Pens Make Coaching Change

The Pittsburgh Penguins, in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1990, fired coach Kevin Constantine on Thursday and hired Herb Brooks, who coached the famed 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic team.

General manager Craig Patrick, who fired Brooks as the New York Rangers coach in 1985, made the change in consultation with owner Mario Lemieux after deciding Constantine had lost control of a talented but underachieving team.

A few hours after Patrick made the change, the Penguins stopped a three-game losing streak by beating Washington 3-0 in Brooks' first regular-season game since April 16, 1993, with New Jersey.

"This was a big win," Brooks said. "I was very, very happy with their attitude on the bench and in the locker room. I told them I'm here because I believe in their talents and we're going to play a very aggressive style, but play very intelligently."

Constantine, in the final year of a three-year contract, sensed a change was coming after he wasn't offered an extension. He could be heard yelling to his team after a 5-2 loss last week to San Jose: "If you're trying to get me fired, you're doing a good job of it."

"My sense was, right now, we're a losing team and I didn't see that changing," said Patrick, Brooks' assistant coach on the '80 Olympic team. "I looked at the standings like anybody else. I can see what the product's doing on the ice."

The Penguins have struggled with injuries, including a long layoff by goalie Tom Barrasso. But Patrick said, "You can make every excuse you want, but it doesn't change the direction you're headed. The last five games, what have we done? Nothing. We have five critical games coming up and we can't let them slip, because if we let them slip, we're dead."

The 62-year-old Brooks was an innovative coac in New York from 1981-85, bringing a wide-open European style to a league long accustomed to the more deliberate Canadian style. But his record with the Rangers, Minnesota North Stars (1987-88) and the New Jersey Devils (1992-93) is a modest 190-198-61, and he has never won a Stanley Cup.

Brooks' style could mesh well with a Penguins lineup filled with foreign-born players, including three-time NHL scoring champion Jaromir Jagr, Darius Kasparaitis, Alexei Kovalev and Martin Straka.

"Craig and I like to think what we introduced back then in New York is pretty much the way the game is played today," Brooks said. "The idea is to give the game back to the players, not to suffocate them and not to treat them like a bunch of robots. We want to provide an environment that brings out their talent, so it's fun to come to the rink.

Brooks' let-the-players-play approach is favored by Jagr, who had several run-ins with Constantine and Lemieux, who said before becoming the owner that he found Constantine's disciplined system boring and tough to watch.

"We believe in an uptempo, dynamic game," said Brooks, a Penguins scout the last five years. "That's ice out there, it's not blacktop or wood or dirt."

Constantine is technologically savvy and spent hours pouring over game tapes with assistant coaches Mike Eaves, Don Jackson and Troy Ward, who also were fired. He even let his assistants run practices at times so he could get his hair cut.

Brooks, by contrast, is creative but old school, more likely to rely on gut instinct than instant replay. He isn't entirely comfortable with technology, saying, "I can't even figure out the crazy cell phone my wife got me."

Now he must figure out why one of the NHL's most offensively talented teams isn't scoring during a time when the league is strictly enforcing obstruction rules designed to create more offense.

"I think the game has evolved to that and I think the NHL is better for that," Brooks said. "We're in the entertainment business, let's face it."

Brooks hasn't discussed a contract beyond this year, but Patrick said, "We hope he's here forever."

With Constantine's assistants gone, two-time former coach Eddie Johnston and former scout Rick Kehoe will be Patrick's assistants. Johnston coached the Penguins from 1980-83 and again from 1993-97, before Constantine was hired.

Brooks coached the University of Minnesota to three NCAA championships in seven years before leading a group of mostly unknown amateurs to an upset of the fabled Sovit Union team often called the best in history en route to the 1980 gold medal. The upset has been selected in numerous polls as the greatest in sports history.

Constantine, 40, was 86-68-35 with Pittsburgh and is 141-146-59 in four-plus seasons with the Penguins and San Jose Sharks.

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