Dan Muse’s latest message should get his stars attention
Dan Muse walked into a storm Monday night after his Pittsburgh Penguins dropped Game 2 to the Philadelphia Flyers and fell into a 0-2 series hole at home.
Andrew Fillipponi of 93.7 The Fan didn't mince words. He wrote that Muse was the best coach in the NHL for 82 regular-season games. Now he's getting thoroughly outcoached by Rick Tocchet.
That's the Pittsburgh media saying it, not an outside take.
Muse, in his first year behind a Penguins bench, reportedly delivered an ultimatum to his top players after the loss. The locker room isn't happy. The fan base is already past that.
Going scoreless at home in Game 2 against a Philadelphia team that finished one point ahead of you is the kind of night that gets coaches booed off their own ice.
Rick Tocchet's Flyers have the blueprint against a Penguins top six going cold
Here's Fillipponi's full take if you want the tone.
Sidney Crosby, 38, still finished the regular season with 74 points in 68 games at an $8.7 million cap hit.
He has zero points through two playoff games. Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust have contributed more, which is fine, except when the guy paid to be a difference maker in April isn't showing up yet.
Erik Karlsson, at $11.5 million, finished with 66 points from the blueline and a plus-8 rating. He has 1 assist in two games and a minus rating Tocchet is already exploiting in the neutral zone.
Tocchet, for his part, is running his team like a team that believes it belongs. Philly finished 43-27-12 for 98 points, identical in the standings to Pittsburgh, and his group has spent two nights getting into Muse's head.
Rasmus Ristolainen threw a punch at Crosby in Game 2 and took the 2 minutes willingly. That's the type of trade a Tocchet team makes, and a Muse team doesn't have an answer for yet.
Stuart Skinner's postgame quote about his best players not scoring when it counts put a tighter spotlight on Crosby and company, whether Skinner meant it that way or not.
Every Pittsburgh star just got doubled up on the pressure overnight.
Kyle Dubas built this roster with the deadline as a selling push. Muse is the coach Dubas hired to finish what the moves started. Two games in, the plan looks broken.
Game 3 is Wednesday in Philadelphia.
If Muse can't adjust his matchups, his lines, or his special teams between now and then, the conversation in Pittsburgh stops being about coaching and starts being about whether this core has another postseason run left at all.
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