The Pittsburgh Penguins rewarded their head coach for turning around the teams fortune's last season.
Coach Mike Sullivan has signed a three-year contract extension through the 2019.20 season. Well deserved, Sully! https://t.co/JazTjpE7Xb pic.twitter.com/5ZsJ4AzNmG
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 26, 2016
Mike Sullivan was given some much deserved job security and will continue to coach the Pittsburgh Penguins for the foreseeable future. The three year extension will start next season.
Mike Sullivan was the right guy at the right time for the Penguins. He allows his skilled players to push the pace of the game and for the most part gives his players wiggle room when mistakes do occur. As a result the Penguins are one of the most fun teams in the league to watch. There are many coaches out there that could take the Penguins over and turn them into a conservative bore fest focusing on defensive play, but fortunately Mike Sullivan does not fall into that category. High event hockey is fun hockey and it also plays to Pittsburgh's strengths.
Jim Rutherford's first coaching hire in Pittsburgh was Mike Johnston. In Johnston's first year with the team he was doing a nice job until five of the top seven defensemen went down right before the playoffs. His second year with the team was a complete disaster. He had the team playing passive and defensive. As a result he neutered the best player in the world. When Mike Sullivan took over he opened things up and allowed the team to breath.
Last year the Penguins defense corp. did not look like one of the best units in hockey. When you got past the Dumoulin-Letang pairing you had a big drop off in quality. Mike Sullivan recognized that and in turn developed that attitude that his best defense was a good offense. Instead of making his players defend he would just have his team on the attack all the time. Because the Penguins defensemen were all good skaters and competent enough to make plays with the puck this was a huge success.
With Sullivan's style the Penguins currently have their offensive stars have done great. This is from the Pittsburgh Penguins press release from above
Sidney Crosby leads all NHL players in both goals (54) and points (104) in 81 games played since Sullivan's arrival. Crosby (1st, 1.28), Evgeni Malkin (3rd, 1.11) and Kris Letang (6th, 1.01) all rank among the NHL points per game leaders during that same time span.
This year Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are threatening for the Art Ross while Phil Kessel is also inside the top ten in NHL scoring.
Mike Sullivan's style of coaching is entertaining and comes with tangible results. As a fan you can't ask for much more
Thanks for reading!