Sergei Gonchar
When Sergei Gonchar's professional tryout contract with the Penguins didn't work out back in 2015, he decided to retire following a stellar 20-year career and join Pittsbugh's coaching staff in a part-time capacity. He served as defenseman development coach his first season and defensemen coach his second, helping the team win the Stanley Cup both years. Heading into his third, Gonchar has been named an assistant coach and will transition into a full-time role - which he couldn't have done without the blessing of his wife, Ksenia. That's because general manager Jim Rutherford had offered Gonchar the job after his first year, but he declined so that he could be at home in Dallas with his family as much as possible. But after his second year, she told him that he needed to go to Pittsburgh full-time and she would be able to handle their two kids by herself. Gonchar gives both her and the organization so much credit helping him get to this point.
"I had been playing all my life and when I started working as a coach I didn't know what to expect or how it was going to be," he said. "But the organization, including the players, made it easier for me."
As defensemen coach, Gonchar worked closely with Pittsburgh's blue line, utilizing extensive use of video to coach and teach the players. When he attended games, he would watch from the media level with former goaltending coach Mike Bales and go to the locker room during intermissions. Head coach Mike Sullivan called Gonchar "invaluable" during this most recent postseason, especially in working with the team's young defensemen. He played an important role in helping them get through an influx of injuries late in the season and throughout the playoffs. It's been an enjoyable experience for Gonchar watching both the individuals and the team have such success.
"You see how the young players respond and develop, and it's made the job rewarding to see how guys become better, how they're more comfortable on the ice, how they're doing things and becoming better players," he said. "I think it's what makes me feel great every morning and it's rewarding for me."
That's particularly true when it comes to Justin Schultz, someone Gonchar worked with closely to develop his defensive skills to get on the same level as his offensive skills. As a result, Schultz has emerged into one of the top offensive defensemen in the league, finishing the regular season ranked among the NHL's top-10 defensemen in assists (39), points (51) and plus-minus (+27).
"The biggest thing is he was willing to put in the work, especially at the beginning when he got here," Gonchar said. "He sacrificed his offense a little bit to focus on defense and it wasn't happening overnight, so it took him some time to develop that part of the game, but when he developed that part of the game, he was a guy who felt comfortable on both ends of the ice.
"Obviously offensively it's not a problem for him. He's got all the talent in the world. So what I should point out is the defensive part he worked on and how he was patient. Sometimes maybe in the beginning he was not getting as many points, but he was still patient and then he put 1 plus 1 together with his defensive game and his offensive game. He became a great player who has played well for us."
As assistant coach, Gonchar will continue to be an eye in the sky during games. He will work closely with head coach Mike Sullivan and new assistant coach Mark Recchi on the power play, and Gonchar will assist Jacques Martin with the defensemen. Like Recchi, Gonchar expects to make a seamless transition into his new role.
"I just expect it's going to be the same thing, just a little bit more time," Gonchar said. "Obviously spend more time together. I'm going to be there every day. But otherwise it will be the same."
Gonchar was known for being a power-play specialist during his playing days, and had already been helping out in that area the last two seasons. He's excited about contributing more input this year.
"I played with some of those guys, I know their tendencies and know what they like," he said. "I try to give them my input and my feelings and I'm going to do it again and again. Mark obviously being on board, he's going to have his opinion and his experience playing that role for many years. I'm actually looking forward to the power play. I think it's going to be something we can improve more next year."
Both Recchi and Gonchar have the unique perspective of having skated alongside a few of the current Penguins like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, which will be particularly helpful when it comes to the power play.
"You know what the tendencies are, what the guy likes to do on the ice, what he's feeling comfortable with position-wise," Gonchar explained. "Playing with a guy, you have a feeling, what he wants, what he's comfortable with. It helps when you're thinking about the power play and trying to do something with the unit and when you're putting a breakout together or setting up plays."
Gonchar is looking forward to being around a lot more, and excited to keep instilling his philosophy of working with individuals 1-on-1 to help the team.
