RSS Penguins Team Notes

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Fun with 2025-26 NHL season over/unders, team point projections

It’s Labor Day weekend, and believe it or not but the calendar is turning to September on Monday. That’s when NHL training camps open up, it won’t be much longer now before another season is upon us.

As such, some season point totals are coming out. This one is from FanDuel.

Thoughts on this projection? (not mine) pic.twitter.com/IAQksOZgLJ

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) August 28, 2025

Granted, betting sites want equal action on both sides, but they also need some degree of accuracy to profit.

A lot of the above make sense, but find me feeling like a Grinch wanting to be more confident about calling out unders, rather than the other way around.

For instance, I’ve been down on Calgary (they recorded 96 points last season but had a negative goal differential) and there’s no outsmarting the books to bake in a downturn for them in 2025-26. 85 seems like a good number, but I’d still go under.

Similarly, 95 points for Utah next year? Maybe it’s coming together, but that’s a pretty healthy total, in a super, super tough division. I’m getting excited about the Central, other than Chicago the rest of the teams are pretty good on paper at least and have the competitive desires to be something. Most expect that Nashville might fall off, but someone else in that Utah/Minnesota/St. Louis tier is going to be disappointed. Maybe it’s goaltending or coaching, but I think that Utah is getting the shorter end of the stick relative to that competition.

I’d also run say under Florida 107 points. They’re a flashy team with the two Cups and casuals might see that as an over, but Matthew Tkachuk is expected out until about January. The Panthers know how to pace themselves and that the regular season really doesn’t matter to them, aside from being good enough to qualify for the playoffs — which won’t be a challenge for them. They have playoff mettle, and sight unseen I’d probably chose them now to win at least 2-3 playoff rounds, but I don’t see them having such an excellent regular season.

As far as overs go, from this line I think I’d go Detroit (84) and Buffalo (81). Buffalo always breaks hearts but I think they can clear 81 points, even if narrowly. The Red Wings will have John Gibson and if he plays well they could push up towards 90ish points.

In the last weeks of the off-season it can be fun to look over the over and unders for predictions, what stands out to you?

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66740/fun-with-2025-26-nhl-season-over-unders-team-point-projections

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Penguins remain a draw on national TV

The Pittsburgh Penguins haven’t been to the playoffs in a few seasons, but they remain one of the NHL’s most visible teams. The Pens will appear on national broadcasts in 16 of their 82 games next season.

The Penguins will appear on national TV 1⃣6⃣ times in 2025.26!

More on our broadcast schedule https://t.co/oO63YcuABQ

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) August 27, 2025

From the team:

The Penguins’ broadcast schedule for the 2025.26 regular season was announced by the NHL and its network rightsholders, ESPN and Turner Sports.

The Penguins will take part in 16 nationally broadcasted games, beginning on Tuesday, October 7 as they kick off the 2025.26 campaign with an 8:00 PM tilt against the New York Rangers on ESPN at Madison Square Garden.

Pittsburgh’s nationally televised games include five games on ESPN, four games on ABC, one game exclusively on ESPN+/Hulu as well as six games on TNT.

Locally, SportsNet Pittsburgh enters its third season as the exclusive home of Penguins Hockey. Josh Getzoff will return as the play-by-play broadcaster, working alongside a rotating analyst duo of Colby Armstrong and Phil Bourque. Hailey Hunter and Dan Potash will handle rinkside reporting duties.

Fans can livestream Penguins games on SportsNet Pittsburgh via a direct subscription to SNP 360. Fans who already have SportsNet Pittsburgh in their TV package can download the SNP 360 app to watch on the go or on their connected TV device for free. For fans who choose to subscribe directly, there is an introductory rate of $1 for the first 30 days. To learn more and sign up, visit www.getSNP360.com.

SportsNet Pittsburgh begins its coverage of the 2025.26 regular-season campaign with the team’s home opener on Thursday, October 9 against the New York Islanders at PPG Paints Arena.

Fans can listen to all Penguins games on the radio on the club’s flagship station, 105.9 ‘The X’ and the Penguins Radio Network. Joe Brand will handle play-by-play duties with Phil Bourque providing color commentary.

Below is the full list of Pittsburgh’s nationally televised games:

Oct. 7 at Rangers: ESPN
Oct. 28 at Flyers: ESPN
Nov. 6 vs. Capitals: ESPN+/Hulu only
Dec. 16 vs. Oilers: TNT
Dec. 23 at Maple Leafs: TNT
Jan. 3 at Red Wings: ABC
Jan. 15 vs. Flyers: ESPN
Jan. 31 vs. Rangers: ABC
Feb. 3 at Islanders: TNT
Feb. 28 at Rangers: ABC
Mar 1 vs. Golden Knights: TNT
Mar 8 vs Bruins: TNT
Mar 16 at Avalanche: ESPN
Apr 11 vs. Capitals: ABC
Apr 12 at Capitals: TNT
Apr 14 at Blues: ESPN

It was previously announced that Mike Rupp will no longer occasionally appear on Pens’ broadcasts as it looks like his schedule is becoming more national-centric (Rupp will work some Devils games, the NHL Network studio is out of New Jersey). That leaves Colby Armstrong and Phil Bourque as the remaining rotating color analysts this season on the local broadcasts.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66732/penguins-remain-a-draw-on-national-tv

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Crosby looking to make the most of 2026 Olympic opportunity

With Canada and the US becoming increasingly closer for talent and depth, the northerners still have one edge. It’s the experience and guidance of Sidney Crosby.

After scoring the Golden Goal in Vancouver in 2010 and leading Canada to a second straight gold medal in Sochi in 2014, Sidney Crosby looks to bring his experience to the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

Read more on @NHLdotcom: https://t.co/mt0r0mDuSN pic.twitter.com/I2jpziAt1L

— NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) August 28, 2025

“We talked yesterday about if there is any advantage any more for Canadians or for our Canadian team, and there is. There’s one, and it’s Sidney Crosby,” said Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s senior vice president of high performance and hockey operations. “When you look at our biggest competition, I don’t think anyone else has that. It can’t be overstated.”

It’s difficult to dispute that. Crosby’s won the Olympics in 2010 and 2014. He’s won the NHL’s international events of World Cup of Hockey and the 4 Nations Faceoff. Sometimes he pops up at World Championships. It’s more newsworthy when they lose the odd game.

“I think just grateful for the chance to still be competing and having the opportunity to do this,” said Crosby, now a three-time Stanley Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. “You never know. It’s a tough sport and it’s competitive, so to be a part of this, just grateful. But I also know how special the opportunity is and what it means. I think knowing that, it’s motivating. It’s a lot of fun. You can feel the energy coming off of 4 Nations. That was huge. Everyone got a taste of international hockey and what the Olympics are going to look like. So, yeah, I think a lot of different emotions, but really just excited, motivated and being grateful for the opportunity to be at it again.”

No one knows for sure, but 2026 could be the final chance for Crosby in the international spotlight. He’ll be 42 by the 2030 games and while it seems like he can go on forever playing at a high level, realistically this could be the curtain call.

Fittingly enough, the full circle moment for the Olympics happens back in Italy. That was the site of the games back in 2006 — when Canada famously chose to leave Crosby, then a rookie, off their club. Canada finished in seventh place, their worst ever performance in hockey at the Olympics. Crosby finished sixth in scoring in the NHL (fellow youngster and 100-point scorer Eric Staal was also not picked for Canada’s main roster. They did, however, find spots for the likes of Ryan Smyth, Kris Draper, Shane Doan and Todd Bertuzzi instead).

20 years later and Crosby is the Canadian golden boy. The 2006 Olympics are well-forgotten at this point after Crosby scored the OT Golden Goal on home soil in 2010 and captained the Canadians to another gold medal in 2014. NHL players weren’t involved in the Olympics in 2018 or 2022 but fittingly are going back to Italy for ‘26. It’s one more shot for Crosby on the world’s stage and looking to cap off that area of his career with the only thing he’s known — winning gold.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66746/crosby-looking-to-make-the-most-of-2026-olympic-opportunity

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

The New “X-Generation” for the Penguins?

The 2003-04 season might have been the darkest one for the Penguins. Their 23-47-8-4 record (58 points) was dead last in the league. The arena question hung over their heads ominously with no resolution then in sight. In the prior 24 months the club had traded Jaromir Jagr and Alexei Kovalev for $5 million in cash a piece and shipped out or otherwise lost all their other top players from Martin Straka to Robert Lang and Darius Kasparaitis. Of course, owner/player Mario Lemieux was the exception to that rule as the franchise constant but Lemieux’s bad back and hips limited him to only appearing in 10 games in 2003-04.

That led to the campaign of the X-Generation, trying to market whatever they could from the plucky band of young players looking to make their mark in an uncertain future for what had been one of the league’s most successful teams of the 1990’s. Scoring titles, championships and even playoff appearances were well in the rearview mirror.

There were some bright spots. Marc-Andre Fleury was drafted that year, and made the NHL club at just 18-years old. His debut game was the stuff of legends — giving up a goal to the LA Kings on the first shot he saw but then standing on his head to save 46 of the next 47 shots he saw. The Pens only managed 11 shots total, the Kings tacked on an empty netter and won the game 3-0. It would be a sign of things to come for that season.

In some ways this period mirrors the current state of the Pens. Sidney Crosby is a natural in the Lemieux role of the elder statesman and legend. Somewhat shockingly, Crosby (38) is the same age now as Lemieux was in 2003, though the current Pens’ captain has a lot more left in the tank at this point of his career. Lemieux would only play ten games in that season, and only had 36 total more games to go by this point as his playing days wound down to a slow trickle.

In some ways, the position of the team from then to now isn’t alike at all. The modern day Pens are completely viable as an entity – they might not win a lot on the ice but they have no questions of making payroll or potentially moving. Even though there are questions of ownership lingering, the Penguins are locked into their lease in Pittsburgh for 15 more years and the NHL has always gone to bat to help keep the franchise anchored in western PA. They’re healthy and there’s no risk of the worst case scenario of the team being shuttered or packing up and leaving town, at this point it’s just the run of the mill, average type of rebuild.

