Penguins pounce in opener, spoil Sullivan's return to Rangers - ESPN

NEW YORK — Mike Sullivan coached the Pittsburgh Penguins for 10 seasons, leading them to two Stanley Cup championships. On Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, he watched them ruin his debut as the New York Rangers' latest head coach.

Sullivan admitted it was a peculiar feeling having Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and others he coached in Pittsburgh suddenly become his opponents.

«I mean, obviously it's different. It's different. I knew that was going to be the case,» he said after Pittsburgh's 3-0 victory on the opening night of the 2025-26 NHL season. «But I'm excited about the group we have here in front of me with the Rangers. I'm looking forward to working with this group.»

The Rangers were shut out by goalie Arturs Silovs (22 saves) and watched forward Justin Brazeau score two goals in the Penguins' win. They were outshot 15-5 in the third period and couldn't muster anything consistent offensively in Sullivan's debut.

«Well, I think my first observation is we got a long way to go to become the team we want to become. Some of it I think we can iron out, but certainly we've got a ways to go,» said Sullivan, who will coach Team USA in the 2026 Winter Olympic men's hockey tournament in Italy. «I'm not going to overreact to it. It's one game. We've got a lot of hockey to play,» he said. «So is it disappointing? Yeah. We're going to see what we can take from it. We've got to move on.»

Sullivan and the Penguins agreed to part ways in April despite his being under contract through the 2026-27 season. Hired in 2015-16, Sullivan was the franchise's most successful coach with 409 wins, only the 14th coach in NHL history to win 400 games with one team. Pittsburgh won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017