Favorite emerges as Penguins' coaching search comes to a close.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have been actively searching for a new head coach after general manager Kyle Dubas made the decision to part ways with long time Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan, and that coaching search may finally be wrapping up.

National Hockey League insider Elliotte Friedman has now made comments that indicate there is a clear frontrunner for the Penguins' vacant head coaching position and, perhaps surprisingly, that name belongs to a man that has never coached in the NHL before.

On the most recent episode of his podcast, Friedman began by rattling off some of the names that had interviewed for the position.

"Pittsburgh I believe DJ Smith was just in there, Mitch Love was in there, I think [Jay] Woodcroft was there too," revealed Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast.

Smith most recently served as head coach of the Ottawa Senators while Woodcroft is the former head coach of the Edmonton Oilers and of the names on this list only Love has no NHL head coaching experience. Love currently serves as an assistant coach with the Washington Capitals under head coach Spencer Carbery. 

Friedman also threw out a few other names, including that of former Rangers assistant coach Dan Muse.

"Someone else I heard who interviewed there was Dan Muse, the former assistant of the New York Rangers who was on Peter Laviolette's staff last year," revealed Friedman.

Former Rangers and San Jose Sharks head coach David Quinn, who worked under Mike Sullivan as an assistant this season in Pittsburgh, is also being considered for the job.

"Obviously there is still David Quinn around," added Friedman.

That being said Friedman made it clear that he feels there is one man ahead of the pack when it comes to this job, and that is the aforementioned Mitch Love.

"From the beginning I've felt that Mitch Love was in the lead horse," admitted Friedman.

Friedman stopped short of declaring Love as the man for the job however, with some of his sources reportedly informing him that he shouldn't sleep on the candidacy of DJ Smith.

"I did have some people who said to me 'Don't underestimate DJ Smith on this,'" admitted Friedman. "Kyle Dubas knows DJ Smith, that's number one, and number two when you look at Ottawa's young players, a lot of them started under Smith."

The Penguins seem to have finally committed to moving towards a rebuild and Smith could be an ideal mentor for some of their young players given how young players have developed under him in the past in rival organizations.

"Pittsburgh is going to be developing a lot of young players and I expect that Smith will talk to Dubas about how he developed some of those guys for Ottawa," said Friedman. "So that's gonna be a pitch that Dubas will at least listen to."

The good news is that it doesn't seem like we'll be waiting very long for a definitive answer on this matter, with Friedman expressing that he believes a decision is on the horizon.

"Again I've felt from the beginning Love was the likely guy here, but I've had people say don't underestimate Smith," said Friedman. "I would suspect that we're probably gonna this weekend or next week at the latest."