One could argue that even the famous graphic above didn’t get it right. Ryan Malone, one of the lone pieces along with Fleury and Brooks Orpik that would remain with the team until they climbed back up the standings again, didn’t make the advertisement, while Ramzi Abid (who scored only three goals in 19 career games with the Pens) and Guillaume Lefebrve (who spent all of 2003-04 in Wilkes-Barre) did. That goes to show that marketing will never know or quite get the particulars exactly right, but the spirit of the campaign lives on.

In 2025-26, the Pens still have Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang as franchise holdovers from the past. For now at least, Erik Karlsson remains to add star power. All would be a far cry from that 2003-04 season where defenseman Dick Tarnstrom famously led the team in scoring with just 52 points, and the team only had one 20 goal scorer (Malone) and just one player to finish with 50 points (Aleksey Morozov).

Who could be the modern X-Generation?

Rutger McGroarty fits the part. A young, exciting player that plays with emotion is bound to be a fan favorite in any era and give the folks someone easy to root for. Ville Koivunen, too. Sprinkle in some Owen Pickering, Philip Tomasino and maybe even a bit deeper with the hope and promise of Tristan Broz and Avery Hayes and there’s high potential for a “these might not all be THE guys, but they’re going to be OUR guys for now” short-term nucleus until that next wave of elite talent hits.

And, who knows, just as Fleury, Malone and Orpik were a part of the Pens’ team just four years later that made the Stanley Cup Final, there’s some track record for some of the transitional batch of players sticking around until the Pens might be competitive again.

For player development the Pens will work to try and get as many long-term contributors as they can drum up, but sadly prospects can capture the imagination more easily than they can develop into all having long and fruitful NHL careers. The X-Generation 20 years ago was proof of that, and finding some joy and assigning long-term promise to a short-term tough situation. Pro sports goes in cycles — what goes up must eventually come down — and the Penguins are long overdue for a rebuilding period.

The 2025-26 version of the Pittsburgh Penguins might not yet be going full X-Generation, but as the Crosby/Malkin era winds down and the team ambles on looking to restock the organization with long-term talent adds, they’re not too far off either.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66632/the-new-x-generation-for-the-penguins

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

September Arrives

Depending on where you are located, there has been a crisp, fall feeling in the air over the past few weeks, especially here in Western Pennsylvania. Daytime temperatures vary anywhere between the mid-60s to 70s with nights dipping down as low as the mid-40s in the some places. Combine that with kids heading back to school and football season starting, you could be forgiven for thinking we were entering October and not still waiting on September.

Well that wait is over now as the calendar flips from August to September, meaning hockey season is just over the horizon. It’s been almost five months since the Pittsburgh Penguins wrapped up their 2024-25 season back in April, but now the 2025-26 campaign is just weeks away.

Although no actual regular season games will be played in the month of September, it still marks the beginning on the hockey season with the start of training camp and preseason games on the schedule over the next 30 days before the real thing arrives in November.

No date has yet been set for the official opening of Penguins training camp, but past years suggest that will come in around two weeks. Before camp, the Penguins prospects will participate in the annual Prospects Challenge from September 11-15 in Buffalo along with prospects from New Jersey, Boston, Buffalo, and Columbus. Keep your eyes peeled for a roster in the coming days as the tournament gets closer.

Shortly thereafter, training camp will begin at UPMC Lemieux in Cranberry leading into the preseason opener on September 22 against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Center. Hockey returns to PPG Paints Arena on Friday, September 26 with the Detroit Red Wings in town for a preseason contest.

For those of us starved for hockey, September serves as a nice appetizer before the real deal comes in October. There are certainly a lot of questions surrounding the Penguins as they enter 2025-26, and perhaps even more concerns. Even the most optimistic fans are probably low on the team heading into the season, but having hockey back is always a treat.

Even if the Penguins do struggle this season like many fans expect there is still much to look forward to during the 2025-26 season.

The next generation of Penguin players are ready to start making their mark with the likes of Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen pushing for opening night roster spots with plenty of more young talent waiting in the wings.

It’s another season of Sidney Crosby which we should never take for granted and it may be the final season of Evgeni Malkin who deserves to go out being hailed as a hero by the home fans. Make sure you get a chance to see those talents before it becomes too late.

Olympic hockey is on the slate for February with NHL players set to take part for the first time since all the way back in 2014. We know Crosby will be taking part for Team Canada but there are a few other Penguins who could be making the trip to Italy as well.

Those are just a few of the highlights awaiting hockey fans this upcoming season. We still have to wait a short time more for it all to get under way, but with September having arrived, we can see the long, slow summer coming to an end with the promise of hockey just around the corner.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66762/september-arrives

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Could the Penguins acquire (but never play) legendary goalie?

Admittedly a little click bait-ish, but more of an intriguing thought for one impending trade.

The Montreal Canadiens need to trade Carey Price. The goalie hasn’t played since the 2021-22 season and has a knee issue that retired him. Price’s contract goes through this season, and it would be better-served for the Habs to clear him off the books. They have to pay a big bonus in September, then it should be time to trade him.

Chris Johnston on SDPN says once Carey Price's bonus gets paid out in September, there is a high chance that contract gets moved.

— NHL Watcher (@NHL_Watcher) July 16, 2025

Turns out that day was yesterday, September 1.

Carey Price's contract should be traded this upcoming week, with sources suggesting San Jose, Chicago or Pittsburgh as destinations.

The Canadiens are trading Price's contract to open themselves to the possibility of another trade.

Timing on that is TBD. https://t.co/xr4Pjy0YyW

— Marco D'Amico (@mndamico) August 31, 2025

The Penguins love to get “something for nothing” these days, and adding Price’s $10.5 million cap hit while paying him little actual money certainly qualifies. Following that $5.5 million bonus that the Habs paid yesterday, Price is due $2.0 million in real money over the course of the 2025-26 season, yet he also is attached with a whopping $10.5 million cap hit.

That imbalance and hefty cap hit presents a problem for Montreal. Keeping Price would mean dipping into long-term injured reserve, an oft misunderstood topic of NHL salary cap management. LTIR is not a comfortable or preferable place for any team to be, even one that can easily afford it like Montreal. Under this system, it would be much better for the Habs, who made the playoffs last season as they take steps forward in their rebuild turning into a regular contender, to drop Price’s contract. That would allow them to be under the salary cap and use the added space to accrue even more space by next trade deadline for them to exploit.

We haven’t had a good “retired played traded to a random team in a while” — it’s akin to the Arizona Coyotes adding such players like Chris Pronger, Pavel Datsyuk and Marian Hossa — even though all were retired and never even reported to town. Other teams have done it too, Florida picked up Marc Savard’s contract in 2016, Nathan Horton was added to Toronto, Ryan Clowe to San Jose.

From the recent rumors, it seems like San Jose has the recent inside track to acquire Price’s cap hit. The Sharks have $29 million in cap space, compared to $13 million for the Pens. San Jose, in fact, is projected to be under the salary cap floor of $70.6 million (they have $66.1 on the books), so either through trades or free agency it looks like they will have to add somewhere to their payroll, making Price an extra juicy target for them.

For the Pens, acquiring Price would push them up towards the upper limit but still comfortably under the salary cap. Such a move also offers the flexibility to move as many veterans as they wanted without bringing back any cap hits in return and remaining cap compliant.

Would the price (lower case p, intentionally) be worth it as a dumping ground for a bad contract? That depends on the return, but it might be lower than you think. While Florida did gain a second round pick in 2016 for taking on Savard’s deal, in 2018 the Sharks added Clowe for little return, their benefit was getting up to the cap floor for free. The rest of the returns have landed somewhere in the middle of that range, Arizona got a third round pick in exchange for adding Hossa’s contract, and the Coyotes got a better first round draft pick in exchange for taking on Datsyuk. Arizona got a free player (albeit a limited one) in Nicklas Grossmann as their benefit for taking on the Pronger deal.

So, probably don’t expect the Penguins to walk away with a huge return if they do agree to take on Price. The deal will be structured and focused mostly on Montreal getting to drop a contract more than anything. If the reports are accurate that they have a couple of options of teams willing to take on the deal, then presumably the price will be driven down to a low benefit. Picking up Price makes the most sense on paper for a team like the Sharks who need to get up to the cap floor anyways, but Kyle Dubas and the Pens have been using their cap space for a while now to their advantage to get a litte “something for nothing” type of transactions. The opportunity for that is on the table with Carey Price, but beyond being a notable trivia line about what team he technically “ended up on” at the end of his contract, the upcoming trade probably isn’t going to have much bigger ramifications for the team that makes it.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/rumors/66403/could-the-penguins-acquire-but-never-play-legendary-goalie

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Rushed up CBA changes that could impact the Penguins

The NHL and their players have agreed to a new CBA to begin in September 2026. But that wasn’t quick enough of a start date for some of the changes and the two sides have agreed to make a variety of the changes begin a year earlier with some good old fashioned “rolling implementation” of key areas.

Sources: The #NHL and #NHLPA have agreed to a rolling implementation schedule for CBA changes.

Among them: the new playoff salary cap system will come into effect *this season* for the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 2, 2025

This first one is interesting, and potentially harmful to the Penguins. Other NHL teams can’t accrue space on a daily basis any longer in order to have plenty of room to add a high-priced veteran near or at the trade deadline any longer. That’s bad news for teams looking to fit in, say a Bryan Rust or Rickard Rakell, they’ve have to do so at the full cap hit value, barring any trade retentions. Oh, and retaining just got more difficult since it can only be done one time, starting now.

CBA Transition Dates – PuckPedia Breaking News

Effective now (25-26 Season):

-LTIR Changes
-Playoff Cap
-No Deferred Comp
-No Paper Loans
-Double Retention Restriction

Check out this full breakdown on when various CBA changes go into effecthttps://t.co/bzpaYLcIIY

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) September 2, 2025

These rule tweaks all but assure that if/when Pittsburgh trades players like Erik Karlson, or Rust and Rakell that they can expect to have to bring back some salary from over-priced players from the other team to help balance the salary situations out. There was already a good chance of that happening, but these changes will make it tougher to do business and teams have to get even more creative to have the contenders stay compliant.