"Some of the guys you spend a little bit more time with, and some of the guys less time," Gonchar said. "Some of the guys like to have video, some of them don't. It's finding an individual approach for everyone. I think everyone is different, everybody has their tendencies, everybody has their opinions about the game, so that's why I try to build a relationship with every one of them and it's not necessarily the same with every one of them. That's the way I look at it. That's the way I try to work."
The Penguins have named Sergei Gonchar assistant coach, it was announced by executive vice president and general manager Jim Rutherford and head coach Mike Sullivan. Gonchar is the third newcomer to join Sullivan's coaching staff, joining Mark Recchi, who was added yesterday, and goaltending coach Mike Buckley. The trio joins holdovers Jacques Martin and video coach Andy Saucier. Between Gonchar and Recchi, the Penguins have added more than 3,000 combined NHL regular-season and playoff games, 2,500 points and eight Stanley Cups to the coaching staff in the past two days.
"Like Mark, Sergei brings a wealth of hockey knowledge to our team," Sullivan said. "His career is a body of work that speaks for itself. He will naturally transition into a full-time coaching role, building on the experiences and relationships he has already made with our group. He was invaluable during the playoffs, especially in working with our young defensemen."
Gonchar, 43, had spent the past two seasons working as the Penguins' defenseman development coach. As Sullivan mentioned, Gonchar played a crucial role in helping the young blueliners on Pittsburgh's roster survive a rash of injuries late in the season and throughout the playoffs to win a second-straight Stanley Cup. In his new role, Gonchar will be an eye in the sky during games. He will work closely with Sullivan and Recchi on the power play, and Gonchar will assist Martin with the defensemen. One of the young defenders that Gonchar has taken under his wing is Justin Schultz. Since joining the Penguins and being tutored by Gonchar and Martin, Schultz has emerged into one of the top offensive defensemen in the league, finishing the regular season ranked among the NHL's top-10 defensemen in assists (39), points (51) and plus-minus (+27). During Pittsburgh's back-to-back championship runs, Gonchar has aided the development of several other young blueliners who were crucial to both titles, including Olli Maatta, Brian Dumoulin, Chad Ruhwedel and Derrick Pouliot.
As a player, the 6-foot-2, 210 pound native of Chelyabinsk, Russia was one of the highest-scoring blueliners in the game, especially so during his five-year run in Pittsburgh from 2005-10, when Gonchar produced the fifth-most points among NHL defensemen with 259 (54G-205A). Only Nicklas Lidstrom, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger and Brian Rafalski had more points during that span. When Pittsburgh won its third Stanley Cup in 2009, Gonchar was both an alternate captain and the team's highest-scoring defender with 14 points (3G-11A) in 22 games. One year prior in '08, Gonchar was a key catalyst for an emerging Penguins club that lost in the Stanley Cup Final to Detroit.
Gonchar enjoyed a stellar 20-year NHL career that saw him record 811 regular-season points (220G-591A), the most among Russian-born blueliners in NHL history. Between 1999-2010, the prime of his career, Gonchar reached 50 points nine times in a 10-season span. Only Lidstrom (8 such seasons) had more than five 50-point seasons in that time frame among defensemen. Gonchar skated in 1,301 career NHL games with Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Dallas and Montreal. His point total sits in 17th place in NHL history among defensemen, and his games played total ranks 18th. He had 90 points (22G-68A) in 141 playoff games.
What made Gonchar so valuable to his teams was that not only did he produce points, but the frequent leader by example became an all-around defender capable of logging heavy minutes. Throughout the duration of his career, Gonchar skated in 83 percent of his teams' total games, and according to hockeyreference.com, he logged at least 23 minutes per game 11 times in 14 seasons between his age-24 season in 1998-99 as a Capital and his age-38 season in 2013-14 with Ottawa.
During back-to-back seasons with the Capitals in 2001-02 and '02-03, Gonchar led all NHL defensemen in goals with 26 and 18, respectively. His 59 points in '01-02 also paced all D-men. He earned NHL Second-Team All-Star status both years. He represented his country on numerous occasions internationally, including four Olympic Games. He won a silver medal in the '98 Games and a bronze in '02.
