By Arthur Staple (The Athletic)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Steve Valiquette’s Clear Sight Hockey was a fledgling data company back in 2015. Clear Sight started working with the Chicago Steel of the USHL, which had a rookie head coach in Dan Muse.
“Let me paint this picture for you,” Valiquette said on the most recent episode of “The Garden Faithful” podcast. “Dan Muse, 2015, first-year head coach at the Chicago Steel, coming over from Yale. He had a blow-up mattress in the (coaches) room because oftentimes, getting in late, he wants to be the first one there the next morning. I’d asked him about it and he said, ‘When I was at Yale, Keith Allain, the head coach, would be in at six. I got in at 6:03 and I felt like a piece of garbage. I can’t be coming in second to the head coach.’ I said, what did you do? ‘The next morning I was there at 5:55. And then (Allain) was there at 5:50!’
“I feel very confident saying this — there isn’t a coach in the NHL that will outwork this guy.”
Muse has had a couple of stops since those days in the USHL. First here in Nashville, where he was an assistant to Peter Laviolette for three seasons. That connection got Muse the job he has now with the Rangers, reunited with Laviolette in a new city.
The biggest job Muse has had was the one he just left. For three years he coached in the U.S. National Training and Development program, working the last two seasons with the current crop of draft-eligible players. And it’s as impressive a group as the USNTDP has had, with potentially four first-round picks tomorrow night and another 3-4 in Thursday’s second round.
Coaching at the U.S. program is a 24/7 experience. Muse will not have to provide many life lessons to Rangers players or coach them up on being pros. But several of Wednesday’s first-round locks credited Muse with doing just that the last two years, helping them prepare for what’s to come after they’re selected here.
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