Kovacevic: Sullivan sticks by Core, but support -- and change -- needed

MONTREAL -- "You know, I think it's a big day for our organization."

This was Mike Sullivan late Thursday night here at Bell Centre. After Kris Letang, the most accomplished defenseman in franchise history, completed a six-year, $36.6 million contract. After Logan Cooley, the West Mifflin native, had become the highest local pick in any NHL Draft by going third overall to the Coyotes. And after the Penguins' own pick, 6-foot-4 defenseman Owen Pickering, was welcomed to the fold at 21st overall.

On the actual stage by Letang, no less:

Nice, huh?

Yeah, it's a big day. Beyond dispute.

Even when it came to Cooley, as Sullivan elegantly explained.

"I think it's a proud moment, for the Penguins, for the Pittsburgh area, for what we put into this family," he'd say. "When you look at how grassroots hockey has grown in the Pittsburgh area, I think a significant influence is the Pittsburgh Penguins and the success that they've had, you know, probably dates all the way back to Mario and his days, and carrying through Sid and the guys today. And when you have the privilege of having those types of players playing in your city, it's hard not to get excited about the sport."

Again, beyond dispute. It's a fair connection to make, and it's a credit not only to Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby and fistful of Stanley Cups, but also to recently resigned president David Morehouse and the team's dedicated push toward building rinks, relationships and more to grow participation in one of America's most expensive sports.

And yet ... there's a part of me, having either lived or covered all of this, that can't help but feel there's an uncomfortable crossroads at hand.

Not unmanageable, mind you. Not undoable. Uncomfortable.

Meaning that, for as much as I'm in favor of keeping the Core intact -- and everything I heard here on this day strongly suggested Evgeni Malkin will be extended, too -- I can't help but wonder what has to happen around these three extraordinary players to create a real chance at another Cup. 

Step back from any sentimentality and consider the scenario: Letang and Malkin are 35. Sid'll be that old in a month. The salary cap's being stretched to limits that'd make even the Lightning cringe. The system's largely barren of legit prospects. And even if both Letang and Malkin wind up making concessions on cap hits, as Letang did by pushing his term out to six years, the current payroll plus the pandemic-mandated stagnant cap won't allow for meaningful moves that aren't internal.

So, yeah, it's Valtteri Puustinen or bust, baby.

Or -- and hear me out here -- some things could change.

No, I'm not going on another screed about lowering the percentage of payroll committed to the NHL's highest-paid and not-at-all-worth-that defense corps.

Rather, I'm going to suggest three areas of change:

1. Find players who fit.

It's tough to tell what that is at this stage of the operation. Logic would lead one toward more speed, if only to compensate for a perceived loss of that with the Core. But logic doesn't apply here. Sid, Geno and Letang can all still motor. And in Letang's case, he can motor through multiple overtimes.

As Sullivan answered when asked how he expected Letang to hold up over a contract that carries him to age 40, "There are some nights when we're behind the bench and we feel like we can't give him enough ice."

Fine, but the need for speed would seem to be no less real.

So when Sullivan brought up on his own that he and his staff regularly communicate their own concerns about roster makeup to Ron Hextall and management, I pushed him for specifics.

"There's a lot of things, and I don't think we're any different than any other organization in that regard," he came right back. "We can get a little bit stronger down low in the defensive zone. We can improve on our wall play. We can become a team that's a little bit more difficult to play against physically. There's so many ways we can look at it and say: How can we improve? How can we get better?"

Couldn't agree more. All three of those. The Penguins can't keep getting overwhelmed in front of their crease. They've got to be better equipped to battle for 50/50 pucks along the boards. They've really got to have more of a presence physically.

Good stuff there. I'd never heard Sullivan lay it out quite that clearly, and here's hoping those conversations cross into action.

2. Weigh the strategies, too.

Before he'd taken an additional breath, Sullivan pointed a finger squarely at himself, as well.

