In terms of on-ice results it is pretty fair to say that preseason expectations for the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins were as low as they have been in two decades. I do not know of anybody, nor did I see
anybody, anticipating a playoff team or any sort of a contender. Everybody knows the deal here. The best players are at the end of their careers, the offseason was the same as last year’s where collecting future assets and acquiring short-term stop-gaps was the priority, and they have a younger roster that still has more than $10 million in salary cap space.
It is a rebuilding team.
Winning in this one particular season is not the priority at this moment.
We all know that. We all know after nearly two decades on top of the NHL you eventually have to go through a few seasons like this.
Even with that being the case you still have some sort of an expectation for what a team is going to look like and what the season might be like.
If you are going to be bad and not win many games, you at least need to be interesting. Be entertaining. Bad and entertaining is better than bad and boring. Bad with new faces and seeing individual growth is better than aimless wandering.
It is still early, but through four games I feel like the Penguins have mostly been what was probably expected, while at least playing some entertaining hockey and providing what they need to provide for future Penguins teams.
If this were a season with Stanley Cup goals in mind, Tuesday’s game in Anaheim would have been a maddeningly frustrating game. Not only with the fact they mostly outplayed the Ducks at 5-on-5 and still lost, but because it ended with bad penalty killing after an incomprehensible delay of game penalty when at least one point seemed like a lock. But in a season where you have no expectations I came away from that game thinking, “well, at least there was a good pace to it and some wild back-and-forth moments.”
Outside of the home-opener game against the New York Rangers, none of these games have really bored me.
If you look at this Penguins roster it’s not hard to see the potential for at least some chaotic hockey this season.
The forward group is still formidable. It might be top-heavy offensively, but there are enough good players at the top, at least one really intriguing young player (Ben Kindel) right now and at least a few more that will be here soon (Rutger McGroarty, the return of Ville Koivunen at some point, Tristan Broz, Avery Hayes, etc.) to add some intrigue.
The defense group is, by NHL standards, awful. Kris Letang, all-time great Penguin that he is, has clearly lost a step or two. Erik Karlsson has looked better at times, but is still pure chaos. Harrison Brunicke is impressive, but he’s 19. The left side of the defense doesn’t have a single player that a playoff team would want getting meaningful minutes.
What happens when you combine good forwards with bad defensemen? The potential for some back-and-forth hockey.
Through four games, the Penguins have mostly delivered that. At least from a scoring chance perspective. Going into Wednesday’s games the Penguins were sixth in the NHL in expected goals per 60 minutes, 11th in expected goals against, while their games featured the third most *total* expected goals in the NHL.
They were fourth in high-danger chances for, and 10th in high-danger chances against. Their games, again, have featured the third-most total high-danger chances.
There is at least a lot of excitement and a lot of big chances. Take off your Penguins fan cap for a minute and just look at it as a hockey game. It’s been interesting even if not particularly good.
But the most important development so far is the fact the right players are mostly playing well. Especially as it relates to the important younger guys in Kindel and Brunicke. Both of them have not only looked like they belong, they look like they can be legitimately good NHL players for a long time. Kindel just keeps looking more and more impressive every time he is on the ice, and is actually doing the heavy lifting on his line. As an 18-year-old. The confidence and hockey IQ are off the charts. He always seems to be in the right place, the game doesn’t look too big or too fast for him and his first NHL goal was a ridiculous snipe against one of the best goalies in the world. Not many players beat Igor Shesterkin from the distance with that shot. He did. Cleanly. It’s impressive and exciting.
It is a similar story for Brunicke on defense. He looks the part. It is important not only for these guys to improve, but to also show they can be significant long-term parts.
There is a fine line between accepting the realities of this season and making losing acceptable. When you create an environment where losing is not only accepted, but openly encouraged (a full-blown tank where fans are cheering against their own team in the building — like the Tim Murray era Buffalo Sabres) it creates a losing culture. Losing breeds losers. I don’t want that. Nobody should want that. But I also know the reality of the season, which is that this team is simply not built to contend right now. So they better at least be entertaining, and the right players need to produce and get better.
So far they have mostly done that.
They have played the way this roster should play. They have been mostly interesting. They are seeing young players establish themselves.
