The Pittsburgh Penguins won their division last season, while leading the league in important man-games lost to injury. Head coach Mike Sullivan wasn’t even a finalist for the Jack Adams coach of the year award.
With more performances like in the NHL’s opening night last night, a 6-2 win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning, it will become tougher to ignore the job Sullivan has done. Sullivan hasn’t care about the Jack Adams — and at the rate those coaches tend to get fired soon after they win it, maybe he shouldn’t — his focus is on the task at hand right now to guide the Penguins through the start of this season without their three best offensive forwards in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jake Guentzel.