The Pittsburgh Penguins seemed out of the playoffs in December. Despite the presence of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and a slew of other top talents, the Penguins were a listless bunch and appeared to be going nowhere.
Head coach Mike Johnston was just a guy behind the bench, and the Penguins appeared to be a rudderless ship. This was not the way general manager Jim Rutherford envisioned his team, and he fired Johnston in December, replacing him with Mike Sullivan.
Sullivan was a hockey lifer who had been coaching the Penguins' minor league team. He had been a head coach with the Boston Bruins, but that had been 10 years earlier. He served as an assistant with the New York Rangers under John Tortorella and had been a scout for the Chicago Blackhawks when they won the Stanley Cup in 2014-15.
But when he got the call to coach the Penguins, he was ready. He looked around the locker room and saw great individual talent. He laid out a plan to turn those players into a superb team.
It didn't happen overnight, but he was successful. The Penguins improved steadily in the second half of the sea ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Steve Silverman
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