LOS ANGELES -- Everyone wants to talk about the head coach, right?
OK, let's do that.
Let's talk about his underachieving team. And how his team's championship window’s being wasted. And how he needs to take charge of all his elite talent. And how he delegates to his assistants. And how he handles discipline. And his press conferences. And his use of technology, including video reviews. And, of course, any and all drama.
Let's talk about everything related to Mike.
Mike Sullivan.
No, I won't take that other route, at least not beyond this opening parable. That's been traveled enough, both here and everywhere else, and it isn't about to subside.
I'd just prefer to discuss what I'm increasingly convinced, now more than ever in covering this West Coast swing, is the absolute best work of Sullivan's already brilliant tenure with the Penguins.
Sure, it's tough to top two rings in two years ...
... and nothing could or should ever diminish that. He was exactly the right choice at the right time, and his performance in pushing that group to eight consecutive Stanley Cup playoff best-of-seven series victories -- the greatest challenge for any hockey coach at any level -- holds a legitimate place in hockey history, as no one else had achieved it in the salary cap era.
In that moment that he raised the Cup a second time in Nashville and bellowed back toward his players, "You guys are the best!", it was easy to envision it taking place every June
And yet, as Sullivan himself is fond of asserting, nothing brings out the best in anyone the way adversity does.
On the first of December, the Penguins lost at home to another lousy edition of the Flyers. The score was 4-2, the lethargy pretty much echoed through PPG Paints Arena, and the overall record was 10-10-5. If one is delusional, that's .500. In reality, it's five games below. And it would have put them dead last in the Eastern Conference, if not for the Flyers and Devils barely behind.
Then, there was this:
They're hardly a finished product, as was proven here Saturday night with kind of a blah loss to the last-place Kings. But the broader emergence is as unmistakable as its source.
"Mike and all our coaches have been unbelievable," Dominik Simon was telling me over the weekend. "Nothing changed about our system or anything we do. We just needed to execute it better. When we did that, we started to believe."
There actually were slight adjustments along the way, as Sullivan's conceded, little stuff like better covering of pinching defensemen, but nothing significant. There also were line shuffles, but nothing far from the norm. There even was an injury to the player at the most important position, Matt Murray, at the time of the turnaround, but Sullivan's earlier faith in Casey DeSmith got this ball rolling well before Murray's return.
So it wasn't strategic in the slightest.
Rather, I'm certain now, it was about personality, both his own and how he dealt with others’.
He was tried during this time, make no mistake. On that night in Chicago -- no one has to ask which one -- I was positive he'd blow once he got out to that hallway to meet with the media. He didn't. He took a few extra minutes to compose himself, then behaved like this when I asked about some silly penalty Evgeni Malkin had taken:
Maybe he should have blown there. But he didn't. And he's always shown the right touch in such situations, going back to the Cup runs. He'll let it fly when it's maybe unexpected, and he'll take a deep breath when he knows it won't have any meaningful impact outside the room.
Which is a neat trait in and of itself, I've noticed: He's never not coaching. No matter the conversation, formal or otherwise, with someone on the inside or otherwise, it comes with a purpose. He knows what he's saying, why he's saying it and how his intended target might receive it.
Rip everyone for losing to the Hawks?
Eh ... why not save it for an occasion when the team prevails despite a litany of lapses that might otherwise get overlooked?
He kept his cool, in a way he never needed to previously with the Penguins. Heck, he'd actually go outright upbeat after some losses, aware that his players might have exerted their best effort that night and not wanting to dissuade them. And in being that way, I dare say he avoided running the risk of having his message get stale, typically one of the precursors to a coach finding the hot seat. If players hear the same thing again and again, only at raised decibels, then the games aren't fun anymore, and the essence of sport is lost.
That takes composure.
He delegated fully and faithfully. Some coaches will retract the leash in difficult times, even tighten their circles. I'll admit a red flag was raised for me when the Penguins suddenly made all assistant coaches off-limits for spontaneous interviews a month into the season. But I also never heard that any of Jacques Martin, Mark Recchi or Mike Buckley had any roles altered and, in fact, Sergei Gonchar was brought down from the press box to the bench to add another veteran voice back there.
And OK, since I brought it up, he also continues to delegate all video replay and challenge responsibility to Andy Saucier, whose advice to the bench is heeded as gospel by Sullivan.
Relying on others has made him stronger, not weaker.
That takes trust.
He's dealt with his stars in much the same spirit. When he and Martin wanted to try Sidney Crosby on the penalty-kill, from what I was told, they didn't dictate it. They met and discussed it. When Malkin's made his messes, there hasn't been finger-wagging and there was never going to be any benching. They met and discussed it, involving Gonchar, Malkin's still-constant companion, to ensure clarity. When Phil Kessel's been ... you know, Phil, both men have occasionally made their feelings known, by all accounts, but then, the other night in Anaheim ...
... that's the end result.
Phil will be Phil. But even the hottest-headed version of Phil fully grasps that he's played the best hockey of his life under this particular coach, in large part because Sullivan, while staying respectful, doesn't back down or kowtow to anyone.
That takes confidence.
And speaking of Geno and Phil, the one instance that did cross into the realm of drama came in mid-December, when Pascal Dupuis visited the Penguins' room shortly before spilling onto Quebec TV his view that they were both unhappy with Sullivan. Our site got a copy of the video, published it here, and word immediately made it to Washington, where the Penguins were practicing.
Sullivan could have brushed it off, claiming he doesn't track what his players or former players say on TV or social media.
Or he could have torn into someone he knew had betrayed a professional relationship by using a team invite to create a headline in his current job, which is exactly what Sullivan did that morning in D.C.: “I’m surprised, disappointed, quite honest. I think it’s quite irresponsible on his part. He should know better, having been in a dressing room and understanding what we go through on a daily basis. It was a pretty irresponsible comment on his part."
Know what kind of a life cycle that story had?
Less than 24 hours.
Why?
Because this coach wasn't about to watch idly as his locker room's chemistry was being called into question. He saw a potential distraction, and he stamped it out with both feet.
That night, coincidence or not, the Penguins turned in what remains their season's most complete performance to date in a 2-1 stifling of the defending champs.
Still, my favorite Sullivan moment out of all this came right here in L.A, after that aforementioned blah loss this weekend.
A couple hours before the game, he'd been asked about all the short-handed goals allowed of late, since there'd just been one the previous night in Anaheim. And he initially tried to dodge naming Malkin, probably because everyone around him knew exactly who he meant, anyway. So when I threw in a follow-up specifically identifying Malkin, he laughed slightly and kept right on with his answer as if the context hadn't changed.
But after the game, when this time it was Letang culpable for another costly shorty ... well, compare and contrast this demeanor with the Chicago clip up there.
He could take the easy way out here, you know. He could change the power-play personnel. Or the strategy. But this former fourth-line plugger, the type to light up like fireworks when I mentioned Garrett Wilson's block the other night, he isn't wired to accept that a lack of effort is a good enough reason to pull the plug. So he'll instead publicly -- and to their faces -- let each of these players, even the ones headed to the Hall of Fame, know precisely that.
That, my friends, is vintage Sully.
And that's a coach Pittsburgh's damned lucky to have.
