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Penguins fire Coach Mike Johnston, replaced with Sullivan


Mimerez

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2 hours ago, oldnews said:

What's patently obvious isn't usually surprising.

You'd think that "Mathew Barzal" would have a clue who Johnston is, but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Johnston's Portland teams won more than 50 games a season - scored 1000 goals his last three years there - they didn't accomplish that with a neutral zone trap or by defending the 0-0 tie lol.

Johnston's not a "defensive coach".  He simply knows that winning hockey comes from solid two way hockey - better defensive hockey leads to more possession, less time without the puck - which leads to more scoring.   Simple, but apparently difficult for some people to understand.

I suppose that's a hard sell when you're talking to geniuses that think Phil Kessel is going to turn your team into a Stanley Cup Contender lol.

Btw, that's a nice leather vest, but like the 1980's hockey your brain is stuck in, it's so 30 years ago.

You're right, I didn't bother to look up his prior accomplishments because to me they were just a platform for him to reach this stage. He did not know how to adapt with that Pens team, period. The low scoring was a non-issue to me, it's when you have your most dangerous offensive forwards playing trailer to the likes of Kunitz and Hornqvist that I see a problem. Not only that but they have two center-men who are elite at gaining the zone and pushing defenders back but because of the system employed they consistently resorted to dump and chase hockey.

Phil Kessel will not succeed playing dumping and chasing the puck.  I don't care what you have against the guy, off the rush he is one of the best at putting the puck into the net. It's not a coincidence as soon as Malkin and Kessel gave Johnston the finger they instantly flicked the switch as a line. Unwillingness to change (inexperience?) is what it comes down to. But continue to rely on your statistics, even though they're clouding your vision of the Pens games you clearly haven't been watching.

Also, I'm tired of your whole condescending shtick. Don't bother replying to any of my future posts.

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10 hours ago, Gstank29 said:

I dont think Johnson would want to be an AHL assistant coach. Maybe an NHL assistant coach

Maybe, you never know though, with his familiarity with Green and maybe a verbal agreement that Green-Johnston take over Vancouver when WD is done and/or that the Canucks will allow them to talk to NHL teams who seek coaching services. 

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Mike Johnson is a quality hockey guy, He may even end up with the Vancouver Giants

Rutherford is the problem with the Pens

Here are some facts about Rutherford's and the Pens organization's moves so far

Rutherford settled on Johnston, who wasn’t his first choice to coach. That didn’t work. He gambled on Phil Kessel; that hasn’t worked. And the club doesn’t have a first draft pick this year, didn’t have one last year, traded the player picked in 2014 for Kessel, didn’t have a 2013 first round choice, which happened before he got to Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, the ex-GM Ray Shero is in New Jersey with an inferior roster and more points than his Pens, and the Devils have scored more goals than Pittsburgh, with all its elite scoring. The Pens previous top minor-league coach, John Hynes, is now coaching the Devils and the former coach, Dan Bylsma, is coaching the Sabres. 

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20 hours ago, khay said:

Yep, things started to go south after Rutherford took over.

Hurricanes owner ripped Rutherford after Rutherford traded for Kessel and said it would blow up like Semin and his 35 million dollars contract (http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/carolina-hurricanes-owner-peter-karmanos-rips-pittsburgh-penguins-gm-jim-rutherford/).

Rutherford was never that great of a manager. Hurricanes had that one monster season in 2005-06 but other than that, they never had a 100 point season in all those years that he was their GM.

 

so things were going great before they hired rutherford, and they just decided they wanted to clean house,  firing ray shero and dan bylsma for fun?

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4 hours ago, tas said:

so things were going great before they hired rutherford, and they just decided they wanted to clean house,  firing ray shero and dan bylsma for fun?

In the regular season, they were still great. Making the playoffs were never a concern until last season.

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4 hours ago, tas said:

so things were going great before they hired rutherford, and they just decided they wanted to clean house,  firing ray shero and dan bylsma for fun?

Also,

If you want to improve your team, you hire someone better not someone who is worse or similar at best.

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3 hours ago, khay said:

In the regular season, they were still great. Making the playoffs were never a concern until last season.

The start of their issues happened before Rutherford. Rutherford just helped them decline faster.

Under Shero, the Penguins were trading away picks and prospects still for rental players for their playoff runs. It's the usual stuff you'd see though from a team looking to make a cup run.

Rutherford seems to have escalated that process. On top of that, he's traded for Kessel's big contract while having 4 large contracts already in Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and Fleury. With Kessel's contract, that's 38 milliion in cap space used up for the next 4 years. That leaves less than half of their cap space left for 15 players, not including scratches. That's an average cap hit of merely 2.5 or less per player. Talk about being tied down! lol

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14 minutes ago, Erik Karlsson said:

If I was them I'd trade Crosby, Malkin and Kessel and rebuild a bit. The returns for those 3 would be crazy.

You almost get the feeling that a fresh start on a new team would do Malkin a world of good(because they won't trade Crosby)...The Penguins core isn't what it used to be,time to shake things up a bit.

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