{"id":468011,"date":"2025-05-02T09:39:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T13:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=468011"},"modified":"2025-05-02T09:41:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T13:41:43","slug":"new-york-rangers-hire-stanley-cup-winning-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/05\/02\/new-york-rangers-hire-stanley-cup-winning-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Rangers Hire Stanley Cup-Winning Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It didn&#8217;t take long for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/23\/the-new-york-rangers-make-a-very-interesting-off-ice-move\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Rangers<\/a> to get their man. News came down Friday morning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sullimi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-02_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Sullivan<\/a> has been hired as <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/rangers\/news\/mike-sullivan-named-rangers-head-coach\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the team&#8217;s new head coach<\/a>. General manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/drurych01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-02_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Drury<\/a> announced the hire as Sullivan becomes the franchise&#8217;s 38th coach in its history.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The 38th Head Coach in <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NYR?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NYR<\/a> history.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome (back) to Broadway, Sully! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dUhWCBPm4A\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/dUhWCBPm4A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; New York Rangers (@NYRangers) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NYRangers\/status\/1918289498930131352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mike Sullivan Hired as New York Rangers Head Coach<\/h2>\n<p>Sullivan <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/28\/pittsburgh-penguins-and-mike-sullivan-agree-to-part-ways\/\" target=\"_self\">recently parted ways<\/a> with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/05\/01\/nhl-rumours-pittsburgh-penguins-coaching-search\/\" target=\"_self\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> just a few days ago. However, he wasn&#8217;t on the unemployment very long as he returns to the Rangers&#8217; organization. The Marshfield, Minn. native was drafted by the Blueshirts 69th overall of the 1987 NHL Draft and was also an assistant coach with the organization from 2009-13.<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan has complied a 479-311-15-112 (W-L-T-OTL) record in 917 games behind the bench. The 57-year-old served as head coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/04\/nhl-rumours-boston-bruins-coaching-search\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Bruins<\/a> and the Penguins. He also served as acting head coach for the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/29\/rick-tocchet-leaving-vancouver-canucks\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> while John Tortorella served a six-game suspension in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>The veteran coach&#8217;s best time was with Pittsburgh, where he won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2015-16 and 2016-17. He is also the only American-born head coach in NHL history who has won the Stanley Cup on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means<\/h3>\n<p>However, his time with the Pens came to end after the team missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs three seasons in a row. He&#8217;ll be tasked with trying to turn around a club that fell way short of expectations last season.<\/p>\n<p>Former head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/laviope01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-02_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peter Laviolette<\/a> was fired after <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/19\/new-york-rangers-fire-head-coach-and-associate-coach\/\" target=\"_self\">missing the post-season<\/a>. The Rangers had a load of expectations after making the Eastern Conference Final last year. However, the Blueshirts struggled and missed out on the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Drury, who has been pursuing Sullivan for a number of seasons, is hoping the hire\u00a0 gives stability to the position, which has seen its fair share of changes. The Rangers have gone through David Quinn, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/gallage01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-05-02_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gerard Gallant<\/a> and Laviolette in recent seasons.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It didn&#8217;t take long for the New York Rangers to get their man. News came down Friday morning Mike Sullivan has been hired as the team&#8217;s new head coach. General manager Chris Drury announced the hire as Sullivan becomes the franchise&#8217;s 38th coach in its history. The 38th Head Coach in #NYR history. Welcome (back) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":454015,"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":[14,4547,34,4548],"tags":[1657,1020,6259,1547],"class_list":["post-468011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rangers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-chris-drury","tag-mike-sullivan","tag-new-york-rangers-news","tag-peter-laviolette"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468011","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\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468011"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":468016,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468011\/revisions\/468016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}