Pros & Cons of Top 5 Penguins Coaching Candidates

By the middle of next week, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas will be sitting down for the first round of face-to-face interviews with prospective candidates for the Penguins’ vacant head coaching position. It’s not only a unique situation but a rare one, as an offseason process has not been seen in Pittsburgh for a hockey or football coach since 2014, when the Penguins were an unraveling disaster both on and off the ice.

The situation is different this time. Dubas made the move to broom coach Mike Sullivan after nearly 10 years because the team had failed on several fronts and, reading between the lines, the pair disagreed on the timeline of a rebuild.

Consequently, Sullivan has a new market-setting contract with the New York Rangers, and Dubas will complete the first coaching search of his career. It bears little note now, but Dubas fired Mike Babcock in November 2019 and immediately promoted Sheldon Keefe from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.

Keefe had also coached Dubas’s Soo Greyhounds of the OHL, so the Penguins’ process, which will play out over the next couple of weeks, is the first in Dubas’s seven years as an NHL president of hockey operations/GM.

It will be telling in which direction Dubas goes. There is a young, “flavor of the moment” candidate, a grizzled veteran player making a name for himself in these playoffs, and some former NHL head coaches looking for another chance to put right what once went wrong.

This week, Pittsburgh Hockey Now invited coach Francis Anzalone to our Penguins Live Chat for a pertinent discussion on the candidates. Anzalone has particular experience with several of the candidates and is well-versed in their styles and demeanor.

Anzalone is a former coach in the USHL and NAHL, as well as part of the coaching staff for Team Latvia at the World Championships and World Juniors. He’s now the CEO of Total Package Hockey school, which has some notable graduates currently in the NHL.

Coaching the Penguins can be a unique challenge because of the star power within the room. Further complicating the challenge will be the burgeoning youth movement coexisting with the stars. A coach will have to command both, but probably in very different ways, simultaneously.

Pros and Cons

1. Mitch Love

Love, 40, is the youngster in the group. He’s not only interviewing for the Penguins job, but the Boston Bruins and Seattle Kraken want their face time with “it” candidate. Dubas could indeed face competition if Love is the guy.

Read More: Penguins Facing Competition for Top Candidate; Interviews Next Week

“He has an interesting resume. Love came up as a minor leaguer and played at a few different levels, but got right to work as an assistant coach with the Everett Silvertips in the WHL. Love worked under former Penguin’s head coach, Kevin Constantine, who has fallen on some rough times (of his own doing), but the man does know hockey and he is a hockey guy through and through,” Anzalone said. “Constantine is a defensive specialist. Mitch Love got his first coaching job working under Kevin’s direction, which is a great upbringing. You learn what to do, you also learn what not to do.”

Love followed Constantine as the head coach of Everett, then had two successful seasons in the AHL, where he won back-to-back coach of the year honors, before spending the last two seasons on Spencer Carbery’s staff with the Washington Capitals.

Stylistically, Love is not demonstrative.

“I’ve watched Love give some presentations in the past. He has a very good demeanor and delivery. Not too low by any means, not too high,” said Anzalone. “He just speaks the information. I think that the older players in Pittsburgh would really gravitate towards that … I don’t think there’ll be a whole lot of rah-rah. He’s a really good pro guy. He delivers the information and sounds like a guy who’s on point.”

Now, the downside.

Love is a defense-first coach. In the past, that singular sentence would be enough to disqualify a coach from Penguins contention. There have been only two “defensive” coaches in Pittsburgh over the last 30 years: Constantine and Mike Johnston, who preceded Sullivan.

Neither lasted very long, though Constantine had the benefit of coaching a team careening towards bankruptcy but without Mario Lemieux on the roster. He lasted two seasons and 25 games. Johnston lasted one season and 28 games.

Does Love’s preferred game fit the Penguins’ DNA? There’s also a matter of Love’s inexperience, which would make it more difficult to build out a full staff.

2. Alain Nasreddine

The Dallas Stars assistant coach probably won’t be in Pittsburgh this week to interview because he’s currently embroiled in a hotly contested Western Conference Final against the Edmonton Oilers as an assistant coach under Pete DeBoer.

Nassredine, 49, is a former journeyman defenseman who spent considerable time playing for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and a couple of seasons for the Pittsburgh Penguins (56 games total). Nasreddine was also an assistant coach under Mike Yeo in WBS and under John Hynes with the New Jersey Devils, and became the Devils’ interim coach after the club fired Hynes in December of the 2019-20 season.

Nasreddine stayed on as an assistant under new Devils coach Lindy Ruff before moving on to Dallas under DeBoer.

