Mike Sullivan out as Penguins coach after 10 seasons, 2 Stanley Cups

PITTSBURGH — The Mike Sullivan era in Pittsburgh is over after a decade spent behind the bench.

The Penguins announced Monday morning the team and the two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach had "agreed to part ways" with two years remaining on Sullivan's contract.

However, president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas made it clear in a Monday press conference he was the one who initiated the change. Dubas flew to Boston to inform Sullivan on Sunday that he felt it was "just time" to move on from the winningest coach in Penguins history.

"Two things can be true," Dubas said. "That someone can be a great head coach and they'll move on to become a great head coach on their next stop, and it can also be time for change here. That was the conclusion that I had come to. It was something on my mind during the season."

Dubas said he has "great respect" for Sullivan and he wanted to "see it through" to the end of the season before making a decision on his status. The two met here in Pittsburgh last Tuesday. Dubas said he then spent the next few days contemplating whether to make a change.

In the end, Dubas said he kept coming back to the fact that in the modern NHL, there are no examples of a coach that won a Cup, navigated a "transition" and then went on to win another Cup with that team. The Penguins are still in the early stages of a rebuild under Dubas.

"I think what I've learned in the two years is that there's a reason why it's essentially impossible. It has not been done where a coach has led a team to winning and being in contention then through a transition all the way back," Dubas said. "There's a number of factors at play on the relationship side, with the players and the staff, that make it very difficult to do so."

And so Dubas and the Penguins will begin a "thorough search" for their next "great head coach" immediately. It will be a lengthy process, one that Dubas said could last until early June.

There is no shortage of established coaches on the market. The list of former Cup winners without jobs includes Joel Quenneville, Peter Laviolette and John Tortorella. Rick Tocchet, who won two titles here as one of Sullivan's assistants, is also a coaching free agent.

However, given some of the outside-the-box hires Dubas has already made within his hockey operations department, Dubas is expected to interview a wide, diverse group of candidates, with an eye on finding a new coach who can communicate with and develop young players.

In that vein, one high-profile name to file away is Denver University coach David Carle.

Dubas is looking for a coach who understands the Penguins are in "a time of transition."

"It's going to be continuing to maximize the prime or the end of careers of some of the players that we have, and it's going to be expeditiously developing some of the young players that have already come onto the roster, that are about to come onto the roster," Dubas said.

Sullivan is not the only coach whose time with the organization is up. The contracts for assistant coaches Mike Vellucci, Ty Hennes and Andy Chiodo are expiring, and Dubas said he informed all three they are "free immediately to begin their own search for their next spot."

The decision to move on from Sullivan was a surprise given Sullivan stated after the season he intended to coach the Penguins in 2025-26 and because both Penguins management and ownership publicly and privately expressed support for Sullivan during the season.

In fact, just seven days earlier, Dubas said at his year-end press conference he expected Sullivan to return as coach. However, Dubas did stop short of declaring that definitively.

"He's an elite-level coach, as he has shown through his time here and as well as for Team USA," Dubas said last Monday. "He's been very open about this is what he wants to do. So we'll just continue to reaffirm that and as long as he's on that side of it, we will roll with that."

After Sullivan was dismissed this Monday, Dubas was asked what had changed in his thinking. He said there wasn't a disagreement or two that led him to the decision but just a feeling it was time for a change. He admitted he had that thought at points during the season.

"There have a few times throughout the year where I felt this, as well, after certain stretches or games where I started to feel that maybe it was just time," the third-year team president said. "Someone can be a great coach and it might be time for them to go elsewhere and reapply that. You can use whatever analogy you want. Sometimes, the class needs a new professor."

Dubas added it was an "amicable" separation. Sullivan has yet to comment publicly.

Penguins sources strongly denied a local radio report that stated Sullivan had issued a list of demands to Dubas prior to his firing. Dubas also shot that down at his press conference.

Dubas revealed he broke the news to Sidney Crosby before he met with Sullivan. He said he spoke with his captain for five minutes. He declined to say how Crosby took the news.

Sullivan leaves the Penguins with the most victories in franchise history. In his 10 years as coach, he posted a 409-255-89 record while winning 82 playoff games. The Boston native had been the second-most tenured head coach in the NHL, behind only Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper.

Sullivan took over the team midway through that 2015-16 season, replacing Mike Johnston, and coached Crosby and the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cup titles. He found immediate success with a high-tempo style of play that is now prominent in the NHL, prodded the team's stars to "just play" in the face of adversity and pushed the right buttons with his goalie choices.

But in the following years, their stars inched closer and closer to age 40 while other Metropolitan Division teams blew past the Penguins, both figuratively and literally. Even with Crosby still going strong, the Penguins have missed the playoffs three seasons in a row, and their last postseason series win was in 2018. Their 2024-25 record was their worst since Crosby's rookie year.

Still, if he wants to get right back behind an NHL bench, Sullivan can find another coaching gig in short order. The New York Rangers are one team that is expected to make a run at him.

Dubas said the Penguins will grant any coaching interview requests they receive for Sullivan, who will continue to be paid by the organization until he lands with another NHL team.

While Dubas has conviction about the choice he has made, he said it was still "difficult" to part ways with Sullivan, with whom he had a positive working relationship for the last two years.

"[Sullivan] means a great deal to a lot of the people in the [organization], a great deal to the community and he will move on from the Penguins having left a truly incredible mark on the franchise," he said. "The winningest coach in team history, two Stanley Cup championships."

If the next coach accomplishes half of what Sullivan did, it will be seen as a smashing success.