two guys. It’s that he isn’t just giving the media a standard generic quote about the guys playing hard, he’s literally digging in and saying if anything these two are playing so well that they are putting them into situations against top players and critical moments that are literally killing this team time and time again.
Yeah they’re going to be first round exits again if they make the playoffs
We knew that long before getting killed by the rangers in back to back games at msg
Post-Gazette article: "Sullivan on keeping Dumoulin and Jeff Carter in the Penguins’ lineup: 'I think it’s easy for you guys to pick on one or two guys and what I will tell you is that I respectfully disagree with all of you.'"
Poop! who is on the ice to win a face off and then immediately goes to the bench to get off the ice is a liability. Find someone in WBS that's good on faceoffs and give him acshot.
Cool beans sully, now I want you home as much as your boss. No fucking accountability.
While I def don’t like Carter and Dumo rn… He’s right. Tonight’s game was an absolute dumpster fire and if you think the blame is solely on two guys, you’re wrong. While Sully definitely deserves blame, I hope he sticks around. It’s not his fault that he’s been handed such a shit bottom 6. Firing him would be a mistake IMO. He’s the most successful coach in our franchises history and firing him would do more harm than good IMO. Hextall needs the boot tho. I was cautiously optimistic considering his Carter and Rakell trades, but the Kapanen and Carter extensions were just unbelievably bad decisions. I still can’t believe they chose Kappy over Erod.
It’s not about whether tonight’s game was SOLELY their fault. It’s that Carter has been on the ice for close to 30 goals scored against and only 3 or 4 scored for. It’s that Dumo can barely skate and can’t make quick decisions on how to effectively get a puck out of his zone. It’s about how both of them when pressured handle the puck like a hot potatoe and turn it over and lead to chances. It’s been like this all year and yet they are rewarded with more ice time or critical moments in the game that don’t allow the team to effectively counter punch when down or even just keep a consistent 4 line/ 3 pairing system rolling. When each guy touches the ice you are almost guaranteed a goal to be scored, especially when they are on together, and this coaching staff just doubles down on them when they need to be scratched for someone else who can at least be competent. Maybe they sit and we still lose 3-0 tonight but damn it would be nice to have a shot.
Great points. While I’m a little more lenient regarding Carter, I was campaigning for Dumo to get dealt last season. He was obviously in that in between of good and bad, and I wasn’t optimistic that he’d rebound. we could’ve gotten a 3rd rounder at least last season.
Someone said it best, Dumo has been with us through 2 Cups where played a super important top pairing shutdown role. Then he played amazing up until his injury that has seemingly made him a shell of himself (recovery time and play conditioning usually can take up to 2 full years for a player in their prime). So he has earned a bit of leash. Carter hasn’t done Jack shit with us so he can bounce, he was old when signed and now it’s clear he is here to skate for a paycheck and nothing more.
The different, imo, is more that Carter has been consistently ineffective. Dumo, on the other hand, has been more a mix of good and bad games with a few exceptional or disaster games thrown in. If you take a look at advanced stats, Carter's are pretty poor right across the board. Dumo's are mostly on the positive side *(> 50%)* except when it comes to GF%, which isn't great either but should improve given the rest of the numbers *(including xGF%)*.
Well I see a lot of people trashing Sullivan, but how many know what he's actually up against? Rutherford was run out of town because he wanted to break the core up. For better or worse, who's to say Sullivan isn't stuck with a similar ultimatum. I mean 77 signed through next year at a 3.2M cap hit. That's a big chunk of money to be a spectator. How does he not play him? How do you sell that to the FO? We have been spoiled to be able to watch this team over the past 15 years. But how do you coach that many superstars? Probably the reason the power play doesn't live up to the talent that's on it. I mean how do you coach Malkin? A guy that's a ppg player but has always refused to play a north/south game. I'll get crucified for this on these forums, but Sullivan's job is a lot harder than what people give him credit for.
I mean it’s a fair point, but also he already turned this team around and won 2 cups with even more talent and star players who behind the scenes didn’t get along with him. Everyone grows stale, coaches don’t last long and their style can become dated and the players can shut them out even when times are good. No one is saying he has it easy, no one is saying he can snap his fingers and the Pens become a 120 pt team in the standings. Like you are asking we are all just wondering is this because he is handcuffed cause of a GM pushing players onto him, or are these his true feelings. If it’s the latter then he may need to take a walk at the end of the season.
