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Mike Sullivan Wants To Remain With Penguins Long-Term

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Josh Yohe of The Athletic recently spoke with Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan and the long-time Penguins bench boss pledged his loyalty to the franchise saying that he doesn’t want to coach anywhere else except Pittsburgh. Sullivan has seen a ton of success with the Penguins, leading them to back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships in 2016 and 2017, but the franchise has fallen on hard times in recent seasons, missing the playoffs in two consecutive years and set to make it a third this season, unless they pull off a historical run. Despite all of this, Sullivan remains committed to the Penguins and by all accounts, it appears that Pittsburgh remains committed to him as he has two years left on his contract and there has been no talks of moving on from the most successful coach in franchise history.

Sullivan took over the Penguins back in December of 2015 as they were spiralling out of control. Despite having a roster full of superstars, the team was out of the playoff picture. Sullivan righted the ship and took the Penguins on two straight playoff runs that resulted in championships. But since defeating the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the 2018 postseason, Pittsburgh has yet to win a postseason series. They were swept in 2019, eliminated in the play-in series in the pandemic bubble in 2020, and then knocked out of the first round by both New York franchises in 2021 and 2022.

Despite the lack of success over the last eight years, the Penguins have stuck by Sullivan, and he by them. There have been calls for Sullivan to be fired since at least 2021, if not sooner, but none of Jim Rutherford, Ron Hextall, or Kyle Dubas made the move to replace him.

Yohe has long spoken of the bond between Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Sullivan, and they no doubt have a desire to turn the Penguins around while both men are still in Pittsburgh. The Penguins haven’t called their current situation a rebuild, but it certainly appears like one. Pittsburgh has made moves with an eye toward the future, but Dubas has stated that he wants to turn the Penguins back into a winner as quickly as possible. Given that is Pittsburgh’s mandate, it would make sense that a winner like Sullivan would want to stick around with Crosby, and as Sullivan put it in his chat with Yohe, “I have a certain loyalty to all of the people who are a part of it here, and all I want to do is help this team win.”

Snapshots: Hronek, Friedman, Pickering, Sillinger, Chinakhov

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Vancouver Canucks defenseman Filip Hronek is expected to miss a “while” with an upper-body injury per Irfaan Gaffar of Daily Faceoff. Hronek seemed to suffer a shoulder injury in Vancouver’s Wednesday loss to the Penguins, after getting hit awkwardly into the boards by Pittsburgh defenseman Jack St. Ivany.

Any extended absence from Hronek would be hard for Vancouver to bear. He’s continued to serve a top-line role this season, averaging over 23 minutes of ice time a game opposite of Canucks superstar Quinn Hughes. Hronek has managed one goal and nine points in 21 games in the role – on pace for 35 points, a dip from the 48 points he scored last season.

Hronek’s stat line may not jump off the page, but he’s seemed to be the key to unlocking a Norris Trophy-level Quinn Hughes. The two have outscored opponents 18-to-10 at even-strength this season, compared to Hughes’ tying opponent scoring five-to-five without Hronek. The two have recorded a 55.07 expected-goals-for percentage since being paired together last year.

The Canucks are expected to recall veteran defenseman Mark Friedman in response to Hronek’s injury, per Noah Strang of Daily Hive. Friedman has four points through eight AHL games this year but has yet to make his season debut with Vancouver. He recorded one assist in 23 games with the Canucks last year, marking his sixth season serving the role of seventh or eighth defenseman for an NHL club. Friedman has tallied 13 points in 88 career games in the minutes he’s earned. Friedman will likely step right into the lineup hole, though he’ll face pressure from Vincent Desharnais on the bench – and Jett Woo and Cole McWard from the minors. With a potential long-term vacancy opening up, all four defenders could find a way into the lineup.

Other Thanksgiving notes:

  • Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Owen Pickering missed another practice due to illness shares Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports. Head coach Mike Sullivan added that the rookie is still being evaluated, and remains questionable for the team’s road game in Boston on Friday. Pickering sat out of Wednesday’s game against Vancouver. He has one point – an assist – through the first four career games. Pickering will return to competition with Ryan Shea when he’s back to full health.
  • The Columbus Blue Jackets will have the services of Cole Sillinger on Friday, but Yegor Chinakhov is “banged up” and questionable, per Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers. Both players missed Columbus’ Thursday practice. The two have returned as core pieces of Columbus’ middle-six. They sit next to each other on the team’s scoring ranks, with Chinakhov posting 14 points in 21 games and Sillinger posting 12 in 20 games.

