I Have the Weirdest Feeling About the Penguins This Season

I’m going to blog this year occasionally, or a lot, not sure yet. I’m not a journalist, and my grammar can be a mess, but bear with me and I hope you enjoy me blogging.

This is the weirdest I have ever felt heading into a Penguins season. I am more excited to see the on ice product than I have been in several years, but I’m also fairly certain that they will not be a playoff team. Which is the weirdest feeling ever.

On the 2 For Talking podcast I have been going on and on about how much better the team looks with these fresh young faces, and then when I go to predict where they’ll end up in the division, it's either last, or second to last.

Could the 2025-26 Penguins sneak into the playoffs? Sure, anything is possible. But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. Yet still, something feels different about this team. Could it be that we’re just so excited to see young talent on the rise? Possibly.

Who could blame you? Mike Sullivan, for all the great things he did as a coach, wasn’t exactly eager to play the young guys from Wilkes-Barre in his latter years with the team.

Sure the cupboards were a little bare, but I’d rather see any young prospect than the Kevin Hayes and Ryan Graves of the world. I’d rather see a parade of Penguins greats doing farewell games like Marc-Andre Fleury did than watching some of the veterans the Penguins have dressed over the past few years.

This rebuild has been painful, but it was necessary. But, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel already. You can see a world where Harrison Brunick, Ben Kindel, Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivenen are all the supporting cast to a superstar that leads the Penguins back to Lord Stanley’s table. 

Is it a guarantee? Absolutely not, but at a minimum you can see that the pieces are starting to show up for this team to compete in the “post big 3” era. 

Sid might be here for a handful of years still, but this year appears to be Evgeni Malkin’s last. Kris Letang is signed for a bit, but will he ever be willing to waive his no trade clause? 

The point being is that Kyle Dubas and Dan Muse both have a job to do, and that job is not to make all the fans feel warm and fuzzy because their favorite players are still wearing black and gold.

Their job is to make the Penguins a winner for the long haul. Do I want to see Geno wear another jersey, no. Do I want the Penguins to struggle for the next decade because they held onto stars too long? Hellllll no!

So I guess it's normal to feel conflicted, there is a lot of excitement about seeing the next generation of the Pittsburgh Penguins start to flap their flightless wings. But is the 2025-26 rendition of the Penguins a playoff team? A better question is, is it better for them to be a playoff team?

As I mentioned earlier, the promising young prospects we see are all nice pieces, but the Penguins are missing that superstar. So in my opinion this season is best to be viewed through the scope of the 2003-04 season. 

Young pieces like Brooks Orpik, Marc-Andre Fleury were cutting their teeth. Ryan Malone was getting his first shot at the NHL. The pieces were there, but they still needed a superstar or two. 

For the Penguins to return to glory, they honestly need to finish with a top 5 pick in next years draft. Sure landing Gavin McKenna would be great, but the draft is deep and you can win a Stanley Cup with an Erik Staal, or an Anze Kopitar. The Stanley Cup is not always won by the Sidney Crosby’s of the world.

So buckle up Penguins fans, it might be the end of a bumpy ride, the Penguins might be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I don’t think they will feel it on their skin until next year at the earliest. 

Seeing young stars earning their stripes should go a long way towards easing the pain of losing this season. The fans are sick of losing, Crosby is sick of losing, but hopefully that light at the end of the tunnel is alluring and by this time next year we’re basking in its glow.