Penguins coach Dan Muse might be a playoff newbie \u2014 this will be his first series as a head coach \u2014 but based on his inaugural regular season, I don\u2019t think coaching will be what derails the Penguins.<\/p>\n
They are in excellent hands, just as president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas promised in his first public words about Muse.<\/p>\n
Normally, when a team releases a statement on a new coach \u2014 kind of like with a draft pick \u2014 it\u2019s filled with platitudes and promises, and nobody takes it too seriously. It\u2019s merely the precursor to the introductory news conference.<\/p>\n
But when I went back and read the Dubas statement, I marvelled at its detail and prophetic quality.<\/p>\n
Dubas said he met with \u201cmany candidates\u201d before choosing Muse. Then he said this:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat separated Dan was his ability to develop players, win at all levels where he has been a head coach and his consistent success coaching special teams in the NHL. From his success in developing college and junior players, to his impactful work with veteran players during his time in the NHL, Dan has shown a proven ability to connect with players at all stages of their careers and help them to reach their potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ten months later, those words seem frighteningly on-point.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with special teams, which had become a recurring problem in Mike Sullivan\u2019s final years. In a related matter, the Penguins couldn\u2019t escape the first round and eventually started missing the playoffs altogether over Sullivan\u2019s final seven seasons.<\/p>\n
Muse hired the right people, an important mission for any coach. He took a chance on Penguins Stanley Cup hero Nick Bonino, who helped sell Muse to the Penguins veterans. Bonino played for Muse in New York and Nashville.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s Muse\u2019s muse, you might say.<\/p>\n
Muse hired a pair of veterans to run the special teams. He put Mike Stothers in charge of the penalty kill and Todd Nelson in charge of the power play. Both units rank seventh in the NHL.<\/p>\n
The power play is down a tick from last season, but that unit had become mostly an embarrassment late in Sullivan\u2019s tenure. It now looks highly potent most of the time, and highly organized, from the entries to the constant movement of puck and players.<\/p>\n
The other part of the statement that proved prophetic: \u201cDan has shown a proven ability to connect with players at all stages of their careers and help them to reach their potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those players range from 18-year-old Ben Kindel to men twice his age. Many of us wondered how Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson would react to a novice NHL coach. It couldn\u2019t have gone better. Karlsson might be playing the best all-around hockey of his career, with Muse utilizing him on the penalty kill.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, no fewer than 11 Penguins have turned in career seasons in one respect or another. Those include Anthony Mantha and his 32 goals, Parker Wotherspoon providing the perfect complement to Karlsson and Egor Chinahkov jump-starting his career after a trade from Columbus.<\/p>\n
The sure sign of a good coach is watching players embrace their roles. That requires the coach defining proper roles and then communicating the duties therein. Muse has proved masterful there \u2014 exemplified in his moving Malkin from center to wing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach say, \u2018Play right wing.\u2019 It\u2019s working, you know, and we see what\u2019s going on, because I feel better every game,\u201d Malkin told reporters after scoring his 1,400th career point. \u201cI understand what the role is, (how to) play wing in (defensive) zone and offensive zone. And I play comfortable. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last time the Penguins hired a coach with no NHL head coaching experience, it didn\u2019t go so well. Mike Johnston was fired two months into his second season.<\/p>\n
Muse seems built for the long haul. He\u2019s a winner. He won at Yale as an assistant coach (national championship in 2013, in Pittsburgh). He won at the highest levels of junior hockey. He helped the U.S. under-18 and under-20 teams win world titles.<\/p>\n
In the NHL, he separated himself as a penalty kill whiz with the Predators and Rangers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis overall body of work, attention to detail and vision for our group,\u201d Dubas said in the statement, \u201cshowed us that he is the best coach to take our team forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who could argue that now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penguins coach Dan Muse might be a playoff newbie \u2014 this will be his first series as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-591897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}