Penguins dismiss assistant coaches Sergei Gonchar, Jacques Martin, Mark Recchi
Jacques Martin #JacquesMartin
Christopher Horner | Tribune-Review
Former Penguins assistant coach Jacques Martin served on head coach Mike Sullivan’s staff since December of 2015.
About an hour ago
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.
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.
These dismissals 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 postseason 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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Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at srorabaugh@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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