On the 9th day of hunting for president and managing director Chris Drury for a new Rangers head coach, the departure of Mike Sullivan from the Penguins has changed everything.
The search for coaching “Eyes Weld Open” that Drury said that he would not have “predefined provisions” on suddenly become immediately targeting and aggressively pursuing a specific coach.
Someone that the organization felt was the obvious choice of appointing behind the Bloehirt bench.
Knowing that Sullivan would be in high demand with seven other teams who need a head coach, Drury made sure not to delay the locking of the guy he would probably have hired if he was available there are two chief coaches in 2021.
The Rangers made him official first in the morning, appointing Sullivan the 38th head coach in the history of the franchise only two weeks after having rejected Peter Laviolette and only four days after Sullivan left Pittsburgh.
“Mike Sullivan has established himself as one of the first NHL head coaches,” said Drury in a press release. “Given his many achievements throughout his coach career – including two Stanley cups and the head of Team USA at the international level – Mike brings a presence at the level of the championship behind the bench. I got to know Mike very well over the years, especially as teammates in the 1997 world championships, when he trained me as a New York player and during our time shared with USA Hockey.
“While we started this process and Mike became an option available so that we could speak, it was immediately clear that he was the best coach to lead our team.”
The rest of the Rangers coach staff will be discussed in the coming days, according to a source, but goalkeeper Jeff Malcolm and skills coach Christian Hmura should stay in their posts.
Although the ESPN initially pointed out that the head coach John Tortorella was a “strong possibility” to join the Rangers, the coach of the ex-volunteers spoke with the team but will not join.
The assistants of last season, Dan Muse and Michael Peca, are also in the running to continue with the team.
Sullivan is back on the Rangers bench for the first time since he was an assistant from 2009 to 2013, when Tortorella was in charge.
The team went to the 6th part of the 2012 Eastern Conference final – in which they lost against the Devils – during Sullivan’s time as an assistant.
His first job with the Rangers counted as his third time as an assistant, after having been previously in this role for a single season with the Bruins and Lightning.
Sullivan then joined the cannuck staff as an assistant for the 2013-14 season before winning a job as head coach with the Pittsburgh’s AHL subsidiary, the Penguins Wilkes-Barre / Scranon, for the 2015-16 season.
This ultimately turned into a 10-year concert as a Penguins chief coach.
Sullivan was also Blackhawks development coach in 2014-15, when Chicago won the Stanley Cup.
Internationally, the vast curriculum vitae of Sullivan continues.
Not only was he head coach of the United States team during the 4 nations confrontation, but he was also appointed coach of the American Olympic team during the next winter games in 2026 in Milan.
Sullivan, who was an assistant at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and the 2016 Hockey World Cup, was supposed to train the United States team at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games before NHL players were unable to compete.
The 57-year-old man brought two Stanley cuts to Pittsburgh, just becoming the second head coach in the NHL history to win everything in each of his first two seasons with a team.
In addition to becoming the most winning coach in the history of the Penguins, Sullivan is the only head coach of American origin to have won the Stanley Cup several times.
After the Penguins missed the playoffs for a third consecutive season last month, several reports indicated that Sullivan and the director general of Pittsburgh, Kyle Dubas, did not go to the team’s calendar.
This is how this meeting has become possible, but it should not surprise due to the preexisting relationship between Sullivan and Drury.
Drury has not only been trained by Sullivan in the past two seasons of his player career with the Rangers, but both also share a legacy of the University of Boston.
They worked together as recently as February during the confrontation of the 4 nations, Drury being assistant GM.
“I would like to welcome Mike to the organization of the Rangers,” said owner James Dolan in the press release. “The history and the success of Mike in the NHL and speak internationally of itself, and I can’t wait to see it behind the Rangers bench.”
The Rangers wrote a 199th Sullivan 69th in the general classification in 1987, but he never ended up playing games for New York.
The former center of the Centerman patinated in 709 career games in the NHL on 11 seasons with the Sharks, the Flames, the Bruins and the Coyotes.
The Rangers believe in the Pedigree of the Sullivan Championship.
They believe that her leadership and practical style will bring out the best of their veterans and young players.
Management does not seem to care about Sullivan’s ability to feed young talents, which was a blow on the native of Massachusetts during his stay in Pittsburgh – even if the Penguins made only three first -round choices during the decade of Sullivan with the organization.
When two of the best prospects for the organization – Rutger McGroarty and City Koivunen – came to the end of last season, Sullivan brandished in the first six.
He put McGroarty on a line with Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust. Koivunen had time on the second line with Rickard Rakell and Connor Dewar.
Sullivan also inserted Koivunen into the higher power game and McGroarty in the second.
You could say that the Rangers are expected to inaugurate the next generation of players in larger roles in the team.
Players such as Will Cuylle and Braden Schneider are at the head of the swimming pool, while Matt Réger, Adam Edstrom, Brett Berard, Brennan Othmann and Gabe Perreault also joined the mixture.
It is only one of the many aspects of this range of rangers that Sullivan will have to assess.
For the moment, however, Drury finally has its first choice behind the Rangers bench.
Hiring that has never been ultimately.
May the Sullivan era begins.
