During his weekly Tuesday press conference, Mike Tomlin got a few chuckles out of the Pittsburgh media when he proclaimed “I’m not a big picture guy” after being asked about the Steelers’ place within the suddenly rocky landscape of the AFC North.

After just one game as the Penguins’ new head coach, I certainly get the feeling that Dan Muse is a “big picture” guy.

Or, at the very least, he’s got an appreciation for symbolism and poetry.

Muse deployed teenage rookie prospects Ben Kindel and Harrison Brunicke in the Penguins’ starting lineup along with franchise icons Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.

If anyone needed to have the goal of the 2025-26 Penguins season spelled out for them, Muse did so before the opening notes of the “Star-Spangled Banner” on night No. 1 at Madison Square Garden.

Honor the past while turning the page to the future.

That’s what that intentionally mixed unit of three centers and two right-handed defensemen was embodying as the Penguins took the opening faceoff of the 2025-26 campaign.

“When the opportunity presents itself to get those guys out right away, rather than sit there for a little bit. … You just don’t want to leave things to chance,” Muse explained of starting the rookies with the vets. “We had three guys that have been playing together for 20 years, and I thought it was important that they get to start that game together. And so it kind of worked out well to be able to do that.”

The shift ended without a goal, but with Brunicke taking a penalty. Fortunately for Muse, the Pens killed it off.

Aside from that early need to turn to the penalty kill, just about every other button Muse pressed seemed to work as the Penguins beat former coach Mike Sullivan and the New York Rangers, 3-0, in the first of 82 games.

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• The simple move would’ve been to start incumbent goalie Tristan Jarry in Game 1. Instead, Muse decided that newly acquired Arturs Silovs was the way to go.

The 24-year-old Latvian pitched a shutout, stopping all 25 shots he faced.

“It’s great. Guys competed. So many great blocks. Great individual efforts. Team efforts,” Silovs told SportsNet Pittsburgh after the game. “I felt comfortable. The guys did a good job. Results showed that.”

That was Silovs’ first NHL shutout. He becomes the second goalie in Penguins history (Maxime Lagace, 2021) to record a shutout in his debut with the franchise, according to Pens PR.

Silovs, via ESPN’s postgame show, is also just the fifth NHL goalie in the past 20 years to post a shutout in his team debut in a season opener.

• With forward Bryan Rust injured to begin the year, the redwood line of Evgeni Malkin (6-foot-5), Justin Brazeau (6-foot-6) and Anthony Mantha (6-foot-5) that Muse arranged produced the first two goals of the game.

The first one came at even strength late in the first period when Malkin pushed an offensive zone faceoff forward and won it over to Brazeau.

The 27-year-old winger then showed nifty hands in tight to beat Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin for the only time on the night.

Justin Brazeau puts the Penguins on the board! ????

Watch Penguins-Rangers on ESPN and the ESPN App ???? pic.twitter.com/Bl46vg4LpA

— ESPN (@espn) October 8, 2025

The threesome also combined for the first of two empty-netters later in the game.

Justin Brazeau gets his second goal of the game ???? pic.twitter.com/2e9Uij5gji

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 8, 2025

Blake Lizotte got the second empty-netter.

• For months, we heard that Muse would preach more structure and systematically responsible hockey than what we saw toward the end of the Sullivan era in Pittsburgh.

That manifested in Game 1 at MSG. Silovs only saw 25 shots, just five in the third period.

That suggests the Penguins played disciplined and intelligent hockey up by one goal for most of the final frame. Honoring time, score and circumstance with a lead wasn’t exactly a strong suit toward the end of the Sullivan era, either.

So seeing Muse’s imprint on that immediately in Game 1 was encouraging.

“They put in a lot of work there during training camp,” Muse said. “You always want to start things off on the right foot. I thought we got contributions from everybody today. I think that’s the really exciting part. Just the way the guys got it done — contributions from throughout the lineup.”

• For the most part, the Penguins were also disciplined on the ice, committing just one penalty over the final 59 minutes after Brunicke’s.

“They were ready to show up on Day 1. To a man, I thought they did a great job,” Muse said. “You can look around the locker room and really feel like, to a man, everybody did something there to contribute tonight. If we’re going to start that way, and that’s going to be the base that we’re going to build off of, if that’s what I learned tonight, I’m excited about building with these guys.”

Based on one game, there is reason to be excited about the guy coaching them as well.

Listen: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer discuss the start of the Penguins 2025-26 campaign

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