{"id":452051,"date":"2024-09-27T08:30:35","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T12:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=452051"},"modified":"2024-09-26T23:36:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T03:36:05","slug":"matt-cullen-gives-back-to-pittsburgh-penguins-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/09\/27\/matt-cullen-gives-back-to-pittsburgh-penguins-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Player Gives Back to the Pittsburgh Penguins Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Cullen<\/span><\/a> is a former NHL player who spent a whopping 21 years in the NHL, and three seasons of that were with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the Penguins, he had 83 points and was a +15 in 225 regular season games. Cullen was also on the most recent back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion teams with the Penguins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking Back at Matt Cullen’s Career Highlights<\/span><\/h3>\n

Cullen was by no means a Hall-of-Fame calibre player. However, he was still a solid bottom-six centre who was generally durable, as he did not miss many games due to injuries. He had a successful 21-year NHL career as he was also a three-time Stanley Cup Winner. He finished his career with 266 goals and 465 assists for <\/span>a total of<\/span> 731 points. The former Penguin played in a total of 1,516 games. He was a very consistent player throughout his career, highlighted by his best seasons. His career-high was 49 points, which he achieved twice. Once in 2005-06 with the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> in 78 games, and the other season came in 2007-08, also with the Canes, in just 59 games that campaign. Moreover, ten times he had 39 or more points in a year, including exactly that amount three times incredibly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Is He up to Today?<\/h3>\n

Cullen spent his last season in the NHL with the Penguins before announcing his <\/span>retirement<\/span><\/a> in July 2019. His post-hockey life has been treating him well as he was recently inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame <\/span>just three weeks ago. Even though he is no longer a player, he <\/span>is still working<\/span> in the NHL as a player development coach for the Penguins.<\/span><\/p>\n

A month later, he was announced as the role he still has today. He was hired by then general manager <\/span>Jim Rutherford<\/span><\/a>. It is impressive to note, that<\/span> Cullen is still with the Penguins in the same role despite the Penguins having two general managers since. Usually, new general managers like to clean house and bring in their <\/span>own staff. However, <\/span>both<\/span> former GM <\/span>Ron Hextall<\/span><\/a> and current GM Kyle Dubas were more than pleased with Cullen and kept him on staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is <\/span>not uncommon<\/span> for former players to step into organizational roles for NHL players. Especially not for the Penguins as <\/span>Bill Guerin<\/span><\/a> was also hired in the same role. However, Guerin is now a GM for the Minnesota Wild<\/a>. <\/span>Another example is <\/span>Mark Recchi<\/span><\/a> who spent time with the Penguins as both a player and then brought back as an assistant coach for a few years. Now, Recchi is an assistant coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cullen is tasked with developing the next great Penguins players <\/span>who are<\/span> currently prospects in the AHL <\/span>and<\/span> internationally. Some of the Penguins best prospects are Rutger McGroarty<\/a>, Ville Koivunen<\/a>, Joel Blomqvist, Owen Pickering, Vasili Ponomaryov<\/a>, and others. Cullen would probably have the easiest time developing Ponomaryov as they both are centres.<\/span><\/p>\n

Current Expanded Role with the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/span><\/h3>\n

In addition to his player development role, Cullen got to experience being behind the bench as a coach. In February 2022, assistant coach <\/span>Todd Reirden<\/span><\/a> was away from the team due to surgery. Cullen was awarded the opportunity to help out as a coach and be behind the bench.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cullen’s responsibilities included taking over the pre-scout duties, listening in on meetings, offering some feedback to the players, and helping out on both sides of special teams. Also, he works the iPad during games and helps <\/span>out<\/span> the coaches and players by recalling videos during play to show them certain plays or moments they may have missed or want to see a second time. Just like his career as a player, Cullen really does go the extra mile for his team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Cullen is a former NHL player who spent a whopping 21 years in the NHL, and three seasons of that were with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the Penguins, he had 83 points and was a +15 in 225 regular season games. Cullen was also on the most recent back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion teams with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5189,"featured_media":450252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4547,4548],"tags":[3175,1509,1696,1761],"class_list":["post-452051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-penguins","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-bill-guerin","tag-jim-rutherford","tag-kyle-dubas","tag-matt-cullen"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}