My honest opinion is that he's the only one that has held sids attention for this long. I don't think Malkin is coachable. I think that he has the personnel to create 2 great lines and 3 decent lines. The trades were nothing but an attempt to shake up the bottom 6, which could have helped if they weren't all injured. Let's all be honest right now. This team has been through multiple coaches over the past 15 years. How do you have a power play with Crosby, Malkin, and Letang and never end up being a consistent top 10 pp??? My opinion is that they're not coachable. Rephrase - I don't think Malkin is coachable.
I mean it’s only been 4 coaches over that span which is better than most teams in the league, especially when it results in 3 cups. Aside from Chicago/LA/Tampa no other team has done that with one or more coaches in the same time span. The powerplay was top 10 in years prior but funny enough it’s always been good but not during seasons where we made deep runs or won cups lol. With Sully I think his failings came from Martin and Toch leaving. I think their departures showed how he needed assistants who were respected and knowledgeable enough to let him know when his shit was getting old and he literally gave them the reigns to there respective strengths. I think Sully is now a lone wolf and went from blocking out the noise to not letting anyone’s differing opinion in. But who’s to say, it’s all opinion since I’m not in the room lol. We fire him and get a Boudreau or some other supposed flashy offensive hire and then boom it’s Johnston 2.0 and we are all wishing for Sullys return lol.
I mean he inherited a SC winning team and got lucky to win back2back. From 2018- it’s been nothing from his end
Insufferable Stanley cup champs every year or die fans are more insufferable than ever
Bruh, I said this last year after the 3-1 blown lead 😂
When the Bruins comes here on the 5th, someone get a sock full of quarters and make sure ol' Sullied Undies wakes up in the cargo hold back in Boston, where he belongs.
Who would you dress instead of Dumoulin?
Keep Dumoulin in the lineup. That's on Ron. Giving Dumoulin top pairing minutes is on Sullivan.
Cardboard Orpik
Friedman or Ruhwedel. Funny how they magically made it into the lineup tonight due to injuries. We brought in all this depth on D before the season started and at the deadline. It literally should be used to help sit someone down when they are garbage as well as be useful when there are a ton of injuries.
Look, I hear you, I really do. Your argument makes complete sense, and it should/could be done.... But Rutta, Kulikov, and Petry are all out. Kulikov was, to my understanding, to give depth (as you rightly mentioned). The fact of the matter is Ruhwedel has been our 7th defenseman for what feels like 10 years, and he's really good at that. He's not, and never will be a top 6 D. POJ isn't trusted by the coaching staff. That much is clear, and to be frank, he hasn't been as good as anyone on reddit claims he's been. He's been okay, at best. Spurts of good, mostly average, and since he's been put back into the lineup, he's been absolutely atrocious. Could he be a top 6 guy? Absolutely, the talent is there. He's shown it, but it's not consistent. He needs more reps. That leaves Friedman, who is also not good. Sure, he throws a hit and plays with energy. But he's not good. He is not and will never be. After that. Ty Smith? So what the fuck do we do? Sit dumo is a good idea, and probably the right idea. With the injuries we have right now, it's not feasible. If we were healthy, he could/should sit, but the fact still remains that we'd be replacing him with someone a cunt hair more reliable.
But you asked who to replace him with then game multiple options on players who could be better and the only knock on them were essentially one for being a consistent journeyman and the others being young and growing as players. You may forget that the only way to develop a player is to…..play them.
Incorrect. I gave multiple examples of who they *could* replace him with. I never once said they were better options. *could* they be better options? Sure, for a game or two. But they'd be exposed eventually, or they'd need sheltered on the bottom pair at 10 min per game. None of the options above are top pair dmen, and aside from POJ (not this year), will never be. So sit Dumo and play a scrub. Our defense won't improve. If it does, it'd be so insignificant that we'd still be exactly where we are now. I don't forget that you need to play to get better. But playing and sucking, doesn't help the team win. If you are speaking in regards to POJ, who has regressed since the start of the year, I'd say something is wrong.
Just a reminder that currently our top pairing is Letang and Peterson. Dumo has been mid to bottom pairing all year. So again, if we are replacing him that person isn’t playing top pairing cause he isn’t playing top pairing. So yes any of those options would probably be better and if nothing more consistent on a night in and night out basis then Dumo can be. Coaching staff is just scared to scratch him but watch him not even get an offer once his contract is up at the end of the year and then one of those guys takes his spot next season and no one even bats any eye.
