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Nick Cotsonika of Yahoo Sports recently sat down with head coach Mike Johnston for what was probably the best Penguins related piece of journalism so far this summer.
The article told the tale of Johnston's background which included him wanting to land a playing gig in Austria but the lady on the phone giving him information for Australia, then Johnston eventually making his way to Australia as a player/coach.
I'm not going to get into too much detail here about his back story because you should read it directly from the source, it is that good. Here is the link to Mr. Cotsonika's great article.
Here is what I do want to focus on. This beautiful passage that feels like it is speaking directly to me and how I have wanted the Penguins to play for some time:
Johnston wants the Penguins to hold onto the puck, support the puck, give each other options and make good decisions. If they get the puck in the defensive zone, he wants to skate out cleanly – or perhaps chip the puck to an area where someone can skate to it – 80 percent of the time. He wants to come through the neutral zone with numbers. He wants to enter the offensive zone with possession.“The last option,… he said, “is to dump it in deep.…
Johnston is a football fan who once observed Chip Kelly’s practices at the University of Oregon and has already visited a Steelers practice in Pittsburgh, hoping to pick up ideas he can translate to hockey. He compares it to a football offense. The puck-carrier is like a quarterback making reads.
“We want to become a versatile team with the puck,… Johnston said. “If they shut down this, we’ll take that.…
He will judge decisions, not results. If the Penguins give away the puck, it will concern him if they made the wrong read. It won’t concern him if they made the right read and the puck hit a stick or something. Develop good habits, hold onto the puck more often, and over time the results should come.
“I don’t want it to sound too complicated, because it’s not overly complicated,… Johnston said. “It’s just, it’s a style of play. Some teams will revert to, ‘Push the puck ahead. Push the puck ahead. We’re going after the puck. All we want to do is get it in the offensive zone, and then we’ll try and see what we can do from there.’ But we want to make sure that we can control the puck as much as possible at all times on the ice and play with that speed.…
That is absolutely beautiful. Mike Johnston gets it. It is about the process. People underestimate just how much luck there is in hockey. Just because you are doing all the right things it doesn't guarantee that everything will always bounce your way. However, if your process is solid the results you desire are realistically more likely to happen than if the process is broken.
Preparation sets the table for success. Mike Johnston is prepared to enter the season with a great game plan.
The way I see things is that Mike Johnston has the makings of being a master chef. However, with any great chef they need the proper ingredients. Please give this man the right ingredients so this aesthetically pleasing and effective way of playing hockey can flourish in the Steel City. Please give this man the proper ingredients so that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin can achieve their awesome potential while they are still in their primes.
The optics of the Penguins coaching search certainly did not give off a confident vibe, but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the final result. The final result of the Penguins coaching search has the potential of being the envy of the rest of the league.
No more "getting to their game", just owning the puck.
Thanks for reading!
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