Gonchar won a silver medal at the 2010 World Championship and a bronze medal in the '07 World Championship. He also suited up in the 1996 and 2004 World Cups of Hockey. Gonchar was originally drafted by the Washington Capitals in the first round (14th overall) in the 1992 NHL Draft. Since the 1967 NHL Expansion, only 13 defensemen who have been selected in the NHL Draft have accumulated more points than Gonchar's 811. Of those 13 above him, 11 have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Mark Recchi
The Penguins named Mark Recchi as an assistant coach to replace Rick Tocchet, who was named head coach of the Coyotes. And when discussing what the transition behind the bench would be like for Recchi, both he and Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan used the word "seamless."
"Obviously 'Tocc' is a real good coach and a great person, and is a tough guy to replace as a coach, but I can't think of a better guy than 'Rex' to do that," Sullivan said of Recchi, who will assume the duties handled by Tocchet - which include running the team's forwards and working closely with Sullivan on the power play.
There's a number of reasons.
* First and foremost, his playing career. Recchi was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame on June 26 as one of seven members of the Class of 2017 following a career where he finished as the NHL's 12th all-time leading scorer with 1,533 points in 1,652 games. He won the Stanley Cup three times (Pittsburgh, 1991; Carolina, 2006; Boston, 2011), becoming one of just 10 players from the modern era to win a championship with three different teams. Recchi's longevity and pedigree are impressive. Players have remarked about Tocchet's ability to relate to them as players having produced such a successful career, and Sullivan knows Recchi will do the same.
"(Recchi) is a very similar type personality (to Tocchet) in the sense that he's such an accomplished player," Sullivan said. "He'll get instant credibility with the career he's had as a player and that speaks for itself. Not only how elite he was as a player, but just the longevity. I think it speaks to his character - his ability to play that many years and help different teams win Stanley Cups - and play different roles. I know our players have so much respect for him already, and that's one of the reasons we're so excited to have Rex join our staff."
* Secondly, Recchi wasn't just any player - he was a teammate of several current Penguins during his career. When Sidney Crosby entered the league in 2005, Recchi was his first linemate and factored into both his first point (an assist on a Recchi goal) and his first goal (Recchi got the assist). He also spent time playing alongside Evgeni Malkin. Few, if any, coaches in the league can say they've played with the two-headed monster, so it will offer Recchi a unique perspective.
"I think it definitely helps," Recchi said. "They were young men when they started with me and just being around them and seeing the drive they had and playing with both of them, on lines extensively at times, it's definitely going to help."
It also helps having been around them in a front-office role the last three seasons and watching how they interacted with Sullivan and Tocchet.
"They are very competitive people and there's a reason why they've got three championships," Recchi said. "They thrive on competition, they thrive on the challenge and I'm excited to get in there and help them go through this. There's always going to be times when you're going to have challenges throughout the year. You're going to have to sit down and talk to them and they're going to want to talk to me, and I think I have that relationship that's already there that will just help the transition very easily."
That goes for Phil Kessel as well, somebody who was close with Tocchet but also has a rapport with Recchi.
"He already has a great relationship with Phil," Sullivan said. "We've used Rex over the last couple of seasons with Phil to try to help him grow his game and develop his game in different areas that we were trying to help Phil."
Sullivan went on to praise Recchi's "instant credibility" with the Penguins not just as a fellow player, but also as a coach.
"He's a natural when it comes to his ability to teach the game," Sullivan said. "I've watched him both on the ice and in the locker room, in meetings with players, and he's a natural. So I really believe that he's going to continue to foster those relationships that are so important to helping us grow as a team and more specifically, some of our individual players like Phil. I think Rex is going to do a great job in helping that process along."
* Thirdly, it's not just Crosby, Malkin, Kessel, Kris Letang and Pittsburgh's other star players that Recchi is familiar with. In his role as player development coach, he was responsible for working with young prospects throughout the organization and assisting with the development of players in the minor leagues as well as junior and college hockey. He also helped recruit coveted NCAA free agents, as forward Zach Aston-Reese cited Recchi as a big reason he decided to sign with Pittsburgh. In fact, Recchi had just earned a promotion to director of player development for his tremendous work before accepting this new role.
"I think his relationship that he's built with the young players, working with them in Wilkes-Barre and through the development process, gives him so much familiarity with these guys and an already established relationship where we think he's just going to hit the ground running," Sullivan said.
