The 2025-26 season is officially in the books for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it was mostly an unexpected success in a couple of different ways.
On a team level, they exceeded every possible expectation anybody had for them in the preseason and snapped the franchise’s three-year playoff drought. The postseason run was brief and ended with disappointment, but even then they made it interesting and brought some unexpected drama to it.
On an individual level, some long-term pieces emerged in some unexpected
ways.
Ben Kindel, the No. 11 overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, arrived far sooner than expected and not only looked like an NHLer right away, but also perhaps a key long-term building block. I am still not sure what his actual upside is, but an 18-year-old that plays over 80 games (including playoffs) in the NHL and scores 17 goals while mostly driving possession and playing an advanced two-way game for his age is a good starting point for a promising career. Maybe even a great career?
Egor Chinakhov arrived in a mid-season trade from the Columbus Blue Jackets and immediately started to reach the potential Columbus had hoped he could. Maybe he has a future here.
Elmer Soderblom arrived at the trade deadline and did kind of the same thing, only on a smaller level. I don’t know that he has a top-six future in Pittsburgh, but he might have some sort of role.
Sergei Murashov and Harrison Brunicke did not get a full season in Pittsburgh, but they each had a cup of coffee and flashed the big-time potential the Penguins want to see from them.
Now as the Penguins head into the offseason they have to continue building on a lot of that. And more.
There are going to be a lot of opinions on what they should do this offseason and the direction they should take.
There are going to be a lot of opinions on the individual moves they should make, including with pending free agent Evgeni Malkin.
Some initial thoughts on this before we dig deeper into it.
- There is no one way to build a team or rebuild a team for the long-term. There are a lot of different paths a team can take, and a lot of different ways it can be done. It does not have to be one specific way. You don’t necessarily have to gut your roster and tank for several years. You can try that. It might work. It might also leave you in the darkness for a decade.
- I have reached the point with the Evgeni Malkin situation where I am just ready for a decision one way or another so we can all move on. Sign him. Don’t sign him. Just make a decision. Signing him is logical because he is still useful, it won’t cost a lot, he is not blocking anybody internally and moving on from him doesn’t net you any additional long-term assets. It’s not like you’re trading him for something. If you decide you need to move on because you either, A) don’t think he will be good enough, or B) just want to reset things, then so be it. Just tell me when it is done. I can’t make the same arguments back-and-forth for the 100th time.
- I have zero — ZERO — interest in the top free agent market. Do not overpay for Alex Tuch. Do not overpay for Darren Raddysh. Find the next Darren Raddysh. Look for cheap value. Look for reclamation projects you can rebuild and potentially flip for assets.
- The Penguins should aggressively shop their own players under contract hard, and at the same time they should aggressively buy hard if the right player emerges. If you get a deal for Erik Karlsson or Rickard Rakell, do not just necessarily sit on those young assets you get back. Piece them together with the assets you already have to try and find elite talent. Everything the Penguins do this offseason should be centered around the idea of adding young, in-its-prime, or close-to-its prime, elite talent. Or younger potential elite talent. Nobody in their early-or mid-30s. Not even anybody in their late-20s. I am talking players in their early-mid 20s. Players that would have a long-term window here through their prime years. I do not care where it comes from or how it arrives, but that should be the goal.
- That does not necessarily mean you are in a “win-now” mode or abandoning a rebuild. It does not need to be with the mindset of winning a Stanley Cup next season or competing for one. It is just trying to add elite talent whenever you can that can be core pieces.
With all of this in mind, I sat down over the weekend and looked through every roster still playing in this year’s playoffs, as well as the past eight Stanley Cup winners, and just wanted to see how they were built and where their talent came from to see if there were any particular trends or some sort of long-term map.
First, the teams still playing in this year’s playoffs:
And now the past eight Stanley Cup winners.
I simply posted these on social media on Sunday and was fascinated to see the different ways it was interpreted.
You had some people argue that it made lottery picks look more important.
Others argued that it made tanking, drafting and developing look like a worse idea.
