PENGUINS FIRE GM SHERO.
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Penguins hired Ray Shero as general manager eight years ago with the mandate to build a roster around two of the game’s brightest stars and turn tickertape parades through downtown into an annual rite of spring.
Nearly a decade — but just one Stanley Cup later — Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin find themselves on a perennially underachieving team. And Shero finds himself out of a job.
The Penguins fired Shero on Friday, three days after another early playoff exit, this one a seven-game loss to the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Coach Dan Bylsma remains in charge until Shero’s replacement gets a chance to evaluate the entire organization top to bottom.
“We share the disappointment of our fans that we have not had success in the playoffs over the past five seasons,” co-owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle said in a joint statement. “We believe that new leadership in the general manager’s office will bring a new approach and new energy, and help us return to championship form.”
Assistant general manager Jason Botterill will serve as general manager on an interim basis. Penguins President and CEO David Morehouse called Botterill a candidate to take over and believes whomever the team brings in won’t need to make major changes on a club that won 51 games in 2013-14.
“It’s not a complete rebuild,” Morehouse said. “This is a team that has had a level of success. What we’re trying to do now is get from good to great.”
It’s a destination the Penguins reached only briefly during Shero’s tenure, spending most of the time in a murky m idd le ground that made them one of the league’s model franchises during the regular season but a symbol of disappointment once the calendar crept into May.
Pittsburgh won the franchise’s third Cup in 2009 but has failed to produce a bookend. Pittsburgh is just 4-5 in playoff series over the last five years after blowing a 3-1 series lead against New York.
The Penguins brought Shero in before the 200607 season and tasked him with finding the right kind of players to complement Crosby and Malkin’s otherworldly offensive talent. It culminated on a giddy night in Detroit in 2009, when the Penguins edged the Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 to earn the franchise’s third Cup, a run that included the crucial trade deadline acquisitions of forwards Chris Kunitz and Bill Guerin.
Whether Bylsma will be along for the ride remains unclear. The affable, openminded Michigan native was a revelation when the Penguins promoted him from their AHL affiliate in February 2009, hoping his optimism would help a loaded team break out of a midseason funk.
It worked brilliantly. Four months after taking the job, the former NHL nomad was raising the Cup in ecstasy.
Morehouse said the new general manager will determine whether Bylsma and the rest of the staff gets another shot. The 43-year-old Bylsma has two years remaining on his contract.