Behind the Purge: Reasons Recchi, Martin, Gonchar had to Go | PHN+

The Pittsburgh Penguins broomed all three assistant coaches on Wednesday morning as Game 1, Round One of the NHL playoffs began across in the NHL hub cities without the Penguins. Bruised from their embarrassing Qualifying Round loss to the lowest-seeded team in the 24-team NHL return, the Penguins cleaned house.

It wasn’t without warning. PHN was told to expect one, maybe two changes. However, the clean sweep clearly sent a message to several in the organization, perhaps including head coach Mike Sullivan.

Technically, the Penguins did not renew the contracts of the three coaches, but let’s skip past semantics and call it what it is: a purge.

The Penguins need to make changes. They began the process on Wednesday, but lost some value, too. A team source told Pittsburgh Hockey told several things throughout the season, which individually weren’t reportable but combined paint an interesting story.