COLUMBUS, Ohio — Mike Sullivan is the only coach other than Chuck Noll and Danny Murtaugh to lead a Pittsburgh pro sports franchise to multiple titles. That’s exclusive company for the Penguins’ bench boss who has his team well positioned for a sixth consecutive playoff appearance under his guidance.
Sullivan and Noll share another distinction. Noll never won the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year honor en route to a Hall-of-Fame career spanning 23 seasons and including four Super Bowls. It’s too early to say whether Sullivan will merit enshrinement alongside Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the superstars who helped their coach win back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016-17, when their careers end.
While his work has been appreciated, especially in Pittsburgh, it’s not been honored league-wide, at least by the NHL broadcasters who vote for the Jack Adams Award. Sullivan is yet to be nominated as a coach-of-the-year finalist despite twice finishing with a top-4 regular-season record and having the club in the hunt in that category again this season.
Plenty of games remain in this condensed schedule, but there are not three coaches in the league doing a better job than Sullivan. The club has been injury ravaged — the defensive corps depleted in the early months and the forward unit later on — to the tune of 218 man-games lost. His general manager, Jim Rutherford, resigned unexpectedly just seven games into the season, leaving Sullivan to work under Ron Hextall and Brian Burke, with whom he had no previous relations.
Sullivan was victimized by porous goaltending in the opening weeks and poor play from Malkin, who went on injured reserve with a lower-body injury just as he began to play well.
And lest we forget, the Penguins were seen as a fringe playoff team in the reconfigured East Division at the start of the season. Sullivan has turned the group into a bonafide contender to not only win the division, but potentially emerge from the East as a final-four playoff representative.
At awards’ time, coaches with transcendent stars such as Crosby seem to get penalized because there’s the unspoken bias of “who couldn’t win with that lineup?” Well, Sullivan has rarely had his complete roster at his disposal.
Joel Quenneville, of Florida, might end up winning the Jack Adams this year, but Sullivan’s work merits strong consideration. He should be a no worst than a finalist.
YOUR TURN: Does Mike Sullivan deserve to win the Jack Adams Award?