Dan Muse is sneaking into the NHL's biggest coaching debate

An NHL Watcher post tossed out the obvious names, then slid Muse into the same sentence as Bednar and Patrick Roy.

That's not nothing, because random midseason «coach of the year» talk usually skips over Pittsburgh.

Bednar is still the clean front-runner league-wide right now, and NHL.com basically said as much in its January Trophy Tracker.

I'm not saying Muse should win it today, but Penguins fans can feel the difference night to night.

On the results side, Pittsburgh is 22-14-10 with 54 points, which has them sitting right in the Metropolitan mix instead of drifting.

The biggest Muse calling card has been structure without killing offense.

The Penguins are running the seventh-best penalty kill, and that's the kind of «coach stat» voters actually notice.

Pittsburgh has been even better on the kill, 85.6 percent, specifically with Blake Lizotte in the lineup.

It's a real sign Muse is getting buy-in from the bottom of the roster.

Tactically, the Penguins look more connected through the neutral zone, with cleaner support on breakouts and less stretch-and-hope hockey.

When the forecheck is rolling, they're turning dump-ins into second touches instead of one-and-done shifts.

Thursday was a good snapshot.

Pittsburgh beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3, hit on the power play, and Sidney Crosby scored his 25th of the season, which feels like a team playing with a plan.

If the Penguins hang around a playoff spot into February, the Muse talk won't be charity anymore.

It'll be the simple question, who got the most out of what he had.

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