from Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

It’s becoming a very old story.

Not that Sullivan is ready to give the job back to fired coach Mike Johnston.

OK, let’s be real.

Not that Johnston would take it back with this underachieving bunch.

“I think our energy, our effort, our aggression was certainly evident,” Sullivan said. “I thought we had some really good scoring chances, especially in the second period when we were trying to get back in it.”

Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford offered a similar assessment. He fired Johnston Saturday and promoted Sullivan from their Wilkes-Barre/​Scranton affiliate.

“I thought our team played pretty hard,” Rutherford said. “We created a lot of scoring chances. Their goalie was pretty damn good.”

It would be a lot easier to buy what Sullivan and Rutherford were selling if Johnston hadn’t said the same things over and over.

I mean, doesn’t this team have to stop talking about scoring goals and, you know, actually start scoring them?

more