Snapshots: Kings, Mukhamadullin, Karlsson, Palat

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The Los Angeles Kings will start the season with some cap juggling, per John Hoven with LA’s Mayors Manor. Hoven shares that the team will begin the year with depth forward Andre Lee on the roster, in an effort to reach cap compliance while they sort out injuries to Drew Doughty and Arthur Kaliyev. Both players could be candidates for long-term injured reserve, though that’d be a last resort as the team considers the juxtaposition of cap versus salary. Making matters even more complicated in Los Angeles’ preference to carry eight defenders, including summer signee Caleb Jones, who’s making his return to the NHL after splitting time between the major and minor leagues last year.

The Kings will have a complicated path to walk. They’re entering the year with just $546.67K in cap space, hardly enough to handle the day-to-day logistics of running a team. That’s largely thanks to their summer acquisition of goaltender Darcy Kuemper, and Quinton Byfield’s five-year extension – two moves that collectively cost the Kings $11.5MM in space. Both players will serve pivotal roles for the lineup in the early going, especially as the team prepares for an extended period without top-defender Doughty.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Top San Jose Sharks prospect Shakir Mukhamadullin has finally made his way into the team’s camp practices, shares Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News, after a lower-body injury held him out of all of the team’s rookie camp and training camp to this point. Mukhamadullin was expected to be one of the top young Sharks pushing for the roster this fall, though new head coach Ryan Warsofsky acknowledged that the injury puts him a step behind. Mukhamadullin made his NHL debut last season, recording one assist in three games to go with his 34 points in 55 AHL games. He’ll be among the many young players fighting for NHL ice time when he has healthy legs back under him.
  • Star Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson is expected to be ready for the team’s season opener after missing much of the preseason with an upper-body injury, shares the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Matt Vensel. Karlsson added that the season opener has always been his target, and that his recovery briefly slowed down in the middle of camp to, “let a few things settle down.” The future Hall-of-Fame candidate is set to enter his 16th NHL season, coming off yet another season of double-digit goals and over-50 points. He’ll look to return to those heights once again, with head coach Mike Sullivan already confirming that he’ll be a fixture of the team’s power-play, per Tribune-Review Sports’ Seth Rorabaugh.
  • New Jersey Devils forward Ondrej Palat missed the team’s second game of the season to attend to the birth of his second child. He is expected to rejoin the team when they return to North America. Palat appeared in nearly 14 minutes of New Jersey’s season opener in his native Czechia, recording one shot, one block, and two hits. He’s continued to find ways to be productive late into his career, netting 11 goals and 31 points in 71 games last season. Palat will continue to serve as a winger New Jersey can lean on as they look to continue their bout of early success.

USA Hockey Names Mike Sullivan Head Coach For 2025 4 Nations Face-Off And 2026 Olympics

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Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan is one of the longest-tenured coaches in the NHL and has plenty of international experience.  That made him a strong candidate to be named head coach for the upcoming key events, the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and the 2026 Olympics.  USA Hockey indeed will be going with Sullivan as the organization announced that he has been named head coach for both events.  GM Bill Guerin released the following statement:

We’re excited to have Mike guiding our teams. He is one of the very best coaches in the game and his background, including with international hockey, is well-suited to help put our team in the best position to win.

Sullivan has been behind the bench in Pittsburgh for the last nine seasons with the Penguins winning a Stanley Cup title in his first two years.  His teams have played to a combined 375-219-77 record in that stretch, good for a .616 points percentage while he is the winningest coach in franchise history.  However, the Pens have also narrowly missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.

Sullivan is one of three American-born head coaches to reach the 400-win mark, joining John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette.  It wouldn’t be surprising to see at least one of them on Sullivan’s staff once it’s finalized.

Internationally, Sullivan most recently worked as an assistant coach at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.  Most of his experience in the international game came well before that, however.  He was an assistant coach for the U.S. at the 2006 Olympics while working in two World Championships soon after, serving as the head coach in 2007 and an assistant one year later.

The NHL 4 Nations Face-Off will take place instead of the All-Star break next season, consisting of a seven-game event played over nine games between February 12th to the 20th while the Olympics will be held between February 6th to the 22nd in 2026.

Latest On Penguins Coaching Staff

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The Penguins have not received any formal requests to speak with head coach Mike Sullivan about other league vacancies, general manager Kyle Dubas told The Athletic’s Rob Rossi. However, that doesn’t mean they’re not internally debating the future of the rest of their coaching staff, as Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports internal discussions about the future of their assistants have “contributed to noise” about Sullivan and increased other teams’ interest in his services. Rossi added that the Devils are interested in Sullivan to succeed Lindy Ruff, who they fired and replaced with interim boss Travis Green midseason, but haven’t submitted a request to speak with him.

While there’s no concrete indication yet that the Penguins are considering moving on from Sullivan, it does appear the futures of associate coach Todd Reirden, assistants Ty Hennes and Mike Vellucci and goaltending coach Andy Chiodo are uncertain. Reirden and Vellucci have either held NHL head coaching roles or generated interest in head coaching roles in the past and may get interviews for the five-plus vacancies around the league if Pittsburgh opts not to bring them back. They both signed two-year deals in 2022 that finished up in 2023-24 and will no longer be under contract with the Pens as of July 1.

