Mike Sullivan hired as Rangers head coach, moving swiftly after Penguins dismissal

Matt Vensel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on May 2, 2025

Published in Hockey

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PITTSBURGH — For years, there was a common refrain among fans and the local media that if the Penguins moved on from Mike Sullivan, he would find a new job the following day.

As it turns out, they weren't too far off.

Just four days after the Penguins announced they were "parting ways" with Sullivan, who won two Stanley Cup titles during a decade behind the Pittsburgh bench, the rival New York Rangers swooped in and named Sullivan as their next head coach.

Sullivan takes over a veteran Rangers club that fell well short of expectations this past season and is now tasked with leading New York to its first Cup since 1994.

The Rangers, who are keeping Sullivan within the ranks of the NHL's highest-paid coaches, have coveted Sullivan for a few years, but until now he was not available.

Their top hockey executive, Chris Drury, reportedly waited to see if Sullivan would become available in the 2021 offseason before ultimately deciding to hire Gerard Gallant. They were linked to Sullivan again in 2023 before Peter Laviolette got the job.

Sullivan's time with the Penguins came to an end on Sunday, when team president Kyle Dubas flew to Boston to tell Sullivan that he would not be returning as coach.

A handful of NHL teams contacted Sullivan. But things came together quickly with the Rangers, who offered the 57-year-old a chance to chase a third championship.

Pittsburgh's timeline to hire a new coach will be nowhere near as swift. Dubas said Monday that he intends to conduct a "thorough and methodical" search to find the Penguins' next "great head coach," someone who is on board with his rebuild plan and has a passion for player development. He hopes to make a hire by early June.

Sullivan left the Penguins with the most wins in team history. He 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 the 2015-16 season, replacing Mike Johnston, and coached Sidney 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 league while also prodding their stars to "just play" in the face of adversity.

But in the following years, the Rangers and a few other teams passed them up in the Metropolitan Division pecking order. Even with Crosby still going strong, the Penguins have missed the playoffs three years in a row, and their last postseason series victory was in 2018. In 2024-25, they posted their worst record in 19 years.

And yet Sullivan was still in great demand around the league when Dubas and the Penguins let him go, as evidenced by just how quickly he landed in the Big Apple.