Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan loses his cool in post-game interview
Mike Sullivan was not a happy man following last night's Penguins game, and he did not shy away from voicing his opinions in his post-game interview.
The city may never sleep, but the Penguins sure snoozed through much of their matchup at Madison Square Garden, falling 4-2 to the New York Rangers.
Costly turnovers and defensive lapses led to at least six odd-man rushes and a breakaway, according to Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, though even that might be a conservative estimate.
«Probably the worst game we've played in a month, maybe. Everything we talked about before the game, we did the complete opposite,» said Sullivan.
The Penguins gave the Rangers three prime opportunities in the first 10 minutes with some careless play. It didn't get much better on the man-advantage as the Penguins traded rush chances with New York in a very disjointed effort.
Few silver linings were found from defenseman Kris Letang or Coach Sullivan either.
«There was nothing good to take from that game.»
- Kris Letang
- Kris Letang
In the fewest words possible, Sullivan's post-game comments lasted just over a minute, the frustration bubbled over as he called out failures in every aspect of the Penguins' game.
«We talked about managing the points. We gave up six two-on-ones and a breakaway,» Sullivan's admonishment continued. «We talked about bringing physicality to the game. We didn't touch anybody. You know, it's it's it's hard to win when you do things like that.»
Still, through all that chaos in front of him, goalie Alex Nedeljkovic stood tall, stopping 22 of 24 shots, many of those coming in high-danger areas.
His sprawling stop on Chris Kreider kept the Penguins in this game after Blake Lizotte and Philip Tomasino scored against the run of play.
But even Nedeljkovic was hard on himself, particularly on Artemi Panarin's second goal, that deflating strike with 1.5 seconds remaining in the second period.
Turnovers plagued Pittsburgh all night, from Matt Grzelcyk's ill-advised between-the-legs pass at the blue line to a series of miscues from nearly every skater.
It was a functionally sloppy game from the Penguins, bordering on reckless and unprofessional at times.
If there's one takeaway from this debacle, it's that the Penguins have plenty of cleaning up to do, otherwise they'll be continuing to play some silly hockey, as Sullivan might describe it.
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