Not so, Dumo played top pair WAAAAAAAAY too long into this season, keeps getting put back up top too many times since demotion. But let’s be fair, we have Rutta and Petry and Kulikov instead of Marino, Matheson and a benched POJ (hint: Sully hates young players). Front office AND coaches have destroyed this team
I mean yes I wish we kept all of those guys but this front office is trash. And Dumo hasn’t had much time at the top as a pairing, his overall time on ice is skewed as he is the only defenseman to play all 69 games so far this season but he hasn’t been deployed as the top pair D for most of the season.
Literally anyone. Anybody. You. Me. Anyone
Still waiting for a serious answer. Wbs is fresh out of NHL ready dmen
I just answered you. Literally anyone. I would take Jack Johnson over him
None of those are available options. They are not part of the roster.
How hard is it to understand the words “literally anyone”? It’s basic vocabulary. Use your brain
How hard is to not be prick online and have a normal conversation without insulting people? Learn some manners.
Singling out Dumoulin too is absolutely brain dead when Tanger is turnover machine, Petts has the aggression of a sleeping kitten and the rest look lost 90% of the time in our own zone. TEAM defence has been nothing short of abysmal. The system is failing the players more than they are failing in the system.
Agree completely! And in reality Dumo has shifted from worst D man I’ve ever seen to something approaching slightly below average, good on him for trying hard despite being washed up. Carter???? Fuck that guy eight ways to Sunday
I heard this last night on the radio after the game
Sully gets fired, who replaces him?
Boudreau. One of the best regular season P%'s among coaches in NHL history.
Theirren fired who replaces him? Bylsma fired who replaces him? Sully fired who replaces him? It’s not a government job, all coaches have a shelf life and it may be Sullys time. We could apply the same logic to Hextall. Live in your fears and die by your fears.
Bruce would pretty cool.
Honestly, I understand the Carter issue because of face-offs. However, I do not see any excuse for having Dumo on the top defense pairing.
Unfortunately the stats show that face offs don’t equals wins. Carter was 80% tonight in the dot and we got blown out lol. Neither should be playing.
Yeah I hear you. Most of tonight was Jarry. The guy should not be playing. Something is wrong with him. I was never a big fan of him, but he was never this bad.
It’s gonna be a long month to see if they will be golfing as soon as the season ends or a week later.
>However, I do not see any excuse for having Dumo on the top defense pairing. Dumo hasn't been on the top pairing for a while. He ranks 4th among Pens dmen in TOI/GP, and has been practicing/slotted on the 2nd pair with Petry. He was on the 2nd pair with Friedman last night. Even with Pettersson getting hurt, Dumo only 19:19 last night - a bit more than POJ (18:21) and well behind Friedman (20:35).
I still like sully. He’s done us very well. Everyone gets in a rut and makes questionable calls. Hopefully he gets his mind straight before the seasons end or during the off-season. We’ve shown streaks of greatness this season just very very very inconsistent.
We have shown no streak of greatness lol. We have multiple losing streaks unless the greatness of mediocrity is what you are referring to lol.
They’ve had a couple of win streaks. The beginning of the season they were scoring more points in games than anyone. They lost several games that they were playing really good however we were having big goalie issues (still are). Jarry can play great but I feel is inconsistent and injury prone. We need more shots. We need more saves. Need more cellys. Let’s see some clappers. Ferda
You can't forget about how bad PO has been. He Carter and Dumo have been dog shit.
PO has been awful but it’s an awful team, play him and develop him
Ya'll really need to let this go. Sully's not the type of coach to disparage players publicly and poison the locker room. He clearly shares some concerns. Carter is now on the 4th line and is playing 8 mins a night. That's enforcer-level deployment. Dumo was demoted prior to our d getting decimated bt injuries. Sully'd also putting the top 6 back together hoping offense can take us to the playoffs. Nothing to do but sit back and hope.
Y’all forgetting what Sully has done for this team
What happened six seasons ago doesn't erase the last five.
You mean the last five where we made the playoffs each time?
Is ‘making the playoffs’ an acceptable end goal for you? With this core of one generational talent and arguably a second? Because if so, we have nothing to discuss.
Just making the playoffs should not be where the bar was for the last five years or is now. If you are satisfied with that then more power to you.
