Penguins dismiss assistant coaches Sergei Gonchar, Jacques Martin, Mark Recchi

A day after general manager Jim Rutherford said change was needed for his team, the Penguins did just that with their coaching staff.

On Wednesday, the team announced assistant coaches Sergei Gonchar, Jacques Martin and Mark Recchi will not have their contracts renewed. A search for new assistants to work under head coach Mike Sullivan will begin immediately.

“Obviously, this is a difficult day for me, more difficult than you can imagine,” Sullivan said during a video conference with reporters on Wednesday. “Because I know how hard these guys work. And these guys are good coaches and they’re my friends. We’ve gone through a lot together as a group. But when teams with high expectations such as ours don’t have success, then change is inevitable. We all have to take responsibility for it. And it starts with me.”

All three coaches were members of the team’s two most recent Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and ‘17.

Gonchar, an all-star defenseman who spent five seasons with the Penguins as a player, rejoined the organization as a defensive development coach in 2015.

Martin was the most tenured of the group, having joined the team in August of 2013 as an assistant under former head coach Dan Bylsma. Less than a year later, he was moved to a senior advisor position. By December of 2015, he returned to an assistant coaching role, primarily dealing with defensemen and the penalty kill.

Under the tutelage of Gonchar and Martin, the Penguins developed a reputation for resurrecting defensemen who struggled elsewhere in the NHL such as Ian Cole, Trevor Daley, Ben Lovejoy, Jamie Oleksiak, Chad Ruhwedel and Justin Schultz. For all those success stories, the likes of Matt Hunwick or Jack Johnson never enjoyed the same success.

Recchi, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame who spent parts of seven seasons as a right winger with the Penguins, was hired as a development coach in July of 2014 then became an assistant coach by July of 2017. He primarily oversaw the team’s forwards and power play in that capacity.

The team’s power play struggled — albeit in different fashions — over the past two seasons. During the 2018-19 campaign, it converted at a strong rate of 24.6 percent but allowed a league-worst 15 short-handed goals. This past season, the unit was largely inconsistent, converting at a rate of 19.9 percent.

In his previous role, Recchi oversaw the development of several forwards who eventually became NHL players such as Teddy Blueger, Jake Guentzel, Tom Kuhnhackl, Carter Rowney, Bryan Rust, Conor Sheary, Oskar Sundqvist, Scott Wilson and others.

Goaltending coach Mike Buckley remains on staff.

Promoted from a development role in 2017 partly due to his role in overseeing goaltender Matt Murray’s ascension from the AHL to the NHL, Buckley has held the position for the past three seasons.

While Tristan Jarry emerged as an All-Star this season and Casey DeSmith has been a stable backup for parts of two seasons, Murray has regressed, at least based on his on-ice results.

In his first two seasons in the NHL under previous goaltending coach Mike Bales, Murray had a 41-12-5 record along with a 2.32 goals against average and a .925 save percentage.

During the ensuing three seasons under Buckley’s tutelage, Murray, who has dealt with considerable injury woes throughout that span, has a 76-41-14 record with a 2.82 goals against average and a .909 save percentage.

Sullivan gave Buckley a hearty endorsement on Wednesday.

“Mike’s done a really good job with our guys,” Sullivan said. “When you look at the goalies that we have in our system, Mike had been a big part of it. The development of these guys from young goaltenders to NHL-caliber goaltenders, everyone from Matt Murray to Tristan to Casey DeSmith … I believe Mike is a real good young goalie coach. I know he works extremely hard at it.”

The dismissals of Gonchar, Martin and Recchi come less than a week after the team was defeated by the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1, in a best-of-five qualifying round series during the NHL’s postseason. It marked the second consecutive postseason the team failed to win a series.

“We are in the process of conducting a review of our organization because we have underperformed in the playoffs the last few years,” Rutherford said in a statement. “We just thought we needed to change the dynamic of our coaching staff. We have very high standards here in Pittsburgh, and we want to continue competing for Stanley Cups. The message to our fans is that ‘We are not rebuilding, we’re re-tooling.’”

The contracts of all three coaches had expired in June but were extended because of the NHL’s hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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