It’s not all bad news. The NHL is going to negotiate with the CHL about moving the upcoming changes ahead of schedule for the rules regarding 19-year olds that are currently blocked from playing in the AHL. According to PuckPedia, that’s not been agreed to or finalized yet, but still are in the works.

Correction/Clarification:

The 19 year old AHL change is not yet in effect. It requires agreement with CHL, & the NHL/NHLPA have agreed to push to get this agreement & change done for this season. However, those negotiations have not started yet & no guarantee it's effective… https://t.co/NYT6l1xSaK

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) September 2, 2025

Should those negotiations go well, the Penguins would have the option of sending Harrison Brunicke to Wilkes-Barre for 2025-26, instead of back to his junior team in Kamloops.

Players will have until Sept. 15, 2026 to sign deals with current structure (term, signing bonus, variability). All deals signed after Sept. 16, 2026 will be subject to new CBA.

Also: Changes to player dress code and players' ability to endorse wine/spirits begins immediately.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 2, 2025

Starting in September 2026, teams will be limited to signing their own players for a maximum of seven years, down from the current eight. This matter shouldn’t effect the Penguins too much, though if they wanted they could negotiate Rutger McGroarty an eight-year deal if it can be signed from July 1 – Sept 15, 2026, or could sign Ville Koivunen for eight years any time up until the new limit takes effect. Probably no big deal there, but something to moderately consider perhaps if they team wanted to bring a young player’s cap hit down a little on a super-long contract.

Overall, nothing too terribly Earth-shaking for a team like the Pens, but their players will get to dress a little more comfortably and now the clock is starting for which player gets the first wine/spirits endorsement.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66804/rushed-up-cba-changes-that-could-impact-the-penguins

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Metro Moves: 2025-26 New York Rangers preview

September is the month that the NHL starts lurching back to life, and with so much of our focus centered around the Penguins, we’ll take the next week or so to look into the Pens’ biggest rivals. How did their off-season go? What could they look like? What are their short-term goals and expectations for the season? We’ll try to give a sense of those types of things as we start to set the stage for the puck dropping on the 2025-26 season. And we’ll begin with a notable team in the New York Rangers.

It’s been a wild last 12 months for the Manhattan hockey club. 2023-24 saw NYR win the Presidents Trophy as the league’s top regular season team and then defeat Washington and Carolina in the playoffs before bowing out in six games to the Florida Panthers. Since then, it’s basically been downhill – the Rangers failed to qualify for the 2025 playoffs. Their GM listed several key players available for trade, and dealt away their captain midseason. There was a fairly contentious and increasingly public negotiation with their franchise player, Igor Shesterkin, that resulted in a positive result with a contract extension. The coach was fired. Lots of turbulence there, almost a soap opera of dramatic storylines swinging in various different directions.

That leaves New York in a curious place for 2025-26. Their aging core is a year older, and either in an irreversible decline or at least going through one heck of a bump in the road. NYR added Mike Sullivan, no stranger towards getting the most out of veteran cores. How will it go for them? Might be good, might be bad, but it definitely will be one of the NHL’s more interesting situations to watch unfold.

Key changes​

Additions: The Rangers signed one of the biggest free agent contracts of the summer by giving Vladislav Gavrikov (formerly of the Kings) $49 million over seven years ($7.0m cap hit). Regardless of how that deal might age in the future, it should solidify the NYR defense in the present by giving them one of the more competent and solid defensive defenders in the game. The Rangers were pretty quiet in terms of additions other than that big swing, they brought on forward Taylor Raddish following his 27-point season in Washington last year on a modest $1.5m cap hit, gave former Penguin Conor Sheary a PTO and that’s about it for notable adds, besides of course getting Sullivan himself. (Sullivan, by the way, brought David Quinn and Ty Hennes from the Pens to be assistant coaches, Joe Sacco rounds out the staff).

Losses: Chris Kreider, drafted by NYR in 2009 and a staple of the team since he turned pro during the 2012 playoffs, ends his days in New York after being traded this summer to Anaheim for a third round pick in a move designed so NYR could clear salary…The other big departure is the Rangers deciding to trade K’Andre Miller, instead of giving him a contract extension. Miller is off to Carolina for prospect Scott Morrow and a future first round pick…The other losses were minimal, Zac Jones departs after never fitting in, Arthur Kaliyev was a waiver pickup that moved on in free agency and Calvin de Haan left as well.

Projected lineup (from nhl.com)​

Will Cuylle — J.T. Miller — Mika Zibanejad
Artemi Panarin — Vincent Trocheck — Alexis Lafreniere
Gabe Perreault — Juuso Parssinen — Jonny Brodzinski
Adam Edstrom — Sam Carrick — Taylor Raddysh

Vladislav Gavrikov / Adam Fox
Carson Soucy / Will Borgen
Urho Vaakanainen / Braden Schneider

Igor Shesterkin
Jonathan Quick

This lineup is…fine I guess? The top-six ought to be a strength, Panarin (550 career points as a Ranger in 430 games) can always be counted on to produce big numbers and the Rangers get a full season out of Miller (who scored 35 points in 32 games upon being traded back to NY last season). That should give enough raw firepower with fan favorite Will Cuylle developing into a quality supporting piece and Vincent Trocheck serving as a great center for Panarin. Down the lineup, Perreault is a former first round pick who could add some skill and secondary scoring.

The defense looks passable but not much more, likely to rise or fall depending on what kind of seasons and performances the Rangers get out of Soucy and Borgen. It will likely be nothing exceptional but, again, nothing terrible either, perfectly passable without standing out much one way or the other.

In net, all the eggs are in the Shesterkin basket. Shesterkin played a career high in games last year (61) but also had his worst NHL season (.905 save%, 2.86 GAA, first time more losses than wins). NY will be counting on a better statistical year from the league’s new highest paid goalie, but should stand to see some positive regression there considering how much of an absolute defensive gongshow the Rangers were under former coach Peter Laviolette last season.

—

The big questions​

Is the future now? Much of the Rangers core from the early 2020’s is up in the air; Panarin is a free agent after this season, Mika Zibanejad is starting to fade away as an effective front line player, Kreider and Jacob Trouba are gone. The Rangers rearranged the pieces by sending Miller out and bringing Gavrikov in, but did little else with their personnel this summer, without much room to do more (CapWages projects them with $1.5 million in current space). This year feels like a last chance for what they have, more changes are always right around the corner in one of the most impatient markets in the league.

How will Sullivan do? Sullivan had 35 million reasons to join the Rangers, but beyond the pay considerations this is an interesting project for him to take on. Obviously it’s a team with more ambition and willingness to compete in the short-term than what his previous team has, but it also seems like a fragile operation. GM Chris Drury basically conducted mind games with key members of his team last year, some of whom are now gone. Is all that resolved and in the rear view? Can Sullivan stabilize and steady this club and get them pointed back to the playoffs? The Rangers don’t seem like they have the material on paper to be a championship contender, but if Shesterkin gets back to a Vezina finalist type of level in net then they should be able to be some level of competitive. Just what that level shows to be will be a very interesting one to watch unfold.

Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..​

Reasonable best case scenario — Buoyed by the upgrade from Laviolette to Sullivan (the Rangers finished a shocking 30th in 5v5 high danger chances allowed last season), the team stabilizes and tightens up significantly by playing smarter and better. This helps Shesterkin bounce back from a substandard 2024-25 to have a quality 2025-26. The Rangers aren’t overly deep but are top-heavy enough with Panarin and Miller to rack up a ton of regular season wins. Gavrikov’s steadying presence helps Adam Fox get back into the Norris conversation. The Rangers are right there with the Devils competing for 2nd/3rd place in the division, safely qualifying for the playoffs.

Reasonable worst case scenario — Gavrikov is a free agent flop in year one that has difficulty acclimating to New York, causing significant issues on the blueline. Tension lingers and occasionally boils over in the press between GM Drury and under-performing vets like Zibanejad. Panarin’s contract negotiation hangs over the team and fans once the media gets a hold of it. Sullivan’s coaching changes don’t change that many/most the best players on the team are in their 30’s. Shesterkin isn’t as elite as he was from 2020-24 for the second season in a row. The Rangers don’t have much unity or cohesion and again end up outside the playoff bubble in a 2025-26 that plays out too closely like 2024-25 did.

Overall, between Sullivan, Shesterkin, Panarin, Fox and Miller, the Rangers should have the cornerstone pieces of a playoff team this year. They won’t be confused with a true championship contender, but they have shaken things up enough in the last few months to likely have a better season they did last year that was filled by too much turmoil and drama. They’ll be a little bit more no-nonsense this year and that should help the Rangers get back to the postseason.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66798/metro-moves-2025-26-new-york-rangers-preview

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Gavin McKenna, Penn State to play outdoors at Beaver Stadium next year

News that may have slipped through the cracks for some readers last weekend, as college football was heating up: Gavin McKenna, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and one of, if not the biggest recruit in college hockey history, and his Nittany Lion teammates will host Michigan State in the first outdoor men’s hockey game at Beaver Stadium on Jan. 31.

A second game will also take place between Penn State’s women’s team and Robert Morris University.

Beaver Stadium, home to Penn State’s football team, has a capacity of 106,572, making it the second-largest stadium in the United States. Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor holds the top spot with 107,601 seats.

“Our team and so many Penn Staters are extremely excited about this game in Beaver Stadium,” Penn State men’s hockey coach Guy Gadowsky said. “It has been consistently asked of me since I arrived at Penn State, and I want to send thanks to (football) coach (James) Franklin for sharing his home with us, as well as (athletic director) Dr. Pat Kraft, (deputy AD) Vinnie James and the entire Penn State Athletics Department for making it happen.”

