While the New York Rangers haven’t made this information public, more details on Mike Sullivan’s contract are being revealed.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has sources that lead him to believe that the Rangers awarded Sullivan with the highest annual value for a coach, beating out Mike Babcock who was making $6.25 million with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Just a bit of information on the contract, it’s a five-year deal,” Friedman said. “Mike Babcock had the largest contract ever signed by a coach. It was eight years at approximately $50 million, front-loaded, $6.25 million-ish the AAV. The number is north of that. I don’t have the exact number, but Sulivan did sign the richest AAV of any head coach, north of Babcock’s number.”
Peter Laviolette's Fall From Grace With The Rangers: A Sad Tale The tenure of Peter Laviolette with the New York Rangers should be considered a sad tale.
Sullivan’s reported five-year deal beats out Gerard Gallant who got a four-year contract and Peter Laviolette who got a three-year contract.
Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury views Sullivan as one of the top coaches in the NHL, which is why he went all in to get him onboard.
“Mike Sullivan has established himself as one of the premier head coaches in the NHL,” Drury said. “Given his numerous accomplishments throughout his coaching career - including two Stanley Cups and leading Team USA at the international level – Mike brings a championship-level presence behind the bench.”
With great power comes great responsibility. The Rangers are fresh off missing the playoffs as Sullivan will be tasked with getting the most out of all the team’s talent and propelling them back to Stanley Cup contention.
That’s the goal when you bring in a coach for that amount of money, the expectations are high, and rightfully so.
Sullivan spent ten years with the Pittsburgh Penguins where he won two Stanley Cups. This is a new challenge for the 57-year-old coach.
He’s expected to address the New York media for the first in his introductory press conference on Thursday morning.
Rob Blake’s time with the Los Angeles Kings has come to an end.
The GM and club mutually agreed to part ways on Monday, the Kings announced Monday.
The Kings will search for a replacement immediately.
Blake was on an expiring contract after deciding to play out the season and not sign an extension last summer, according to TSN and The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun.
The decision comes four days after the Edmonton OilerseliminatedLos Angeles from the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Kings had a 2-0 series lead before the Oilers won the next four games to win the series in Game 6 on Thursday.
To add to the Kings’ wounds, this was the fourth straight year of losing to Edmonton in the first round of the playoffs.
“On behalf of the entire organization, I would like to thank Rob for his dedication to the LA Kings and the passion he brought to his role,” team president Luc Robitaille said in a statement. “Reaching this understanding wasn’t easy, and I appreciate Rob’s partnership in always working toward what is best for the Kings.”
Blake was the Kings’ GM for eight seasons, earning the job ahead of the 2017-18 season. Before that, he was the assistant GM for Los Angeles and the GM for its AHL affiliate in Manchester and Ontario. He was also the VP of hockey operations for the Kings and held that title since 2013-14.
Throughout Blake’s time as the Kings' GM, the team has never advanced past the first round in five post-season appearances. They finished third in the Pacific Division in the last three seasons.
In terms of regular-season results, this was Blake’s best campaign as his team finished second in the Pacific. They capped off the year with a 48-25-9 record and 105 points. It was the first time they earned home-ice advantage in the first round since the 2016 playoffs.
The Kings had the best home record in the NHL in the regular season, giving the team a chance to put away the Oilers once and for all. They also went 17-7-1 in the last 25 games of the year, tied for the most points in the NHL in that span.
Los Angeles also missed the playoffs from 2019 to 2021 but added talent at the NHL draft. They selected center Alex Turcotte fifth overall in 2019, Quinton Byfield second overall in 2020 and defenseman Brandt Clarke eighth overall in 2021. They also drafted defenseman Brock Faber but traded him to the Minnesota Wild with a 2022 first-rounder in exchange for Kevin Fiala in 2022.
“Rob deserves a great deal of credit and respect for elevating us to where we are today,” Robitaille said. “He has been an important part of the Kings and will always be appreciated for what he has meant to this franchise.”
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As per LA Kings PR, Rob Blake and the Los Angeles Kings have mutually agreed to part ways following the team's failure to make it past the 1st round of the playoffs for the fourth straight year.
— LA Kings PR (@LAKingsPR) May 5, 2025
Hired on April 10, 2017, Blake had the fourth longest tenure as general manager, behind only franchise legends Rogie Vachon, Dave Taylor, and two-time Stanley Cup winner, Dean Lombardi.
Under Blake's leadership, the Kings posted a regular season record of 309-238-71 (.557 PTS%), qualifying for the playoffs in five of his eight-year tenure. The Kings, however, are still looking for their first playoff series win since the 2014 Stanley Cup Final against the New York Rangers.
The Kings and long-embattled general manager Rob Blake have mutually agreed to part ways, the team announced Monday, four days after the team’s fourth consecutive first-round playoff loss to the Edmonton Oilers.
“On behalf of the entire organization, I would like to thank Rob for his dedication to the L.A. Kings and the passion he brought to the role,” president Luc Robitaille said in a statement. “Reaching this understanding wasn’t easy and I appreciate Rob’s partnership in always working toward what is best for the Kings.
“Rob deserves a great deal of credit and respect for elevating us to where we are today. He has been an important part of the Kings and will always be appreciated for what he has meant to this franchise.”
The search for new GM will begin immediately, the Kings said.
Read more:Why can't the Kings beat the Oilers? A familiar pattern emerges in playoff elimination
Blake, 55, was a Hall of Fame defenseman whose 20-year NHL playing career included two stints with the Kings. He spent several of those seasons playing alongside Robitaille, who brought Blake back to the Kings as assistant general manager ahead of the 2013-14 season, which ended with the team winning its second Stanley Cup.
Less than four years later the team fired general manager Dean Lombardi, the architect of its two Stanley Cup champions, and promoted Blake, who quickly went about expanding the team’s player-development program, adding strength and conditioning coaches, a sports dietitian, a psychologist and other specialists, making it one of the most robust in the NHL.
Yet the Kings haven’t won a playoff series since.
This spring’s early exit from the postseason may have been the most painful of Blake’s team as general manager. The team tied franchise records for wins (48) and points (105) while breaking the record for home wins (31), giving it home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. But after dominating the first two games at home, the Kings were swept in the next four.
That extended another franchise record, marking the 11th straight season the Kings have failed to win a postseason series.
Unlike Lombardi, who was frequently visible around the team and available to the media, Blake, who was in the final year of his contract, rarely spoke publicly. Additionally, he has long been a target of fans critical of his roster construction and poor trades, such as the one that brought Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Kings in the summer of 2023 in exchange for Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, Gabriel Vilardi and a second-round draft pick. Dubois signed a cap-squeezing eight-year, $68-million contract with Blake, then promptly proved to be a bust, setting career lows with 16 goals and 24 assists.
But Blake fixed that last summer, moving Dubois to the Washington Capitals in exchange for goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who had a career season and is one of three finalists for the Vezina Trophy. Blake also made an important deal at the March trade deadline, acquiring forward Andrei Kuzmenko from the Philadelphia Flyers, who also agreed to split the remainder of Kuzmenko’s salary.
The trade immediately improved the Kings’ offense and rescued an impotent power play, helping win 17 of its final 22 games to place second in the Pacific Division, the best finish of Blake’s term as general manager.
But that luck — and Blake’s time with the team — ended in the playoffs.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.