Mike Sullivan’s Rangers Looked Like Mike Sullivan’s Penguins
This is a blog. I’m not a journalist. These are just my thoughts.
The Pens opener at Madison Square Garden was eye-opening. Many of us going into the season thought, “Sure, these forwards look good, but the defense and goaltending, sheesh.” Then they proceeded to shut down and shut out the Rangers 3-0 in suffocating fashion.
It's just one game, so I’m not going to tell you to reserve your lawn chair spot to watch the playoff games on Mario’s TV this spring, but it was encouraging.
All of the Penguins' positive notes aside, one big thing stuck out to me watching this game. It was exactly as I titled this post. Mike Sullivan’s Rangers looked like Mike Sullivan’s Penguins.
I’m not very high on the blue shirts to begin with this year. They have a stale feeling to me, stale but with a good goalie. So I don’t expect them to be world beaters, but I expected a better effort in their first regular-season game under Mike Sullivan.
They looked just flat out flat. Kind of like the Penguins the last few years. Not in any particular style of play, but just in the lack of threat they appeared to pose to the opposition. Even though it was just 1-0 until the empty netters, did the Rangers ever really feel like a threat?
That's how the Penguins have felt for the most part over the past 2.5 seasons under Sullivan. Maybe even longer. They weren’t threatening to teams, and it showed.
I forget who it was, but there was a play where the puck was rimmed around the back of the Rangers' net, and a Rangers defenseman just stood there, looked at the puck that he was the closest to, and let a few seconds go by before a Penguins player picked it up and made a good scoring opportunity out of it.
That's the type of stuff that we never saw in the early days of Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh, but became all too common towards the end. The lack of defensive awareness, pinching at the wrong times, and playing 2-on-1s horribly. It’s not all on Sullivan, but I just found it odd that his first game with the Rangers looked a lot like his last 164 with the Penguins.
Other thoughts:
Ville Koivunen wasn’t stellar, but you can the see potential. The goals will come for him soon. He made a nice move and almost buried one when he hit the post. I have a feeling once he breaks the ice, he’ll start regularly contributing.
Brunicke and Kindel looked great. I joked that Brunicke took a penalty on his first shift just to ensure his name was recorded on the stat sheet, but overall, they both were great. It’s going to be hard to send those kids back to juniors if they keep playing like this.
Justin Brazeau opened my eyes. Granted, I was only at camp for a day, but he wasn’t on my radar for likely candidates to score the GWG opening night. It was a nice play by Geno to get him the puck, and nifty hands like that in front of the net to bury the puck can’t be overlooked. Maybe he will be a nice fit with Geno this year. So far, so good.
I still expect a regression defensively, but if they play like this a majority of the season, this Penguins team is a playoff team. Now, mind you, that is a BIG if. All in all, though, this team looked like a very well-coached team. I’m not bashing Sullivan, I promise, but the difference was noticeable, so kudos to Dan Muse in his first NHL win behind the bench.
