Mike Sullivan’s nearly decade-long tenure running the Pittsburgh Penguins is over.
The team announced Monday it was parting ways with the two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach just over a week after the Penguins missed out on the playoffs for a third straight season.
Sullivan, whose 409 wins with Pittsburgh are a franchise record, led the Penguins to back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017 and had two more years left on the contract extension he signed in 2022. The 57-year-old had said recently that he wanted to remain with the club as it tries to retool around future Hall of Famer Sidney Crosby.
General manager Kyle Dubas was a bit more cautious last week, saying he and Sullivan planned to meet to ensure their visions of the team’s future remained aligned. Dubas said Monday that the decision to move on wasn’t one the club took lightly, but one it felt was necessary.
“As we continue to navigate the Penguins through this transitional period, we felt it was the best course forward for all involved,” Dubas said.
The announcement was quite different from the tone Dubas struck last week, when he called Sullivan an “elite-level” coach who appeared to buy into the sizable roster overhaul Dubas is attempting to oversee.
“There’s always the point that very few coaches who are in that realm often want to see a team through this,” Dubas said a week ago. “But he’s been very open about this is what he wants to do so we’ll just continue to reaffirm that and as long as he’s on that side of it, we will roll with that.”
The Penguins hired Sullivan in December 2015 to replace Mike Johnston in search of a spark. Sullivan brought a direct, no-nonsense approach that, combined with a series of shrewd moves by then-GM Jim Rutherford, helped Pittsburgh become the first team in nearly two decades to win back-to-back titles.
Sullivan also developed a deep bond with Crosby and fellow franchise icons Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, repeatedly praising their leadership during the back half of a 16-year stretch in which the Penguins were playoff fixtures.
Yet the success that came so easily during the early days of Sullivan’s tenure faded as the core grew older and the front office — first Rutherford, who left in early 2021, then his replacement Ron Hextall, who lasted a little over two years before being fired — was unable to find the right pieces to fill out a roster that quickly became old and top heavy.
Pittsburgh narrowly missed the post-season in 2023. The franchise missed it by a little more in 2024, and a little more still this year, when it was essentially out of it over the final two months despite another sublime year by the 37-year-old Crosby, who averaged at least a point a game for an NHL-record 20th straight season.
The move came somewhat as a surprise given Sullivan’s resume, his relationship with Crosby and the fact Fenway Sports Group had made it clear since buying the team in late 2021 how fond it was of the Boston native.
The move also could have been out of courtesy. The timing immediately makes Sullivan perhaps the most attractive coaching candidate on the market. The number of open jobs includes the New York Rangers, a veteran team that may be closer to contention than the Penguins.