* Finally, Recchi has been quietly working towards this for a while and has spent a lot of time behind the scenes involved in different parts of the process. Sullivan said that they talk hockey all the time in their offices and that Recchi has been a part of their coaches' meetings.
"Whether it be on the power play or penalty kill or 5-on-5, he's always added his insights to help us along the way solve some of the challenges that we've had in my tenure as the coach," Sullivan said. "I feel fortunate that we've got a guy like Rex that I've had the privilege to build a relationship with as well here in my time with Pittsburgh and it started when I was in Wilkes Barre."
Actually, the relationship began even earlier than that - back in 2008-09, to be exact. That season, Recchi was a player for Tampa Bay while both Sullivan and Tocchet were on the Lightning coaching staff.
"I'm just looking forward to this opportunity of working with Sully," Recchi said. "I have been around him for a long time. I was in Tampa when Sully and Tocc were coaches and we were together there. I've been around the dressing room and around them the last three years. I know I've built that trust with Sully and he knows I have his back, and we're going to work to do this thing together with Sergei (Gonchar) and Jacques (Martin)."
Overall, it's been one heck of a summer for Recchi so far. It started when he won his fifth Stanley Cup - second as an executive - in June. It continued when he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and has cumulated with this latest announcement. Not to mention dealing with the promotion to director of player development, the NHL Draft, development camp and free agency in between all of that.
"It's been exciting," Recchi said with a laugh. "I just caught up to my other texts from everything from the last couple weeks, so I'm going to have to catch up again now. It's been so exciting. When you win the Cup, seeing what these guys put into it and being part of that was huge. Then obviously getting into the Hockey Hall of Fame is the icing on the cake on a career that I was very proud of, put a lot of work into and really excited about that.
"Then I got moved up to director of player development and when the situation with Tocc arose and Sully and Jim (Rutherford) called me, it didn't really take me long to make the decision. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got and I'm just looking forward to this opportunity of working with Sully."
"I would like to thank Rick Tocchet for his invaluable contributions to our team over the last three years," Rutherford said. "Rick has done a terrific job for us, and we wish him the best as a head coach. Mark Recchi will be a tremendous addition to our coaching staff. His recent history with the organization, especially with our players and coaches, and his incredible knowledge of the game, will help to ensure a seamless transition. It's only fitting that he starts his NHL coaching career the same year he is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame."
Recchi, 49, will assume the duties handled by Tocchet, which include running the team's forwards and working closely with Sullivan on the power play. Recchi joins assistant coach Jacques Martin, recently-appointed goaltending coach Mike Buckley, and video coach Andy Saucier, on Sullivan's staff.
A Kamloops, British Columbia native, Recchi had spent the past three seasons as the Penguins' player development coach, and had recently been promoted to director of player development. On June 26, Recchi was elected to the Hall of Fame as one of seven members of the Class of 2017 that will be enshrined on Nov. 13, 2017, a day off for the Penguins. The NHL's 12th all-time leading scorer with 1,533 points in 1,652 games, Recchi is a five-time Stanley Cup champion. He won three times as a player, first with Pittsburgh in 1991, then with Carolina (2006) and Boston (2011). Recchi has added his name to the Cup two more times as an executive with the Penguins the last two seasons. Recchi is one of just 10 players from the modern era to win the Stanley Cup with three different teams. As a Bruin in 2011, Recchi became the oldest player to ever score in the Stanley Cup Final, as his Cup Final point total led Boston that year.
Nicknamed 'The Wrecking Ball,' Recchi solidified a spot on the Penguins' All-Time Team by producing 385 points (154G-231A) in 389 career appearances with Pittsburgh. He was the leading scorer on the '91 Stanley Cup championship team with 113 points in the regular season. A seven-time NHL All-Star, including the '91 season with Pittsburgh, Recchi joined the 500-goal club as a Penguin, scoring the milestone marker against the Dallas Stars on Jan. 26, 2007. In addition to playing for Pittsburgh, Recchi suited up for Philadelphia, Montreal, Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Boston. Pittsburgh originally chose Recchi in the fourth round (67th overall) of the 1988 NHL Draft.
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