Winning is going to be difficult right away, and that might not be his fault.
The Pittsburgh Penguins raised some eyebrows on Wednesday afternoon when they officially hired former New York Rangers assistant coach Dan Muse to be their newest head coach. Muse’s name had only been mentioned briefly over the past few weeks and he was never really listed as one of the top favorites for the job. At least not to the level that somebody, like, say, Mitch Love was.
Now that he is the newest head coach for the Penguins, it is worth asking what the expectation is for him and what it would take for him to be considered a successful hire.
The easy answer is a lot of winning, a lot of playoff appearances, and a team that is competing for a championship every season.
But that just …. does not seem likely.
At least not right now.
Not where the Penguins are or where they will be heading into this season.
Even though Kyle Dubas likes to push the idea that the Penguins will be good again sooner rather than later (an idea I do believe in) it is still probably going to take a couple of years.
Certainly more than one year.
The longer it takes, the more likely it is that Muse is not going to be behind the bench when the Penguins get on the other side of this rebuild (or re-tooling, or whatever they want to call it. Or whatever you want to call it).
That doesn’t necessarily mean he is a bad hire, or will be a bad hire, or would be a bad hire if it plays out that way.
The average shelf life of an NHL head coach right now is under three seasons. It is closer to two-and-a-half seasons. Unless you are Mike Sullivan and have won a couple of Stanley Cups with a team there is usually not much of a leash with general managers or ownership in this league. It is very likely, if not possible, that the next time the Penguins are ready to seriously compete for a championship that somebody else is going to be standing in Dan Muse’s spot behind the bench.
That is not a statement on Muse.
It is just a statement on the reality of the game.
That was always going to be case this offseason when the Penguins hired their new coach, no matter who it ended up being. Recycled veteran coach. New up-and-coming coach. Whoever it was it did not and probably does not matter. That just typically tends to happen in rebuilds.
The most important thing for Muse’s success or failure with the Penguins is going to be with the development of their young players and what sort of identity he helps establish with them and the team going forward.
It is going to be how players like Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty, Owen Pickering and Vladislav Kolyachonok develop this season.
It is going to be what happens with players like Sergei Murashov, Harrison Brunicke, Tanner Howe and Tristan Broz when they arrive in the coming seasons.
It will be how whatever new younger players get mixed in through any transactions or draft picks this summer and how they develop.
It will be how the team as a whole, young players and veterans, plays and what sort of style that is put into place.
Even though I don’t know a ton about Muse beyond his background and what I’ve read, I like the fact he comes with a track record and history of working with younger players in both the USHL and the US National Development team. He would hopefully be the type of coach that will not hesitate to put young players into positions to play and not necessarily panic if they make some mistakes early on. This can’t be a situation where young players miss an assignment or lose a game and then get stapled to the bench or healthy scratched for extended periods of time.
These guys need to play, they need to be trusted, and they need to get better.
If, in two years, the Penguins are not contending quite yet but players like Koivunen, McGroarty, Pickering, Brunicke, etc. are establishing themselves as NHL players, and potentially impact NHL players, I will consider Muse’s job to have been effective and successful.
He might not be the guy that gets them to a Stanley Cup, or a deep playoff run, or even back into the playoffs within the next couple of years. Recent NHL coaching histories suggests he will not be.
He just needs to be the guy that gets that process rolling and helps the next wave of young Penguins players become good NHL players. The Penguins actually have a solid prospect pool (at least compared to what it has been in recent seasons) ready to make a name for itself in the NHL, and will have more joining them given the draft capital they have. They just need a coach to help get them there.