Penguins coach Dan Muse might be a playoff newbie — this will be his first series as a head coach — but based on his inaugural regular season, I don’t think coaching will be what derails the Penguins.
They are in excellent hands, just as president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas promised in his first public words about Muse.
Normally, when a team releases a statement on a new coach — kind of like with a draft pick — it’s filled with platitudes and promises, and nobody takes it too seriously. It’s merely the precursor to the introductory news conference.
But when I went back and read the Dubas statement, I marvelled at its detail and prophetic quality.
Dubas said he met with “many candidates” before choosing Muse. Then he said this:
“What 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.”
Ten months later, those words seem frighteningly on-point.
Let’s start with special teams, which had become a recurring problem in Mike Sullivan’s final years. In a related matter, the Penguins couldn’t escape the first round and eventually started missing the playoffs altogether over Sullivan’s final seven seasons.
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.
He’s Muse’s muse, you might say.
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.
The power play is down a tick from last season, but that unit had become mostly an embarrassment late in Sullivan’s tenure. It now looks highly potent most of the time, and highly organized, from the entries to the constant movement of puck and players.
The other part of the statement that proved prophetic: “Dan has shown a proven ability to connect with players at all stages of their careers and help them to reach their potential.”
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’t have gone better. Karlsson might be playing the best all-around hockey of his career, with Muse utilizing him on the penalty kill.
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.
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 — exemplified in his moving Malkin from center to wing.
“Coach say, ‘Play right wing.’ It’s working, you know, and we see what’s going on, because I feel better every game,” Malkin told reporters after scoring his 1,400th career point. “I understand what the role is, (how to) play wing in (defensive) zone and offensive zone. And I play comfortable. I love it.”
The last time the Penguins hired a coach with no NHL head coaching experience, it didn’t go so well. Mike Johnston was fired two months into his second season.
Muse seems built for the long haul. He’s 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.
In the NHL, he separated himself as a penalty kill whiz with the Predators and Rangers.
“His overall body of work, attention to detail and vision for our group,” Dubas said in the statement, “showed us that he is the best coach to take our team forward.”
Who could argue that now?