Former New York Rangers coach speaks out on returning to MSG with the Pittsburgh Penguins
The NHL has to have a sense of humor. Instead of plastering ads everywhere, they're doing something completely different. For the 2025-26 New York Rangers home opener, the team will be facing off against Dan Muse and the Pittsburgh Penguins, in a huge stroke of irony, the same team Mike Sullivan coached last season.
In a stroke of irony, Dan Muse will be coaching behind the bench of a completely different team when he arrives at his former home of Madison Square Garden.
For the New York Rangers' home opener, he'll be leading the Pittsburgh Penguins, taking on Mike Sullivan. You can cut through all of this with a knife, given how palpable the irony is.
«It's a bit ironic, I guess,» Muse said this week on NHL Network. «The fact that it's MSG obviously both sides of it there. But I think once we get to that game, we're just going to be excited to start the season and excited to play the first game.»
Full circle, no quotes.
Dan Muse has had the benefit of learning from some of the best in the NHL, working his way up through the ranks of college hockey from the USHL, to the IIHF to the USA NDTP.
He credits Peter Laviolette for his success and has benefited from the wealth of knowledge he's been able to tap into.
«Definitely Peter Laviolette,» Muse said when asked who's helped him the most to become the coach he is. «Having worked with him there in both Nashville and New York. He gave me my first opportunity here to work in the NHL. It's something I'll be forever grateful for - and I learned a ton from him. The way he delegates - being with him firsthand there in two different organizations, I learned a ton that I'll take with me moving forward.»
Muse followed Laviolette from gig to gig, as he was once a Predators assistant also serving with Lavvy, until he joined the ranks of the Rangers in 2023.
He'll have to turn lessons learned from Laviolette into tangible evidence on the ice that he's the coach to take the Pittsburgh Penguins back into playoff success, as they begin a rebuild.
Instead of being fired by the Rangers, they were impressed with his work, so they wanted him to interview with the Sullivan regime in order to find a new job in the coaching staff.
He and Michael Peca were spared the firings that Phil Housley and Peter Laviolette were subject to.
Previously on NY Hockey Insider
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 19 | 248 ANSWERS Former New York Rangers coach speaks out on returning to MSG with the Pittsburgh Penguins Do you think the New York Rangers will defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins with Head Coach Dan Muse behind the bench? | ||
| Yes | 212 | 85.5 % |
| No | 36 | 14.5 % |
| List of polls | ||