Mike Sullivan's arrival was perfect timing for the Penguins
Ian Cole had some bad timing.
On the first practice the Pittsburgh Penguins conducted under new head coach Mike Sullivan on Dec. 13, 2015, Cole broke in some new skates and his feet were feeling the effects.
“Had a lot of skating,” said Cole, a defenseman with the team at the time. “It was a really high, up-tempo practice.
“I don’t think he was overly yelling or anything like that. But he made it very clear and enunciated how he wanted things done as far as these are the options we’re going to work.”
Sullivan was direct in what he instructed during that practice session at what was then called Consol Energy Center.
“I told them that hockey’s a hard game,” Sullivan said that day. “It’s a hard sport. It’s hard to win. We’ve got to embrace the struggle here. We’ve got to embrace the process. And I think if we do that, we’ve got the best chance to win.
“I hope it’s something that will be welcomed to the group. I don’t know how anyone can reach their potential without being challenged. I think as the head coach, that’s my responsibility.”
That approach under Sullivan — fast-paced and with a defined purpose — had the intended effect, as six months later, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup title.
And 12 years later, the Penguins became the first team in nearly two decades to win back-to-back championships.
Approximately one decade later, Sullivan has left. On Monday, the Penguins announced they were parting ways with Sullivan and by Friday, he was hired by the New York Rangers.
The foundation that led to those dizzying heights for the Penguins in the mid-2010s was laid down well before Sullivan was promoted.
A half dozen months earlier, the Penguins were looking for a new head coach for their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate.
Associate general manager Jason Botterill, who oversaw Wilkes-Barre/Scranton as part of his duties, headed that search and was given specific criteria from general manager Jim Rutherford.
“When (Botterill) was looking, forming his short list (of candidates), it was one of the things I said him,” Rutherford said by phone Friday. “I said we want somebody there that’s capable of taking that next step if we needed. At that time, I wasn’t thinking that it was going to be needed as quickly as it was.”
That need arrived mid-way through December as the Penguins struggled under previous head coach Mike Johnston.
Rutherford hired Johnston in June of 2014, a few weeks after he took over as general manager. And in his sole complete season (2014-15) with the Penguins, Johnston guided the team into the playoffs, where it was swiftly eliminated in the first round by the New York Rangers.
So, Johnston didn’t exactly have much room for error in 2015-16. As it was, there were enough errors that led to a ho-hum 15-10-3 record to open the season before Johnston was fired.
“Mike Johnston, he was a really good hockey guy,” said Rutherford, today the president of hockey operations for the Vancouver Canucks. “But as you know and as people know around Pittsburgh, it’s a little bit different of a coaching experience there. For a guy that was getting his first NHL coaching job, it was a little bit tougher than expected.
“We felt that we couldn’t wait any longer to get that team believing they could still win the (Stanley) Cup that year.”
Players didn’t necessarily revolt against Johnston. But the results clearly weren’t there.
“I really liked Mike (Johnston),” former Penguins defenseman Ben Lovejoy said on Wednesday. “He was a very smart guy and good human being. He was a soft-spoken nice man.
“I feel like the team just needed a change.”
Things changed almost immediately with that first practice. A three-on-three drill in tight quarters was fierce in its pace and resulted in players falling along or into the boards. And the breakout was a prominent point of emphasis.
To be certain, the Penguins didn’t adopt new tactics. The NHL and AHL clubs have long employed the same schemes and vocabulary.
Sullivan just wanted those things done differently (i.e. better).
“Coach (Johnston) is more of the professor type,” former Penguins forward Beau Bennett said that day. “Thinks everything really through. A little more soft-spoken. Coach Sullivan is like it is what it is. Very straightforward and deliberate. Two very different styles. We haven’t even had a game yet with Coach Sullivan but it’s going to be good for us I think getting that style in here.”
Things weren’t exactly good to start with under Sullivan. The Penguins — who were dealing with several injuries at the time — lost four consecutive games after the change and didn’t get their first win with Sullivan until a 5-2 home victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Dec. 21.
But as Sullivan often stressed during his tenure with the Penguins, the process began to take hold, even if it didn’t create the desired results right away.
“I remember going to the Bruins in Boston early (in Sullivan’s tenure) and I remember not having success,” said Lovejoy, currently the director of player development with Dartmouth College’s women’s team. “But guys just got more and more confident. He simplified. He gave us small things to work on rather than overhaul an entire system. We slowly got some confidence and started playing really hard and really fast.
“Once the success started happening, he sort of let us go with it. He wasn’t trying to micro-manage every detail. Over and over, he’d just say, ‘Just play, just play.’ He was not jumping around on the bench, not jumping around in practice. He was stoic. He knew mistakes were going to happen but let us play.”
To be certain, the improved results under Sullivan coincided with a number of roster changes such as the additions of players such as defenseman Trevor Daley and forward Carl Hagelin through trades as well as the promotions of players who skated for Sullivan with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton like goaltender Matt Murray and forward Bryan Rust.
But Sullivan was content to coach up what incumbent players remained.
“He’s a guy that as a general manager, you give him a player and he never questioned it,” Rutherford said. “He just said, ‘OK, I’m going to make him better.’ That was usually what his answer was. Even after he had the player, even if he knew that player needed some work and he wasn’t playing the way he was capable, there was never any complaints about it. It was always, ‘I’ve got it. I’m the coach, I’ll figure it out.’”
A lot of things were figured out with frank discussions with players and management.
“You ask ‘Sully’ a question, you get the answer and you know that’s his answer,” Rutherford chuckled. “It’s pretty black and white. He’s a very direct guy.”
Direct but not impersonal.
“Mike appreciated how hard I played,” said Lovejoy, who departed in the 2016 offseason by signing with the New Jersey Devils. “After we won, after free agency, he called me in the summer in July and the thing I really remember about the conversation was he thanked me for how hard I played. He saw value in everybody’s role and tried to put guys in situations where he felt they could be most successful for both themselves and the team.”
Sullivan found a situation that allowed him to achieve his greatest success as a coach. One decade earlier, he was fired following two seasons as head coach of the Boston Bruins. He moved around the NHL for several seasons as an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Rangers and Vancouver Canucks then as a development job with the Chicago Blackhawks before joining the Penguins.
The timing was perfect for everyone involved (with the exception of Cole’s achy feet).
“I’m very grateful for my short time with him,” Lovejoy said. “I felt like I learned a ton. There is a reason he has been so successful. He’s going to be successful (in New York). He changed a lot of lives because he is an incredible coach and a brilliant hockey guy.
“He was absolutely the right guy at the right time.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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