Building the Pens: How will Dan Muse do in year two?
· Yahoo Sports
It was obvious the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2025-26 would be different from the start. Naturally, they had to be after Mike Sullivan was out and a rookie NHL coach was taking over. The changes were visible from Muse’s very first day, a high-energy, up tempo practice with assistant coaches banging sticks enthusiastically on the glass of the practice rink. Veterans fed off the energy of the camp, raving about the organization, intention and tone created by a brand new staff.
To say it worked in the first year would be an understatement. The Penguins rolled to 98 points, finishing second in the division. Muse ended up as a Jack Adams finalist for the coach of the year award. The team gelled and proved the oft-true mantra that switching the voice leading a team can provide a boost. In this case, it ended a three-year playoff drought and brought the Pens back towards the top of the Metropolitan Division.
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Now, the big question is, what will Muse have in store for his second year?
Recent past shows us that it could be tough to replicate. Three of the last four Pittsburgh coaches that returned for a full second season have seen decreases in Year 2 compared to their first campaign.
Per Dave Molinari:
*** Kevin Constantine, minus-8 (98 to 90)
*** Michael Therrien, minus-3 (105 to 102)
*** Dan Bylsma, plus-5 (101 to 106)
*** Mike Sullivan, minus-11 (111 to 100)
Only one of the last four Penguin head coaches performed better in the standings from year one to two, Dan Bylsma in the heart of the Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin prime, with an average drop of a little over four points.
All of those coaches negotiated 82-game seasons, Muse will get the benefit this year of the expanded 84-game schedule, giving a few extra cracks at it. Of course, when it comes to competing for the playoffs, everyone else in the league will have more games too.
There are some areas for improvement. Muse challenged for goalie interference on nine occasions. After review, the officials disagreed with him nine times. While it seems he still has support from above, GM Kyle Dubas told Muse to keep using his challenge ‘by the book’ in March. The problem could be the book Muse was using didn’t align to what the gatekeepers saw. That’s not all Muse’s fault since he had good reason on several attempts, but then again the frequency could be in play. Muse challenged calls almost double of any other team in the league. He was very eager to try and help, though every time it backfired and caused his team to have to kill a penalty. Whether or not the challenges continue to this degree will be an interesting way to track a possible evolution in real time for a still young coach.
On the positive side, one can’t succinctly name all the players who had career years last season under Muse. Justin Brazeau, Anthony Mantha, Parker Wotherspoon, Ryan Shea among them. Egor Chinakhov broke out, as did Ben Kindel. Erik Karlsson went back to being one of the best defensemen in the world. Even fourth liners like Connor Dewar and Noel Acciari were hugely productive, relatively speaking. Muse’s challenge will be seeing that continue – almost everyone can’t keep consistently raising the bar every year since by definition a career-best only comes along once. Can the tides keep rising to coax out more great performances?
The development angle for Muse will be worth tracking as well. The Pens are an extremely old team in terms of more than a handful of players but they’re starting to reset as well. Between Kindel, Chinakhov, Nick Robertson, Elmer Soderblom, Kaeden Korczak, Declan Carlile, Hendrix Lapierre and perhaps most important of all Sergei Murashov, there are plenty of young players who need to find steady roles and continue their individual progressions. That doesn’t even get into the next wave of players like Harrison Brunicke, Rutger McGroarty and the $4 million dollar man Ville Koivunen who are looking to take the next steps of moving up the ladder in a very crowded environment.
How Muse juggles all of this will be worth watching. His lineups were fluid last year from the start – Koivunen had to start on the first line on opening night after Bryan Rust landed on IR. Phil Tomasino was in the opening lineup too, replaced the next game by Filip Hallander even though the Pens won by shutout. Even the starting goalie decision on opening night of Arturs Silovs was unconventional, ratcheted up by Silovs going to the bench for the second game despite the aforementioned shutout. Whether it was flipping around players like Tommy Novak and Rickard Rakell between the lines or finding the best spots for forwards like Kindel, Mantha and Brazeau to excel, all of Muse’s roster touches and decisions generally worked out as great coaching inputs, drawing out solid player performance.
Replicating all of that will be the challenge in the upcoming year, and overall Muse’s success in his first campaign has to draw some confidence with his hands on the wheel in his next year.