Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

GM Jim Rutherford On The Coaching Change For The Pittsburgh Penguins

12/12/2015 at 1:36pm EST

from Sam Kasan of the Penguins' website,

Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford notified Mike Johnston and Gary Agnew that they were relieved of their duties on Saturday morning. WBS head coach Mike Sullivan will take over as head coach and Jacques Martin moves to the bench as an assistant coach alongside Rick Tocchet.

Rutherford spoke with the media in the afternoon. Here are the biggest takeaways from Rutherford’s media availability…

On making the coaching change:
I felt with where we are right now and how we’ve played over the first part of the season that this team has more to give. We have some areas that we have to be a lot better with. We have to have more will to win. Our power play has to be better. Over the last couple of games I saw a team that did have more fight in their game and more will to win, but I look at this snapshot over the first 27 games and felt that we’ve underachieved....

On the state of the team:
I don’t think we have a huge issue to fix. We’re really close to getting to where we need to get to. I’d like to add another player or two, hopefully we can so we can take a good run in the playoffs. This isn’t blowing something wide apart that’s broken. There are some good things that Mike Johnston did and some things Mike Sullivan is going to have to fix and do better. … We’re not far from the top of the division, but we’re not far from the bottom either. That’s where I had to weight this out and what’s the right time to do it. It’s bothered me, but I felt it was necessary.

more

added 2:09pm, watch Rutherford talk about the coaching change below...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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