When it comes to being a good coach in the NHL, it takes one to know one. And clearly New York Rangers coach Mike Sullivan has a fan in fellow-two-time Stanley Cup winner Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Sullivan and Cooper are two of the most successful coaches of their era. Sullivan won the Stanley Cup in consecutive years with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017; and Cooper did the same with the Lightning in 2020 and 2021. Cooper has the best winning percentage of any current coach in the NHL (.595) and his 572 wins are 25th all-time in NHL history. Sullivan, hired by the Rangers two weeks ago, is not far behind Cooper; He has a .522 win percentage and is 32nd all-time with 479 victories.
In 2016, Sullivan led the Penguins past Cooper and the Lightning in seven games during the Eastern Conference Final, en-route to a Stanley Cup championship.
Cooper got Sullivan back this past February, when he guided Canada past Sullivan’s United States-coached team in the championship game at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
So, yeah, these guys know each other pretty well.
But, what makes Sullivan such a top coach in Cooper’s opinion?
“The sign of a good coach, to me, is when the star players are playing super hard,” Cooper told The Athletic. “’Sully’ got his star players in Pittsburgh to play hard, even years into his time there. For me, that’s a great sign. The other sign is: Does the team look disorganized at all? Do they look like they’ve gotten the message from the coach on how to play? And his teams have always looked like they knew what was going on.
“Those things sound easy to do, but they’re not.”
There was never a doubt that Sullivan had Sidney Crosby in his corner the past 10 seasons in Pittsburgh. Penguins stars Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang were big fans of the coach, too. So, that goes a long way in holding a team together even during the tough times, like the past three seasons when Pittsburgh failed to reach the postseason.
Sullivan emphasizes building relationships as a key to success. And doing so with his best players is paramount.
“I think there’s a burden of responsibility that comes with being a top player on a team,” Sullivan explained at his introductory press conference last week. “When players embrace that it gives them the chance to be at their very best. I watched that first-hand with some of the guys I coached in Pittsburgh, no one personifies it more than Sid.
“So, my hope is that I can have some conversations with some of the top players and the core guys here in New York and challenge them in ways that will hopefully inspire them to be their best.”
Though Cooper and Sullivan never coached on the same side, the Lightning bench boss believes that he’s got a good read on the new Rangers coach. And part of that is understanding the complexities and nuances of Sullivan’s personality.
“He’s got a lot of ‘no bulls—‘ to him,” Cooper observed. “He gets to the point, gets it across and moves on. I think that’s served him well. But there’s another side to him — the ‘Sit down, have a couple beers’ side. There’s a fun Sully in there too.”
But it’s that ability to get his best players to buy in that will be so important for the Rangers. Especially after the regression in production and effort from players like Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Alexis Lafreniere and Artemi Panarin this past season.
If Cooper is right about Sullivan, the Rangers could be in line for a serious turnaround next season.