Penn State, entering its 14th season as an NCAA Division I program, reached the Frozen Four for the first time last season and later landed McKenna after he announced his decision to leave the WHL and commit to the Nittany Lions on July 8.

McKenna, 17, finished second in the Western Hockey League last season with 41 goals and 129 points in 56 games for the Medicine Hat Tigers. He was named player of the year in both the WHL and the Canadian Hockey League. Only Spokane’s Andrew Cristall had more points, with 48 goals and 132 points in 57 games.

“McKenna is in a special category that you only come across every few years,” NHL Central Scouting vice president and director Dan Marr said. “His offensive instincts and playmaking game are truly exceptional and it’s his composure, compete and maturity that really sell you on his talent.”

Times for the games will be announced at a later date.

With many PensBurgh readers based in and around the Pittsburgh area, will you be nabbing tickets to the outdoor spectacle or making a regular-season trip to Pegula Ice Arena to get a glimpse at the young phenom and other high-profile recruits like freshman defenseman Jackson Smith and forward prospect Aiden Fink?

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/6677...e-play-outdoors-beaver-stadium-michigan-state

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Metro Moves: 2025-26 New York Islanders preview

Scanning through the other teams in the Metropolitan Division, this feature will take a peak at what everyone else has been up to over the off-season and what to expect heading into the 2025-26 season. First up, we covered the New York Rangers, now we hop across the borough to check out the New York Islanders.

Key changes​

Additions: The big pickup for NYI this summer was Jonathan Drouin as a free agent for $8 million over a two-year contract ($4.0m cap hit). Drouin had a semi-successful career reboot the last two seasons with Colorado but only played 43 games last season. He’s been productive as a supporting player when healthy (scoring 56 points in 2023-24, and 37 points last season) but the big question on him remains how much a team will get out of him..NYI also won the derby to add high-scoring Russian forward Maxim Shabanov (67 points in 65 KHL games last season) but they 25-year old will have to prove how his size (5’8, 160 pounds) will hold up in the NHL. David Rittich was also signed as a goalie option with Semyon Varlamov dealing with a lower body injury.

Losses: The Islanders opted to trade Noah Dobson instead of signing him, so they’ll lose out on a defender who notched 109 points over the last two seasons…Matt Martin retired after a long career, though he only played 32 games last season. GM Lou Lamoriello also was let go in a big reset off the ice.

Projected lineup (from nhl.com)​

Jonathan Drouin — Bo Horvat — Kyle Palmieri
Anders Lee — Mathew Barzal — Simon Holmstrom
Anthony Duclair — Jean-Gabriel Pageau — Maxim Shabanov
Maxim Tsyplakov — Casey Cizikas — Emil Heineman

Alexander Romanov / Tony DeAngelo
Adam Pelech / Ryan Pulock
Matthew Schaefer / Scott Mayfield

Ilya Sorokin
David Rittich

New GM Mathieu Darche is angling for the future by trading Dobson mainly for two first round picks that won’t help this year, shortly after NYI traded long-time leader Brock Nelson for futures at the last trade deadline. As such, the right side of the defense looks weak with Pulock and Mayfield slowing down in major ways from their primes a few years ago and boom/bust DeAngelo set to step into the Dobson puck-moving role. The Isles were unable or unwilling to dump some veterans, so they have mis-mash of older players mixed with some younger options and based on the above don’t have a spot for Pierre Engvall (who still has a $3.0m cap hit for the next five years, courtesy of a Lamoriello signing).

This isn’t necessarily a bad lineup or a terrible team by any means, but it’s not one that looks like it has a large upside. Last year only two Islanders had over 50 points (Horvat and Lee). They didn’t have a single player with 30 goals, or even 30 assists (though Barzal would have topped the latter, had he not missed much of the season with injury). It’s not a very dynamic team these days and it didn’t change much. Their returning top-5 scorers from last year are going to be the following age this season: 30, 35, 34, 24 and 33. Even the young guy (Holmstrom) is fairly anonymous and analogous of the team — kinda good, but not a huge standout.

Almost every team out there at least has preseason hopes to make a run for a playoff spot, but eight teams have to fall short. This Islanders team fell short last season by nine points, and the biggest change is that their key players are a year older than last time.

—

The big questions​

Will Schaefer make a run at the lineup? The Islanders got a huge bonus by winning the draft lottery and moving from 10th to 1st and getting to select Schaefer. The youngster projects as a future first-pairing defenseman and might even be good enough to make the NHL lineup this season. How he progresses and handles the NHL competition will be something worth watching, the Islanders could badly use a dynamic defender. Schaefer should be that eventually, but can he start off right away?

How will Patrick Roy do as an inherited coach? Darche elected to keep Roy in his job as head coach, but in most cases in the NHL it seems like this is a ‘dead man walking’ position, especially since the Islanders missed the playoffs last season and arguably are expected to do about the same this year as the team resets their deck and moves to the future. Roy is always appointment TV with his fiery demeanor and if things start out rocky the whispers about his seat getting hot could make it an uncomfortable time on the Island.

Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..​

Reasonable best case scenario — Ilya Sorokin rebounds to his 2021-23 form, where he often carried the team further than they deserved to go. Youngsters like Holmstrom, Tsyplakov, Shabanov and Schaefer take steps and help supplant a decent cast (Barzal, Horvat, Palmieri, Lee) and Drouin stays healthy to make the Isles a tough out on a nightly basis. The new assistant coaches improve the dual 31st ranked power play and 31st ranked penalty kill enough that the team is right in the mix for a playoff spot and even stays ahead of the fray a little to sneak into the postseason.

Reasonable worst case scenario — The defense doesn’t perform well and Sorokin isn’t able to be a difference-maker as a result. Roy’s coaching becomes erratic and the team goes into a slump of inconsistency. Key players like Barzal and Drouin (each limited to 30-something games last season) again miss significant time and there isn’t the scoring depth to stand up. Special teams doesn’t improve enough, and NYI stays bottom-quartile there, rendering them essentially as a non-factor. As a result, the Isles slip towards the bottom of the division and aren’t much of a playoff threat by the Olympic break in February.

—
Darche has NYI looking deeper into the future for the next wave and will have his hands full cleaning up some of the mess that Lamoriello left him. Time is the best solution for that and the Isles’ reboot achieved a big boost by winning the draft lottery. They’ll have a puncher’s chance to try their best to get in the playoff race, but for the short-term this looks like a team in transition that isn’t primed for a great 2025-26 season and pointing towards a bottom-half finish within the division this year.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66836/metro-moves-2025-26-new-york-islanders-preview

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Over/Under for the Pittsburgh Penguins new veteran players this season

The Pittsburgh Penguins offseason has (so far) looked very similar to their offseason from a year ago. No real major long-term additions, taking on a bad contract or two to accumulate more future draft picks and signing some short-term, reclamation project veterans that might be able to be flipped in March at the NHL Trade Deadline. It is not terribly exciting, but they are the types of moves rebuilding teams are going to make.

Still, there are some new faces coming in and it is worth looking at what they might be able to accomplish for the Penguins, even if they do not end up playing here very long.

So let’s continue with our Over/Under series for the 2025-26 season and try to set some reasonable expectations for what the new players might be able to do. You can catch up with last week’s article on the young players here.

Anthony Mantha: Over/Under: 14.5 goals​

Meet the new Anthony Beauvillier, a veteran forward on a short-term deal that is probably going to get some decent minutes, a chance to pump in some goals, and get traded to a playoff team around the deadline for a second-round pick.

I’ve actually liked Mantha a lot throughout his career, even if it has not always panned out the way it was expected. But he’s been a productive player when healthy, always has strong possession and underlying numbers and is a big body that can play around the net and score some goals. The biggest issue is that he’s rarely been healthy for a full season in his career.

He is just one year removed from a 23-goal season in 2022-23, and was off to a strong start in Calgary this past season before a knee injury sidelined him for the remainder of the season.

How he recovers from that will be a big variable in what he is able to do and produce, but he’s averaged a 24-goal, 50-point pace per 82 games throughout his career.

I do not expect him to play 82 games for the Penguins, either by injury or trade.

Still, is it a stretch to think he can put up some respectable numbers before getting dealt away to a playoff team? No. No it is not.

Justin Brazeau: Over/Under: 8.5 goals​

This would be this year’s Blake Lizotte, a solid depth player on a cheap contract that’s not really going to move the needle much but might still be a nice addition to the bottom-six.

Brazeau took the long road to the NHL, going undrafted and working his way up through the ECHL and AHL before finally getting his first shot with the Boston Bruins during the 2022-23 season. He made a strong first impression with five goals and seven total points in 19 games, before scoring 10 goals in 57 games to open the 2024-25 season before being traded to the Minnesota Wild for a sixth-round pick and two players. His strong production did not continue in Minnesota, with him scoring just one goal in 19 games.

I don’t have terribly high expectations here. He has scored some goals at times, but we are still ultimately only talking about a 95-game sample size in the NHL.

I could him scoring 10-15 goals and everybody thinking, “hey, that’s not a bad signing,” and I could see him scoring five goals and everybody saying “this guy’s just wasting all of our time.”

Matt Dumba: Over/Under: 12.5 points​

To this point this has been one of the Penguins’ few ventures this offseason into essentially buying a draft pick (the Connor Clifton trade might also come in under that umbrella), getting a future second-round pick from the Dallas Stars to take on Dumba’s remaining contract.

There was a time in Dumba’s career where he was a very good top-four defenseman that could put 30-45 points on the board.

This is no longer that time.

Here is what his point totals have looked like over the past five years:

2020-21: 21 points in 51 games
2021-22: 27 points in 57 games
2022-23: 14 points in 79 games
2023-24: 12 points in 76 games
2024-25: 10 points in 63 games

His offense has obviously started to deteriorate in a big way.

I also do not know what his role is actually going to look like. He is a right-shot defenseman on a team that already has a lot of options on the right side, including Erik Karlsson (for now), Kris Letang, and Clifton. That list also does not even include top-prospect Harrison Brunicke who is also a right-shot defenseman and could be an option at some point this season.

