Muse talks about assistants, roles of coaching staff

We know more about the details within the Pens’ coaching staff

We got to hear more from head coach Dan Muse over an almost 10 minute media session where he talked shop about his coaching staff, how it came to be and who will fill the roles.

“When we started [the hiring] process, I wasn’t sure,” Muse said. “But I knew that having a mix of experiences, mix of different backgrounds, some different ideas – but also bring in people that have some core philosophies that are similar and they’re aligned, you want that. I like different, you go through the entire coaching staff now, there’s a lot of different places that these coaches have come from, experiences that they’ve had in the game, and so now you bring that all in together. I was really happy, it’s a long process when you’re filling out very close to a full coaching staff. These guys, I think, are going to be bring a lot, and when we bring all all those ideas together, we’re looking for that to benefit the group, benefit the organization. And I think it will.”

Muse was able to shed some light on the areas of focus for the assistants. Todd Nelson will be working with the forwards, with help from Nick Bonino. Mike Stothers will be tasked with the defense and penalty kill, with Bonino chipping in with the latter. Rich Clune will be “the eye in the sky” taking in the game from above and won’t be on the bench during games and focusing on individual players during the season. Muse said with Cline “there will be connection with him connecting the player development, but he’ll also have a voice and a hand in a lot of things, and I think that goes with the entire coaching staff. We’ve had a few days of meetings now, we’re going to continue to meet throughout the entire camp. We’ll be in conversations all summer, we’ll come back together at the end of the summer, there’s work to be done. This week’s been big for us as a starting point, but everybody’s going to have a voice.”

Muse had an enlightening quote about the two veteran assistants in Nelson and Strothers.

“[Strohers] is somebody I’ve met before, but we didn’t have a relationship prior to this. We spoke to a lot of people that he’s worked with, a lot of players that he’s worked with. The hockey world’s a small world, and it’s pretty easy to connect the dots, the impact that he’s made on players. Both him and Todd Nelson, I was blown away by the conversations and just how impactful that they’ve been on both the teams that they’ve worked for in the past, but also the relationships and the way he’s been able to help players continue to grow in pro hockey. We feel strongly that there’s going to be a lot of benefits that he’ll be able to bring to the back end. And as I said before, too, this is going to be a collaborative group. This isn’t going to be independent contractors working in different parts of the building. It’s going to be us working together with the entire group and I think that as a coaching staff, everybody believes in that, and we’ll be doing that.”

Bonino is also looking to get to work in his new role. Sad to say for the national media figures looking to draw some attention, Sidney Crosby seems as dialed in as ever with the Penguins, zeroing on on what Bonino has in store as a coach.