One day after general manager Jim Rutherford fumed about the performance of the Penguins the past two postseasons, saying they showed little fight after falling behind in series, sweeping changes to the coaching staff were announced.

Gone is Mark Recchi, a member of three Stanley Cup teams in Pittsburgh.

Gone is Jacques Martin, who oversaw one of the NHL’s better penalty kills.

Gone is Sergei Gonchar, a fan favorite here and confidant of Evgeni Malkin.

The Penguins on Wednesday announced that three of head coach Mike Sullivan’s top assistants will not have their expiring contracts renewed for 2020-21. They also officially confirmed what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Tuesday — that Sullivan’s job was safe after another early exit from the playoffs.

“We are in the process of conducting a review of our organization because we have underperformed in the playoffs the last few years,” Rutherford said Wednesday in a statement released by the team. “We just thought we needed to change the dynamic of our coaching staff. We have very high standards here in Pittsburgh, and we want to continue competing for Stanley Cups.

“The message to our fans is that ‘We are not rebuilding, we’re re-tooling.'”

Four days after the Penguins were upset by the Montreal Canadiens, the No. 24 seed in the NHL’s expanded 24-team playoff field, the Hall of Fame general manager hinted at a staff shake-up during Tuesday’s season-ending press conference.

“We had a good regular season and dealt with some adversity and were able to get through that. So you have to look at that and give credit in the right places,” he said. “But I also have to review what’s happened here at the end of the last two seasons. And there’s been a pattern in both seasons.”

That pattern, he said, was that the team showed little fight after falling behind in the series against both the Canadiens and the New York Islanders last year.

“My concern is that when things don’t go our way, then we start to fizzle out,” he said. “And we don’t have that same drive and determination that we should have and that we need to have. So based on that, I’m looking at everything now.”

It didn’t take the Penguins much time to conclude that three coaches must go.

Sullivan said Wednesday was “more difficult than you guys can imagine.”

“I know how hard these guys work. These guys are good coaches and they’re my friends, and we’ve been through a lot together as a group,” Sullivan said. “But when teams with high expectations such as ours don’t have success, change is inevitable. … We all have to take responsibility for it — and it starts with me.”

Recchi, a Hall of Fame player, was a member of the Penguins team that won the Cup in 1991. He was hired as a player development coach in 2014 and won two more rings here in that role. In 2017, when Rick Tocchet left to become head coach of the Arizona Coyotes, he joined Sullivan behind the bench.

During Tuesday’s conference call, Rutherford expressed displeasure with the power play, saying the Penguins had enough talent to excel in that area this season. That unit, which was largely led by Recchi, ranked 16th during the regular season and was a problem in the playoffs, specifically in the Game 1 loss to Montreal.

“Usually when you’re trying to fix the power play, you’re searching and you’re saying, ‘We’ve got to go out and find a player or two,’ ” Rutherford said. “We’ve got enough guys on the power play that it can be successful. … It’s so frustrating to watch us go time and time again and not get good scoring chances, let alone goals.”

Martin joined the Penguins in 2013 as an assistant under Dan Bylsma and was retained by Sullivan. He focused on the defensemen and penalty kill and helped the team get the most out of its blue line in the 2016 and 2017 Cup runs.

The Penguins ranked ninth in the NHL in penalty killing in 2019-20 and did not allow a power-play goal in the Canadiens series. And Rutherford recently praised both Martin and Gonchar for their work with impressive rookie John Marino. But the Penguins have decided to move on from the longtime NHL coach.

Gonchar was a power-play whiz for the team that won the Cup in 2009. In 2015, he accepted a job in the organization as a player development coach. Considered a defenseman whisperer of sorts for his work with reclamation projects such as Justin Schultz, he became an assistant coach in 2017. He has also been a valuable sounding board for Malkin, a fellow Russian.

“We want to thank Sergei, Jacques and Mark for their many contributions to the Penguins over the years, and wish them well in their future endeavors,” stated Rutherford, who is entering his seventh season as Pittsburgh’s GM.

Goaltending coach Mike Buckley is one assistant who will stick around.

Now Rutherford and Sullivan must set out to find fresh voices for a veteran team that has gone 3-11 in its last 14 postseason games dating back to 2018.

Sullivan said that as of Wednesday afternoon he had not yet considered which qualities he would covet in new assistants. He figured Rutherford and he would have a conversation later in the day to discuss the coaching search.

Needless to say these will be critical hires for Sullivan. He received a new contract last summer, and Rutherford recently called him the “best coach in the game.” But his top three assistants are now all gone, leaving the hot seat open.