A Karlsson trade would obviously open up a slot, and the left-side is so devoid of talent that somebody is almost certainly going to play on their off-side here at least somewhat.

When you combine Dumba’s already declining point production, as well as a role that is likely to put him at the bottom of the lineup, I just don’t see a lot of opportunities for points for him.

That doesn’t mean the Penguins will not be able to extract some value out of him. He is still going to play with an edge and could be a trade option later in the season if they can put him into some favorable spots and boost his value a little.

Connor Clifton: Over/Under: 15.5 points​

The Penguins traded one of their Con(n)ors (Timmins) for another Connor (Clifton) and picked up the No. 39 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft (where they selected defenseman Peyton Kettles) in the process.

It also helped Buffalo shed some salary, which seems to be the only thing Sabres owner Terry Pegula cares about.

As noted above with Dumba, Clifton is yet another right-shot defenseman that is going to be vying for playing time somewhere in the lineup.

Like most of the additions this offseason, I think expectations for what Clifton are going to do here should be limited. Very limited. He’s a capable NHL defenseman, but he’s not going to put up big numbers and he’s not going to play a shutdown role defensively. He’s a third-pairing defenseman and one of 10 pending unrestricted free agents on the roster. He’s another guy that they might be able to pump up a little and extract a pick out of somebody for in a trade.

He has topped at least 15 points in each of the past three seasons with Boston and Buffalo respectively. I don’t think it’s asking a lot to expect something similar to that this season with the Penguins.

Parker Wotherspoon: Over/Under: 5.5 points​

This is actually a pretty solid depth signing, because even though Wotherspoon is not going to produce much offensively he has posted some strong defensive metrics in his brief NHL career, and the Penguins are not paying him much at all ($1 million per season over two years). It is a solid value signing. Just do not expect much offensively. He has 16 points in 108 regular season games, and even though the defense is not great for the Penguins they have a lot of people that are going to get playing time. Somebody is going to be the odd man out.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/pittsburg...urgh-penguins-new-veteran-players-this-season

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Metro Moves: 2025-26 New Jersey Devils preview

Sticking in the great New York City area to complete the Metro part of the Metropolitan Division after completing previews on the Rangers and Islanders, today we turn to the New Jersey Devils.

The Devils are a team looking for more entering 2025-26. They (barely) qualified for the playoffs last season, but had enough key injuries to be a non-factor in a first round loss. New Jersey is a testament to a build-through-the-draft rebuild, having acquired six top-10 picks from 2015-22; including picking first overall twice and adding, a second, fourth, sixth and seventh overall pick along the way.

It looked like the rebuild was taking flight after a first round series win in 2023, however some injury luck has turned bad and NJ failed to qualify for the playoffs in 2024 and then eeked into the final spot in the Metropolitan Division last season (by two points over Cinderella Columbus) and quickly bowed out. The time is now to compete and rise from a mid-range team into one of the better ones in the conference. Or it should be, anyways.

Key changes​

Additions: It’s been a quiet summer in New Jersey. Connor Brown parlayed an excellent playoff with Edmonton (5 goals + 4 assists in 20 games) into a $12 million contract over four years to come add some depth to the Devils. They also brought on Evgenii Dadonov — who scored a tidy (and surprisingly high) 20 goals and 20 assists for Dallas last season — to a very team-friendly deal of a $1.0 million contract for one year. The Devils also signed their 2019 fourth-round draft pick, Russian forward Arseni Gritsyuk (44 points in 49 KHL games last season).

Losses: Not much to speak of either. The Devs dropped forward Erik Haula in a trade to Nashville for a draft pick to clear some salary space, and saw a few free agents who were either minor pieces or short-term adds depart over the summer (Tomas Tatar, Curtis Lazar, Brian Dumoulin).

Projected lineup (from nhl.com)​

Ondrej Palat — Jack Hughes — Jesper Bratt
Timo Meier — Nico Hischier — Stefan Noesen
Arseni Gritsyuk — Dawson Mercer — Connor Brown
Paul Cotter — Cody Glass — Evgenii Dadonov

Brenden Dillon / Dougie Hamilton
Luke Hughes* / Brett Pesce
Jonas Siegenthaler / Simon Nemec

Jacob Markstrom
Jake Allen

Hughes is still to-be-signed as a restricted free agent, but expected to be wrapped up in time for the season. Defender Johnathan Kovacevic (who signed a $20 million, five year contract extension earlier this year) will miss the start of the season recovering from knee surgery. As an aside, the Devils have a real gift from Jack Hughes playing on a long-term contract worth $8.0 million per year (considered the best value contract in the whole league), but they take that gift and use the excess on pieces like Kovacevic, Brown and Cody Glass (resigned for $2.5m). Will that be enough or wise usage of the extra space? We shall see!

The injury bug has been a tough opponent to wrangle so far. Between both Hughes boys, Hamilton and Siegenthaler, there’s a bad penchant for getting hurt at the key time of year popping up with unfortunate frequency. Even Bratt had to have shoulder surgery shortly after the end of last season. If that luck changes this year, so too could the fate for the end of their season.

Beyond that, the trade adds for NJ will go a long way to determining their success. Markstrom was only OK at best last season, his first in Jersey. Ditto Meier, who has been a good add but perhaps not as much of a revelation and transformative one as initially expected and hoped. Hamilton has even had his name included in some trade whispers (fairly or not). If those three have big years and they can keep the Hughes boys in the lineup, NJD’s fortunes surely look a lot brighter.

—

Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..​

Reasonable best case scenario — The Devils have health, and become a big problem for the rest of the division and conference with their skill, depth and head coach Sheldon Keefe. Markstrom plays more like he did earlier in his career in Calgary to give them an above average netminder, and the young defense of L. Hughes, Simon Nemec and prospect Seamus Casey give some extra juice. New Jersey rolls to 100+ points and is right there contending with Carolina for the top spot in the division.

Reasonable worst case scenario — 1-2 of the Hughes brothers is out down the stretch. Those veterans mentioned above (Markstrom, Hamilton, Meier) are not huge impact players or making a big positive difference, for whatever reason. The young players don’t shine and the Palat/Noesen level players have a down year. The inconsistencies continue and NJ is fighting for a playoff spot come April, instead of being comfortably in one.

—
The Devils have good players like Hughes, Hischier and Bratt in their prime. They have plenty of skill to round out the team. While they might not be an obvious pick as a championship contender that has no holes or weaknesses, NJ should be more of a top-5 team in the conference during the regular season rather than a middle-5 one.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66850/metro-moves-2025-26-new-jersey-devils-preview

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Penguins to giveaway ‘Big Three Legacy’ series of bobbleheads this season

The Pittsburgh Penguins have announced three bobblehead giveaway nights for the upcoming season that will feature the team’s “Big Three Legacy” players on the roster.

The team announced the plans Wednesday for the bobblehead giveaways that will feature Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang.

The trio of “Big Three Legacy” players, as the team calls them, have played a combined 58 years for the Penguins franchise and now they’re being honored with bobblehead giveaways.

The longest-tenured trio in sports. Now on your shelf.

Introducing: The Big Three Legacy bobblehead series.
: https://t.co/onqXQtP82v pic.twitter.com/HCMAfAAvVJ

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 3, 2025

The team says the first 7,500 fans in attendance at the following games will receive one of the bobbleheads.

• Saturday, December 13 vs. San Jose Sharks — Sidney Crosby bobblehead
• Saturday, January 10 vs. Calgary Flames — Evgeni Malkin bobblehead
• Saturday, March 21 vs. Winnipeg Jets — Kris Letang bobblehead

The team says that the three bobbleheads will interlock to create a larger memorabilia piece for fans who are able to collect all three items.

A full promotional schedule for the season is expected to be announced soon.

The Penguins’ regular season will get underway on October 7 when they visit New York City to face former head coach Mike Sullivan who is now behind the bench for the Rangers.

Puck drop that night is scheduled for 8 p.m.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/6...hree-legacy-series-of-bobbleheads-this-season

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Metro Moves: 2025-26 Philadelphia Flyers preview

We’ve finished up the greater NYC area recapping the summers of the Devils, Rangers and Islanders, today we look to the other side of the commonwealth to examine the Philadelphia Flyers.

Long the classic example of the big market team with limited patience and seeking quick fixes, when Daniel Briere was promoted to general manager in the spring of 2023 he promised a slow and careful rebuild to try and finally get things right. Briere has mostly stuck to his guns, avoiding flashy trades or big free agents signings while letting some of his bad contracts expire and trading veterans for future pieces. It’s been very out of character for this franchise to sit in the background and perform the quiet, slow process of assembling young talent, but the Flyers have chosen this path for a while now.

The Flyers are looking to build through the draft — they just made five picks within the first 48 selections in 2025. Between this year’s draft and last year’s, Philadelphia has made nine selections within the top-60 picks. That will take some time to pan out for the future, but their trades and recent down years have positioned them to have one of the top prospect pools in the years to come.

The John Tortorella saga is finally over after nearly three seasons. Tortorella was arguably a little too effective at coaxing out a 38-33-11 record in 2023-24 from a team that was angling more for the bottom of the standings but then finally imploded at the end of last year. In his place comes Rick Tocchet. The former Flyer player received a massive contract of five years at reportedly over $5 million per year. NHL Coaching salaries are starting to increase across the board and Tocchet was one of the most sought after coaches available, which parlayed into the second biggest salary around after Mike Sullivan with the Rangers. This is one area the big market team can still act like a big market team and spend whatever they please in order to get the coach they wanted, and the Flyers made sure that happened.

Key changes​

Additions: The Flyers’ two biggest adds both targeted their forward group. They picked up Trevor Zegras from Anaheim for a relatively low cost (sending Ryan Poehling and a second round pick back to the Ducks). Philadelphia also signed center Christian Dvorak, though only to a one-year deal worth $5.4 million. Philadelphia continues in the endless search in their net with the free agent add of Dan Vladar on a hefty $3.3 million contract for two years, despite Vladar not exactly shining in a backup role with Calgary in the past few years. On defense, the team added depth players Noah Juulsen and Dennis Gilbert.

