Nothing about the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins went as anybody expected it to go.
When offseason began early in the summer of 2025, there was a belief that the team would not only be bad, but that it would be one of the worst teams in the NHL. There was a common theme nationally that there was only one team trying not to win this season, and the Penguins were it.
There was also an expectation that the Penguins were going to go extremely young with their roster and really kickstart a rebuild and youth
movement.
As it turns out, the team actually won a lot. It more than a lot of the teams that were supposedly trying to win, and it won enough games that it made the playoffs for the first time in three years.
They also did not go as young as many people expected, still relying on a lot of players in their 30s to win games and get through the season.
It was not a traditional rebuilding year in that sense.
That does not mean it was not a rebuilding year, and it does not mean they did not attempt to go younger in a lot of areas with their roster.
They used more young players than at any point over the past five years, and received significantly more contributions from them than they have in recent years.
Some of them proved they were worthy of getting more playing time.
Some of them did not.
Some of them still have some work to do.
But a lot of young players got a look and had their opportunities.
First, let’s just look at how many “younger” players the Penguins used this season. I am counting “younger” players as anybody that was age 24 or younger when the 2025-26 season began.
The Penguins used 14 such players that totaled 289 man-games. Those players scored 51 goals, including 17 from Ben Kindel and the 18 that Egor Chinakhov scored following his addition from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Here is how those numbers compare to the rosters the Penguins were using over the previous five seasons.
That is a lot more players, a lot more games, and especially a lot more goals. Considering where the Penguins farm system was as recently as a year-and-a-half ago, those might even be somewhat surprising numbers.
While that may not be as young as many people may have expected (or wanted … or hoped), there were a lot of variables that went into that.
They opened the season with two teenagers on the roster. One was ready for a full season in the NHL (Kindel) and one was not (Harrison Brunicke).
Rutger McGroarty’s season got off to a delayed start due to injury.
Ville Koivunen was on the opening night roster and received several extended looks, and instead of building on his strong finish to the 2024-25 season, he slowly morphed into a more modern-day version of Dominik Simon with elite possession-driving numbers but absolutely zero offense created.
With all of that said, let’s take a little closer look at the young players that contributed to the Penguins this season (in order of games played).
1. Ben Kindel (Age: 18, 77 games, 17 goals). By far the most significant development of the 2025-26 season for the Penguins. I am not sure we are giving his rookie season enough attention for how good it was and how promising it was for the long-term. Since the start of the 2007-08 season, here is the list of 18 or 19 year olds that played in at least 50 games, scored at least 15 goals, and had a shot attempt share of better than 52 percent.
Look at that list of players. Every single one of those guys developed into a top-line, high-level player. The worst player on there is Pierre-Luc Dubois. He basically had the Aleksander Barkov and Andrei Svechnikov 18-year-old rookie seasons. Those two guys were top-three picks. Kindel was the No. 11 overall pick. We still do not know what his actual ceiling is, but a two-way center that is already playing this sort of game at this age is something you can dream on. If you are not going to get a top-three pick you need to find some unexpected home runs somewhere else. This ball has not cleared the wall yet, but it looks and sounds really promising coming off the bat. The outfielders are moving back to the warning track and the wall, and they are not slowing down.
2. Egor Chinakhov (Age: 24, 43 games, 18 goals). The benefit of accumulating so many mid-round draft picks is it gives you the flexibility to roll the dice and take chances on players like this. Chinakhov arrived in Pittsburgh as a fascinating talent that looked lost in his previous environment. Getting a chance to play real minutes in Pittsburgh, around winning players, immediately unlocked something big in his game. Is he going to score on 17.3 percent of shots on goal over a full season? Probably not. But even if he gets down into the 12-15 percent range (which is not unthinkable given his shot) that is still a potential 25-30 goal-scorer over 82 games. You need that. That will play. I think I was even more impressed with his play away from the puck than his play with it, because that was supposed to be a problem. It was not. It would have been nice to see more from him in the playoffs, but I thought he was close to getting that breakthrough.
