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Letter to the Editor: Job losses mount under status quo; vote for new approach in November

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Luzerne County hires new human resources director

<p>CRANBERRY TWP. &#8212; The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins were off to a 12-1 start to open the 2015-16 season and Mike Sullivan believed his team had the feel of an NHL club.</p><p>That&#8217;s one reason why Sullivan took many of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players with him a month later when he took over as head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.</p><p>But there were other reasons why Sullivan didn&#8217;t hesitate to look toward Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to help him craft Pittsburgh into a Stanley Cup contender.</p><p>The team was a perfect balance of veteran leadership and budding talent, he said. An experienced front office led by CEO Jeff Barrett and executive vice president Greg Petorak handled the team with the professionalism of an NHL club, and Pittsburgh had invested enough in its young players that their development was well ahead of schedule.</p><p>&#8220;Jeff Barrett and Greg Petorak run that team like an NHL club, and I&#8217;ve worked for a fair amount of NHL clubs over the years,&#8221; Sullivan said.</p><p>So when it came time for Sullivan to lead Pittsburgh and craft the team into one he believed would contend for the Stanley Cup, he dipped into the depth at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.</p><p>&#8220;The experience and knowledge I was able to gain on the individual players that I coached at Wilkes-Barre really helped me as far as putting them in positions to be successful in the NHL,&#8221; Sullivan said after Tuesday&#8217;s practice. &#8220;I got an opportunity to watch what they were able to accomplish at the AHL level.&#8221;</p><p>Turns out the players weren&#8217;t the only ones preparing themselves for a trip to the NHL. Sullivan was also fine-tuning his approach as a coach with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in hopes of another shot at the NHL.</p><p>Aside from a stint as interim head coach with Vancouver in 2014, Sullivan&#8217;s last tenure as an NHL head coach was in 2006 with Boston. Last season as player development coach with the Chicago Blackhawks marked the first time Sullivan didn&#8217;t stand behind an NHL bench in some capacity in the last five years.</p><p>He was ready to go back, and when Sullivan was offered the head coach job at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, it didn&#8217;t take long to make a decision.</p><p>After guiding Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to an 18-5 start, Sullivan had re-defined himself as a coach and, like many of his players, was ready for the NHL.</p><p>&#8220;(Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) gave me the opportunity to re-establish myself and my own personality behind the bench as a head coach,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;That was one of the reasons I chose to be a head coach at the AHL.&#8221;</p><p>When Sullivan took over in Pittsburgh last December, he surrounded himself with many of the players who made him successful at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Matt Murray, Scott Wilson, Conor Sheary, Bryan Rust and Tom Kuhnhackl all went up and found NHL success in Pittsburgh under Sullivan, and, with the exception of Kuhnhackl, they did it in just their second year in professional hockey.</p><p>Sullivan said the familiarity between coach and player helped the transition, and the Pittsburgh veterans did their part as well.</p><p>By giving the guys from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton a chance, Sullivan created a squad in Pittsburgh.</p><p>&#8220;One of the things I love about this team right now is we have a nice mix of veteran players that bring experience with this young group from Wilkes-Barre that bring all kinds of energy and enthusiasm,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;Guys like (Sidney) Crosby, (Kris) Letang, (Chris) Kunitz and (Matt) Cullen - they&#8217;ve really taken these young guys under their wing and have enjoyed the process of looking out for them and helping them become pros.&#8221;</p><p>Still, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players couldn&#8217;t have become key contributors with Pittsburgh without doing some of the work themselves. And to have them all come to the NHL around the same time and contribute in key roles seems like luck.</p><p>But Sullivan said there&#8217;s a common denominator that helped the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players succeed, even though they&#8217;ve all reached the NHL by following different paths.</p><p>&#8220;When you look at their games, they&#8217;re transferable in the sense the way they were able to play at the AHL they could carry that to the NHL and play the same way,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;That&#8217;s the one common theme they have. Even though they&#8217;re a little bit different in what they bring to the table, all of their games are transferable from the AHL to the NHL.&#8221;</p><p>And that&#8217;s why Sullivan believes they should also serve as role models for all the other players starting out in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton with dreams of reaching the NHL and playing in the Stanley Cup Finals.</p><p>&#8220;When I brought them up, my hope was they were good for me and I was good for them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The perseverance they&#8217;ve shown to allow themselves the opportunity to play at this level speaks for itself.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/web1_Sullivan-StanleyCup.jpg</photo0><caption0>Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Sullivan on Tom Kostopoulos</strong></p><p>Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan may have only spent two months leading the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, but the brief time was enough for Sullivan to come away impressed with captain Tom Kostopoulos.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s one of those high quality people that when he&#8217;s your captain and you&#8217;re the head coach he makes your job a lot easier,&#8221; Sullivan said.</p><p>Sullivan also wasn&#8217;t suprised that Kostopoulos has decided to come back for an 18th pro season.</p><p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t been around too many guys that have a passion and love for the game like TK does. And he&#8217;s shown he can play. He&#8217;s not just a guy filling a uniform,&#8221; Sullivan said. &#8220;He&#8217;s a guy that can help a team win.&#8221;</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Mike Sullivan utilizing Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins talent for Pittsburgh’s Stanley Cup run