Penguins Fire Coach Michael Therien

Just one year removed from a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been underachieving all season and are at risk of missing the playoffs entirely.  Head coach Michael Therien has now paid the price for his team’s substandard record, as he was fired late Sunday night.  Therien was replaced by Dan Blysma who coached the Pens AHL minor league affiliate at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton until getting the promotion to the NHL.

While Therien expressed surprise at the dismissal, he conceded that it had been ‘a good ride’:

"I was in that organization for almost six years. When I got to Pittsburgh, I wanted to change the culture of the team. I'm sure we surprised everyone when we made the playoffs in 2006-07, and then we had that great success of last season."

"I tried to give my best to this franchise. I've been a Penguin for such a long time. It's a sad day not only for me but for my family."

Therien displayed considerable class in his dismissal, giving the team praise and a ringing endorsement in his comments to the local media:

"I truly believe this team is going to make the playoffs. The organization has probably the best staff in the National Hockey League."

Therien also addressed rumors that the players he coached lobbied for his removal:

"I never got that feeling. For sure, you're always going to have some guys who are happy and some not as happy. That has a lot to do with ice time."

"I have great memories about coaching Sidney Crosby. I took that kid at 18 years old. He surprised me to become the best player in the NHL at 18. I take a lot of pride in working with players like that, like [Evgeni] Malkin, Jordan Staal.”

"I believe in that group. That is a good group. Some of those guys I coached for six years. I tried to make them better players. I tried to make them better people, too."

Despite Therien’s dignified comments, there’s much speculation that the team was growing tired of his disciplinarian ways and emphasis of defensive intensity. 

Pens GM Ray Shero wasn’t willing to address specifics, but intimated that this may had been the case with his vague comments:

"I didn't part like the way, the direction the team was headed. I've watched for a number of weeks and, at the end of the day, the direction is not that I wanted to have here. I wasn't comfortable, and that's why the change was made."

"You hear that in pro sports, that the team may have tuned the coach out, or the coach may have lost the team, but I'm not sure if you can pinpoint that. As the general manager of the team, I'm very close from watching, it's just a feeling -- the timing is right."

Blysma wants to get the team back to playing a wide open offensive style:

"With the strengths we have, we should be able to go into buildings and make teams deal with the quality of players we have at every position. I look at a group that can win games right now, and we need to do that. We can do this, but the players have to believe we can do this."

Pittsburgh dropped a 3-2 shootout verdict to the New York Islanders in Blysma’s coaching debut.  Since he had barely time to even make the game arriving just before warmups, however, he’ll face his first real test as head coach on Thursday night when the Penguins host the Montreal Canadiens.