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Lack of scoring led to Johnston’s firing

4 min read

Who didn’t see that coming?

No, not the Charlie Morton trade. The Mike Johnston firing. I don’t think you have to be an expert in hockey Xs and Os to have known that something just wasn’t right with the Penguins.

When 120 players have more goals than Sidney Crosby and 70 have more than Phil Kessell, which theory makes more sense?

Crosby and Kessell suddenly became mediocre hockey players or the coach’s system wasn’t using them right?

I’m going to go with number two.

I could never figure out why, but the Penguins were just a hard team to watch. Lots of movement, not many results.

Kind of like soccer, come to think of it.

Teams like the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils have been scoring more goals than the Penguins. You don’t pay three of the best goal scorers and point producers on the planet – Crosby, Kessell and Evgeni Malkin- $25 million a year to produce lots of boring, low scoring games.

That’s what too many Penguins games have been this season.

Johnston had to win the last game of last season to make the playoffs and he lost four out of five to the Rangers in the first round.

Injuries made it impossible to make a fair evaluation.

One third of this season was obviously enough for Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford.

After losing to the Kings in a shootout Friday night, the Penguins were in fifth place in the Metropolitan Division.

Johnston’s replacement, Mike Sullivan, has been a successful head coach in the NHL -he won a division championship with the Bruins – and in the minor leagues.

He had the Wilkes-Barre Baby Penguins at 18-5 before getting the call up by Rutherford.

The last time the Penguins tried this, Dan Bylsma got the call up and won the Stanley Cup.

And remember how Bylsma did it?

He turned the Penguins’ offense loose.

Sullivan’s in charge of the X’s and O’s now, and there are still four months of regular season hockey left.

Let’s see if he can get the Penguins’ money’s worth out of Kessell and Crosby.

• Rutherford said, “For the most part, a lot of our players respected coach Johnston.” That’s about as far away from a ringing endorsement as you can get.

For the most part?

A lot?

How many is a lot?

• I was never a big fan of Johnston’s behind-the-bench demeanor. I’d call it perplexed.

For the most part.

• The power play has to get better and if, as some seem to believe, Crosby has been reluctant to give up his spot on the right half-wall, it won’t unless the new coach forces the issue.

If that’s possible.

• For a while there, it looked like the Pirates hadn’t been invited to the Winter Meetings. Then came the Neil Walker trade. Was it all about money? Probably. It would have cost somewhere between $40-50 million dollars to sign Walker long term and the Pirates obviously didn’t think he was worth it.

Of course, $10-15 million a year for one of the best-hitting second basemen in baseball is just about the going rate in the big leagues these days.

Walker being a local kid is no small thing.

Despite the Pirates’ success the last three years, their appeal is still very much about atmosphere, food, the view and tradition.

The billion-dollar TV deals signed or about to be signed by the Cubs and Cardinals, not to mention other teams in the National League, will make it more and more unlikely that they will win a division title or make a long playoff run. The Pirates need feel-good stories to keep people interested more than other teams.

Jon Niese, who came over from the Mets in the deal, is a serviceable starting pitcher. They are a lot easier to find than second basemen who hit 15-20 home runs and bat .270.

It’s obvious that the Pirates are going to have a much different look next year. A lot can happen between now and April, including a major trade or two, but right now the Pirates are not as good as they were in October.

• A long, long time ago the Pirates traded a local player who was better and more popular than Walker and it led to their first World Series in 33 years. In 1959, Frank Thomas, a Pittsburgh kid who had hit 35 home at Forbes Field – the most ever hit by right handed hitter without artificially shortening the fences – was traded to Cincinnati for Don Hoak, Harvey Haddix and Smokey Burgess. Without them, there is no appearance in the 1960 World Series.

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