Dan Muse isn’t brushing off the Pittsburgh Penguins’ latest turnover trouble as a fluky night or a harmless slip.
After Wednesday’s 5-3 loss to the Washington Capitals, the Penguins’ head coach pointed to a broader puck-management problem, one he believes is tied to support, spacing and making the smarter play when pressure closes in.
Pittsburgh handed Washington multiple chances off giveaways, and Muse said the issue goes beyond one or two isolated mistakes. The Penguins, he said, kept putting themselves in bad spots.
"There's times that we're vacating too early, or we're not providing the support that's necessary," Muse said. "And when you don't have options, that's what's going to happen."
A lot of the damage showed up at the blue line, where turnovers opened the door for Washington to come back with speed. Muse said the defensemen have to do a better job reading where the pressure is coming from and knowing when to take the safer route instead of trying to force a play.
"Sometimes it's a little bit of just that feel at the line," Muse said. "And then I think sometimes, especially when plays are bobbled, it's a rolling puck, you just got to live to fight another day."
For Muse, that means shifting away from risky passes in traffic and toward pucks placed into areas where Pittsburgh still has a shot to recover them. The point is to avoid turning a tough moment into an immediate break the other way.
"So now, it's just going to be about putting it into an area where maybe it is a 50-50 puck, but it's in an area there where we have a chance to get it back, and it's definitely in an area where they're not going to be coming at us with speed," Muse said.
Those turnovers also forced the Penguins into too much time in their own end, dealing with dangerous chances. Muse said goaltenders Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov have handled those stretches, but Pittsburgh can’t keep asking them to absorb that kind of workload.
He also rejected the idea that a shortened preseason is the main reason for the defensive issues. In his view, the Penguins have already shown they can operate within their structure.
What has to improve, he said, is consistency.
And that, more than anything, is the task now: tighten the puck management, cut down the self-inflicted mistakes and stop handing opponents chances that never needed to exist.
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