Won't change tactics? Won't play the kids? Penguins coach Mike Sullivan pushes back at critics' 'narratives'

During his time as a defenseman with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mike Matheson had a way with words.

Especially when it came to those who had a way with words.

Like his coach at that time, Mike Sullivan.

“The first thing I noticed about him is just the way he speaks,” Matheson said in 2022. “He’s really good at formulating sentences. That can sound really stupid, but when you’re ab-libbing and trying to explain something, it can be difficult to formulate a sentence that makes sense and not have a bunch of ‘ums’ and ‘uhs.’ He doesn’t say them very often. He’s very good at doing that.

“That helps get his message across very clearly.”

Sullivan never took a speaking course or debate class at his alma mater, Boston University. But when he embarked on his coaching career in 2002, he realized the value of communicating clearly.

“Coaches in a lot of ways are teachers, right?” Sullivan said in an interview with TribLive. “Vocabulary is very important when teaching concepts or communicating with players. When we put meetings together or presentations together, as a coaching staff we talk a lot about vocabulary and the importance of that, so that we can articulate things a certain way that brings a level of clarity of what we’re trying to relay to the players.

“I always try to pride myself in that aspect of coaching. The teaching element is one of the parts of my job that I really enjoy. … A coach’s ability to explain himself and articulate what his message is and what he’s teaching is essential.”

Still listening

Sullivan joined the Penguins organization in 2015 when he was hired as head coach of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in June of that year. By December, he was promoted to the head coaching position with the NHL club and oversaw one of the brightest stretches in franchise history, steering it to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and 2017.

But in the wake of those spellbinding triumphs, the Penguins have struggled. Their last postseason series win came in the first round of the 2018 playoffs. They have failed to even qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs in each of the past two seasons.

All of that — the Stanley Cup titles and successive futility — is on Sullivan’s resume.

“Obviously, we have high expectations,” Sullivan said. “Are we disappointed? For sure. When you look at the makeup of the group — the players and the coaching staff alike — I think they’re pretty competitive guys. And they have pretty high expectations of themselves as individuals. And I’m in that category. When we don’t have success, the first place that I look is in the mirror and what I can do to help this group get over the hump and enjoy that success.”

Sullivan has been here in Pittsburgh for 671 regular season games, by far the longest tenure of any head coach in franchise history.

Suggestions that his voice has grown stale are roundly rejected by those listening to him.

“The biggest thing is probably consistency in the way he evaluates things,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “But also just bringing new thoughts, new ideas. Stuff that’s going to help our game or stuff that we can evolve with. That’s important too. The game is changing. You have to be able to adapt and change with it, and I think he’s done a really good job of that. I’m sure there’s a lot of different reasons as to why he continues to be able to deliver that message but that’s probably a few of them.”

Sullivan dismisses the notion — or, using a term he frequently employs, narrative — entirely. Not just for him but for the vocation in general.

“I think sometimes (media) makes more of that stuff than how it actually plays out,” Sullivan said. “I’ve always looked at it if you think of terms of a coach’s job and what we do, you’d like to think that if you build relationships with players, one of the greatest benefits of relationships is trust. That takes time. That doesn’t happen overnight.

“If the narrative is ‘Hey, let’s bring in a new coach because this guy is stale,’ does that coach ever have the opportunity to build the relationships that are necessary to go through some of the challenges that pro sports inevitably presents? I don’t think you hear that narrative in the NFL very much. There are coaches (who) are coaching in the NFL for 20 years in one spot. We’ve got one in Pittsburgh. It’s only in hockey that we think, ‘Hey, we’ve got to turn and burn the coach because his message is stale.’ I don’t know where the narrative came from. I don’t subscribe to that notion. As a matter of fact, I think just the opposite.”

Answering the critics

Sullivan offers his arguments against a handful of perceptions that are not complimentary of him or how the Penguins have operated under his watch.

Perhaps the most persistent of those accusations is that the Penguins have largely played the same way since winning their two most recent Stanley Cup championships and that the team has not altered its approach sufficiently to how the league as a whole has changed since then.

“We’ve made so many adjustments to our overall game and how we play in all three zones in the nine years that I’ve been here,” Sullivan said. “When people suggest that or people bang that drum, no one understands the specifics or the details of that narrative. And I’m not naive to sit here and say that I’m not aware of that. It’s just half-truths. I really don’t have a lot of interest in that. My job is to put a game plan on the ice, a game plan that we think gives the players that we have the best opportunity to have success. We go through a due diligence process constantly with respect to that. We’ve made all kinds of adjustments to our game.

“Now, you guys (in the media) don’t always see it, and I’m not going to share the details of what those look like. But to say we’re playing the same exact way … we didn’t even play the same way in 2017 that we did in 2016. There were adjustments made in our defensive zone coverage in 2017 in the Stanley Cup Final series against Nashville that was different than any other element of what we did. … We felt that it was an adjustment that we needed to make in order to try to try to win the series. We adopted that after we had success. We constantly look at that in how we’re going to play.”