Losses: There wasn’t a lot out the door this summer. The Flyers did more work at the deadline, shedding Joel Farabee, Morgan Frost and Scott Laughton. They pretty much kept everything since then, besides the trade of Poehling and allowing Jakob Pelletier (a portion of the return in the Farabee/Frost trade) to become a free agent and depart.

Projected lineup (from nhl.com)​

Matvei Michkov — Sean Couturier — Travis Konecny
Tyson Foerster — Noah Cates — Bobby Brink
Alex Bump — Trevor Zegras — Owen Tippett
Nicolas Deslauriers — Christian Dvorak — Garnet Hathaway

Travis Sanheim /Cam York
Nick Seeler / Jamie Drysdale
Dennis Gilbert / Noah Juulsen

Samuel Ersson
Dan Vladar

Veteran Rasmus Ristolainen is recovering from surgery, his return will presumably help the defense out some. Otherwise, the change from Tortorella to Tocchet will merit watching how much it will open up some of their players. The usage of some like York, Couturier and even Michkov was hit and miss depending on whether Torts was running hot or cold on them in the moment.

Michkov’s sophomore campaign will be watching. He finished fourth in Calder voting with a solid rookie year of 26 goals and 63 points in 80 games. Michkov offers some of that top-end, game-breaking skill that NHL teams salivate over. The Flyers will be counting on him to be their Kirill Kaprizov or David Pastrnak as the No. 1 winger capable of taking over games and be as dynamic as anyone. Those are big shoes to fill but the 20-year old appears to be on his way to shaping up like something similar.

—

The big questions​

What will happen in Zegras’ second act? Zegras put up 61 and 65 points in his first two full NHL seasons from 2021-23. He was on video game covers and emerging as a young star player before hitting the skids and falling out of favor in Anaheim while going through injuries. Zegras only has 15 and 32 points in his last two seasons (in just 31 and 57 games, respectively), leaving him at a crossroads in what is also a contract year for him. Will the switch to a new team invigorate his career? At still just 24-years old he should be approaching his prime, and could make Philadelphia look like geniuses if he’s able to get back on track.

Is this year just setting the table for things to come? It’s difficult not to see this as another year setting the table for the future. The Flyers have $6.7 million in cap space from trades and buyouts this season that goes away. All their vets like Couturier, the LTIR-retired Ryan Ellis and Ristolainen will tick away that much closer to ending. Philadelphia isn’t trying to be non-competitive on the ice, but their foot isn’t really on the gas yet either as they continue to reload and allow time for players like Porter Martone, Jett Luchanko and Oliver Bonk to get closer to NHL ready.

Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..​

Reasonable best case scenario — Tocchet comes in as a breath of fresh air to revive a locker room that was beaten down by the prior coach. The team plays more free and the Zegras and Dvorak adds down the middle give Philadelphia enough power to be a factor in the wild card race. Against all odds a goalie (be it Ersson, Vladar, Ivan Fedotov or Aleksei Kolosov) emerges as a viable NHL starter and the team makes a run to the playoffs.

Reasonable worst case scenario — The defense/goalie combo doesn’t hold up and the Flyers lose a lot of 5-4 or 4-3 type of games this season. Zegras gets hurt or doesn’t mesh well and doesn’t look like a long-term piece of the puzzle. It becomes another “wait until next year” type of season and sixth straight spring of no playoffs.

—
The Flyers are positioned this season in an interesting way. There’s not much in the way of expectations, so it won’t be difficult to exceed them, or at least provide an entertaining year under a new coach to set the stage for the future. Sooner or later with a rebuild, you’d like to see a team put it into gear (though maybe not this team..) but Philadelphia looks content to play out the string one more year and give it time for their younger prospects to gain experience.

This should be a team in a better spot 3-5 years from now — but then again 3-5 years ago that last statement could have been made with a similar sentiment and optimism and hasn’t truly gained much progress. Time and patience has been on Briere’s side so far since he’s only had a couple years to truly start his rebuild in earnest, but even then he did not adapt the building strategy to trade prime-aged parts like Konecny and Sanheim to strip all the way down and bottom out like the Chicago’s and San Jose’s of the world.

In some ways, though loathe as they might be to admit it, the Flyers and Penguins are running in a sort of parallel path these days. The two PA rivals have:

• Prioritized attempting to build up their top-60 draft picks (the Pens had four in 2025 and already have four in 2026, the Flyers as mentioned above had nine such picks in the prior two years) and look to the longer-term
• They haven’t been shy to trade veterans for futures (Laughton, Sean Walker, Frost and Farabee on one side, Jake Guentzel, Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor on the other) but haven’t ripped their NHL rosters down to the foundation to be excessively bad in the short-term
• They each have some vets who via age/contractual situations that they’re likely going to be stuck with for better or worse (Couturier, Letang) for a while longer
• Similar inefficient contracts or dead space of about $14 million this year (Ellis, plus Kevin Hayes/Laughton retentions, Cam Atkinson buyout vs. Ryan Graves, whatever it is Tristan Jarry becomes, arguably Hayes himself as a player, Jack Johnson buyout), though Philadelphia’s light at the end of the tunnel comes much quicker
• A pair of new coaches and coaching staff
• They both probably think they’ll be better off down the line than they will be immediately
• And they both have a lot of work to do on the draft and development side if they want to return to the days where they were making some waves in the playoffs

For this year, the Flyers look about like a sixth place team, maybe plus or minus a spot or so. By design, they’re not going for it just yet but efforts to add talents like Zegras and 2025 first rounder Porter Martone could pay off in seasons to come.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66859/metro-moves-2025-26-philadelphia-flyers-preview

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

The five Penguins players I am most curious about, 2025-26 edition

The influx of new players has slowed for the Penguins. Kyle Dubas brought upon sweeping changes when he first took over in the spring of 2023, bringing in eight new players for 2023-24. That number held strong with seven in 2024-25. This summer? So far, not so much. There could be as few as five newcomers, and they’re mostly not exactly of the exciting variety either — you’re not going to see too many Justin Brazeau or Connor Clifton jerseys in the crowd at the PPG Paints Arena this winter.

That turns this year’s list of some of the most interesting players a little more internal in nature. Doesn’t make it worse, just a little different.

Owen Pickering

It was nice to see Pickering earn some NHL time (to the tune of 25 games) in his rookie season, but his NHL stint ended in January getting some tough love in a hard practice from Sidney Crosby working him over and then struggling in his last handful of games. That was in January, now nine months and ago Pickering hasn’t been seen since on this level. How much has the 21-year old used that to grow and improve? The vaunted leap from Year 1 to Year 2 is a big deal and it will be critical for Pickering to show some development based off of where he was previously. And, besides, the Penguins need someone to play on the left side of their defense. It would be a great development if Pickering can raise his level.

Arturs Silovs

Silovs’ last work was being great in the AHL playoffs, helping Abbotsford win the Calder Cup and being named the AHL’s playoff MVP. The AHL isn’t the NHL, but that’s a pretty good launching point for the future. Silovs needs waivers to be sent to the AHL, the whole reason Vancouver went in the direction to trade him for a draft pick to get something out of him, therefore we can probably expect him to make Pittsburgh’s NHL team out of camp as the backup goalie. It hasn’t been smooth sailing in the NHL level for Silovs, so we might not really want to see him for that long if it doesn’t go well, but right off the bat he will be a very interesting character to track.

Tommy Novak

Many have mostly forgotten about Novak, and there’s not much fault in that considering he only played two games with the Penguins last season before getting injured. Novak will draw attention once he gets back out there, though. He can do things like this:

Tommy Novak, that was NASTY… pic.twitter.com/Gsrh4ZpZNX

— NHL (@NHL) March 3, 2024

And he’s also a very busy player with a great analytical profile. Novak sets up teammates for chances with frequency, he is great at forechecking.

Yet, Novak’s former GM had a less than glowing review about Novak’s recent play:

“When (Novak) was a fourth-line, league-minimum guy and scoring while getting some sheltered minutes, that fit him just fine. When you move up the lineup, it’s harder to find your space and be productive. If you want to move up the lineup, and get paid more, there’s more responsibility.”

“There’s a reason that guys get the higher salaries, because most nights, they’re getting the harder matchups and they’re expected to produce,” Trotz explained.

Trotz, of course, hasn’t been the most savvy manager but his words can’t be totally dismissed. Novak still has to prove himself and bring an added level of consistency. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes in Pittsburgh, is he playing on the second line with Evgeni Malkin? Centering a third line of his own, perhaps with good friend and longtime teammate Phil Tomasino?

Ville Koivunen

Koivunen was great in Finland in 2023-24, scoring 56 points in 59 games. He followed that up with his first full season in North America by putting up 56 points in 63 games in the AHL and then getting a little taste of the NHL at the end of the season, which also went well with seven points in eight games.

It’s one thing to play out the string at the end of a season, it’s another thing to go through the full grind. By this time about six months from now, we’ll know a lot more about Koivunen and how big a piece of the puzzle he could be moving forward. His vision and passing ability are legit, it’s already apparent this is a special player in terms of how he sees the game and thinks the game. The curiosity will come in how he handles long stretches of play, can he get to the net? Can he keep up with his feet? Will he be effective and fit in longterm? So far there’s a lot to feel confident about and be impressed with, but Koivunen might not be a top-6 player for the next 5-10 years for the Penguins, there’s still a lot to prove and see out of him.

Avery Hayes / Tristan Broz

I’m going to stick these two together, because very strangely enough both of these players were born on the exact same day — October 10, 2002. What are the odds of that? (Also in states that border each other, though their listed hometowns of Westland, MI [Hayes] and River Falls, WI [Broz]) are about 650 miles away via automobile). Despite that common bday, they’ve taken very different paths to get here: Broz was heralded as a top player in his age range and made a second round pick in 2021, Hayes went undrafted and had to earn an NHL contract the hard way. They have some similarities too, Hayes won two OHL championships (in 2022 with Hamilton, in 2023 with Peterborough), Broz was a national champion at the University of Denver. Both are on the upswing and have a sort of knack for coming through and winning observers over.

