Penguins staffer Matt Cullen fills in for injured assistant coach Todd Reirden

Matt Cullen was in a familiar place Tuesday morning.

Standing over a faceoff dot at PPG Paints Arena.

One after another, the pucks smacked off the ice for a faceoff drill.

“Clap! Clap! Clap!”

The only difference between the 18,373 draws Cullen took during his career and the faceoffs he was involved with Tuesday was his level of participation.

He was serving as a “linesman” by dropping the puck between veteran centers Brian Boyle and Jeff Carter in the neutral zone in front of the visiting bench during the morning skate.

After his 21-year career came ended in 2019, Cullen has been serving as a player development staffer for the past three seasons. Much of his focus has been devoted to helping the Penguins centers improve in faceoffs given his experience in that granular detail of the game.

Cullen primarily works remotely from his home in his native Minnesota and intermittently flies into Pittsburgh for one-on-one work.

“I actually enjoy it,” Cullen said. “When I’m at home, I’m (editing) video mostly for the centers, I guess with a specific focus on the faceoffs. When I’m here, I’m working with centers and kind of helping out wherever I can. It’s been a nice balance. My boys at home are getting older. So it’s been fun for me coaching them at home and be a part of their hockey and their lives. I can do a lot of the work from home through video. I obviously still have a relationship with some of the players that I played with, so that’s been good. Then, coming in and just to have some face-to-face time and spend some time going through some specific situations with some of the centers, especially, has been good.”

Cullen was pressed into more direct service this week with assistant coach Todd Reirden partially unavailable because of a knee injury he suffered earlier this month while shoveling snow. Reirden underwent surgery Monday and has been relegated to working remotely.

For Tuesday’s home game against the Philadelphia Flyers, Cullen worked from behind the Penguins bench along with head coach Mike Sullivan, assistant coach Mike Vellucci as well as skating and skills development coach Ty Hennes.

Cullen is still in the embryonic stages of his post-playing life. Typically, former players who are considering a career in coaching or management at the NHL level will start in a development role. Former Penguins forward Bill Guerin took on a similar position with the Penguins after retiring as a player in 2010. By 2019, he became the general manager of the Minnesota Wild.

At 45, Cullen admits he hasn’t thought that far down the road.

“Not a lot,” Cullen said. “I’ve actually really enjoyed the opportunities that have been provided here working with the team and working with the coaching staff. I’ve kind of been given the opportunity to sort of explore a few different things. And obviously now with Todd having surgery and being out for a bit, the chance to come in and work a bit more closely with the guys and sort of just try to help pull up some of the slack. For those who don’t know, Todd does a ton back there. It’s been actually really fun for me to kind of learn from him the ideas. He’s got some pretty innovative ideas, especially when it comes to the power play. So I’ve enjoyed that, kind of learning from him on that.

“Just to try to help out a little bit to fill in is something that is nice to be able to help in that regard.”

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