The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood posted a game-day notebook which includes the following passage:
Derek Lalonde spent four years under the tutelage of the NHL’s longest tenured coach, Jon Cooper, who is heading into his 13th season at the helm of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Behind the Penguins’ bench in Detroit Thursday night will stand the second-longest tenured, starting his 10th leading the Penguins.
The reality of coaching turnover is readily apparent to Lalonde, who is already tied for the sixth longest tenured coach in the NHL after being hired by Detroit three seasons ago. Whereas some might point to the star power that those long-tenured coaches get to work with — Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, for example — Lalonde sees evolution as the key to success.
Lalonde said Thursday that Sullivan and the group he joked as the “Boston Mafia” — including Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes and Pittsburgh assistant coach David Quinn — are a group he has learned a lot from as a coach.
“They work just as hard and maybe harder in the off season, staying at the top of this profession,” Lalonde said. “And even talking with Mike, he reads a ton, same with Coop. There’s a reason these guys at the top of our profession, they’ve stayed there for a while.”
