(Featured photo from the Penguins’ social media)

On Monday morning, Penguins president of hockey operations and general manager Kyle Dubas made a shocker of an announcement.

Per the team, the Penguins and head coach Mike Sullivan have agreed to part ways.

“On behalf of Fenway Sports Group and the Penguins organization, I would like to thank Mike Sullivan for his unwavering commitment and loyalty to the team and City of Pittsburgh over the past decade,” Dubas said in the team’s official press release on the matter.

“Mike is known for his preparation, focus and fierce competitiveness. I was fortunate to have a front-row seat to his dedication to this franchise for the past two seasons. He will forever be an enormous part of Penguins history, not only for the impressive back-to-back Cups, his impact on the core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Bryan Rust, but more importantly, for his love and loyalty to the organization.

“This was not a decision that was taken lightly, but as we continue to navigate the Penguins through this transitional period, we felt it was the best course forward for all involved.”

“Parting Ways” or Fired?

The team’s PR department has officially labeled this as a “parting of ways” between Sullivan and the Penguins. However, if you listened to Dubas’ press conference held on Monday afternoon, it sounded slightly more like a firing.

Dubas said that the initial goal when he took over the Penguins was to keep the same coaching staff in place and have them there through the entire process of transition, keeping them from one contention window to the next. As the team has tailed off over the last few seasons, however, he has now had to change course.

“From my vantage point here, my full intention when coming into the job was that I thought it was a great opportunity to work with one of, if not the best head coaches [sic] in the league, and to continue to give the team a chance to contend, and then transition it through back to contention,” Dubas said in his press conference.

“And I think what I’ve learned from the two years here is that, there’s a reason why it’s essentially impossible and has not been done, where a coach led a team to winning and being in contention, then through a transition, [then] all the way back.”

Now look, Sullivan could have agreed with that same premise — that NHL head coaches can’t last long enough to stick through two contention windows. After all, that idea was always a long shot, especially for a coach that had been here as long as Sullivan was.

He became the bench boss for the Penguins midway through the 2015-16 season. By the time Dubas had taken over the GM responsibilities, Sullivan had already been the coach for seven years — longer than the average shelf life of an NHL coach.

But even if Sullivan did agree with that notion (and Dubas did describe their conversations as very amicable), it still sounds like Dubas was pulling the trigger on letting him go, more than Sullivan was taking the exit route himself.

This Move Had To Be Made

At the end of the day, this is the unfortunate move that needed to happen. Sullivan was the winningest coach in franchise history. He brought back-to-back Stanley Cups to Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 and should always be remembered for his heroics in reviving a Penguins team in the mid 2010s that stalled in the playoffs year after year.

But regardless of where you are in the NHL as an organization, you cannot keep a head coach who has not won a playoff series since 2018. There were always some excuses, however viable they were — Covid in 2020, Tristan Jarry in 2021, goaltending injuries in 2022 — but Sullivan had experienced four straight first round exits before 2023. From then, his team has not even made the playoffs.

It was a slow decline from glory, but in a business that is always “what have you done for me lately?”, Sullivan hadn’t done all that much for them.

I still believe he is a good NHL coach, and there will undoubtedly be teams lining up to give him calls. Dubas said this is a situation where the time just tan out on his stay here.

“I think two things can be true,” Dubas started. “Someone can be a great head coach, and then they’ll move on to become a great head coach on their next stop, and that it can also be time for change here.”

It’s the same conversation we here in Pittsburgh have with Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin: he’s a great head coach, but is it time to move on? The Penguins, with their guy, decided it was.

Looking To The Future

As for what this means for the immediate future, I have a theory: the tank is SO ON for next year.

With Sullivan at the helm and this current core in place, the Penguins were highly unlikely to ever go on a deep playoff run. But he could still galvanize this team enough to keep them out of the basement completely. It’s never in the players’ minds to lose games, and I don’t think it was ever in Sullivan’s DNA either.

With a new guy, however, a whole new world opens up. The Penguins can take one big step backwards with a new head coach, continue to stockpile draft picks and young players, and gear up for a comeback down the road.

I know that the idea of tanking is not necessarily the most popular idea here, but there’s this kid named Gavin McKenna who will be available next year in the draft. He had 129 points in 56 games in the WHL this year. In the postseason so far, he has 29 points in 11 playoff games.

If there was any year to ensure that the Penguins had a serious chance at drafting first overall, it’s next year.

Next season should also be an excellent opportunity for the Penguins to let some of their younger talent take on bigger roles in the NHL. In the latter half of his coaching tenure here, that was not necessarily Sullivan’s strong suit. He changed that tune somewhat at the end of last season (think Rugter McGroarty and Ville Koivunen getting some prime minutes down the stretch), but for me personally, it was a too little, too late.

Sullivan would not have been a good tank commander. Like I said, it was just not in his DNA to lose that many games. That’s not to say that their new head coach has to be brought in a la Lou Agnotti and deliberately throw the games, but hiring a new guy and essentially starting the rebuilding clock with him is a better bet.

Hey, Dan Byslma is available. Maybe a reunion with him? I’m just kidding, unless…no, I’m just kidding. In all seriousness, I would love for Jessica Campbell, who served as an assistant to Byslma in Seattle, to come here in some capacity. I think that would be awesome, but I think she is destined for better things.

Dubas did give us an idea of who it won’t be. Last time the Penguins needed to hire a head coach for their NHL team, they went to the AHL well and simply promoted the head coach of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton team. Dubas has already ruled out current AHL head coach Kirk McDonald.

This season was McDonald’s first in the AHL, and his Penguins were bounced in two games in the Calder Cup Playoffs this year.

Truthfully, I have no idea who the next coach could be. Whether they are in it for the long hull or purely a transitionary coach as the Penguins try and rebuild their roster, is obviously yet to be seen.

What I do know is that an offseason that was already going to be pretty interesting just got even more so.