The Penguins are not bringing back associate coach Todd Reirden next season, the club announced Friday. He was on an expiring contract.
Reirden has served on head coach Mike Sullivan’s staff for the past four seasons, overseeing their power play and defense corps. The Penguins hired the former NHL defenseman in the 2020 offseason after he was let go as head coach of the Capitals, a role he held for two years.
Over Reirden’s tenure, the Penguins have had one of the most consistently underwhelming man-advantage units in the league. Their 19.9% power play success rate over the past four seasons ranks 18th in the NHL, surprisingly low considering the talent level of Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin that they’ve had at their disposal nearly the entire time.
General manager Kyle Dubas gave Reirden a new toy to play with when he acquired elite offensive blue-liner Erik Karlsson this summer, but it somehow had a worse effect. Pittsburgh’s power play clicked at just 15.3% this season, only ahead of the Blue Jackets (15.1%) and Flyers (12.2%).
The Penguins were middle-of-the-pack defensively, allowing 30.2 shots per game, only 0.4 more than the league median this season. The pairing of Karlsson and Marcus Pettersson had a strong campaign at even strength, controlling 54.7% of expected goals when deployed together, per MoneyPuck. But free-agent signing Ryan Graves struggled in his top-four role, posting worse results than Pettersson when utilized with both Karlsson and Letang.
Pittsburgh finished just three points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference this season. Even an average power play and slightly improved results from Graves likely would have given it the two additional wins it needed to return to postseason action.
Reirden becomes a free agent, and while he likely won’t be under consideration for any head coaching vacancies, he could still land on an NHL bench somewhere next season.
Before assuming the head coaching job with Washington in 2018, he’d spent four years there as an associate and assistant coach under Barry Trotz. His first NHL gig came with the Penguins in 2008, serving as the assistant and head coach for AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for three years before spending another four as an NHL assistant.
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