3. Ville Koivunen (Age: 22, 39 games, 2 goals) Not sure there was a bigger disappointment among the young players than Koivunen. I had high hopes for him at the start, especially given where he was starting in the lineup and what he did at the end of the 2024-25 season. I like the possession numbers he displayed. I like that when he was on the ice the play generally moved in the right direction. But too often he just seemed a split second too slow in getting his shot off, turning countless good looks into blocked shots that harmlessly went off the glass or into the netting above the glass. That’s not great. It may not seem like much, but that split second is the difference between dominating in the AHL and contributing in the NHL. Not giving up on him, but some of these guys are not going to pan out. He needs to show more next season. A lot more. He is more suspect than prospect right now.
4. Arturs Silovs (Age: 24, 39 games, .887 save percentage). What a weird year. It started with him getting a shutout on opening night in Madison Square Garden against Mike Sullivan in the New York Rangers. It ended with him giving the Penguins a fighting chance in the playoffs, thanks to him playing three consecutive mostly magnificent games. In between there were some wild highs and lows that had you alternating between, “Maybe this guy is a player,” to “how is this guy in the NHL?” No idea what he is or what he will be, but he is intriguing. Him and Sergei Murashov seem likely to share the next next season
5. Rutger McGroarty (Age: 21, 24 games, 3 goals). As mentioned above, his season started off poorly with him being sidelined due to injury. It was an uphill battle back from that. I actually really liked what we saw from him when he played and I figure he opens next season with a full-time NHL roster spot. I still like him a lot, and I think if you were going to argue for a young player to have received more of a look, this is the guy.
6. Elmer Soderblom (Age: 24, 20 games, 5 goals). Similar to Chinakhov in the sense that he is a talented player that did not seem to fit in his previous spot. The Penguins rolled the dice, and they may have found a useful bottom-six player. He arrived with little in the way of expectations (two goals in 39 games with the Red Wings will do that), and then tallied five goals and 10 total points in 20 regular season games with the Penguins, before adding a goal in the playoffs. When he realized he is bigger and stronger than every player on the ice on most shifts things really turned around for him.
7. Avery Hayes (Age: 23, 16 games, 5 goals). Given Noel Accairi seems to be on his way out I would suspect that Hayes is going to have the inside track on a fourth-line spot next season. He made an immediate impact with two goals in his NHL debut and was a bit hit-and-miss offensively after that. What was not hit-and-miss was the effort and his willingness to rattle cages. He at least put himself on the radar. Good first impression and something to build on.
8. Philip Tomasino (Age: 24, 9 games, 0 goals). When you take a chance on players like this you sometimes get Egor Chinakhov, and you sometimes get Philip Tomasino.
9. Harrison Brunicke (Age: 19, 9 games, 1 goal). Great first impression. He was not ready for the NHL just yet, and that is okay. He is a 19-year-old defenseman. It happens. Matthew Schaefer is the exception, not the rule. But he got a taste of life in the NHL, showed the potential, and is one of the prospects in the organization that you should be excited about.
10. Sergei Murashov (Age: 21, 5 games, .897 save percentage). If there is a young player in the organization that has superstar, franchise-changing ability, this is the guy. That is due both to the nature of his position (goalie) and the impact that can have on a team, as well as his talent and upside. I am not going to pretend to know what he is going to do next season because trying to guess or project goalie performance, and especially young goalie performance, is almost impossible. But the upside …. the upside is enormous. He only played five games in Pittsburgh, but we saw flashes of it. He has dominated the AHL the past two years. He is ready for his chance next season.
11. Owen Pickering (Age: 22, 4 games, 0 goals). I fear we are on bust watch. Given the makeup of the defense this season the fact this guy couldn’t even get any sort of look is discouraging. He seems to be way off the radar.
12. Samuel Poulin (Age: 24, 2 games, goals). Officially a bust. At least here. He was part of the Stuart Skinner-Tristan Jarry trade with the Edmonton Oilers.
13. Tristan Broz (Age: 23, 1 game, 0 goals). Other than McGroarty, I think this is the one young player in the organization that Penguins fans expected to see more of this season. He just never got a look in the NHL. Understandable given the forward depth, as well as the unexpected emergence of Kindel. Another strong year in the AHL, however.
14. Jake Livanavage (Age: 21, 1 game, 0 goals). He joined the organization so late in the season that there is really nothing to evaluate here. Intriguing prospect due to his skating.
It was not as young of a team as we expected, but they definitely worked in some players and found at least a couple of players that should have a future here.