My takeaway is that you need to have a couple of elite talents on your roster and how you get them makes no difference. You then need to aggressively complement those elite talents through trades.
Colorado got its elite talent this season in the lottery (Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabriel Landeskog). Minnesota got its in the fifth-round (Kirill Kaprizov) and via trade (Quinn Hughes). Carolina had one high pick (Andrei Svechnikov), a couple of mid-round values (Sebastian Aho, Jaccob Slavin, Jackson Blake) and some shrewd trades and free agent signings.
The only two teams still standing this season that are primarily draft-driven in their build are Philadelphia and Montreal, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say, that in at least Philadelphia’s case, they are the least likely team still standing to win. But even both of them had some significant trades.
The most recent Stanley Cup teams, and especially Vegas and Florida, were AGGRESSIVELY trade-driven.
Florida had the two top-five picks on its roster in Barkov and Ekblad, but they were on the roster for eight years without having won anything until they got a front office that aggressively traded to win and surround them with more talent.
Vegas didn’t have a single top-five or first-round pick of its own on its roster and acquired its top-line talents (Jack Eichel, Mark Stone) in aggressive trades.
Going back a little further, Detroit and Anaheim won their cups in the salary cap era without the benefit of having their own lottery picks on the roster.
St. Louis was close to doing the same.
I do think some of this should be a cautionary tale for teams like Chicago and San Jose this offseason. They have their elite talents in Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini, and now it’s time for them to go hard at adding people around them. If they just sit back and wait for their other young prospects to develop they are likely to stay in the exact same position they are in now. Not all of them are going to be good. Not all of them are going to pan out. Smart teams are identifying their small core and using the other players in the farm system as trade fodder. Chicago and San Jose should be dipping into the prospect pool right now and adding proven stars if they become available. You don’t want to become Detroit.
This should also be a cautionary tale for the Penguins in the near future.
A successful rebuild doesn’t usually come entirely from within. Even the Penguins Stanley Cup teams of this era, while they had their core group of players that they drafted, those core players do not win without aggressive roster movement around them.
The Penguins’ plan this offseason should be focussed entirely on positioning themselves for that sort of future, in both the short-term and long-term.
That also does not necessarily mean tanking for multiple years.
Weaponize your salary cap space again to collect future assets that can later be traded. Take on a bad contract to get another second-round pick. Do it twice, who cares. You have the space to do it.
If you move a Karlsson or Rakell and get prospects or picks back in return, do not attach yourself to that return as the pieces that will be a part of the long-term future. Look at those hypothetical assets as additional assets to get the type of players you need, either for a new core piece, or for complementary pieces down the line. Even if not this offseason, but in a future season or offseason.
I know people are going to point to Jason Robertson as a potential trade candidate, but that is a pipe dream. Dallas is not moving him (more accurately: Dallas should not move him), and even if it did the Penguins probably do not have enough (though, you still make the call). If Robert Thomas becomes available, you make a call. The same is true for any similarly-aged or similarly talented player.
You have four of the top-96 picks in this year’s draft. You should be open to moving up in the first-round to try and steal an elite talent that might slide down the board. A team like St. Louis has three first-round picks, including two in the top-15. That is a potential target if somebody you like starts to slide down the board. Winnipeg and Florida have top-10 picks and could be feeling pressure to win now. Those would be potential targets.
The most successful teams in the NHL right now have a small group of core players that they have identified, and then aggressively wheeled and dealed around them.
Ben Kindel could be part of that core.
Maybe Sergei Murashov is.
Maybe one of Rutger McGroarty, Will Horcoff, Bill Zonnon or Harrison Brunicke joins them. You should consider yourself lucky and a success if even one of them does.
They need to find one or two more guys that fit into that group, and then accumulate the type of long-term assets that can be traded to complement them.
You also need to look at some of the aforementioned guys not as long-term pieces for the Penguins, but as potential players that can help them get the type of player that will be part of that group. Because not all of them are going to develop as you expect or hope. Some of them are going to give you more value as trade chips.
The trading game is where is it at. Be aggressive with it. Start with it this offseason.
