I’ll admit I felt a little silly asking the questions in the Pittsburgh Penguins locker room after their 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
Was I baiting the hook a little bit? Eh, maybe. Defense counsel might have a hard time protecting me on this one.
But if you took head coach Mike Sullivan at his word earlier this week when he seemingly took exception to a Montreal reporter who dared to ask a perfectly legitimate question about the Penguins’ record in one-goal games this year (7-8-8), you learned one very important thing.
Context matters to Sullivan.
Not only does it matter, it’s crucial to any bit of analysis, almost all the way up to the final score itself.
“It’s easy when guys like yourself come in and point to one statistic and then try to draw conclusions from it. What that lacks is context,” Sullivan said. “We’re in so many one-goal games; how many multiple-goal games that we create did we turn into one-goal games because we pushed back and got back in the hockey game and gave ourselves a chance to win? I’m not sure there’s a valid answer for the question you have. I think it’s a flawed question. Because when you point to one statistic and try to draw an explanation, I think it’s a very flawed approach because it lacks context.
“When we look at statistics, we look at multiple different statistics to try to gain the true story of what’s going on. And the one thing that our coaching staff has, that maybe a lot of you guys don’t, is context.”
Well, I have the Eastern Conference standings. Is that context enough? I have your overall record (25-21-8). And your power-play numbers (13.9%). And your number of playoff series wins (1) since the start of 2018.
Is that the kind of context that you are looking for, coach? No?
Don’t sweat it. I’ll still play along.
When I heard Sullivan’s cryptically defensive response to that question, it struck me that he was almost saying that style points matter. As if a close loss is somehow better than a multi-goal loss. That’s 180 degrees opposite of the Mike Sullivan I covered at the start of his Penguins career, who was the head coach of two Stanley Cup champions. He was much more of a “win is a win, a loss is a loss” kind of guy back then.
However, “context” in that … um … context connotes to me that Sullivan was suggesting a one-goal loss in a game that ended 4-3 but began with a 3-0 deficit should be counted differently — somehow, more impressively — than a 4-3 loss that began with the Penguins getting out to a 2-1 lead.
Should it? I mean, I get his point. But should it, really?
Because unless the NHL is planning to ditch the mathematical standings and go to poll voting like college football anytime soon, I don’t think stuff like that comes into play.
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That being said, if Sullivan wants to sing that song, I can hum along.
By extension, then, any one-goal win for the Penguins needs “context” too, right?
So I suppose that if the Penguins should ever win a game 5-4 that they originally led 4-0 after 25 minutes, that win should count less than a 5-4 win they claimed after being down 4-1 in the first period and rallied to win. Correct?
Because “contextually” scrapping back from a 4-1 deficit to win is more impressive than clinging on to a 4-0 lead that almost slipped away — even though all wins are two points in the standings.
Am I doing this right?
Assuming I am, should we try to add context to the Pens’ 4-1 win over Montreal on Thursday night? Does this slide-rule formula work with multi-goal games too? Or just one-goal games? I’m still a little fuzzy on the rules here.
I asked defenseman Kris Letang if he could contextualize the victory.
“I’m not sure about your question. Do we deserve to win? Is that what you are saying?” Letang politely replied.
Honestly, Kris, I don’t know.
“Um, yeah,” an appropriately confused Letang continued. “The specialty units did the job. We didn’t give them a power-play goal. The power play got us a big one. Jars (goaltender Tristan Jarry) has been really good. So, yeah, tonight. I think it represented the game, pretty much.”
I agree.
I think.
Although having sat through Sullivan’s monologue Wednesday, I’m not entirely sure.
Letang’s bad first-period turnover led to Montreal’s only goal. A goal of his own, though, not long thereafter canceled out that mistake. Based on how the game went, it felt 4-1-ish in favor of the Pens to me. Maybe 3-0-ish if we toss out the Letang give-and-take.
Wait a minute. Is that … context?! I think it is!
Unfortunately, context doesn’t overcome a seven-point deficit in the playoff standings, which is what the Penguins still need to overcome.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
