Mike Sullivan: Win at N.J. showed Penguins were emerging from funk, have momentum
There is no good timing, of course, for a pandemic or for the paralyzation of the economy facing the nation. But to coach Mike Sullivan, the pause of the NHL season came at a particularly bad time for his Pittsburgh Penguins.
Twenty-four hours before the league’s final games before the suspension of the season, the Penguins won on the road, beating the New Jersey Devils, 5-2. Although it came after a 2-8-0 stretch, a more optimistic view could be it was their third win over five games in eight days.
That alone doesn’t make the Penguins the Stanley Cup favorites. The three victories, after all, were against three of the four Eastern Conference teams with losing records. But Sullivan insisted he saw plenty he liked that evening in Newark, N.J.
“I believe as a coach,” Sullivan said during a video call with media Tuesday, “that we felt as a coaching staff that we were (turning the corner), that we were starting to come together, that we were staring to find the chemistry again and everyone’s roles and the new guys and how to utilize those guys and try to maximize their contributions to our group. So we really like the direction that we were going. The Jersey game was a great indication of that. It was a real good … win for us.”
Although the Devils are in last place in the Metropolitan Division, Sullivan was quick to note they had been playing their best hockey of the season leading into that March 10 game against the Penguins. New Jersey was on a 10-4-2 run and had lost in regulation only once over its previous nine games.
Over the prior five weeks, the Devils had beaten the St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals — both first-place teams — in addition to the NHL’s hottest team, the Philadelphia Flyers.
“So we felt good about that win,” Sullivan said. “I think that was an important one for us, for our own self-confidence and in building some traction moving forward. Just a good feeling to hang on to in the event there is a return-to-play scenario coming here.”
#Penguins’ 5-2 victory over the Devils offered a much-needed salve for a squad struggling in just about every conceivable fashion on the ice https://t.co/W7UkaMHOqC
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) March 11, 2020
The Penguins controlled more than 59% of the even-strength shot attempts in that game — a figure they topped only once in their 20 previous games, according to hockey-reference.com’s game log. The Penguins hadn’t statistically dominated puck possession to that extent in a victory since a 2-1 overtime win Jan. 17 at the awful Detroit Red Wings.
A deeper dive into the numbers via naturalstattrick.com shows the Penguins were the sixth-worst team in the NHL between Jan. 5 and the Devils game when measured by high-danger scoring chances percentage. Only the Red Wings had fewer high-danger scoring chances in that time, and only the Red Wings, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers and Anaheim Ducks had a worse ratio of high-danger chances for vs. those against.
Though the Penguins maintained their winning throughout the first half of that stretch of poor statistical play, it began to catch up to them in the 2-8-0 stretch.
Sullivan gave a list of reasons intended to — in his words – “rationalize” the slump.
“I think there were a lot of circumstances surrounding the bit of adversity that our team went through there before the suspension of play,” he said. “We had a number of returning players coming off the injured list coming back into our lineup. The trade deadline was right at the same time where we were trying to assimilate new players in our lineup. There were certain players that I think we probably played and overtaxed and put them in tough scenarios from that standpoint out of necessity because of the injuries that our team had to endure.”
All were issues Sullivan hopes began to work themselves out — just before the NHL temporarily ceased play — with one strong game in northern New Jersey.
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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