"With my relationship with 'Sully,' he and I talked, and it just steamrolled from there," said Quinn, the Rangers coach. "Mike said basically '[Jacques] wasn't my assistant coach, we were co-coaches.'"
Quinn and Sullivan, the Pittsburgh Penguins coach, go back to their days at Boston University, where they were teammates for two seasons (1986-88).
Martin was an assistant on Sullivan's staff for five seasons in Pittsburgh before he was fired Aug. 12 with Mark Recchi and Sergei Gonchar following the elimination by the Montreal Canadiens in four games in the best-of-5 Stanley Cup Qualifiers.
New York hired Martin as a replacement for Lindy Ruff, who became New Jersey Devils coach July 9. Like Ruff did with the Rangers, Martin will run the penalty kill and be in charge of the defense.
"As an organization, we had talked about when Lindy left if we could find someone with Lindy's pedigree that might be the best thing for us," Quinn said. "We want to continue to evolve, we anticipate playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and trying to win a Stanley Cup, and it would be nice to have someone on the bench who has gone through it time and time again and has had a lot of success as a head coach. It's always valuable to have that. When Jacques became available, right away a light bulb when off in my head, 'Wow, he checks a lot of the boxes that we were looking for.'"
Martin won the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 2016 and 2017, running the penalty kill and defense.
He was an NHL coach for 17 seasons with the St. Louis Blues (1986-88), Ottawa Senators (1995-04), Florida Panthers (2005-08) and Montreal Canadiens (2009-12). He was 613-481-81 with 119 ties (.551 points percentage) in 1,294 games, and was 50-61 in 111 playoff games.
Martin is the Ottawa leader in games coached (692), wins (341), playoff games coached (69) and playoff wins (31). He won the Jack Adams Award, voted NHL coach of the year, with the Senators in 1998-99.
"I didn't know Jacques, but in the three or four times we talked extensively through the process he certainly was everything everybody said he was, and more in my mind," Quinn said. "Not only was he a natural fit professionally, but certainly there was a level of comfort personally, and that made it a no-brainer in a lot of ways."
Quinn said his conversations with Martin included a lot of discussion about the Rangers' young defensemen, including Tony DeAngelo 24; Adam Fox, 22; Ryan Lindgren, 22; Libor Hajek, 22; and K'Andre Miller, 20.
"Jacques has the teaching background; he was a teacher before he got into coaching," Quinn said. "That certainly showed through in my time talking with him through this process. You can just tell he's got a way about him, he's certainly knowledgeable about the game, but also just in the way he would handle people."
Quinn said Martin will also help if the Rangers select Rimouski forward Alexis Lafreniere with the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, because they're both French Canadian.
The Rangers won the first pick in the Second Phase of the 2020 NHL Draft Lottery on Aug. 10. Lafreniere is considered the consensus No. 1 pick.
"It's not only just because of the language and where they're from, it's because of Jacques' experience," Quinn said. "To me, the French Canadian thing is a bonus, but I think the benefit will be Jacques' coaching experience and how much time he's spent in this league."
The draft is scheduled for Oct. 9-10. It was scheduled for June 26-27 in Montreal but was postponed due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
