OTTAWA -- With Mike Sullivan, I've witnessed the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. From San Jose to Nashville to Tom Wilson putting one of his players in the hospital to Evgeny Kuznetsov's breakaway to Artemi Panarin's backbreaker just a few months ago.
And yet, I'd never seen him this emotional.
Not even close:
Don't skip it. Press play. Sound up.
Because that, my friends, is the current state of the franchise's head coach. And that's kind of a big deal in the broader context.
More context: The Penguins had just lost to the Senators, 5-4 in overtime, on this Wednesday at Canadian Tire Centre, on a Brady Tkachuk snipe 25 ticks into the extra session, but also on four -- count 'em, one, two, three, four -- Ottawa power-play goals in regulation, thanks in large part to referees Dan O'Rourke and Ghislain Hebert making an evening-long embarrassment of themselves.
And what's in the video above, at least between the cringes, the painful pauses and the bitten lips, was Sullivan somehow finding a way to navigate questions on those refs without being hit with some five-figure NHL fine.
What did he think of the 14 total penalties, nine of which were called on the Penguins?
"It's pretty tough to assess a game like that when half the game is special teams," Sullivan would reply. "There was no flow, there was no five-on-five."
After a pause and a look away, he'd add almost under his breath, "It was ridiculous."
I asked how much of that was the refs and how much might've been Ottawa's players going down too easily, as a couple of his players had suggested to me in the locker room just before that.
"I don't even have an answer for you. ... I don't have an answer for you."
Finally, after further prodding and another dozen or so headshakes, he came up with this: "Let's just say I question a fair amount of the calls."
He was right:
Jason Zucker blamed himself later for this early holding penalty against Claude Giroux but, at the risk of being mean, Zucker doesn't need to grab Giroux to catch him at this stage of the latter's career. Also, this'd be the first of several instances, from the Pittsburgh perspective, where the Senators would seize upon any scenario to collapse like comatose soccer players.
Here's the grand prize, though:
There's no plane of reality upon which that's deemed a cross-check, never mind one in which the score's tied with 10 minutes to go.
P.O Joseph, maybe the mildest personality on the roster, went berserk at O'Rourke, then even took a shot at another Ottawa player on his way to the box. And this was minutes after another dubious call against Bryan Rust, another mild personality, who'd have choice enough words for O'Rourke that he'd earn an extra two for unsportsmanlike conduct. Immediately after which Sullivan went the full Mount Vesuvius on the bench, dropping F-bombs galore as his face pruned into a petrifying shade of purple.
Again, he was right. They all were.
All of them were right earlier in the day, as well, when I'd asked a series of questions regarding all the teammates they're missing. Those being the starting goaltender (Tristan Jarry), all of the top three right-handed defensemen (Kris Letang, Jeff Petry, Jan Rutta), and two-thirds of the only energy-type line they'd shown all season (Ryan Poehling, Josh Archibald).
That's a third of the active roster. And an important third.
"Yeah, but we're not making excuses," Teddy Blueger, the usual center between the latter two, would tell me. "We know we've got some great players out, but we've got to get the job done."
He was right.
"We've got to make the difference," Kasperi Kapanen would tell me. "We've got to bring whatever's needed."
He was right, too.
But all this being right hasn't amounted to much of late. Once that dynamic monthlong run began taking on water in mid-December, the Penguins are now 4-7-3 in their past 14 and, by my informal count, have flashed precisely two periods of such quality that they'd have fit within that previous month. Those were the final two periods of the 3-2 victory over the Rangers Dec. 20 at PPG Paints Arena.
Since then, it's been ... well, this.
No, really, all of the above can be true -- and right -- and it's still as obvious as it is ominous that these young, fast, fun Senators wound up with edges of 40-19 in shots, 68-42 in shot attempts, and 23-14 in high-danger chances. The bad officiating was a boost, as was the visitors' injury list, but ... man, let's not pretend we're not seeing what we're seeing. Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle and Josh Norris and Thomas Chabot ... they weren't exactly getting overtaken by Jeff Carter or Brian Dumoulin. And even while the Penguins' top-six guys kept cranking points -- Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had three points each, Zucker and Rickard Rakell a goal each -- there was no one else in the forward mix who could make any difference.
Someone to chase the Ottawa kids?
Who's doing that?
Someone to bang them a bit deep in the zone, wear them down, make them a little wary?
