Pens fan here.
How do you guys actually feel about Mike Sullivan? Feels like all Pens fans are satisfied with Dan Muse now. Anyway, has Mike been an upgrade; is he better than what was before, better coaching, system, etc.
thx, screw the flyers
Pens fan here.
How do you guys actually feel about Mike Sullivan? Feels like all Pens fans are satisfied with Dan Muse now. Anyway, has Mike been an upgrade; is he better than what was before, better coaching, system, etc.
thx, screw the flyers
30 comments
Pretty happy with Mike so far. He’s got a lot of mileage out of what we have and has really turned around the defense. The offense has generally been lacking, but that’s at least in part due to lack of talent.
Oh, I thought you were gonna ask about why he wears cat ears to the pressers ,,,
I appreciate his vision for the team. More east/west hockey which has been a challenge for some Rangers to adjust to. He’s certainly calmer than I remember when the Pens won the Cup, but he’s good. There’s just been a big adjustment period for the players, and the coach has to learn the players too. Lots more parody in the league these days, even the better teams are within reach (besides the Avs).
Like the Assistant Coach David Quinn, I appreciate his more patient/tolerant to bs mentality as a HC. He knows the bar is on the floor when it comes to this team’s expectations compared to their ECF appearance 2 years ago. But unlike Lavi, he knows that development of new players and building new chemistries are going to be the groundwork of this team. That’s what made his Pen’s team so successful imo.
Long story short? I really like him. I respected him as a coach in PIT (as much as I hated Crosby), and I like him as our coach. Even if he doesn’t bring us a cup in his tenure, he’s doing his best to set this team up for success similar to David Quinn back in 2018.
He’s great. Why? Defense. We’re one of the best teams in the league in allowing the fewest GA. If our top 6 could finish even just a little bit there would be a very different picture in the standings.
I think he’s done a great job so far. If there is one area that he’s made a very clear difference, it’s in the defensive structure of this team. Night and day difference from what we’ve seen the past decade.
Love him! He turned our defense around big time, getting guys like soucy and Robertson playing beyond our expectations. Team needs better finishing but when they play the game Sullivan expects them to play they look good. I will say he’s not very quick to trust prospects and that can be annoying but I see his vision. Laba, our rookie 3C, gained his trust quickly by playing the puck pursuit game he likes and got rewarded. Called up Berard at the right time and he’s looking really good rn (he had a slow start to the season in the AHL, lost some confidence but has found it), morrow, offensive dman prospect, had some bad defensive plays in a few games and sully said in an interview he needed to be more assertive with his play and he played just like that last game and got PP time. Seems like he won’t give ice time for free but he sticks to his word when prospects earn it. From a development point of view, seems like prospects know what they need to work on and sully rewards them when he sees it. Excited to see how perreault turns out, I compare him to guentzel all the time so I feel like he has the right coach for his development.
Huge upgrade over Laviolette. I mean Lavy was a disaster year 2, but our D is great. Just wish we hadn’t run our top 6 out of town last year, because we could use some offensive help.
An upvote just for “screw the Flyers “
he’s not the problem.
He is a thousand times better than Laviolette. His zone defense works for us, and we no longer look lost in our own zone.
Also, despite his reputation for not playing young guys, Noah Laba gets regular ice time and plays in important situations, Matthew Robertson has seen a lot of time on the blueline, and Scott Morrow is also getting a look there. Cuylle has played on the first line and PP at times, and we’ve seen a sneak preview of Gabe, Berard, and Chmelar. And I expect more of Gabe later this year.
Our problem is speed, a poor transition game, and finishing. Sully is doing what he can with this roster.
Our biggest issue with him is Connor Sheary, but Sheary may have finally become part of the healthy scratch rotation. We’ll see (he played yesterday and had an assist,so I’m sure he’ll be right back in that lineup.)
They don’t seem as chaotic as they did under Laviolette, but let’s see what happens in year 2.
He’s been a huge improvement from the coaching we’ve seen over the past few years. Our issue is that our wonderful GM has zero clue how to build a roster.
I think he’s excellent and a coach you can build a team culture around. Our defense looks good for the first time in I don’t know how long.
I seem to have liked him better when he was an assistant coach with the Rangers years ago.
He has improved team defense immensely. I don’t understand how bad we were in our own zone for the last few years but his system is making mediocre defensemen look good. Gotta focus on the offense now but we will likely need younger legs for that.
The defense has been the best it’s looked in years. Having arguably the best goalie in the league with an improved defense has been great. Problem is the offense is slow and old. I wish we had given kreider and kakko a shot with Sullivan
It’s nice to have a cohesive system in place for the first time in about a decade, especially in the D Zone. I see the vision, but with this group it’s just not going to work. Pretty much as advertised otherwise. He’s been fine, it’s not his fault the team is where it is in the standings, but he will be here a while which is nice for the sake of stability.
There has also been a deep admiration for Sully in NY. Whatever is going with the team at present has nothing to do with him. Drury fucked this team up all on his own.
Best defensive structure we have had in over a decade. It’s very impressive. The team has stunk on maybe 5 games this season. The rest is puck luck.
Mike got you accustomed to the term “system” … my only gripe is his use of the word “compete” and the team lacks it at least 20mins a night
Dan Muse is a fucking joke, I’m
Surprised the Pens hired him
Sully is fine, nothing extraordinary. It’s the Rangers players half-assed effort during some games that are costing them
I wish he got the job after Torts actually! We had a few unlucky years where it “could have been” with the right coaching adjustments in big moments. Not saying they all would, but you have to imagine at least once, sully would have been the difference in his coaching style and decisions.
I’ll never fully support Sullivan after he jinxed the US team by taking the call from Trump.
Lavi was the one who gave Kreider a role instead of him being 9 years of nothing. It was because of Lavi, Kreider scored the most goals in his life. It wasn’t Rangers development that’s for sure.
I’m liking the new system, we’re more structured which has been an issue for us for quite a while.
He has definitely improved the defense which is nice because that’s been a weak point for the Rangers for years. Beyond that it’s hard to say – this is a deeply flawed roster so how much of the Rangers’ struggles with scoring (especially at home) are down to coaching vs. how much are down to this being a slow, inconsistent, aging top 6 is hard to disentangle.
Mike isn’t the issue here. But Rangers squads tend to over perform in Y1 with our coaches…which also isn’t good right now
Upgrade. Give us Crosby and we are good
I wish we just promoted Dan Muse to HC but Sully has been the only reason our team isn’t straight up in last place. The switch in defensive systems completely turned the team around at 5v5.