So it’s only fitting to combine them as they look to make their NHL debuts in the same season. This might be better subtitled “players I’m curious to see in training camp” because that is more applicable or accurate for the time being. Still, it will be interesting to see what kind of opportunities players like Broz and Hayes get this season. Do the Pens continue to call-up players from Wilkes that are only warm body space fillers (Boko Imama, Joona Koppanen, Valtteri Puustinen, Emil Bemstrom, etc). Bemstrom is out of the organization now, but it would be nice to see players in the Broz/Hayes mold push up the organizational rankings beyond the type of vanilla and exceedingly limited type of forwards that tend to get recalled that aren’t going to provide a lot of contribution to the NHL on their best day. Of course, the Broz/Hayes level guys have to hold up their end of the bargain by impressing and performing well themselves, which will be another area to watch.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/6...ayers-i-am-most-curious-about-2025-26-edition

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Metro Moves: 2025-26 Washington Capitals preview

Continuing south down the lovely, traffic-congested I-95 corridor, we depart from Philadelphia (after tagging up the NYC area recapping the summers of the Devils, Rangers and Islanders) and head for Washington DC. The Capitals were a surprising division winner last season, their 111 points easily outpacing Carolina’s 99. The Caps took advantage of having the best record in the Eastern Conference to earn playing the worst playoff team in the first round, the Montreal Canadiens. Washington quickly dispatched Montreal in five games but then found themselves no match for the Hurricanes in the second round.

Key changes​

Additions: It’s been a very quiet summer for the DC hockey club. The Caps saw something they obviously like a lot in 23-year old Justin Sourdif, enough to send a second round pick for a player who has only four career NHL games under his belt. Add in a trade for depth defender Declan Chisholm and that’s it for external additions.

Losses: The Caps waved goodbye to Andrew Mangiapane in free agency after one fairly disappointing season in Washington. They also lost Lars Eller (Ottawa), Taylor Raddish (NY Rangers) and Alexander Alexeyev (Pittsburgh) to the free agent market, though without much hand-wringing in any of those cases.

Projected lineup (from nhl.com)​

Alex Ovechkin — Dylan Strome — Anthony Beauvillier
Aliaksei Protas — Pierre-Luc Dubois — Tom Wilson
Sonny Milano — Connor McMichael — Ryan Leonard
Brandon Duhaime — Nic Dowd — Justin Sourdif

Rasmus Sandin / John Carlson
Jakob Chychrun /Trevor van Riemsdyk
Martin Fehervary / Matt Roy

Logan Thompson
Charlie Lindgren

After making several big swings last year — that all paid off— to bring in names like Dubois, Chychrun, Roy and Thompson, the Caps coasted this summer. They were able to re-sign Beauvillier, who looked good on any line he played on with the Caps. Chychrun too was re-signed ahead of free agency to keep the 20-goal blueliner in DC for the longterm.

A big point of emphasis for Washington will be the placement of McMichael. The 24-year old broke out with a 26-goal, 57-point season last year and can play in the top-six on the wing or center his own line. Washington is planning on trying him in the middle for a third line and hoping that he can stay productive and provide a depth option there— if not then they might need to add more center depth at some point.

On the back-end, the Caps will go as far as Carlson can take them. It’s no coincidence that the only time Washington has missed the playoffs in the last decade (2022-23), Carlson was injured for half the season and his absence was felt in a major way. Since then, he’s comeback strong with two 50+ point seasons and Washington has rolled on. Washington has merged the Ovechkin/Backstrom/Oshie era into a new one with younger players like Strome, Protas and Chychrun stepping in, and the next wave of Leonard, Ivan Miroshnichenko and Andrew Cristall not far from making their way up the ranks to join in. Carlson (and of course Ovechkin) have been the major bridges from the past success of the 2010’s merging into the present and future. Carlson tends to get lost in the shuffle some behind the major stars, but his presence and impact as a quality 1D can’t be understated.

The big questions​

What happens after the mission is complete? So much energy and effort was expended surrounding Alex Ovechkin’s chase for the goal record over the past few years but especially last season. That’s for good reason, historic records like that don’t fall very often! But now that Ovechkin has passed Gretzky, what happens after the finish line? Ovechkin scored 44 goals in 65 games, it’s not like he’s going to disappear but he had a dogged drive to set the record, seeing what happens now that it’s all gravy will be interesting.

Can Carbery buck the Jack Adams trends? Spencer Carbery has done a wonderful job as NHL coach, his first year in 2023-24 steadied the ship in the wake of Peter Laviolette’s departure and then last year Carbery won coach of the year with a 51 win, 111 point season. Most Jack Adams winners don’t tend to stay on top of the mountain once they get there with many cases of fading away and getting fired only a few years later. Carbery’s systems and base looks solid but he’s got a lot of work to do to keep the arrow pointing the way it is.

Potential Outcomes
Here we paint some pictures of a semi-realistic best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season..​

Reasonable best case scenario — It looks a lot like last season, Ovechkin keeps filling the net and the supporting players are in lock step behind him. Charlie Lindgren bounces back from a soft season to provide good play as the 1B goalie and Thompson keeps his juju going. Washington competes for another division crown and is comfortably a playoff team.

Reasonable worst case scenario — There’s some shooting regression (Washington’s 10.6% 5v5 shooting percentage was tops in the league) and players who had career seasons last year like Strome, Protas, Dubois and McMichael aren’t as productive as they were. The third line becomes a major sore spot if Milano can’t rebound and Leonard isn’t an instant impact player and the forward group looks more “big and slow” than big and dangerous like last year. Thompson struggles and Washington has to fight tooth and nail to qualify for the playoffs.

—
The Capitals look like they’re in a great spot. Their +56 goal differential last year was the second best in the East and they’re bringing back all nine players who recorded 30+ points last season, including seven 20+ goal scorers. Washington may not have a Stanley Cup winning ceiling on paper, but they should be somewhere in the mix as one of the quality teams in the league in what could be the swan song for the top goal scorer in NHL history taking a victory lap.

As a closing thought, for fit the Capitals would probably prefer to add a center but with just over $4 million in projected cap space, they look like they could add a Bryan Rust/Rickard Rakell type pretty nicely to round out their top six. (It would probably be too much for the Pens to hope about getting top prospect Cole Huston or Cristall in return, but one can dream and see players Miroshnichenko or Hendrix Lapierre as targets Pittsburgh might be interested in). Include Milano ($1.9m) back in the trade and the money would work.

As a further tangent, it will also be interesting with the playoff salary cap (which as a reminder is based only on the 20 players dressing for that game), does a team in this position this look to scratch an expensive $3.0 million backup goalie (Lindgren) for a cheaper option to give more playoff cap room? That would give even more flexibility for them to add more pieces, should that strategy be employed. It will be very interesting to see how contending/playoff teams adapt to the new rules in place and still look to cut as many corners as possible to maximize space on hand.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66880/metro-moves-2025-26-washington-capitals-preview

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Penguins’ Prospects head to Buffalo

Now that September is here and we have already crossed off a full week, it just means hockey is inching ever closer with each passing day. There hasn’t been an official announcement from the Pittsburgh Penguins on when training camp will begin or who is being invited to participate, but we know it will be soon with the the annual NHL Prospect Challenge tournaments set to commence later this week and through next weekend.

As is tradition for the Penguins with the Prospect Challenge, they will head to Buffalo to join the Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, and Columbus Blue Jackets at this year’s tournament. There are other prospect tournaments being held at different team locations across the league, but the Penguins always head to Buffalo each preseason to take part.

As of right now, no roster has been announced by the Penguins noting which players will be heading to Buffalo to represent the team, but whoever does end up making the cut should make this the most talented prospect team the Penguins have ever fielded at this event.

Some names to look out for will be 2025 first round draft picks Ben Kindel, Will Horfcoff, and Bill Zonnon. Goaltender Sergei Murashov could make an appearance as well along with another 2025 draft pick Gabriel D’Agile to make up the goaltending tandem. Harrison Brunicke could use this as a launching pad to a strong training camp and possibly an opening night roster spot.

There will be a full roster announced at some point later this week, but until then all we can do is speculate on some names who may be making the trip to Buffalo.

One important item we do know about the Penguins in regards to the Prospect Challenge is the schedule they will be playing, starting on Friday, September 12th and wrapping up on Monday, September 15th for a total of three games to be played.

Here is the full Penguins slate in Buffalo:

• Friday, September 12th vs. Boston Bruins @ 3:30 PM
• Sunday, September 14th vs. Columbus Blue Jackets @ 3:30 PM
• Monday, September 15th vs. Buffalo Sabres @ 12 PM

Three games against three different opponents over the course of four days will be a nice appetizer to feast on before training camp opens soon after the players return to Pittsburgh. This tournament will also serve as a nice preview of some names who may not be ready to make an NHL impact for the Penguins this season, but figure to be a major part in the next chapter of Penguins history.

More importantly than anything we see on the ice this coming weekend, this signals the last major hurdle of the offseason before hockey is back. By this time next week, we should have a better idea of when training camp will begin and we can fully focus on the 2025-26 season.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66872/penguins-prospects-head-to-buffalo

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Pat Brisson opens door to more Sidney Crosby speculation

Sidney Crosby spoke to the media in Las Vegas during the NHL’s annual preseason, and hoo boy, the result wasn’t very settling for Penguins’ fans.

Sidney Crosby on his Penguins future, on speculation (Montreal?) about it and more: ‘That’s the hard part about losing’
My latest for ⁦@TheAthletic⁩ from the NHL Player Media Tour in Las Vegas https://t.co/RP5u8qNUW8

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) September 9, 2025

Crosby’s frustrations with the lack of competitiveness by the Penguins, and speculation on his future will kick into high gear after this one.

