If you think Canadiens coach Michel Therrien has been having headaches recently, imagine the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Mike Sullivan.
Sullivan took over behind the Pittsburgh bench after Mike Johnston was fired on Dec. 12 when the Penguins had a 15-10-3 record. Things have gotten worse under Sullivan, who has a 4-6-2 record heading into Saturday’s game against the Canadiens at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., SN, TVA Sports, TSN Radio 690).
After a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night, the Penguins were in 10th place in the Eastern Conference and six points behind the fourth-place Canadiens, although Pittsburgh holds two games in hand.
The Penguins were outshot 15-3 in the first period Wednesday night.
“That might have been the worst period we’ve played since I’ve been the coach,” Sullivan told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the game.
If you think the Canadiens’ offence has been struggling, look at these numbers: Montreal ranks sixth in the NHL with an average of 2.83 goals per game, while Pittsburgh is 25th at 2.33. The Penguins have been shut out twice and scored one goal in three other games since Sullivan took over.
How about the power play?
Both teams are tied for 16th in the NHL at 18.6 per cent.
But Therrien doesn’t have Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel to work with. Those three forwards eat up a combined $25 million this season — or 35 per cent of the $71.4-million NHL salary cap. Malkin has a cap hit of $9.5 million, Crosby $8.7 million and Kessel $6.8 million.
By comparison, the Canadiens’ three highest-paid forwards — Tomas Plekanec ($5 million), Max Pacioretty ($4.5 million) and Brendan Gallagher ($3.75 million) — have a combined $13.25 million, or 19 per cent of the salary cap.
Pittsburgh’s Big Three has combined for 43 goals and 92 points this season, while Montreal’s Big Three has 36 goals and 86 points despite the fact Gallagher missed 17 games with two broken fingers and Plekanec has only one goal in the last 26 games.
Contracts and dollar figures are the worry of a general manager, but it’s the coach’s job to get his players to perform and there seems to be something wrong in Pittsburgh. When Penguins GM Jim Rutherford made the coaching change, he said: “I look at this snapshot over the first 27 games and I felt that we’ve underachieved. I believe (Sullivan is) the guy that can come in and really take control and really make some guys more accountable when we’re not performing the way we should be.”
“Accountable” is a big word in the coaching world. The two biggest weapons coaches have are ice time — and the press box. The first big step to accountability is cutting back on a player’s ice time and the second one is sitting him in the press box as a healthy scratch.
Therrien took the second step Wednesday night with Tomas Fleischmann, making the 31-year-old veteran a healthy scratch for the first time this season, and it resulted in a 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils at the Bell Centre. Fleischmann has one goal and one assist in his last 19 games.
“At times you got to take some hard decisions,” Therrien said during his post-game news conference. “He’s a veteran player in the league. He had a really good start but I thought lately, in the last month, not much was happening. He needs to skate more like he showed us. He’s capable to make some plays, but in this league you got to be able to skate and create your own chances. It was not an easy decision, but we decided to go with a young kid like (Sven) Andrighetto and I thought tonight he skated well.”
Fleischmann wasn’t the only player Therrien thought about sitting out.
“I met a few players this morning,” he said. “I had to dress 20 players tonight, but I could have undressed a few. They’re not always easy decisions, but we have to take those decisions at times.”
While sitting out Fleischmann — who made the Canadiens on a professional tryout at training camp — was a “hard” decision for Therrien and sent a message to the team, a much harder one would be to scratch a Big Three player like Plekanec. That’s when a coach risks losing that player and, possibly, a good part of the locker room.
What makes Sullivan’s job with the Penguins even more difficult is the fact Malkin and Kessel are under contract through the 2021-22 season, while Crosby’s deal runs through 2024-25. Those players know they’ll probably be around longer than Sullivan, so if he can’t get them to buy into what he’s selling it simply won’t work.
It’s not an easy job.
Earlier this season, Pacioretty talked about the accountability issue with Therrien.
“You can’t hide with him … you can’t hide with Mike and everybody knows that,” the captain said. “Everyone in this room knows you got a camera angle on you at all times, knowing where you are on the ice. And he’s not afraid to call out anybody on this team if they’re not doing what it takes to win a game.”
Calling someone out is one thing. Sitting him in the press box is another. Sitting out a star player is a completely different level.
Decisions that can give coaches a migraine.
