The first major move of the Pittsburgh Penguins offseason happened on Wednesday when the team officially hired David Quinn as a new assistant coach to Mike Sullivan’s staff. The former New York Rangers and San Jose Sharks coach is going to take Todd Rierden’s place on the staff and work with the team’s defensem*n.
The Penguins did not say if he would work with the power play or penalty kill units.
Ignoring for a second his overall record as a head coach with the Sharks and Rangers, there is one interesting thing about Quinn’s coaching career in the NHL — he has received some major seasons from defensem*n.
Specifically, he has coached two different Norris Trophy winners with Adam Fox winning under him in win New York during the 2020-21 season and Erik Karlsson winning in 2022-23 in San Jose.
Obviously, Karlsson will be playing for him again here in Pittsburgh and it is imperative that the Penguins figure out a way to get the most possible production out of him.
Not only because of his salary cap hit, but because he is still going to be a significant player and a key part of the Penguins’ success or failure in 2024-25 and beyond.
Karlsson’s production and play was a polarizing performance in his debut season with the Penguins, largely because it represented a big step backwards from what he did in his final season with the Sharks and because it was not entirely what everybody here expected. He was not bad or unproductive by any stretch of the imagination, but it was, in some ways, a little bit of a letdown. Even if nobody should have realistically expected another 100-point season.
To be fair, Karlsson had already established himself as a Norris Trophy winning defenseman long before he ever played for Quinn, winning the award twice before and finishing as a finalist a couple of other times. But there is also no denying that Quinn did manage to get something out of Karlsson at a time when everybody figured his career as an elite player was probably over.
In the two years prior to Quinn’s hiring in San Jose, Karlsson had just 57 points in 102 games. Injuries and health certainly played a role in some of that ineffectiveness, but he also just looked like a shell of his former self.
That changed dramatically when Quinn arrived and Karlsson not only bounced back to his elite form, he had one of the best single offensive seasons that any defenseman has ever had in the NHL while playing on a team that had nothing else going on around him.
By almost all accounts Karlsson and Quinn have a great relationship with one another, and it certainly can not hurt to see if that reunion can get the most out of Karlsson again.
But it is not just Karlsson that makes it an intriguing hire.
The Penguins have another high-level defenseman on the roster in Kris Letang, a very solid player in Marcus Pettersson and a major reclamation project in Ryan Graves. I am not expecting Quinn to be a miracle worker as it relates to the latter player, but he comes with a strong reputation for video work and has obviously been able to coax some big seasons out of talented defenders.
I do not really care that Quinn failed as a head coach, and I am not even sure that is a totally accurate representation of him as a coach. The Rangers were still very early in their rebuild when he was there, while the San Jose teams he coached were some of the worst rosters the NHL has seen in the salary cap era. That was a no-win situation for anybody. I also think there is a world of difference between being a head coach and an assistant coach.
Just because a coach fails as a head coach does not mean they do not have something to offer in a smaller, more specialized role.
Professional sports are full of people like this. Running the whole show is dramatically different and requires far different skills than running one aspect of a team.
I also wonder if Quinn’s personal relationship with Sullivan might give him a trusted voice that Sullivan will listen to and maybe make some tweaks and changes to his system and approach.
Overall I think it is an intriguing hire with some potential upside. If he can help get Karlsson to find another level to his game, and maybe do the same for a couple other defensem*n on the roster, that can be as significant as any other signing or trade they might make this offseason.
