Penguins’ coaching vacancy brings plenty of intrigue
Who will be the next head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins? Two weeks after the team parted ways with longtime bench boss Mike Sullivan, that’s still a big question mark. Emily Sadler looks at some of the deeper ramifications that could come with the hiring.
Who will be the next head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins? Two weeks after the team parted ways with longtime bench boss Mike Sullivan, that’s still a big question mark.
Of the eight teams on this summer’s coaching carousel, two have found their new bench boss — the New York Rangers wasted no time scooping up Sullivan, and the Anaheim Ducks hired veteran Joel Quenneville last week. There’s plenty of intrigue on this year’s list of coaching vacancies, particularly when it comes to the Penguins.
“Whoever gets this job, they’re gonna have patience,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said during Monday’s episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast. “It’s a rebuild now — Kyle Dubas has said it’s a rebuild, so there’s not going to be immediate pressure to win right away, like some of these other jobs.”
The candidate Kyle Dubas chooses will tell us a lot about the more concrete expectations around the club — one that initially treaded lightly into rebuilding territory but now appears to be ready to dive in. Still, this is not your average rebuild, considering the trio of generational players and future Hall of Famers still leading the roster. And that’s what makes this hiring process so interesting.
“Whoever goes in there is going to be able to coach Crosby, is going to be able to coach Malkin — who’s probably headed into his last year — and Letang, all of whom are going to the Hall of Fame. And because of Crosby’s magic, you never count out the fact that maybe he drags this team farther than is expected,” said Friedman.
In that sense, it’s hard not to compare this Penguins team — and this coaching search — to the one we saw in Washington two years ago, which ended with the Capitals’ hiring of Spencer Carbery in May 2023. At least from the outside, the similarities are there.
“I had someone say to me they were kind of looking for the next Carbery,” Friedman noted, “but then someone else said to me, ‘I don’t think that’s the right way to put it.’”
Still, it’s an interesting comparison considering the Crosby and Alex Ovechkin connection.
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The Capitals were five seasons removed from their 2018 Stanley Cup run when Carbery was hired. The first-time NHL head coach inherited a team heavy on talent — led, of course, by Ovechkin and a handful of veterans from that Cup-winning core — but with an eye to the future as it opened the doors to younger players coming up through the system.
We all saw what happened next — the team snuck into the post-season last spring only to be swept away by the Rangers, and all signs pointed to a rebuild heading into 2024-25. But the power of Ovechkin and a few key moves got them back to the top of the league.
Carbery was hired to revive the core. Considering Dubas’ stance on retooling this roster, it sounds like the candidate he’s searching for in Pittsburgh will play a crucial role in rebuilding. But it’s hard not to wonder whether the turnaround we saw in Washington this year could be duplicated in Pittsburgh.
The right candidate will need to strike a perfect balance between, as Friedman puts it, “the sunset of legacy players” and “the beginning of the next wave of the team.”
“You’re gonna have a commitment from your GM and ownership that yes, this is a rebuild, and you’re gonna have to be a very big part of creating something,” Friedman continued. “And so, I think there’s a lot there in the sense that, the expectation isn’t going to be for you to win right away, but to build with the recognition that you have a nuclear weapon there who might be able to drag you into the post-season and is gonna be part of teaching those younger players how to win.”
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The Penguins last won the Cup in 2017. After five unsuccessful attempts to hoist another, they’ve failed to make the post-season three straight years despite a few big swings to jump back into the mix early on in Dubas’s tenure.
So, patience will be key. So, too, will a sense of experimentation with one of the league’s most fascinating rosters right now.
“You’re not going to be expected to deliver immediate results, even though I’m sure someone like Crosby would like them, but you’re gonna be allowed to experiment,” said Friedman. “And I’m curious to see what they’re gonna look at for this, because I’ve heard that there are some young coaches, or maybe some first-time coaches, that have a serious shot at this job.”
Dubas has suggested a timeline that goes into early June. Until then, it’ll be an interesting job vacancy to watch.