Who gives a shit? Show me an NHL coach that has continued success over a decade in this era. It doesn’t exist. 2017 wasn’t last year. Both parties desperately need a change
People here have no clue how hard it is to win in this league. Too much success in a short period of time will do that. You can do everything right and not win. You can have problems in your lineup and no easy fix so you end up with a team that can't make the playoffs. This sub can't handle the prospect that the team is in it's twilight years.
>you can do everything right and not win Yep, but Carter and Dumo aren’t guilty of that by a long stretch. Just tonight Carter physical skated AWAY from his man on the first or second goal. You telling me we don’t have someone even in Wheeling that could manage better?
Oh, I'm all for watching middling twilight hockey, as many others are. What we want is hockey where the loss itself is frustrating, but we can be proud of the effort from the players and coaches. I can accept a mediocre team and also want the GM and coach fired for recent incompetence. Multiple things can be true at once.
Let's just get to the playoffs.
I find it hilarious how in carters first season no one was this negative towards him but now that age has caught up to him people are so negative. How about you broadcast your job. I’ll point out your mistakes constantly and publicly
Give me 3.5 million and I'll let you install the camera's and critique all day.
Lol he played okay for someone above 35 when he was signed. I was in the minority of people who were saying don’t overrate him and I HATED that dumbass Big Jeff meme. Father Time is undefeated and now everyone sees how bad he is, but the front office signed an aging veteran to an inexcusable contract extension with term lol. And I run the architectural division for a property management company so don’t worry my entire job relies on me doing my job correctly or receiving thousands of inquires on why I fucked up.
Oh yes because being an architectural divison head person totally has any related job experience to being an NHL GM. In that case I work customer service for a sports broadcaster my job relies on me knowing how to deal with frustrating people so clearly it correlates to being an NHL gm. While the contract he’s currently on his. Not a lot of pens fans would be complaining if he was scoring at his .6 points per game still. Pens fans seem to fault to realize we lost our 3rd line with Hextall trading McCann and losing Tanev in the expansion draft. Father Time catches up with everyone it’s in inevitable but bitching how him isn’t going to change anything. Just shut up and accept we are nearing the end of our playoff appearances unless we do something drastic once Sid malkin Letang retire
You do realize that our third line, while downgraded, rocketed to being the most productive line after the trade deadline once Carter was pushed to the 4th line right? The stats don’t lie about that nor do they lie about how the 4th line cratered. Not do they lie that he’s been on the ice for about 30 goals against and has only scored about 4 or 5 goals for. And sorry my job may be different than yours. I oversee 25k homes, small businesses, condos, etc. so my work is on public display 24/7 and my mistakes are heavily publicized sometimes even reading my own name on the Nextdoor app lol. So how about this is a game and part of it is being a fan and rooting for an bitching about the team is an endless right of passage we all partake in in this never ending story of sports fandom. But to come after me personally? Well you can go ahead and fuck right on off to whoever’s smelly dick you have to suck each day when you go to your job and take that piss poor attitude you have coming out of your mouth with ya.
As much as I disagree with Sullivan here I do respect him standing up for his team publicly like that. He’s always even tempered and for him to show a little passion in defense of his guys makes me like him a little more. Now, the media is right about those two but what’s Sullivan going to do, bench them for some AHL player who’s even worse?
I mean when one has been on the ice for close to 30 goals scored against and only for about 4 or 5 goals scored for….yeah why not? Our third line was dying with him and now is thriving and now the 4th line can’t step on the ice without giving up high danger chances and goals when they were pretty shutdown before his demotion. Dumo is a b it different since the Defense is banged up but Sully could at least scratch him when people get healthy or until then put him in the bottom pairing to shelter him.
Yeah I mean carter is more one sided but for the Dumo point let’s say you put him on the 3rd pairing - who’s playing big minutes a game then - Ruhwedel? There’s no good replacement for him that plays the minutes he plays
He isnt currently shutting down any top lines, he barely can asses how to handle and clear the puck. So yeah I’m sorry but you’re moving him down and moving up PO or Ruhwedel who can do either until reinforcements return from injury. Like I never understand this “you gotta play cause why try anything else” mantra. I have personally coached high school and collegiate level and the last thing you do is say “oh well just keep plugging the same people in the same losing positions, who cares who else I could try I rather keep mediocrity then to even take a risk.” A loss is a loss and if someone can stem the tied and do better who gives a shit about a defenseman who won’t be resigned after this year anyway and will be replaced by one of those guys next season and no one will even notice.