The Penguins have already made one coaching change this summer, opting to part ways with a pair of AHL coaches, including bench boss J.D. Forrest. It was an unexpected choice, as a middling WBS squad finished ninth in the AHL with a 39-24-8-1 record.

The NHL club, meanwhile, fell short of the postseason for the second straight season despite a 42-goal, 94-point campaign from captain Sidney Crosby. It’s their first time missing the playoffs in back-to-back years since they were out of postseason contention from 2002 to 2006.

Firing Sullivan would mean Pittsburgh is still on the hook to pay him a reported total of $16.5MM over the next three seasons, thanks to an extension signed under previous GM Ron Hextall in 2022 – that certainly qualifies as a deterrent.

Pittsburgh Penguins Share Multiple Injury Updates

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Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan has shared multiple injury updates, most notably designating top-line winger Bryan Rust as a game-time decision on Sunday. Rust has missed Pittsburgh’s last seven games with an upper-body injury that earned him a place on injured reserve. It was the second time Rust has landed on IR this season, previously missing three weeks with another upper-body injury. The absences have limited Rust to just 42 of Pittsburgh’s 62 games this season – though he’s proven impactful when he does play, managing 36 points, split evenly, through 42 games.

Rust is on the cusp of reaching the 20-goal mark for the fifth-straight season – a streak he kicked off with a career-high 27 goals in just 55 games in 2019-20. While he hasn’t crossed 25 goals since that year, Rust has proven incredibly consistent, serving as a staple on Sidney Crosby’s line for much of his career. His return will carry extra weight than usual, as the Penguins have dealt away the final member of their top line: Jake Guentzel, who was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for Michael Bunting, three prospects, and a first-round and fifth-round pick in 2024.

Sullivan also shared that forward Matthew Nieto is continuing to rehab from knee surgery. Nieto hasn’t played a game since November 30th, shifting to IR in December and long-term injured reserve in January. He was designated as out for six to eight weeks in early January, putting him on track for a return in mid-to-late March. Nieto has played just 22 games with the Penguins, scoring four points, since signing a two-year, $1.8MM contract with the team this summer.

Finally, the Penguins shared that Drew O’Connor has returned to skating after bearing with a concussion that’s held him out of the team’s last two games. O’Connor suffered the injury in Pittsburgh’s Tuesday game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, leaving after the first period. He had previously played in 60 games this season, scoring a career-high nine goals and 21 points. It’s O’Connor’s first year off the fourth line, after playing in 46 games and scoring 11 points in a depth role last season.

Penguins Acquire Emil Bemstrom From Blue Jackets

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A day after speaking to the media, Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations and general manager Kyle Dubas has swung a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Penguins have acquired forward Emil Bemstrom from Columbus in exchange for forward Alex Nylander and a conditional sixth-round pick in 2026.

From the Penguins perspective, it didn’t look as though Nylander was a fit with head coach Mike Sullivan’s style of play as he spent most of his time with the Penguins organization in the AHL. In the past two seasons, Nylander dressed in 14 NHL games and had a goal and an assist while getting several looks in the Penguins top six, something he was never able to turn into offensive production. The eighth overall pick in the 2016 NHL entry draft has never lived up to his pre-draft expectations and now finds himself with his fourth NHL franchise in eight years.

The Blue Jackets likely view the draft pick as the central piece of the deal. Although a sixth-round pick in two drafts isn’t exactly a haul, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic is reporting that the pick becomes a third-round pick if Bemstrom scores six goals the rest of this season with Pittsburgh.

In Bemstrom, the Penguins are acquiring a 24-year-old with some speed who was available on waivers just a few months ago. The former fourth-round pick his five goals and six assists in 32 games this season after posting a career-high 22 points in 55 games last year. He spent eight games in the AHL this season where he was dominant with 10 goals and four assists.

The move could be the first of many for the Penguins as Dubas mentioned yesterday that getting younger would be a priority and the Penguins could also make a bigger move if they elect to move on from pending free agent Jake Guentzel.

Penguins Notes: Letang, Harkins, Malkin

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Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports is reporting that Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang left practice today for what is being described as precautionary reasons. Not much else is known about the 36-year-old’s status, but head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters that Letang is banged up a little bit.

Letang could be dealing with a nagging issue as his play has slipped as of late. He has just a single point in his last seven games despite having been elevated to the team’s top power-play unit in place of Erik Karlsson. Overall, he is having one of the finest seasons of his career with four goals and 26 assists in 49 games while playing some of his best defensive hockey. He has flourished in a different role this season even if his play has trailed off as of late.

