Penguins Update: Time for a Coaching Change?

Any time a team falls short of expectations, you’re bound to hear rumblings about a coaching change. It’s no different for our Penguins.

For a third-straight postseason we’ve gone out in the opening round. We’ve lost our last four playoff series and 15 of our last 20 postseason games.

This season’s shortfall was especially disappointing because it felt like the team had more to give. Which begs the question.

Is it time for a coaching change?

To digress, Mike Sullivan is almost universally regarded as an excellent coach. Not only did he do a marvelous job of keeping an injury-plagued team afloat (over 300 man-games lost) but he led us to a division title in arguably the toughest and most competitive division in the league. I honestly feel he merits Jack Adams consideration as coach of the year.

And yet those nagging postseason exits just won’t go away.

Former Pens coach Dan Bylsma had a similar string of failure after leading us to a Cup in 2009. Despite being the fastest coach in NHL history to win 250 games, he was fired during the summer of 2014 following a fifth-straight early playoff exit at hands of a lower seed.

For the record, Bylsma’s regular-season points percentage with the black and gold was .668; his playoff points percentage .551. Sullivan’s, .641 and .547.

Eerily similar.

Back to Sullivan. It isn’t so much that we didn’t win a Cup this season as his stubborn instance on playing a certain style and a perceived reluctance to alter that style for the good of the team. Ironically, Bylsma was derisively labelled “One Plan Dan” for his inability to adapt to the rigors of postseason play.

Could the same be said of “Sully?”

I pose the question because there’s an opportunity for the Pens to make a coaching change if they chose to do so. Following four seasons in the desert, former Pens assistant Rick Tocchet cut ties with Arizona. During his three years behind the bench here he was extremely well-liked and respected by the players. Tocchet was largely credited with getting the most out of mercurial winger Phil Kessel. Having played an integral part in our back-to-back Cups, he knows what it takes to win.

The window to hire Tocchet isn’t likely to be open for long. He’s already interviewing for the vacant Columbus job. The Rangers and expansion Seattle Kraken have unfilled openings as well. If the Pens opt to make a change they’ll need to do so quickly, which goes against GM Ron Hextall’s MO.

Incidentally, Tocchet and Hextall were teammates on the Flyers for four-plus seasons back in the day, so there is a connection.

That’s all well and good, Buker, but is a coaching change really necessary?

That depends on your perspective. Will the Pens have a better shot at winning a Cup with Tocchet at the helm instead of Sullivan? That’s hard to say, especially given our aging core and the perception, true or not, that our window for chasing more Cups has pretty much closed.

Then why make a change?

The driving factor could well be management’s stated desire to play a heavier game…“long pants” hockey as Brian Burke described it. With Sullivan, no lover of tough guys or overly physical play, there’s liable to be resistance, subtle or otherwise. With Tocchet, the ultimate warrior winger during his playing career, not so much.

In the end it largely depends on whether or not Hextall and Burke feel the players need a new voice to guide them and a fresh organizational direction.

In a way it reminds me of 1993. Following an upset loss to the Islanders, the Pens abruptly steered away from Hall-of-Fame coach Scotty Bowman and hired former skipper and GM Eddie Johnston, a popular choice among the players. While the Pens did well under “EJ,” reaching the conference finals in 1996, we didn’t win another Cup. Bowman went on to win three more Cups with Detroit and cement his legacy as the greatest coach of all-time.