When the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Minnesota Wild on Friday night it will be their 20th game of the 2025-26 season, and their 20th game under first-year head coach Dan Muse. That is not an overly large
sample size of games. It is basically one quarter of one season, and the jury is still very much out on this particular team and Muse as a head coach.
Even so, it is hard not to be impressed with the way Muse has handled this season and this team.
The easy thing to do is just look at the standings and see a team that has, so far, greatly exceeded the preseason expectations and has played its way into the Eastern Conference Playoffs and simply conclude that he is doing a great job.
You can also do an X’s and O’s breakdown and systems analysis of the way they play, or highlight how much more dynamic and unpredictable their power play has become, and praise his tactical work.
All of those things are very valid and fair areas of praise. They would be fair assessments.
There are a couple of other areas that have stood out to me that are also deserving of praise for the way he has handled this team.
The first: Just having players do what they do best.
The sign of a good coach is building a system and plan around the skills your players have. Not trying to force your players into a system or style of play that does not fit their skillsets. I bring this up because there have been multiple Penguins defensemen make points along these lines this season.
Erik Karlsson, who clearly did not see eye-to-eye with Mike Sullivan on … well … anything, was the first to point this out when he delivered this haymaker to Sullivan in an interview with The Athletic’s Josh Yohe:
“We have good individual players. And now we’re finally starting to feel good as a team. The roles are starting to slot in. You know what’s expected of you. You do the things you’re good at, and not the things that someone tells you to do, that you can’t do.”
This week Ryan Graves, who has actually been okay since his return to the lineup, offered a similar, if gentler, comment:
That is not to say that the Penguins defense has necessarily been good. Because there are clearly some big issues with their play in that regard, and no coach or system is going to totally mask those kinds of shortcomings.
But Karlsson has played like the Karlsson the Penguins expected, and several players are speaking of a very clear difference in expectation and mindset.
That is something.
The other thing that stood out this week was the way Muse ended a couple of practices with the Penguins practicing their 3-on-3 overtime and shootouts. It might not seem like a big deal, but overtime play and the shootout have been issues for the Penguins for a couple of years now, and it was something that Sullivan never seemed to address in practices. To a point, I get it. They are not situations that are going to happen every game and they do not exist in the playoffs. That does not mean they are not meaningless situations, because if you consistently give away points in those situations it could be the difference between actually being in the playoffs and not being in the playoffs.
The Penguins were 10-12 in games that went beyond regulation a year ago, and so far this season are 0-4. That is a lot of points being left on the table, and given how tight the Eastern Conference standings are right now every point matters.
Muse saw something that is clearly an issue and put some work into it.
That is something.
The other thing that stood out was Sunday’s decision to move Ben Kindel back to center. He tried something new by putting the rookie on Sidney Crosby’s wing, recognized very quickly that it was not only not working, but was also weakening another key line on the team, and very quickly adjusted back to something that he knows does work. It was another example of him just having a feel for the moment and the team.
This is not meant to be a knock on what Sullivan accomplished in Pittsburgh. He helped put two Stanley Cup banners in those rafters and that will always make him a franchise icon. It is pretty clear, however, that it was time for a change and a fresh voice and a fresh direction. Muse has given them all of that, and so far it has been for the better. Him and the Penguins are still writing their story, but the opening chapter is pretty captivating and attention-grabbing.