That play will continue to involve speed.

Under Sullivan, the Penguins largely outraced the opposition to their championships in 2016 and 2017. During that time, their brand was affixed to being fast as much their black and yellow jerseys. But today, they are no longer special in terms of how quickly they skate. The entire NHL predominantly operates at a supersonic pace.

Some suggest the Penguins should move to a lower gear.

Sullivan does not.

“There’s a narrative that the Penguins talk about speed and they’re not fast enough,” Sullivan said. “Well of course we talk about speed because speed is a competitive advantage in hockey. Show me a good team in the league that’s slow. They don’t exist. Slow teams have a hard time winning. So, speed is every bit an important element. Now, when we won the Stanley Cup, our teams had a significant advantage in speed in a lot of forms. Now, I think the league has evolved and (there are) a lot of teams that bring speed, and the reason is it is the ultimate competitive advantage. That doesn’t suggest that for one minute that because we’re not as ‘fast’ as we were from a foot-speed standpoint, that we can’t play a team-speed game.

“And I’ve said this in the media a number of times, speed manifests itself in a number of different ways. There’s physical speed, foot speed. We need some of that. We have some of that. (Rust) can really skate. (Forward) Drew O’Connor can really skate. We have some of that. There’s mind speed, your ability to think and anticipate and recognize. Windows of opportunity open and close. You can change the point of attack with team speed. I still think we have a lot of that. I would argue that Sid can still think the game at a real elite level. He has the ability to play a fast game because he sees it so well. He’s two steps ahead of everybody else on the ice. And we have a few guys that are like that.

“So, we still have the ability to have a speed element in our game. We might not have the trailblazers that we once had when we were a bit younger. But still have the ability to have a speed element or a quick-strike mindset to the game that we’re trying to play. Why do we have that? Because it is a competitive advantage in the game. That is the evolution in the NHL. That is not just the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“For me, to suggest this coaching staff hasn’t evolved from a tactical standpoint or we haven’t evolved with the league and how the game is being played is a bogus narrative. I would welcome that discussion and talk specifics with respect to the tactical game and how the game is being played in the modern NHL and what that looks like. I felt like in 2016 when we won the Stanley Cup, we were on the cutting edge of that. We’re constantly trying to evolve and get better in every facet of our game. We bring new ideas to the table all the time. Our players bring ideas to us that we encourage and invite. Some of them, we adopt to our overall game. I just don’t subscribe, I don’t buy that narrative. I recognize that it’s out there. I just don’t agree with it. I’m more concerned about coaching our players.”

Playing the kids

One area the Penguins have led the NHL in consistently is age. In fact, they opened the 2023-24 season with the oldest roster at an average age of 30.8 years.

The season-opening roster they submitted to the NHL on Monday clocks in at 29.7 years, third-oldest in the NHL. That figure factors in players who are opening the season on some form of injured reserve. Those involved on the active roster include forward Rutger McGroarty, 20, and goaltender Joel Blomqvist, 22, both rookies.

(It should be noted injuries to veteran forward Bryan Rust, 32, and goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic, 28, are playing a role in the composition of the roster.)

Sullivan is often accused of not trusting younger players or prospects as much as a more established veteran.

He offered a throaty rebuttal of that idea as well.

“When I first became the coach of this team, we had half a dozen players that started the season (with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) that went to the (preseason) rookie tournament in London, (Ontario) when I was coaching in that rookie tournament that have their names on the Stanley Cup in 2016 and a bunch of them in 2017,” Sullivan said. “And players like (forward) Conor Sheary who played with Sidney Crosby. When (forward) Jake Guentzel came up the next year, he played with Sidney Crosby as a young player. We’ve had young players crack our lineup and play, and not only play but play in significant roles. We played Conor Sheary with Sid when nobody even knew who Conor Sheary was. I put Jake Guentzel with Sid when nobody knew who Jake Guentzel was. Bryan Rust has been all over our lineup since he’s been a Pittsburgh Penguin.

“The group of players that we put on the ice are the 20 best players within our organization that we think give us the best chance to win. How old they are or where they sit in their careers or what their contract looks like really doesn’t enter the equation from my standpoint. We’re going to put players in the lineup that are going to help us win. If a young player has the ability to help us win and can go in the lineup and be impactful, he’ll play. We’ve given opportunities to young guys throughout the course of time here. The ones that have maximized the opportunity continue to gain more time. Drew O’Connor (26) is the latest example. (Defenseman) Jack St. Ivany (25).

“Once again, that’s a narrative that for me, I would argue against. People can have their opinions. At the end of the day, I sit in this room with this coaching staff when we’re discussing lineups and the very first question I ask is which 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies gives this team the best chance to win.”