In other Penguins notes:

  • Rorabaugh is also reporting that Penguins forward Jansen Harkins has been placed on the injured reserve with a concussion. The 26-year-old had become a regular on the Penguins fourth line alongside veterans Noel Acciari and Jeff Carter and had been taking much of the team’s defensive zone starts in recent weeks. Harkins has been okay in a depth role for the Penguins, although he hasn’t provided much in the way of offense with just four assists in 34 games this season. No word yet on a timeline for Harkin’s return but he will presumably miss the Penguins games this week.
  • Rorabaugh has also reported that Pittsburgh forward Evgeni Malkin had a maintenance day today and did not practice with his teammates. The 37-year-old skated briefly in a sweatsuit before the team’s practice while he was monitored by Penguins medical staff. Malkin hasn’t been himself this season as it appears the aging curve has started to catch up with the former Hart Trophy winner. In the last ten games, Malkin has struggled with just a single goal, and this is the second maintenance day he has received in the last few weeks leading to speculation that he could be dealing with a nagging injury of his own.

Penguins Notes: Sullivan, Rust, Eller, Acciari

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With the Penguins struggling through the first two months of the season, some have wondered if a coaching change could be on the horizon.  Speaking with reporters today including Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, GM Kyle Dubas tried to downplay the idea that one could be coming, giving head coach Mike Sullivan a vote of confidence:

Being with him every day and not only seeing his attention to detail on the systems but his attention to detail with the players and coaching them individually and personally, I think we’re very fortunate to have Mike. Do I think that he’s the right person for this job now and far to the future? I absolutely do. It’s on me to help support the coaching staff as best I can to help us get going in the right direction.

Sullivan is in his ninth season behind the Penguins bench with the team posting a .621 points percentage in that stretch, certainly in the upper echelon.  However, they enter play tonight sitting seventh in the Metropolitan Division with a record of 11-12-3, putting them six points out of a playoff spot already.

More from Pittsburgh:

  • Rorabaugh also relayed some injury updates in a separate column. Winger Bryan Rust is listed as week-to-week with an undisclosed injury.  He last played on Wednesday, leaving that game early.  The 31-year-old has been a go-to piece for the Penguins through the first couple of months, notching 10 goals and 10 assists in 22 games, good for fourth on the team in scoring.  With Rickard Rakell currently on LTIR (though eligible to return this weekend), Pittsburgh’s depth on the right wing is certainly going to be tested.
  • Center Lars Eller didn’t take part in practice today due to an illness but Sullivan indicated that the veteran is expected to be available for Tuesday’s game against Arizona. The 34-year-old is in his first season with Pittsburgh after signing a two-year, $4.9MM contract early in free agency.  Eller has three goals and five assists in 26 games so far while logging a little under 15 minutes a night.
  • Meanwhile, fellow middleman Noel Acciari took to the ice before practice as he works his way back from a lower-body injury. The veteran has been out for a little more than a week with the issue and is currently on injured reserve but will be eligible to be activated as soon as he’s cleared to return.  Acciari has three points and 44 hits in 22 games so far this season.

Penguins Loan John Ludvig And Alex Nedeljkovic To AHL

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The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced that they’ve loaned defenseman John Ludvig and goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic to their AHL affiliate the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The loan is for a conditioning stint so both players can get back up to game speed before they rejoin the NHL Penguins. Matt Vensel of Post-Gazette Sports is reporting that both players will be eligible to join the team on Sunday to play NHL games.

Ludvig and Nedeljkovic are both currently on long-term injured reserve and have already joined the Penguins in full practices before their AHL assignment. The Ludvig news is not surprising given that Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan has stated before that Ludvig would have a conditioning assignment, but Nedeljkovic was a bit of a surprise. The Penguins may have opted to allow him more time given that third-string goaltender Magnus Hellberg has filled in admirably for Nedeljkovic. Hellberg has a .922 save percentage in three appearances with a 1-0-0 record.

Ludvig suffered a concussion in his NHL debut on October 24th against the Dallas Stars and hasn’t dressed in a game since. The 23-year-old was a waiver claim before the start of the season and is one of the few Penguins defensemen who offer a bit of sandpaper. The Penguins currently have seven defensemen on their NHL roster and have used Ludvig’s LTIR to call up Vinnie Hinostroza who has been very good on the team’s rejuvenated fourth line. 

The Penguins’ third defensive pairing has been a revolving door all season with Ryan Shea and Chad Ruhwedel currently occupying the final pair. Pierre-Olivier Joseph started the year on the left side, but hasn’t been able to hold down a spot and has struggled when he has been re-inserted into the lineup. The Penguins also have Ty Smith in the minors as well as Will Butcher who is injured. Ludvig will give the Penguins further roster options but could also complicate their current roster construction when he is recalled.

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