We're less than an hour away from the press conference introducing Kirk Muller as the Hurricanes' new head coach, and with a game tomorrow against the Florida Panthers -- one of his former teams -- he won't have much time to get his feet on the ground.

In the short term, though, there are two areas where he may be able to have a major, immediate impact on the Hurricanes: the power play, and Eric Staal.

What the Montreal players are saying about former Canadiens assistant coach Kirk Muller, named head coach of the Hurricanes today, via CTV Montreal.

Lars Eller: “Congratulations to him. That’s great for him. Kirky was a guy that really tried to work really hard with our young guys. He was very good with his communication, very straightforward.”

P.K. Subban: “He was obviously well liked by the players. Guys really enjoyed playing for him. All the guys are happy to see him coaching in the NHL. He’s a great coach. He works well with people. He’s a great teacher. Learning from him last year was great for me. Obviously, he had a long career so he’s had every possible experience as a player to help him coach in the NHL.”

At this point, the best thing that can be said about the Second Mo Dynasty is that it’s over. The Carolina Hurricanes hadn’t clicked under Paul Maurice for two full seasons and they were working on a third by the time he was finally fired Monday.

If the Hurricanes had held him responsible for last spring’s collapse and hired Kirk Muller this summer, when Muller interviewed for head-coaching jobs in Dallas, Minnesota and Ottawa, maybe they wouldn’t be in this fix now.

Maurice did an excellent job fine-tuning the team that Peter Laviolette left him in December 2008, and a surprisingly good job of making adjustments on the fly in the 2009 playoffs, but given the chance to retool the team on his terms, it was back to business as usual.