O'Sullivan Needs to Stop the Self Pity and Get Down to Business

It is my opinion that 5 Oilers have played really poorly under the new coaching staff, Horcoff, Cogliano, Gilbert, Moreau, and O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan quite frankly along with Horcoff have really tested my patience as a fan. Both are touted as being solid 2 way players, yet the offense isn't there and neither is the defense. What we have are 2 guys that are mediocre offensively and mediocre or worse defensively this season.

Here's where it gets interesting, O'Sullivan seems to have issues with the coaching staff, their lack of communication with him, and his recent role on the fourth line. As a fan, I wonder what happened to the O'Sullivan that got nailed by Derek Boogard, then proceeded to hit Boogard back and then made a sweet pass for a goal? Suddenly he's playing Rob Schremp hockey circa '08-09 in that he won't take or give a hit, he has no offensive confidence, and well, he just plain sucks right now.

The bottom line is that we have $8.4 million worth of cap hits tied up between Horcoff and O'Sullivan, neither are producing right now, but at least Horcoff has had the brains to keep his mouth shut before going home to play with his impressive mountain of money. Pat Quinn is not here to coddle the players, he is here to change their mentality from a bunch of people that are happy with a few nice plays or a few wins, to a team that is all about winning, and a team that makes no excuses and just does what it takes to get the job done.

Hopefully a few other players are catching the verbal machine gun fire behind closed doors that O'Sullivan caught on Wednesday. The fact of the matter is that O'Sullivan made this a public matter, and Quinn said just enough to make O'Sullivan look like an ass, but not enough to completely alienate the player. However I can't speak for how O'Sullivan will react to this as IMO his reaction to the demotion to the fourth line was less than noble.