Tim Benz: Wilkes-Barre/Scranton job opening could lead to intrigue at NHL level for Penguins as well

On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they would not renew the contract of AHL head coach J.D. Forrest in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. It didn’t take long for people to start doing some simple calculations as to who may fill that job.

A name that was immediately advanced was Sheldon Keefe.

Discussion about Keefe being fired as the bench boss of the Toronto Maple Leafs has been going on since May of last year, despite a contract extension in August. Those rumblings have intensified during the playoffs this year. His team got down 3-1 to the Boston Bruins in the first round. Players were yapping at each other during one of the games. Toronto lost four in a row to close out the regular season. There had been some criticism of how Keefe (and the rest of the organization) publicly handled William Nylander’s health situation.

Keefe and the Leafs managed to tamp down the vitriol with a gutsy 2-1 overtime win in Boston (without star forward Auston Matthews) during Tuesday night’s Game 5 to keep that series alive. But many still think that if the Maple Leafs get bounced in Round 1, Keefe will be out as head coach.

As a result, many have followed the breadcrumbs to the WBS job for Keefe since Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas hired Keefe in Toronto before coming to Pittsburgh. He also hired Keefe as the head coach in previous stops at Sault Ste. Marie with the OHL’s Greyhounds and the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.

During a recent appearance on 105.9 The X, Mark Madden asked longtime NHL analyst (and former Penguins assistant coach) Pierre McGuire about the notion of Keefe latching on with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton if he got fired in Toronto.

“These (AHL) jobs are highly coveted by up-and-coming coaches — really smart guys,” McGuire said. “So if you’re Sheldon Keefe, and you get let go, and you’re on speed dial with Kyle Dubas, you should probably call him up.”

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Even if it’s not the NHL, McGuire says Keefe shouldn’t view the prospect of coaching the WBS Penguins as a demotion if he isn’t retained in Toronto.

“Other coaches have done that,” McGuire said. “Mike Sullivan did that, going back to the American Hockey League. Alain Vigneault went back to the American Hockey League. Michel Therrien went back to the American Hockey League. People see it as a step down. If you’re a professional coach, it’s not really a step down. You’re coaching and continuing to improve your craft.”

Indeed, Sullivan and Therrien both rejuvenated their NHL coaching careers through the AHL, specifically through Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Therrien was promoted to Pittsburgh from that job in the 2005-06 season. He guided the franchise to a Stanley Cup Final in 2008. Sullivan was at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for six months in 2015 before being promoted to Pittsburgh as a replacement for the fired Mike Johnston, thus ending a 10-year absence (as a head coach) from the NHL after being fired in Boston in 2006.

So it’s safe to say that Sullivan would be acutely aware of what an appointment to that job could mean for a recently deposed NHL coach — especially if that coach has been hired or promoted three other times by his current general manager.

Especially since that general manager didn’t hire Sullivan in the first place.

Especially since Sullivan’s resume reflects zero playoff-round wins since the end of 2018 and a failure to qualify for the postseason in each of the last two years.

Dubas has declaratively thrown his support behind Sullivan on multiple occasions. He has spun the line, “As soon as you fire a Mike Sullivan, you are looking for a Mike Sullivan” almost as often as Mike Tomlin has spat out, “The standard is the standard.”

All indications are that Dubas is sincere. Or, at the very least, he knows that his bosses at Fenway Sports Group want him to be sincere, so he is … well … sincerely trying to come off as Sullivan’s biggest fan.

Granted, there’s no rule that says Dubas can’t look out for a friend and still support Sullivan too. That support will look less than 100%, though, if Keefe is hired for that WBS job, regardless of how much of a spin Dubas puts on it.

I’m sure he’ll say words to the effect of, “It’s never a bad thing to have too many good coaches in your system.” Or he could advance, “It’s better to have a good coach on your minor league staff than to coach against him with someone else’s NHL team.”

After all, yes, it’s possible Keefe could get another NHL job elsewhere, if not to start this upcoming season, then sometime after the calendar flips to 2025.

Short of that happening somewhere in the NHL, the truth is, Dubas could likely hire Keefe away from any other post he wanted to accept — be it in another team’s minor league system or as an assistant or an executive.

So if those dots were to be connected and Dubas does hire Keefe in the event he is dismissed by Toronto, that should be a red flag for Sullivan.

Maybe not to the degree that he asks permission to pursue the New Jersey Devils job, as has been floated as an idea among the hockey speculation community. But at least to the extent that he shouldn’t be as comfortable as everyone within the organization is bending over backward to make him feel.

Based on how the past five years have turned out, that’s a good thing.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer discuss the NHL playoffs, the Penguins offseason, goaltending and more