"Some of it's going to be tactical," he'd say. "We're going to go through a good due-diligence process as a coaching staff. And we do this after every season. We look at how we play, and we ask ourselves the hard questions like, 'OK, are we playing to our strengths?' That's always an evolving process. There are tweaks that we make every single year to how we play so that we continue to evolve as a hockey team, so that we're not stagnant."

No way he'd get specific with this one. No head coach would. But it's been obvious that he's made those tweaks, even as it's equally obvious that, for example, any team that blows a 2-0 lead in both Games 5 and 6 of a playoff series, then a third-period lead in Game 7 ... yeah, there needs to be a Plan B. Or a Plan D, as it were, for defending.

3. (Gasp) Give young guys a shot.

This might be the most common Sullivan knock, and it's not without cause. Much as I respect the man and the job he does -- he's on a short list of the best in the world -- he's got to sacrifice the occasional regular-season success in favor of propping up a younger player.

Is Radim Zohorna a less-than-perfect choice to face the Bruins or Blackhawks on some random November night?

Who cares?

Get him out there to learn lessons, even if they come the hard way. It's the only way he'll get better, and it's the only way the broader organization will get better. And the same applies to Drew O'Connor, Sam Poulin, P.O Joseph and, yeah, Puustinen. The few kids who do perform can't have the figurative door slammed in their faces once they earn their way up.

Sullivan addressed that, too, saying that "for sure" the younger players should get more opportunities, adding, "I mean, we've always been believers that the best combination of players inside of a locker room is when we have that veteran presence, but also some youth and energy. We're always looking for young players to push their way on their roster. All these guys are going to get opportunities to show how their games have grown and developed, and they're going to get opportunities in training camp and through the exhibition season to fight for a roster spot. They should be driven to earn a spot on our team."

Sounds good, but the coach needs to be just as driven to default their way.

It's not a perfect situation. As Sullivan acknowledged, "In the salary-cap world, there's not a lot of perfect teams out there." And to be sure, nothing cited here amounts to an actual solution. That has to come from Hextall, Sullivan and all concerned appreciating -- and acting upon -- the very real need to supplement this Core with what's needed for a Cup run that's more than a mere motion.

This is where I'm skeptical, albeit maybe unfairly. Because the bulk of the problem remains the cap space and, within that, the overpaid defense corps. And until I see one more of Marcus Pettersson, John Marino and/or Brian Dumoulin sent out -- and all come with varying trade challenges -- it's difficult to envision a lot else changing.

Get to work. This day was only as big as the next one allows it to become.

• One last time: No issues with the Letang contract. Not the term, not the money. The AAV needed to be low to keep the team competitive, and the length will solve itself in the later years. He'll deliver appropriate value.

This was what was needed to get it done.

"It was more of a contract to fit both parties, you know, give a chance to the Penguins to sign other players," Letang would say, blunt as ever. "And also, it was based on performance, and what I did in the last few years. I think it was a mix of both. It was to make sure that we can still compete and win. And not take a big chunk and not leaving anything."

• That's got to happen -- and it's going to happen -- with Malkin, as well. I've got the Friday Insider lede on that topic.

• I asked Letang how the Penguins can contend for Cups with an older Core.

"Well, there's two big names, you know?" he replied with a grin, referencing Crosby and Malkin. "One, hopefully, soon that will be extended. But when you have those two guys, a leader like Sid, everything's possible. And the team that we had last year and the bad luck that we faced during the playoff -- or just before the playoff -- sometimes it kind of crushes your hopes. But at the end of the day, the season we had with all the injuries, that proves that we have something solid from the coaching staff to the players. I think we have what it takes."

I'll applaud the reference to luck. Sullivan made one on the same subject. It's not an excuse if it's accurate, and it's absolutely accurate that the Penguins had almost no chance without their top two goaltenders ... and still had an eventual Eastern Conference finalist on the ropes.

File any and all rebuttals to this in the nearest recycle bin. I've got no use for avoiding the mention of a fact when it's fair and applicable.

