The primary day of the Rangers’ offseason got here and went with none information of the teaching employees’s destiny transferring ahead.
There was a robust perception that head coach Peter Laviolette wouldn’t survive the catastrophe that was this 2024-25 season.
Although there was no phrase on the matter from the Blueshirts on Friday, a number of coaches across the NHL addressed their standing with their present groups that would impact the group’s search ought to Laviolette finally be relieved of his duties.
Rangers president and common supervisor Chris Drury and longtime Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan have a preexisting relationship.
Not solely are they Boston College alums, the 2 had been U.S. teammates within the 1997 World Championships. Drury additionally performed underneath Sullivan, who was an assistant with the Rangers, for his final two seasons enjoying within the NHL in 2009-10 and 2010-11.
They had been reunited on the NHL’s 4 Nations Faceoff with Workforce USA, with Sullivan serving as head coach and Drury as assistant common supervisor to Invoice Guerin.
If Sullivan had been obtainable in Could 2023, when Drury was trying to exchange Gerard Gallant, there’s no query he would’ve been the No. 1 alternative.
Coming off signing a three-year extension with Pittsburgh in 2022, Sullivan instructed The Submit that summer season that he was in it for the lengthy haul with the Penguins.
On Friday on the Penguins’ breakup day, Sullivan shared an analogous sentiment to presumably set the document straight and keep away from offseason hypothesis once more.
“My intentions are to be the head coach moving forward,” he instructed reporters.
In wrapping up Sullivan’s tenth season with the Penguins, Pittsburgh has didn’t qualify for the playoffs for 3 straight years.
The sturdy relationship between Sullivan and captain Sidney Crosby is well-known, nevertheless, which makes the previous’s speedy departure appear unlikely.
After the Canucks endured a second-round exit within the playoffs final season earlier than lacking the postseason fully this season, Rick Tocchet is one other at the moment employed bench boss who might be obtainable.
Requested point-blank if he needed to stay in Vancouver, the 61-year-old Tocchet was frank.
“Of course, you want to be back here, but there’s a process you have to go through, right?” Tocchet instructed reporters Friday. “All 12 months I haven’t breathed. In the course of the day off, I used to be at 4 Nations [as an assistant coach for Team Canada]. You’re making an attempt to get this group into the playoffs, coping with all that stuff. So I haven’t actually thought of myself. I do know individuals don’t imagine that. Certain, at nighttime, you suppose, ‘Hey, what am I going to do?’ You consider these ideas. I do must take a breath and I feel out of respect for each side you need to undergo the method. You must. I perceive, I do know the following query is, ‘Well, how much time do you need?’
“I’m not an idiot, I can’t sit on the couch. I’ll decide when I decide. I mean, obviously, there’s a time frame. But right now, for me, there’s a process I got to go through with [president and hockey operations] Jim [Rutherford] and [general manager] Patrick [Allvin]. That’s really where it’s at.”
