Mike Sullivan, Penguins prepared for training camp unlike any other

July 1 is typically a busy day on the calendar of Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan.

He should be introducing himself to a depth left-handed defenseman or the penalty-killing right winger who general manager Jim Rutherford just signed on the first day of free agency.

And, sure enough, Sullivan was plenty occupied Wednesday. But in a far different fashion no one ever could envision.

He’s getting ready for the playoffs.

Under the NHL’s proposal for returning to play from its nearly four-month hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Penguins and 23 other teams slated to participate in the NHL’s postseason tournament this summer could be staging a training camp as early as July 10.

While his summer has been wildly different, Sullivan’s mindset for approaching a postseason orchestrated during a worldwide crisis is no different than being on the wrong end of a bad call in a ho-hum regular season contest against the Florida Panthers on a Tuesday in November.

“Our focus with our players has always been to just control the controllables,” Sullivan said Tuesday during a video conference call with local reporters. “Let’s not focus on the things that are out of our control.

“That’s really how we look at it, regardless of where hub cities are at or who our opponent is or what the rules are or what the format is. We’re really not interested in that stuff right now. We’re interested in just competing to try to win a Stanley Cup.”

Of course, there are some logistical differences Sullivan and company must account for if they are to achieve their ultimate goal. Namely, trying to get a group of 30-plus players — including expanded rosters — on the same page after not being together in a physical sense for what has been the equivalent of a short offseason.

“The logistics and the circumstances are very different than coming into a training camp in September at the beginning of a season when you have an 82-game schedule in front of you,” Sullivan said. “We are essentially competing in the highest-stakes environment that’s presented to us. From that standpoint, there’s going to be less evaluation on players and more about how do we return the chemistry and the semblance of the team concept that we played all year long.

“We have our team selected. We’re comfortable with the roles that we’ve cast certain guys in. So our objective is to prepare them for competition. That’s going to entail a lot of details.”

A major detail would be trying to keep players familiar with the team’s systems while not practicing, playing or meeting directly for so many months. Sullivan feels they have addressed that substantially through regular video chats that have reiterated the team’s concepts and vocabulary during this downtime.

In other words, the players, presumably, will be far more familiar with what to call a certain faceoff play or how to execute a breakout scheme than they would be on the first day of a normal training camp in September.

“We’ll practice those concepts throughout the course of training camp in re-familiarizing our guys with the team concepts in how we’re trying to play,” Sullivan said. “But I do think that the (video) meetings that we’ve had with these guys throughout the course of this stoppage in play will be helpful. We’ve tried to keep the players engaged throughout this stoppage in play.”

“We discussed and had video examples of the concepts that we’re talking about and the details of how we’re trying to play. I do think those meetings will be beneficial for those guys because I think they’re fresh in their minds. … These guys, they’ve seen this on a weekly basis, and we’re talking the language on a weekly basis with them. My hope is those (video) meetings will be very productive when we start to get back together and get on the ice.”

While several of the Penguins have been skating in an informal, voluntary setting with limited groups the past few weeks, the biggest obstacle once training camps take place could be finding a way to get players to forget about what month is written at the top of the calendar.

“There are significant challenges from a mindset standpoint in making sure that we get out of ‘summer hockey’ mode or the ‘social distancing skates’ into real competitive hockey because that’s what we’re going to be faced with in a short period of time,” Sullivan said. “For me, that starts with a mindset. As a coaching staff, we’re going to discuss that with our players. We already have to this point, but we’ll continue to discuss that throughout training camp.

“We’re going to put our guys through game simulations. We’ll have intra-squad games throughout the course of training camp to make sure that we give our guys an opportunity to feel the game-day scenario and put their bodies through that process so that we can try to help with that transition back into that competitive mindset that’s so necessary to have success in this league.”

A variety of factors could prevent the Penguins from winning the Stanley Cup this summer. A shoddy power play. More injuries. The Washington Capitals. Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price having a seance with the spirits of Jacques Plante and Georges Vezina. You name it.

What won’t impede them from claiming the franchise’s sixth Stanley Cup title is a lack of readiness.

“We’ve been preparing all along here,” Sullivan said. “We’ve stayed engaged as a coaching staff, and I feel really good about where we’re at. Our role in this process, this training camp coming up is going to be critically important to giving our team an opportunity to compete and have success.”

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