Musings: Penguins 3, Rangers 0 (Season Opener)

While tonight’s win in New York featured a pair of firsts for two Pittsburgh rookies, Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke, it was also Dan Muse’s debut as an NHL Head Coach with the Penguins after serving as an Assistant Coach for the Rangers.

The day prior, Muse wasn’t exactly sure what his emotions would be like going back to his old arena.

“Honestly, I couldn’t tell you,” said Muse. “I don’t know how it will feel until I’m there.”

After earning his first victory as Penguins Head Coach, we followed up with Muse.

“It’s been great. Going back to the first day of training camp, just being able to have that, it's a huge honor. It really is,” Muse said. “I've said it before – it’s an honor just to be in this league, in any way, shape, or form. To be a head coach, especially in this organization with the history here, words couldn't properly describe how much of an honor it is.”

Muse had Kindel and Brunicke start the game alongside ‘The Big Three’ of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, now officially in their 20^th season as teammates.

"It's pretty amazing when you think about it, to have that wide of an age gap,” Crosby said. “Excited for them to get that opportunity to play their first game at MSG, a pretty historic building. To get the win and obviously to be sharing 20 years with Geno and Tanger and having played this long together, it's so rare. Probably a lot of different thoughts standing on that blue line, but just grateful that we can be in this situation and we're still competing and still doing it."

After being brought in over the summer from the Vancouver Canucks, Arturs Silovs was named the team’s opening-night starting goaltender and produced a 25-save shutout.

“I felt great. It felt great to be on a new team,” said Silovs, who was named Playoff MVP for the Abbotsford Canucks during their Calder Cup championship run. “I think we have pretty good chemistry with the guys already, and I felt like it's so nice to play, and it's even better to win on the road.”

After signing a two-year contract as a free agent in July, Justin Brazeau (6-6) skated on a line with Malkin (6-5) and Anthony Mantha (6-5) throughout the preseason. They were a force tonight.

“It’s size, but both of those guys can make plays,” said Muse on Malkin’s wingers. “It’s not just big bodies. They think the game well offensively. But you got guys that are obviously three very large humans and are hard to play against, hard to handle when they’re that big, and they can make plays at that rate.”

All of that came into effect on Pittsburgh’s first goal of the game. After Malkin went forward on the offensive zone faceoff, he found Brazeau alone in front, who got it past Vezina Trophy winner Igor Sheshterkin.

The three teamed up again late in the third period, up 1-0 with Shesterkin pulled for the extra attacker. Mantha and Malkin worked the puck out of the defensive zone and found Brazeau open for an empty netter.

Blake Lizotte added another to ice the game and give the Penguins their first win of the regular season, and their first win under Muse as head coach.

More from Muse on tonight’s win:

How pleased are you with what you saw tonight?

I’m really happy for the guys. They put in a lot of work there during the training camp. You always want to start things off on the right foot. And I thought we got contributions from everybody today. I think that’s the really exciting part is just the way the guys got it done with contributions from throughout the lineup. It's a good start, and now we get to enjoy it tonight, turn the page, and go back to work here tomorrow.

What were the decisions that went into Kindel and Brunicke starting the game?

I don't know if it's always going to be the case, but I think when the opportunity presents itself to get those guys out right away, rather than sit there for a little bit, you never know how it's going to go. If you go back, like in one of our later exhibition games, we ended up taking a penalty, and we were killing for four minutes. You just don't want to leave things to chance. Obviously, we had three guys that have been playing together for 20 years, and I thought it was important that they got to start that game together. It kind of worked out well to be able to do that.

What did you think of their performances?

I thought the first game they played much as we'd expect based on what we've been seeing. I thought they did a good job. I think they were poised out there. I think they were in good spots. I didn't think that there was anything too loud in the wrong way. I thought that there weren't any situations that I saw them in that I thought that they looked concerned with or that I was concerned with. So, it's a good start. They're young, and now it's going to be a matter of each game, as you really get ramped up in the regular season. Things will start to tighten up a little bit. It's just going to continue every day to get a little bit better.

Do you think that the way you conducted training camp played out that way tonight?

For sure, I think there’s plenty that we want to keep building in. There's a starting point, and it's not just tight, like all over the ice. There are times when the spacing does need to be different based on their pressure. Maybe there were some breakdowns where we were in a good position to recover and come back and take away the dangerous ice. And so that part was good to see. I think there's plenty, even from tonight, that we'll go back and we'll be able to say there's a good base, but there's a lot more here that we're going to be able to build out.

What did you learn about your team tonight?

I think they showed up from day one. I thought they, to a man, did a great job. I thought for the first game of the season, I just like the fact that you walk out of there, you get the job done. But you can look around the locker room and really feel like, to a man, everybody did something there to contribute tonight. If we start that way, and that's going to be the base that we're going to build off of, that's what I learned tonight. I'm excited about building with these guys.