With legacy secure, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan's next task is rediscovering playoff magic

Mike Rupp played under 10 head coaches and dozens of assistants over 11 NHL seasons spent with six teams.

Three of those head coaches won the Stanley Cup before or during Rupp’s time with them. Several of the assistants did, too.

Rupp quickly identified one of those myriad assistants with the chops to do more.

“It’s easy to say it now, but (Mike Sullivan) was a head coach in waiting,” Rupp said of his 2011-13 tenure with the New York Rangers when Sullivan was on the staff of John Tortorella. “Not to say assistant coaches aren’t quality coaches, but I didn’t think he was (merely) an assistant coach.”

A few years later, in December 2015, Sullivan wasn’t an assistant any longer. And six months after that, he was a Stanley Cup-winning head coach.

Six more seasons and a second Cup later, Sullivan still is leading the Pittsburgh Penguins. Even after three consecutive flameouts in the playoffs, Sullivan’s stature among the upper tier of NHL coaches is secure as he preps to open his seventh postseason as the Penguins’ bench boss.

When Rupp first worked with Sullivan in a formal capacity 11 years ago, Sullivan was a 43-year-old who hadn’t won a playoff series in a two-season stint as a head coach of his hometown Boston Bruins a half-decade earlier. Sullivan was in the fifth of seven years as Tortorella’s deputy, sharpening his skillset in preparation for an opportunity to be the boss of an NHL team again.

“Just the way he carried himself, he had the cachet of a head coach,” said Rupp, a former rugged forward who works as an analyst for the NHL Network and AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh. “That’s the thing I remember most about him: He’s got that voice, he commands a room and he’s got a presence to him. That’s one of the things I noticed right away.”

Rupp, who played two seasons for the Penguins, was speaking by phone last week the same day Penguins defensemen Mike Matheson shared a similar perspective of his first impression of Sullivan, for whom he has played the past two seasons.

“I think the first thing I noticed about him,” Matheson said of Sullivan, “is just the way he speaks.”

For a town whose most famous head coach is Mike Tomlin and that had its most recent baseball success under Clint Hurdle, it’s not a tough sell that a booming baritone emanating from an assertive, confident aura can translate into an effective leader.

“He’s really, really good at formulating sentences,” Matheson said. “And that can sound really stupid, but when you’re ad-libbing and trying to explain something, it can be difficult to formulate a sentence that makes sense and not have a bunch of ummm’s and uhhh’s — and he definitely doesn’t say them very often. He’s very good at doing that, and so I think that helps get his message across very clearly.”

Few would argue with Sullivan’s results with the Penguins. Since he was promoted from coach of the team’s AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Dec. 12, 2015, he is second in the NHL in wins. The only coach ahead of him is also the only one who matches Sullivan in winning two Stanley Cup championships in that time: the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jon Cooper.

Barry Trotz, Cooper and Pete DeBoer are the only coaches since Sullivan took over the Penguins to win more playoff games or playoff series than Sullivan’s 41 and nine, respectively.

“He’s a great communicator,” veteran Penguins forward Jeff Carter said. “He gets his point across and gets his gameplan across, and he makes sure that everybody sticks to it. He motivates guys. Some guys need different types of motivation and pushing. … He seems to find the right way for each individual and tries to get the best out of everybody.”

Love this perspective from Mike Sullivan

This town has three brilliant motovational orators in he, Hurdle, Tomlinhttps://t.co/69cs0Qn1cC pic.twitter.com/OVpHUDAQxq

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) June 8, 2017

Armed with a contract through 2024 and with his place secure as the all-time franchise coaching leader in wins, playoff wins and Stanley Cups, Sullivan doesn’t need anything further to cement his legacy in Penguins’ lore. But on a four-series losing streak and with the Penguins 3-13 in their past 16 postseason games, Sullivan could use a playoff run this spring to bury the sour taste of three consecutive opening-round exits.

“I think experience is the best teacher, you know?” Sullivan said recently. “And I also think we learn more from our failures than we do our successes because it forces you to dig down and soul search a little bit and reflect on your own individual part in those experiences.”

If that’s the case, the past three disappointing postseasons have taught Sullivan more than lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup twice ever could.

When Sullivan first took over the Penguins, he reflected on his decade as an assistant that he said was going to make him a better head coach in his second crack at it.

Now, he insists the lessons taken from the highest of highs and lowest of lows he has experienced in postseasons since have burnished his ability to lead the Penguins into these playoffs.

“I’d like to believe that I am a better coach than I was six or seven years ago when I first became the coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins,” Sullivan said. “But it’s not an easy job. It’s one that I love. I don’t take one day for granted. I love working with this group of players.”