Will the next coach be the coach?
As Pittsburgh Penguins fans wait for general manager Kyle Dubas to make his final decision on the team’s next head coach, two candidates have received more and more airtime as other vacancies around the NHL get filled.
Will it be Washington Capitals assistant coach Mitch Love or former Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith?
While another out-of-the-blue candidate could be selected, the question I have is: Will the next Penguins head coach be the same one who leads Pittsburgh to another long Stanley Cup playoff run?
The last time the Penguins missed the postseason for consecutive seasons, like what fans are experiencing now, was during the early 2000s, coincidentally right before the team’s current core of players was drafted, which gave the organization almost 20 years of dominance.
From the conclusion of the 2001-02 season until the 2005-06 campaign, the Penguins did not qualify for the postseason.
Former Penguins forward Rick Kehoe coached the team from 2001 to 2003. Eddie Olczyk took over coaching duties between 2003 and 2005, followed by Michel Therrien from 2005 to 2009, when Dan Bylsma took over mid-season en route to winning the Stanley Cup.
During those lean years, the Penguins also benefited from high draft picks that went on to make NHL-level impacts.
First-round selections from 2002 to 2006
- 2002 – Ryan Whitney, D (fifth overall)
- 2003 – Marc-Andre Fleury, G (first overall)
- 2004 – Evgeni Malkin, C (second overall)
- 2005 – Sidney Crosby, C (first overall)
- 2006 – Jordan Staal, C (second overall)
All of these players proved to be integral pieces for the Penguins to reach the playoffs again by 2007, and remain there yearly until 2023.
For as much excitement as Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen bring to the current Penguins squad, and they will be integral players for the team, hopefully, for many seasons to come, the team still lacks dynamic top-level prospects that almost exclusively come from picking in the top 10 of the draft.
Kyle Dubas has routinely used the term ‘urgent’ when describing this current rebuild/retool with the media, and while I am one to take him at his word, the Penguins may need to endure a few more leaner years post-Sidney Crosby to capitalize on drafting and developing star-level talent that can play as dominantly as a Crosby or Malkin.
Now, getting some lottery luck a la 2003, 2004, and 2005 and deeper draft classes would surely speed up the process, but it’s never a guarantee.
All of that to say, whoever Dubas and the Penguins hire to fill the shoes of Mike Sullivan, expecting that coach to lead the Penguins back to the promised land, when their prospect cupboard is still bare by comparison, may be a fool’s errand for the time being.
It’s always darkest before the dawn, but the sun is still setting on the Sidney Crosby era, meaning it may be a few more seasons before fans really enter a new era of Penguins hockey.