Who?
How about just an iota of energy?
Who? Brock McGinn? The only player on the roster required to punch the clock after a shift to prove he was there?
I saw Ron Hextall here. With my own eyes up, in the Senators' press box. First time in a while.
My understanding was that he'd spent the previous weekend in Charlotte, N.C., watching the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton affiliate in AHL action and that, as a result, he came away with Jonathan Gruden. He's only 22, but he's an energetic sort who'd been popping a few goals, so he arrived via promotion and ... logged a grand total of 3:20 of ice time in this one, despite being available to kill penalties for half of that.
Sullivan's fault?
Hardly.
Because the underbelly to all of this is that much uglier, as I see it: Hextall's never had a clear vision for this roster, even though he's employing a head coach who couldn't conceivably have a clearer vision, so he never has a default mode to which to boomerang when things go awry. Rather, he signs players he likes, he squeezes them in under the salary cap, he complains openly about how the cap constrains his ability to make any changes ... and he just waits and watches.
If that sounds cynical to an extreme, everything in that paragraph matches the common description of his tenure in Philadelphia. The roster was built in the offseason, all the players everyone expected to be kept were kept, and his Flyers faded away season after season in large part because they lacked a firm identity.
Well, this situation, I dare say, ain't that one.
The Penguins remain blessed to be within the Crosby/Malkin window. And however long that might be open, the air's blowing through it big-time right about now. It's there. They're both still exceptional talents.
What's more, there's plenty of additional supporting cast, there's a camaraderie that people within this group compare only to the recent Cup years, and there's a coach who's one of the best in the business.
What's missing ... is the GM being the only one in the room unwilling -- or worse, unable -- to recognize that he blew it with the composition of these third and fourth lines. That they don't fit at all the Sullivan mold. That they're silently but surely dragging down the whole operation by not contributing a damned thing night after night.
I don't want to hear about the cap. Jim Rutherford made mistakes -- whoppers, at times -- but he owned them and addressed them. When he blew it with the Derick Brassard trade, he moved Brassard out and ate the loss. Same with Ryan Reaves. And Tanner Pearson. And rather than complain, even internally, that a Rob Scuderi was impossible to move, he magically transformed Scuderi's bloated cap hit into a critical Cup piece in Trevor Daley.
By the way, the only other individual I've seen seethe, the way Sullivan did here, after an event like this
Yeah, it was Jim.
Only it was after every ... single ... loss.
GETTY
Casey DeSmith's beaten by the Senators' Brady Tkachuk in overtime Wednesday night in Ottawa.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Canadian Tire Centre:
1. Brady Tkachuk, Senators LW
2. Sidney Crosby, Penguins C
3. Drake Batherson, Senators RW
THE INJURIES
• Jan Rutta, defenseman, has an upper-body injury and didn't accompany the team here.
• Kris Letang, defenseman, is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and has resumed skating, though he didn't accompany the team here.
• Tristan Jarry, goaltender, in on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and has resumed skating with the team.
• Jeff Petry, defenseman, is on long-term injured reserve with a wrist injury and has resumed skating with the team.
• Josh Archibald, right winger, is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and has resumed skating with the team.
• Ryan Poehling, left winger, in on injured reserve with an upper-body injury and has resumed skating with the team.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker-Evgeni Malkin-Rickard Rakell
Drew O'Connor-Jeff Carter-Kasperi Kapanen
Danton Heinen-Teddy Blueger-Brock McGinn
Brian Dumoulin-Ty Smith
Marcus Pettersson-Mark Friedman
P.O Joseph-Chad Ruhwedel
And for D.J. Smith's Senators:
Brady Tkachuk-Tim Stützle-Drake Batherson
Alex DeBrincat-Shane Pinto-Claude Giroux
Parker Kelly-Dylan Gambrell-Jake Lucchini
Derick Brassard-Mark Kastelic-Austin Watson
Thomas Chabot-Jacob Bernard-Docker
Jake Sanderson-Travis Hamonic
Erik Brannstrom-Nick Holden
THE SCHEDULE
There was supposed to be a practice Thursday in Cranberry, but Sullivan scrapped that on the overnight charter flight home. So they'll be back on the ice Friday for a full morning skate in advance of the rematch with these Senators, 7:08 p.m., at PPG Paints Arena.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
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