After another early postseason exit and with new decision makers in the front office, questions emerged last week about coach Mike Sullivan’s job status.
However, a source told the Post-Gazette that Sullivan will “100 percent” return behind the bench for the 2021-22 season. The coach still has three years remaining on a contract extension he signed in July of 2019, and he has the full support of new general manager Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke.
Sullivan, 53, won the Stanley Cup twice within his first 18 months on the job in Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. But in the years since, he’s been tested by injuries to key players, changes to the coaching staff and disappointing postseason performances.
This year in particular, Sullivan held the team together during a pandemic season full of unexpected turns. Former general manager Jim Rutherford resigned, seemingly out of nowhere, just days into the season. Evgeni Malkin got off to a slow start and then missed more than 20 games due to injury. At one point, the Penguins played without five of their top-nine forwards. At another moment, they were without all four of their left-shot defensemen from the Game 1 roster.
Through it all, the Penguins won an East Division title in what many considered the NHL’s toughest division.
By the end of the regular season, Sullivan earned his place in the Jack Adams Award conversation for the second consecutive year. But when the season came to a halt just six games into the postseason, speculation swirled about Sullivan’s future in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins’ 4-2 series loss to the New York Islanders marked the third consecutive season in which Pittsburgh failed to advance out of the first round of the playoffs. In total, the Penguins have now lost 11 of their last 14 playoff games and are 0-4 when facing elimination.
Sullivan acknowledged the high standard that remains in place in Pittsburgh last week.
“Ultimately, you get judged on your success,” he said Friday. “Our performance in the regular season, I think it would have to be acceptable that we won our division. But having said that, we have higher expectations in Pittsburgh. ... We didn’t ultimately live up to that. We all have to take ownership for it.”
Last year, a first-round exit led the Penguins to completely overhaul their assistant coaching staff. However, Sullivan’s good work during the regular season and his reputation around the league apparently was enough to give the new front office confidence that he’s their man going forward.
The way in which the Penguins’ series against the Islanders unfolded likely bolstered Sullivan’s case. One could argue that the Penguins were the better team in as many as five of the six games. Had the goaltending lived up to expectations, the Penguins very well could be readying for a second-round game against the Bruins. It’s also worth noting that the players fought to the end in Game 6, unlike in their previous two elimination games, when they went down with a whimper.
Last week, a number of players expressed their support for Sullivan.
“In terms of motivating, his passion for the game, his drive and intensity is contagious,” defenseman Mike Matheson said. “He brings it to every practice. He brings it to every game. As a player, that’s great to play for.”
Now that Sullivan will be back for the 2021-22 season, the conversation will turn to playing style. Speed is the first word that would be used to describe each of Rutherford’s final moves, as the club doubled-down on the style that brought back-to-back championships.
However, since Hextall and Burke took over for Rutherford in the middle of the season, both are on the record as saying they’d like the roster to evolve to include bigger, more physical players. Sullivan suggested Friday that he is open to tweaking the team’s on-ice identity.
“Stylistically, yes, the roster can evolve and so can styles of play to make sure that we’re putting together a game plan that allows us to play to our strengths,” he said. “That’s the question that we ultimately try to answer as a coaching staff.”
