Fifth Avenue Forum

eww

These last two wins have felt pretty good, but asking your goalie @meow to make 44 saves a game isn’t a legitimate long-term success strategy.

IMO of course.

Fixed

I was really happy to see Sully match up all night. I get so frustrated when he just "rolls 4 lines" or just "switches players on lines to shake things up". I'm a big fan of the "frustrate 'em, turn 'em over, then counter-attack like a mother" strategy, so having guys like Sid and McCann out there doing that is great. Players like Rust, Guentz, Blueger, Zar will thrive with that.

This is MUCH better than "be harder to play against". Get rid of the odd-man rushes and I like our chances.

I was really happy to see Sully match up all night. I get so frustrated when he just "rolls 4 lines" or just "switches players on lines to shake things up". I'm a big fan of the "frustrate 'em, turn 'em over, then counter-attack like a mother" strategy, so having guys like Sid and McCann out there doing that is great. Players like Rust, Guentz, Blueger, Zar will thrive with that.

This is MUCH better than "be harder to play against". Get rid of the odd-man rushes and I like our chances.

Do you think it worked, though? Edmonton is an easy out at home. I reckon we got outplayed by a pretty lousy team.

Maybe some small nuggets to appreciate. I agree. But I don’t think Sully figured things out over night. He just has better depth.

I was really happy to see Sully match up all night. I get so frustrated when he just "rolls 4 lines" or just "switches players on lines to shake things up". I'm a big fan of the "frustrate 'em, turn 'em over, then counter-attack like a mother" strategy, so having guys like Sid and McCann out there doing that is great. Players like Rust, Guentz, Blueger, Zar will thrive with that.

This is MUCH better than "be harder to play against". Get rid of the odd-man rushes and I like our chances.

Do you think it worked, though? Edmonton is an easy out at home. I reckon we got outplayed by a pretty lousy team.

Maybe some small nuggets to appreciate. I agree. But I don’t think Sully figured things out over night. He just has better depth.

I just like the fact that he did something tactical. I'm sick and tired of us never purposefully taking something away from the other team. But yes, by all means I need to see Gaudreau get shut the f out on Saturday. Period.

And he still hasn't stopped the odd-man breaks, so he has lots of actual coaching work to do. So dooo.

Blaming the coach for players putting themselves out of position and giving up and odd-man break?

Interesting.

Blaming the coach for players putting themselves out of position and giving up and odd-man break?

Interesting.

I blame the coach for not being able to coach them. To be in the right position. Yeah. It's not like he's trying to coach them to be taller or something.

Line match ups are dumb

Prove me wrong

I can't remember the last time I matched lines...I don't like it...

Well one line of thinking won back to back cups and the other turned out to be mikey

Huh? You think Sullivan is a line matcher?

Womp womp

That always seemed like a ton of work at the cost of more useful real-time coaching.

I seem to recall that Boston played Chara against Crosby a lot when both teams were good? And that Zetterberg shadowed Crosby? I might be remembering it wrong, but otherwise I would call it some kind of line matching?

That happened and that is, to whatever degree, line matching...

Sullivan doesn't do that really. That said, no coach wants Garrett Wilson on the same sheet as Connor McDavid...well...unless you coach Connor McDavid...

Except Wilson and Co. were deployed on several occasions against McDavid when the Pens had the choice...

Well, when the big guys were on the ice against him they didn't even seem to be aware of his and Draisaitl's presence.

Yeah?

Well, then he's officially the least line matchiest coach in the league then...

As far as matching defensive players against his opponents, it's easy for Sully because Letang plays like 56 out of the 60 minutes every game..

In all seriousness, Edmonton just isn't that good. They have a handful of elite players and zero depth. So if you'd 'match' your top line with theirs and let your other three lines defeat theirs, it works out pretty well. I'm really liking the 4th line mix of Cullen/ZAR/Blueger/Wilson. I'm fine with those guys moving forward - although I'd NEVER scratch ZAR or Blueger for Wilson.

compared to Bylsma he seems to be

Compared to Bylsma, Sullivan matches more? Or Sullivan matches less?

compared to Bylsma he seems to be

That's the point. I don't see any difference between the two. They both literally say "we just have to get to our game". That seems to work for about 2 years, then gets old and they have no answers.

What I'm praising is - for one game - he gave the team an identity, a target, something they could define and work around. Doesn't have to be line-matching every night, but there has to be a lever. This is the only way out of the inconsistent performances. We're just not athletic and mean enough to wing it, especially on D.

Sullivan is pretty much the anti-Bylsma in that he is not stubbornly clinging to whatever used to work before the rest of the league caught up. And I think, overall, Sullivan has been more than willing to give young players the chance to succeed and contribute.

Line matching is for inferior teams and/or inferior players. Which Sullivan doesn’t have to worry about because 80 of the 82 games, he has the best offensive player and the best line.

Insurance goals are pretty...
Insurance goals are good.
Seems that all we ever wanted was a scorer.

This is a call to all.

This was an under appreciated post

Had the song in my mind all day.