“He’s had to earn his stripes as a coach. I just think he’s been mentored by two of the best teacher-coaches in the game: Hynes and Peter DeBoer. DeBoer is one of the top three to five coaches in the game,” said Anzalone. “There’s a lot to like about Nasreddine. I like his story, his journey, and his presence. He has a bit of the something-to-prove factor.”

Nasreddine does have a commanding presence. As a defenseman, he was the block shots, do the dirty-work, blood and guts type player.

“I think it will be important for Kyle Dubas to bring in someone who can win over that core group. That’s gonna be a key question we need to ask: In their bio, in their resume, is there any indication that they’re gonna be able to help transition the organization because it’s clearly a transition period; maximize the young players, but still reach the core guys because we need the core guys to make this next turn.”

The cons are simple. Nasreddine doesn’t have a track record as a head coach at any level, except for 43 games in New Jersey. It’s a much different role than being the assistant coach.

3. Jay Woodcroft

The more Anzalone and I discussed Woodcroft, it seems the worse his candidacy became. Woodcroft was the Edmonton Oilers coach for only one full season. He took over from Dave Tippet with 39 games remaining in the 2021-22 season, and Edmonton advanced to the Western Conference Final. However, after a disappointing loss to Vegas in Round Two the following season, there were plenty of fingers pointed at Woodcroft.

He lasted just 13 games into the 2023-24 season.

Woodcroft, 48, began his career as a video coach for the Detroit Red Wings in 2005 after a four-year minor league playing career. In 2008, he became an assistant coach under Todd McClellan in San Jose. In 2018, Woodcroft took over Edmonton’s AHL affiliate.

“He does have experience with star players. You learn a lot from coaching (Leon) Draisaitl, (Ryan) Nugent-Hopkins, and (Connor) McDavid. He has spent the last year really educating himself, not only on hockey, but on leadership and communication,” Anzalone told us. “I’ve listened to two or three interviews that Jay Woodcroft has done where he’s talked about his time away. He’s gone overseas to Europe to study the game, and he’s probably as ready as anyone would be to come back and have his next stop be better than his last. Woodcroft is a student of the game, and he listens two times more than he speaks … I feel like he would be a good fit for Dubas.”

However, the cons are significant according to Anzalone. Woodcroft may be too reminiscent of Johnston.

“I can’t see Woodcroft and the (Penguins) core. It doesn’t mesh well with me. It’s a presence thing,” said Anzalone. “(Sidney Crosby) is still the type of guy that responds to–when the coach walks in, the coach has a commanding presence. Now, Sid will probably want to talk that coach’s ear off at times about things he sees when it’s time for the coach and the leader to converse. I still think Sid is from that old school (and wants a commanding presence).”

4. D.J. Smith

One of the original names on PHN’s Top 5 list. Smith, 48, spent four years as the Ottawa Senators’ coach and drew praise even in his termination, from players and the organization.

“One of the genuinely good guys in the game. It’s really hard to find somebody who would say something bad or negative about D.J. Smith. There’s also a familiarity with Dubas from the time in Toronto,” Anzalone began.

“I think he’s known as a coach, as a very high energy, enthusiastic, spirited guy, which are great qualities. Smith is also known as a very fun-loving guy, at times a prankster. When he joined Jim Hiller in LA … Smith had an immediate impact on the spirit and the energy around the Los Angeles Kings. I think Smith is a good hockey guy who’s very well-versed in knowing what a team needs.

The cons on Smith are also simple. He was tasked with helping Ottawa turn the corner in its rebuild. After a much improved third season, the team regressed in Smith’s fourth, leading to his mid-season firing.

There are far more positives than negatives with Smith, from connections to Dubas to experience with a team in the Penguins’ revamping or rebuilding situation. He might get beaten by one of the others, but there are few drawbacks.

5. Jay Leach

Curiously, the Boston Bruins did not name Jay Leach the interim coach when they relieved Jim Montgomery of duties early in the season. Leach remained on the staff under interim coach Joe Sacco.

Leach, 45, with Love and a myriad of others, are candidates for the Bruins’ vacant coaching job. He was a journeyman defenseman who played across the country in the ECHL, AHL, and 70 games in the NHL.

“Let’s work backward. If he is that good, I can’t see the Bruins not hiring him. Nonetheless, I like this guy. If you research him, he has come up in some solid hockey cultures. He’s played for some really good, I’ll use the term, programs, including the Devils back in the day,” Anzalone said. “He’s been around some really good environments. He has experience with Crosby-like players.

He walks into a room, and he does have some presence. He’s very articulate. He’s known as connecting with his players, and he’s very, very knowledgeable when it comes to play without the puck.”

Leach would be a fine choice and perhaps a safe choice.

“I just can’t see Leach being the coach of the Penguins but not the Bruins,” Anzalone concluded.