Its taken some attempts, but the Pittsburgh Penguins have found their new head coach, naming the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks coach and general manager Mike Johnston to take over for the departed Dan Bylsma. Jim Rutherford had reportedly lost out on Willie Desjardins (Vancouver) and Bill Peters (Carolina) but wasn’t going to allow that to happen a third time.
It is the first NHL head coaching position for Johnston, who has been a coach for Team Canada at the 1998 Olympics and multiple World Championships, an assistant in the NHL, a World Junior team head coach, as well as being the head coach and general manager of the Portland Winterhawks for the past five years.
“As a career coach, you aspire to get to these positions,” Johnston said. “And certainly I’ve been in the National Hockey League before as an associate coach, but to coach at this level is something I’ve aspired to do. It’s been my goal, it’s been my dream and I’m really thrilled to be standing here today.
“When I first started coaching, I coached in a small college in Alberta and four years into my job, I sent a letter to several NHL general managers and I said, ‘I’ve been coaching for four years now … and I’m ready to coach in the NHL.’ Just keep it in mind.”
Mike Johnston seems to favor an offensive approach to the game, believing that the best defense is to play a heavy puck possession game.
“My basic framework of the system is puck possession, puck management, tempo and pace,” Johnson said. “You want your players to have options in a game, so in every part of the game, from breakout getting out of our zone to offensive zone entries, we want to give our players as many options as possible. We want them to use those options and we want to pick the right options.
“Our defensive habits and the details for our defensive habits will be ingrained, for sure. But I’m more inclined in teams I’ve coached over the years, to really play a pace game. You hold the puck, you play defensively a lot less.”
Johnston is familiar with at least one of the Penguins top prospect as he coached 2012 first round pick (8th overall) Derrick Pouliot in Portland.
The Penguins also announced that they would not be bringing back assistant coaches Tony Granato and Todd Reirden, and that Jacques Martin would be re-assigned to a new position in the organization. Rick Tocchet has been hired as an assistant coach, and further hirings are expected.
