The one thing that can be said about the 2026-27 Pittsburgh Penguins roster is that it has a lot of NHL-caliber forward options.
There may not be any superstar-level players in their prime. The core might be the oldest in the league. And a lot of the players lower in the lineup might be of a similar skillset, all of which are short-term and long-term question marks. But there are a lot of players.
They probably go 17 or 18 forwards deep in terms of who can play in the NHL, and the big question that
came from all of that was “where are all of these guys going to play, and how are young players going to get their opportunities to crack the lineup?”
The obvious answer for that was always going to be “somebody isn’t going to be available when you were planning on them being available.”
That might be taking the lazy and easy way out, but sometimes that is the most logical and likely answer. Especially with this franchise.
We are seeing that play out right now before the regular season even begins as there are all of a sudden three roster spots opened up, at least on a short-term basis, that weren’t going to be there as recently as two weeks ago.
- It is probably a very safe assumption to think Andrei Kuzmenko is not going to be available anytime soon. And honestly, he probably shouldn’t be. His mind and attention is going to be elsewhere. This isn’t the way you anticipate a roster spot opening up. I was thinking more along the lines of an injury. But whatever the case, he’s not going to be here for a bit.
- Ben Kindel is officially a Penguin, experiencing his first “day-to-day” injury that turns into a “week-to-week” injury. Suddenly, two thirds of your potential opening night third line are not going to be available when the regular season opens in Philadelphia early next week.
- Blake Lizotte is an outstanding fourth-liner and penalty killer, but that guy has missed at least 20 games in each of the past three seasons. He is already week-to-week.
Ville Koivunen?
Rutger McGroarty?
Avery Hayes?
Hendrix Lapierre?
Fillip Hallendar?
Here is your window and your chance to get into the lineup, make a statement, and maybe force the Penguins hand a little bit.
Or at least improve your value and long-term outlook.
There is also very little question somebody else is going to go out of the lineup at some point and create even more opportunities and openings. Keep in mind, the Penguins needed 17 different forwards to play in at least 20 games during the 2025-26 season, and 14 different forwards to play in at least 40 games. That’s a lot of players going in and out of the lineup.
Even if these current situations turn out to be short-term, it is still an opportunity for some players to show something. There will no doubt be more opportunities as the season progresses. No matter what your expectations for the season are (rebuilding, contending, some combination of both of them) you are still going to need more than the 23 players on your opening night roster to get through it. Fortunately for the Penguins, they have a lot of options to help them do that.
