There were a lot of things that went right for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their 2026-27 season opener on Wednesday night.
The offense clicked in a 7-0 win with six different goal-scorers, including two from newcomer Nicholas Robertson and one from offseason addition Hendrix Lapierre. Ville Koivunen even delivered early with a slick breakaway goal as part of a makeshift third-line that took over the game.
Goalie Arturs Silovs posted a season-opening shutout for the second year in a row and made the saves
he needed to make.
But the thing that stood out about Silovs performance isn’t just that he stopped all 19 shots he faced.
It was that he only had to face 19 shots, with very few of them of the high-danger variety.
Let’s not overlook how good the Penguins defense played on Wednesday night, or the fact it was a very impressive top-to-bottom performance from every member of that group.
There are a lot of wild-cards on this team that will dictate how the season goes, and I think we all know who they are. Or at least have a pretty good idea of who they are. It is the goalies themselves, and it is a lot of the younger forwards on the roster and how much of a step forward they can take. Not just players like Ben Kindel or Koivunen, but also players like Egor Chinakhov and Robertson.
There is a potential floor with them, but there is also a fairly high ceiling with them.
It is also pretty widely accepted that the defense mightbe the weak link of the roster, and potentially have the lowest ceiling of the position groups.
Erik Karlsson is a Hall of Famer and coming off a great season, but he is 36 years old.
Kris Letang might be (should be?) a Hall of Famer, but has slowed down more than any other member of the core.
After that … it is simply a bunch of question marks.
Even with that being the case, I kind of like this group, especially in comparison to last year’s group. It’s not a Stanley Cup defense as currently constructed by any means, but it’s also an almost entirely different group from the one they opened the season with a year ago with Sam Girard, Kaedan Korczak, Declan Carlile and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
I am reasonably high on all of these guys for different reasons.
- In Girard’s case, I don’t think we were able to get a strong first impression from him. Not only because it sometimes takes defenseman time to adjust to a new system and team, but also because he wasn’t healthy. He improved as last season went on, and by the end of the playoff series was one of the best defensemen. He was sensational on Wednesday.
- Kaedan Korczak is the defense version of a lot of the forwards they have acquired over the past couple of years. Younger guy, excelled in smaller minutes and sheltered roles and probably deserving of a bigger look and more opportunity.
- Carlile has Parker Wotherspoon vibes to him in the sense that he was a late-bloomer when it comes to getting his opportunity in the NHL, but might have a chance to be a pleasant surprise.
- Van Riemsdyk is just a solid, steady NHL defenseman. Nothing flashy. Nothing that will wow you. But just gets the job done. There were a few instances on Wednesday where he really helped out Letang, I could see that pairing working.
Every pairing (Karlsson-Carlile; Korczak-Girard; Letang-van Riemsdyk) had an expected goal share over 80 percent, and every pairing was on the ice for at least one goal scored. van Riemsdyk is the only one that did not record a point.
As strong as they all played on Wednesday, you can’t ignore the reality that it was against a Philadelphia team that is simply not one of the better offensive teams they will play this season. After getting dominated by the Penguins on Wednesday, the Flyers came back on Thursday and were almost just as bad offensively and in terms of possession, even if the scoreboard did not reflect it the same way. Offense will be a struggle for them, and it is also early in the season, after a short training camp and preseason, when everybody will be knocking off some rust.
They did what they needed to do, but the competition and circumstances will get more difficult.
Just as they will on Saturday when the Montreal Canadiens come to town.
While the Flyers are a more defensive-minded team with severe offensive limitations and struggles, Montreal comes in boasting one of the best young cores of offensive talent in the league.
Nick Suzuki is one of the best two-way players in the league right now.
Cole Caufield has improved his goal total every year he has been in the league and scored 51 a year ago.
Juraj Slafkovsky is an absolute tank of a human being.
Ivan Demidov has sublime skill and playmaking abilities.
Lane Hutson is an early-season Norris candidate and can burn you offensively.
They added long-time Penguins nemesis Chris Kreider.
The Canadiens might still have some flaws they need to address before they become a Stanley Cup team, and they might be something of an unfinished product, but there is serious talent on this team offensively, and the Penguins struggled at times against them a year ago.
Big picture: It’s Game two of the season. No result is going to be a definitive sign of what is to come this season. But it is still a little bit of an early season measuring stick to see what they can do against one of the league’s better (and faster) offensive teams. It is the new-look unit’s first major test. Time to see what they do with it.