• I asked Sullivan the same question about contending with the Core:

"Well, I believe in these guys," he'd reply. "I just believe in these guys. I believe they're capable of great play. I've gotten to know them over the past seven years, working with them and building relationships with them, and you really gain a pretty good understanding of how they tick. I just think these guys are ... they're special players, special people. And you know, it's hard to win. We know that. But we believe that we have a group that can contend. I think their play this year illustrates that. We just have to continue to do our best to try to field the best possible team we can, one that gives us the best chance to win."

• By the way, anyone else hearing a pining for the return of Zach Aston-Reese in any of Sullivan's remarks above about the team's personnel needs?

Oh, cool. Thought it was just me.

• Our planet's probably got no more than a handful of experts on any given hockey draft, and I'm not among them. But I'll say this much about the Penguins' choice of Pickering: The least relevant observation anyone can make is that he wasn't a consensus first-rounder per most rankings.

For one, again, there's just so little knowledge. And so little in the way of consistently applied comparisons, considering these athletes are spread all over the globe facing grossly inconsistent levels of competition.

For another, Pickering shouldn't be punished for being, per several accounts, a late-ish bloomer, both in terms of rocketing up in size and from being a projected fourth-rounder to someone seen by two respected TSN analysts, Bob McKenzie and Craig Button, as No. 23 and No. 15 overall, respectively.

I asked the young man if, in such a situation, he'd ever paid attention to any of the rankings.

"I'd say my teammates were more invested in that," Pickering answered. "There were screenshots sent to group chats, either supportive or asking me if it was a typo. They were tasked with keeping my head small."

He kept a straight face through that, too.

• In general, he was ... not like most young hockey players in that he was extraordinarily well-spoken, which I felt compelled to mention to him:

Hey, it helps when defensemen are smart.

• Born and raised just south of Winnipeg, too. New favorite player.

• Anyone who thinks the Penguins reached -- and that's a common refrain anytime any team defies the consensus -- good luck explaining how literally everyone in existence had the top three in this draft pegged incorrectly. Unless someone can present evidence of a prediction that Slovakia would take the top two spots with big left winger Juraj Slafkovsky going first to the Canadiens, slick defenseman Simon Nemec going second to the Devils.

"It's a great day for Slovakia," Slafkovsky beamed.

And a lousy day for draftniks.

• Taylor Haase has coverage from here of Pickering's night and Cooley's night, and Danny Shirey has a special Drive to the Net analyzing Pickering's skill set.

• It was Hextall's idea to have Letang take to the stage in his hometown, and it might've been a bit of gentle coercion as well.

“I told Tanger a week ago, ‘We get the deal done, and you can announce the pick in Montreal,'" Hextall would say with a smile. "So it worked out well.”

• This is social media excellence, courtesy of the Penguins' Andi Perlman:

She had to be aware, in the moment, that the Steelers tweeted the way they did about Kenny Pickett and George Pickens, their top two picks in the recent NFL Draft, and react on the fly.

• The unending, universal booing of Gary Bettman feels like so much more than a tradition. There's a sense that it emanates from fans' souls. There really is. As if they've all been, individually and collectively, wronged by one of the man's decisions or non-decisions.

That's fine by me.

So was this: Bettman came onto the stage flanked by the kin of Guy Lafleur, Mike Bossy, both Quebec treasures who recently passed ... and got booed. Bettman began speaking French ... and got booed.  Bettman went on about Montreal's history as the draft's home ... and got booed.  Bettman sought a moment of silence for Bryan Marchment dying this week ... and OK, that worked. For a moment. Then the booing resumed, louder than before.

The reception did visibly irritate him at various points in the evening, and that's fine by me, too. Maybe he needs to hear what those who love the game think about professional sports' worst-run league.

• Not closing on a sour note. This was fun. There's no city like this for hockey, and the crowd's robust reactions to most everything proved that anew:

To boot, it was wonderful to partake in person again.

Also, there was little Alex, spitting out the scoop of the night when Taylor asked what he thought of Dad's new deal:

• Thanks for reading this. There'll be more to come from Day 2 here.