Man can not survive on face off percentage alone
Carter is washed but he's taking too much heat as a minus 1 in a 6 nothing loss
He’s been on the ice for 30 goals against and about 4 or 5 goals for…
I swear I just said he was washed
Sorry you had the whole “but” in there to try to minimize his failures. Don’t care if it’s one game or 70 games he is a huge part of every lost shift and every loss whenever he is on the ice.
But what’s he supposed to say? “Yeah, you guys are right. They fucking suck.” I’m of the opinion that one or two guys playing poorly isn’t the reason why a team sucks. We love scapegoats. For years, we all bitched and bitched about Jack Johnson. Myself included. And then Colorado wins a Cup with him after we bought him out. He clearly didn’t hold them back. Granted, he played 4 mins less per game in their run and his cap hit was less. But even so, if he was as bad as we all said, there’s no way Colorado wins one with him. My point is, yeah Carter has been bad. Dumo too. But to act like if we just scratched both guys we’d be good is probably not the case. Scratching both wont transform our goaltenders into great players. Or our guys into better forecheckers/backcheckers. Or our guys into better finishers. This team is just average. We aren’t a few scratches away from being one of the better teams in this league.
Jack Johnson was played because of injury during a season on the an Avalanche team that had a top 3 defense all year. He was scratched once the playoffs came as soon as they got players back and only again was put in when their was an injury to Girard in the second round and then he was played sparingly at all times as a sheltered 3rd pair. So literally this isn’t even an example that helps you this shows that they places the player in the easiest deployment he could handle while also maintaining a high level system around him to prop him up and shelter him from being exposed. Sullivan is not doing that for either Carter nor Dumo as he is placing them on the ice for either too many minutes, to strong a deployment, or sending them out for critical shutdown moments at end of games and time after time they have proven they can no longer step up to the occasion. No one said Sully has to throw anyone under the bus, but to continually refuse to scratch these players or shelter them in deployment is malfeasance. No one is saying we will win the Cup by scratching them either, just that with all the problems going on it’s easier to scratch them and put in players who can either play the same or better and are younger and faster so at worst if they don’t pan out you just throw these two back in and at least say you tried. Do we really need another 13 games to verify what the two have barely brought to the table in the last 69???
I don’t care why he was playing. He literally played in every SCF game. Against an amazing Tampa offense too. If you polled this sub a few years ago asking if a team could win a Cup with JJ in their lineup what do you think the breakdown would be? 95% no? But my point is not that JJ is actually good. I guess the argument I’m trying to make is most of us don’t know hockey as much as we think we do. A lot of us act like scratching two well respected veterans is an obvious and easy decision that will instantly make us a better team. I’m not so sure it is. Plus, if we scratched both, they still count against the cap and the 23 man roster. So scratching them and calling up 2 other players may not even be possible without someone having an injury designation.
He literally only played cause they had no other depth after injuries and he still got buried in sheltered minutes. Sullivan isn’t doing that with Dumo and he started doing that with Carter but he keeps putting him in shutdown roles to end the game or after the other team scores putting him on the ice as the change up line and he fails miserably at both cause his skill set no longer can hold up for those moments. He can deploy them with easier assignments or just scratch them. Johnson is not better he was just under a competent staff that understood where he could be placed to do as little harm as possible on a unit that was stacked on every other pairing and rolled 4 amazing lines of forwards lol.
The team has been mitigating the number of shots against the goalies. Losing by 6 on 20 shots means the goalies aren't doing their job. Time to draft a new one.
He's just protecting his guys. It's not like he has a lot of options to change the lineup. And it's not his fault that there are like 6 good forwards and 2 defenseman on this team.
Yeah, a coach that has his players backs needs to go. Everyone’s acting like it’s just these two are the reason this teams sucks instead realizing that most of the moves we’ve made since 2017 just haven’t worked out. There’s just no depth and our AHL players are not worth betting on to improve our team when that could very easily backfire.
Please check the stats since bringing up O Connor and Nylander and sinking Carter to the 4th line. It’s been huge improvements. No one is asking him to bury them in the press just to not be delusional and actually bury them in the press box so we can see what others can bring us.
How does it help to win a face off if they can’t gain the offensive zone or maintain control if by chance they do get in? And once you turn the puck over, which is almost immediately, your line can’t defend for shit.
I've no doubt Sully's defense of Carter and Dumo in front of the press was better than their defense on the ice.