The first two weeks of the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins season have gone way better than anybody expected, and this past week was no exception. I looked at the three games they were facing a week ago and realistically expected three or maybe four points out of it. They ended up getting five. The games against Florida and Columbus were definitely not their prettiest of the season, with the latter arguably being their worst performance of the season outside of the late, dramatic comeback.
While the Penguins
were beating up on the bottom-tier teams on the schedule to open the season, the games in Florida and against Columbus were more about goaltending stepping up and some serious shooting percentage swings going their way. That is not a sustainable recipe for success, so it will be interesting to see if they reverse that trend, or if maybe some cracks in the strong start are beginning to show.
The schedule also gets a little tougher this week with games against St. Louis on Monday, Philadelphia on Tuesday, Minnesota on Thursday and Winnipeg on Saturday. The latter three games begin a four-game road trip (tied for the second-longest trip of the season), while they also play their first set of back-to-back games on Monday and Tuesday with the Blues and Flyers.
This is a big change in the schedule based on the way the season began.
Not only have the Penguins mostly drawn favorable matchups, they have also had a lot of scheduling advantages where they had yet to play a back-to-back while they played multiple opponents on the back end of back-to-back.
All of that helps.
Now it is going to swing the other way.
As for the opponents themselves, the Blues are off to a bad start in the standings, but are not getting any goaltending help. They have pushed the pace of play in their games and are one of the top teams in expected goal share, scoring chance share and high-danger scoring chance share. What’s held them back has been the league’s worst 5-on-5 save percentage. It will be a big test for the Penguins to see if they can reverse the trend from the past two games.
I am still not sure what to make of the Flyers at this point, but Dan Vladar has been off to a surprisingly good start in goal and Trevor Zegras looks like he might be getting a bounce back with a fresh start in Philadelphia.
Matvei Michkov, however, has been quiet so far. You have to think a breakout game is coming from him at some point.
Minnesota’s early performance is simply not matching the talent on paper. I liked this team a lot coming into the season and thought with better injury luck they could be a sleeper team in the West. Instead, they have been awful with only three wins in 10 games and some nasty underlying numbers to go with it.
Winnipeg on Saturday might simply be their toughest game of the season.
That is eight possible points on the schedule. If they get more than four that would be quite an accomplishment given the opponents and schedule.
But even more than the opponents and the games, the most intriguing thing to watch this week will be some individual players. Specifically as it relates to the teams youngest players.
The injury to Rickard Rakell has opened the door for Ville Koivunen to return. I was not a fan of sending him down initially, but he went to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and simply dominated while he was there. Whether he gets an opportunity on the top line in Rakell’s absence, or slides into the third-line next to Ben Kindel and Tommy Novak I want to see if he can get his production in Wilkes-Barre to carry over to the NHL. He only played a few shifts with Kindel in the first two games, but they were very, very strong.
Then there is the Kindel and Brunicke situations.
Kindel has played in seven games.
Brunicke has played in six games.
Both players sat out games this past week with Brunicke sitting back-to-back games and Kindel sitting against Columbus (along with Brunicke).
That means Kindel is two games away from the nine-game mark that could result in him getting sent back to Calgary and Brunicke is three games away from potentially being sent back to Kamloops.
My opinion on this has not changed from a week ago. I think both players are NHL quality right now and have earned a spot here this season. They are not struggling to keep up. They are playing at a high level and making significant contributions. Kindel has arguably been one of their best players. Actually, I do not think there is much of an argument for it. I just find it really hard to believe that there is anything for them to gain in the Western Hockey League where they will likely dominate 16-and 17-year olds when they could be getting NHL training, NHL coaching and NHL everything while also getting to learn from a handful of Hall of Famers. Especially when they look good enough to play at this level.
They should stay strictly from a hockey standpoint, even if they continue to sit out every handful of games as part of the “development plan” as the Penguins are calling it.
From a purely selfish perspective, they just make the team more interesting to watch. Not only because they are fresh faces and bring major, significant long-term upside, but also because they simply bring a new energy that has been lacking.
Without them in the lineup on Saturday, and with Koivunen still in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, there was not a lot of juice or excitement for that game. The Penguins played like it until the last five minutes. There was a whole lot of “what’s the point to this season if this is the lineup?” to it. It looked like a lot of the slow, lifeless hockey we saw a year ago with no long-term upside in the lineup. Novak and Filip Hallander were absolutely crushed without Kindel centering their line. Connor Clifton was a nightmare on the third defense pairing. It was a boring glimpse into what the season might look like if Kindel and Brunicke go back to juniors and players like Kevin Hayes eventually return to the lineup.
I know Koivunen is back and McGroarty will be back soon, but if you are going to look toward the future and go young, then you might as well do it. Especially when the young players you have as potential options in the lineup are good enough to contribute right now.