Matt Larkin of Daily Faceoff asked Crosby during the Player Media Tour availability Monday night about his future with the Penguins in the context of the losing seasons the past few years and how difficult it is to deal with the speculation because of it.

“I mean, I understand it,” Crosby said. “It’s not something you want to discuss. You’d rather be talking about who we’re getting at the (trade) deadline or, you know, where we’re at as far as, are we one or two or three in the division?. But you know, it’s one of those things. That’s the hard part about losing. I think everybody thinks that the buzzer goes and you lose a game and that sucks, but there’s so much more than that. It’s the (roster) turnover. It’s the unknown, the uncertainty, the question marks — that’s the stuff that’s tough. It makes you appreciate all those years that we were competing and going after the big acquisition every single trade deadline. I don’t think I took it for granted, but I definitely appreciate it that much more now.

“But it doesn’t change my approach. I still go out there trying to win every single game and try to be the best that I can be. I think that youth and having that energy around you isn’t a bad thing, either. We’ve got a lot of hungry guys, a lot of competition for spots. So I think you just try to find different things you can feed off of and still continue to learn through it.”

As usual, Crosby cleans it up at the end with some cliches and general empty words that he’s a master of, but the answer in the middle about what has made the last few years so tough stands out as perhaps the most public display of a cutting critique of his professional frustration. There was also no clear declaration that he was committed to stay in Pittsburgh, either, or clarification to cut off the speculation, you might have noticed.

Crosby’s agent Pat Brisson, on the other hand, took to voice the frustrations to a whole new level.

“Well, it’s a reality,” his longtime agent, Pat Brisson of CAA Sports, told The Athletic on Monday night regarding the buzz generated by Pittsburgh’s lack of success. “First of all, he’s been so consistent for 20 years. He had another great year last season. He just keeps going. The comparison is Tom Brady. We want Sidney to hopefully be in the playoffs every year. We want him to hopefully win another Cup or two. So each year the team that he’s playing for fails to make the playoffs, it creates a lot of speculation. In reality, he’s not getting any younger. We’re here to support him. It’s the beginning of the season here. Let’s see how things are going. Hopefully they have a great season and the speculation will go away.”

“But at the same time, the reason we all talk about this is because he’s such a great player still,” added Brisson, who was hanging out with Crosby during his Player Media Tour stop Monday. “He continues to be such a difference maker. Like a Tom Brady, that’s how I look at it.”

And well, Tom Brady did leave the New England Patriots to go win a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

So again, I asked Brisson, is it possible Crosby will entertain a trade out of Pittsburgh one day?

“I mean, I’m answering something that … let’s put it this way, it’s always a possibility, you know?” Brisson said. “It’s been three years they haven’t made the playoffs. It all depends on how Sid is going to be and how the team is going to do. I maintain the same position that I do believe that he should be playing playoff hockey every year. In my opinion.”

Oh yes, a Tom Brady comparison. You know, the guy who left his franchise after 20 years to finish things out in a better on-the-field-spot somewhere else. Followed up by directly saying that a trade is “always a possibility”.

Not very settling indeed.

On one hand, the task at hand and focus for Crosby remains on getting the Penguins back up a level. As LeBrun also wrote and emphasized, “Crosby for sure only sees himself as a Penguin for life”. But all the losing the Penguins have been doing is raising obvious questions about what will happen in the few remaining years that Crosby has left as a player. Neither Crosby nor his agent closed the door or outwardly dismissed the possibility of him playing for a team other than the Penguins one day.

On the other hand, Crosby hasn’t been in the playoffs in the last three seasons, and that’s not because he hasn’t held up his end of the deal. Crosby has done his part, it’s been others around the organization on and off the ice that are responsible for the team’s decline. Anyone that fiercely competitive isn’t going to be happy about such a situation, and the job of Crosby’s agent is to advocate for him, so it’s not out of line or abnormal to hear those comments, jarring as they may be.

Whether this is a shot across the bow toward the Pens to focus on short-term improvement, or preseason chatter that won’t mean much remains to be seen. But the story about the possibilities on Crosby’s future won’t being going away any time soon, especially if the Penguins don’t have a good start to the season on the ice. Crosby and his agent might not want to discuss the speculation out there around him, but they also didn’t do anything to quell it when they had the chance. In fact, the opposite happened to stoke even more of that speculation.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66912/pat-brisson-opens-door-to-more-sidney-crosby-speculation

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Penguins (finally) release prospect squad roster

The Pittsburgh Penguins are sending their prospects up to Buffalo to compete in the annual pre-season challenge that begins on Friday afternoon when the Pens youngsters take on a team of Boston Bruins players. Pittsburgh will also play on Sunday and Monday.

Buffalo bound

Penguins prospects are slated to play three games from September 11-15 at LECOM Harborcenter in the annual Prospects Challenge.

Details: https://t.co/4ycH2b2Z9T pic.twitter.com/t6hWIi3Gs4

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 10, 2025

From the team:

For the fourth-consecutive season, the Pittsburgh Penguins will participate in the annual Prospects Challenge held in Buffalo, New York. The tournament will run from September 11-15 at LECOM Harborcenter.

The Penguins are one of five participating teams along with the Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins, Columbus Blue Jackets and New Jersey Devils, and will play three games total. Pittsburgh will open its play against the Bruins on September 12 at 3:30 PM. Following that, the Penguins will take on the Blue Jackets on September 14 at 3:30 PM and then conclude the tournament with a tilt against the host Sabres on September 15 at 12:00 PM. All three games will be streamed on the Penguins website.

Pittsburgh’s roster will consist of 24 players made up of 14 forwards, eight defensemen and two goaltenders. The full roster, which will be coached by Kirk MacDonald, Nick Luukko, Brad Malone and Ryan Papaioannou, can be viewed here.

Appearing in game action for the first time in a Penguins sweater is one of Pittsburgh’s three 2025 first-round draft picks Ben Kindel (11thoverall). Also attending the Prospects Challenge are eight other 2025 draft picks, including Brady Peddle (3rd round, 91st overall), Gabriel D’Aigle (3rd round, 84th overall), Travis Hayes (4th round, 105th overall), Ryan Miller (5th round, 130th overall), Quinn Beauchesne (5th round, 148th overall), Jordan Charron (5th round, 154th overall), Carter Sanderson (6thround, 169th overall) and Kale Dach (7th round, 201st overall).

Ville Koivunen and Owen Pickering, who both spent stints with Pittsburgh last season, will be returning to the Prospects Challenge as well.

Other notable prospects playing for the Penguins will be forwards Avery Hayes, Tristan Broz, Atley Calvert and Gabe Klassen, defensemen Harrison Brunicke, Emil Pieniniemi and Finn Harding, as well as goaltender Sergei Murashov. Forwards Max Graham, Nolan Renwick and Brayden Edwards, as well as defensemen Daniel Laatsch and Chase Pietila will be making their Prospects Challenge debuts.

Rutger McGroarty, Bill Zonnon and Peyton Kettles will not participate in the Prospects Challenge due to injury. Their statuses will be updated prior to Pittsburgh’s training camp by Kyle Dubas.

It’s a bummer McGroarty won’t be able to play coming off a broken foot suffered in April but there’s zero reason to put extra on his plate at this point and presumably have him fresh for the full NHL training camp that starts after the games in Buffalo. Zonnon and Kettles, two high draft picks in ‘25, participated in the Penguins’ summer development camp and are curious and unfortunate absences with injuries of their own. It remains to be seen how injured those players are, this prospect challenge event is a low enough priority that with any question at all are around for the season ahead that players tend to be held behind, but the note about Dubas giving an update later on might add a bit of seriousness to some statuses there.

As is custom, the team’s collegiate prospects like Will Horcoff and Joona Vaisanen are back in school and unable to participate in this pro event.

Despite the various absences, the roster contains 12 players who made our recent listing of the Top 25 players Under 25 years old within the organization, and several more honorable mentions that will be looking to make names for themselves on their own journies.

Last year’s prospect challenge was a launching pad for Harrison Brunicke into nearly making the NHL team out of training camp as an 18-year old, and the Pens will certainly be hoping he can replicate that type of performance. It’s also a critical year for players like Owen Pickering, Ville Koivunen, Tristan Broz and Avery Hayes to get off on the right foot and start making a great first impression heading into the full training camp to come.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/66969/penguins-finally-release-prospect-squad-roster

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Pierre McGuire joining Penguins Radio Network broadcast team

Longtime NHL analyst Pierre McGuire will be joining the broadcast team on the Penguins Radio Network this upcoming season.

The network announced the news on Wednesday morning, saying that McGuire, who worked with the Penguins organization in the early 1990s, will be part of pre-game and post-game coverage on the radio network for 41 of the team’s games this upcoming season.

McGuire will also be part of some episodes of Penguins Live Weekly, the broadcast team’s weekly podcast.

A mainstay throughout the National Hockey League media landscape over the past several decades with TSN and with NBC Sports, McGuire worked as between-the-benches on-ice analyst alongside Doc Eric and Eddie Olczyk for several years.

Throughout his career as an analyst, McGuire has been a part of several memorable moments in Penguins history, including when he was caught between then Flyers head coach Peter Laviolette and former Penguins assistant coach Tony Granato, who nearly went toe-to-toe themselves in 2012 as tempers flared on the ice ahead of the cross-state rival’s upcoming playoff series.

McGuire was also part of some more humorous moments, like asking Phil Kessel “How’s your breath?” after a big game in the 2016 Eastern Conference Final, with the Penguins winger thinking he was asking about the smell, followed by a clarification that McGuire was asking about his conditioning.

A polarizing figure that there is no shortage of opinions about, McGuire’s involvement with the Penguins broadcast team will certainly offer plenty of insight and knowledge alongside Paul Steigerwald and Brian Metzer.

The Penguins’ 2025-26 season is less than one month away as the team will head to New York City to face former head coach Mike Sullivan and the Rangers on October 7 at Madison Square Garden.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/66977/pierre-mcguire-joining-penguins-radio-network-broadcast-team