You’d be hard-pressed to find a more consequential NHL regular-season game than Pittsburgh’s loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on April 13.
The most direct byproduct: The longest active playoff streak in North American professional sports ended after 16 seasons.
It didn’t stop there. By virtue of the Pittsburgh Penguins blowing it, Chicago clinched the lottery position that landed them Connor Bedard, and the Florida Panthers snuck into the postseason. In Round 1, Florida stunned Boston, one of the best regular-season teams in the history of the league.
Not long after, the Panthers eliminated the Maple Leafs, helping set forth a series of events that led to Kyle Dubas leaving Toronto. Eventually, the Panthers wound up winning the Eastern Conference. Matthew Tkachuk’s TNT star turn? In some alternate universe, it never took place.
Back in Pittsburgh, the result likely sealed Ron Hextall’s fate. The Penguins fired their general manager after three largely inept seasons and started the search that led them to — guess who? — Dubas. His task, of course, is to start a new postseason streak.
A strong front office hits different — doesn’t it, Pittsburgh? It doesn’t take a mastermind to want to trade a first-rounder and a bunch of spare parts for the reigning Norris Trophy winner. It does take one to actually execute it.
That, plus a flurry of other moves, quickly put Dubas’ stamp on the Penguins. In one single summer, he cleaned up a huge mess left over by the previous regime and put Pittsburgh back on a playoff trajectory. The end result is 96 projected points and a 62 percent chance at the playoffs.
That latter number may not seem like much, but in a stacked East, it’s commendable that Dubas brought an aging core back on the inside track of the postseason race. For context, last year’s roster was on a Washington-like trajectory. They would’ve been projected for 87 points (ha!) and only a 23 percent chance at making the playoffs.
Anything that gets Sidney Crosby and company back into the playoffs is fine by us — the playoffs are a much better place with him in it. As for one Last Dance — it’s not impossible, but it won’t be easy as the Penguins enter this season as the East’s eighth-best team. It all depends on how well the league’s oldest team fends off Father Time.
We know the top of the Penguins’ lineup is good; it has been for the majority of the 21st century. Be that as it may, it’s still a strength. Five of the top six project to have Net Ratings above average for their spots in the lineup, powered mainly by their offensive production.
The only exception is Evgeni Malkin, whose overall plus-7 is a hair low for a No. 3 forward. The plan for him, though, is to spend a huge chunk of time with Erik Karlsson. Last year, Jeff Petry was in that spot.
That is, without a doubt, a trade-up — Karlsson’s projected Offensive Rating is 14 points higher than what Petry managed last season. Really, the dynamic between Malkin and Karlsson remains one of the more interesting subplots for the Penguins season.
Both are accustomed to having the puck on their sticks in transition, effectively running the point for their on-ice groups. Now, they seem set to share the load. Given their age, and the mileage on their legs, that’s a wise move — and a decision that’s likely to goose Malkin’s value in the right direction.
Jake Guentzel will be absent for at least a week or two after offseason ankle surgery. When he’s healthy, he’ll be stapled to Crosby — as usual. Last season, he scored 36 goals in 78 games, which has become standard output for him and is the sort of production that made him one of the risers in the Player Tier project. “He’s so, so good,” one executive said. “He does everything right. He gets pucks on the wall. He makes little defensive plays. He makes offensive plays. He’s not an elite athlete, maybe, but his brain is elite in an all-around sense.”
Entering his age-36 season, Crosby, somehow, is nearly as productive as he’s ever been. By plenty of measures, he’s still a top-10 player in the league.
Some signs of age may have crept into his defensive impacts — they’ve dipped, regardless of the reason — but he more than compensates for it by being, still, one of the most dangerous playmaking centers in the league.
Data from All Three Zones helps confirm as much; he’s at the high end of the high end in shot assists, scoring chance generation and high-danger passes, and he’s still producing points at an elite rate (33 goals, 60 assists).
We’re obligated to note that sometimes, the end for players of his caliber comes quickly. We’re also obligated to note that nearly nothing suggests that’ll be the case for him. He nearly stuck in the MVP section of our player tiers, with some age-related concerns dropping him down to the No.
10 overall range. “Obviously, them not making the playoffs last year hurts,” one scout said, “but he still gets around 100 points and plays both sides of the puck. What else do you want?”
Rounding out the top six: Rickard Rakell is coming off a full season’s worth of proof that he’s capable of hanging with Crosby and Guentzel. His 16 five-on-five goals were tied for 59th in the NHL, one behind players like Cole Caufield, Timo Meier and Bo Horvat.
Reilly Smith, acquired via a draft-weekend trade with the Golden Knights to play with Malkin, is a well-rounded winger who can be relied upon to score 20 five-on-five goals or so every season. Bryan Rust is coming off the lowest shooting percentage of his career (9.5 percent) but still scored 20 goals, 18 of which came at five-on-five.
The bottom six, if nothing else, provides defensive utility. That had not been the case overall in recent seasons; if the goal, as Dubas alluded to, is to avoid mistakes and turn the game back over to the stars, then Lars Eller, Matt Nieto and Noel Acciari are capable enough.
The roster is also better on the fringe than it has been in the past, with players like Andreas Johnsson and Vinnie Hinostroza in the mix and capable of playing a handful of games at a time.
Karlsson and Kris Letang are each going to play gigantic minutes on the right side of their own pair. The safe bet is that Letang, as has been the case for the vast majority of his career, is out more often with Crosby, which means he’s likely to play against top competition. It’s a role he can still handle at 36, even though his defensive impacts have dipped a bit.
On most teams, he’d be the blue line’s unquestioned offensive engine; on this one, he’s going to take a backseat to Karlsson (at least in this area).
That’s no knock on Letang; Karlsson’s ability to drive offense as a defenseman is still simply overwhelming. At the position, only Cale Makar has a higher projected Offensive Rating for 2023-24 than Karlsson’s plus-17. As one exec said in agreeing with Karlsson’s placement in the franchise defender tier: “A lot of times, playing good defense is just having the puck. And he has the puck all the time.”
Having the puck all the time doesn’t mean Karlsson will only help the Penguins offensively — he’ll also help them get the puck out and up the ice. He’s elite in those facets of the game, one of the league’s best, and a huge upgrade over Petry in both departments. Those facets of the game were a sore spot for Pittsburgh last season; this year they should be a strength, which should better accentuate the team’s top forwards.
The addition of Ryan Graves also helps with that, giving Pittsburgh several capable puck-moving options up and down the lineup. The rangy replacement for Brian Dumoulin should start the season alongside Letang and has a solid history of taking on tough minutes.
Elsewhere on defense, Marcus Pettersson has grown into a highly capable second-pair player. No regular Penguins defenseman put up a better expected goals percentage at five-on-five than him, and he also adds some plus puck-moving ability with his retrievals and zone exits. Pierre-Olivier Joseph, after a decent rookie season, projects to perform well in third-pair minutes.
The Penguins’ greatest weakness is, of course, being old. Old as dirt. For professional hockey, certainly, but not the Earth. Either way, there’s not much to be done about that one. The ages of players like Crosby, Malkin, Karlsson and Letang are taken into account in their projections, even though none of the four have seen considerable dips just yet.
Where it’s most reflected is in their defensive projections. All four produce enough offensively to act as a counterbalance, but they also set the tone for a team that, defensively speaking, is below average in plenty of spots.
Ironically enough, the most glaring functional issue outside of their best players’ birth certificates is a near-total lack of projected offense from the bottom six. Dubas deserves some amount of credit for constructing a group that has, if nothing else, a clear identity and relevant skill set. That’s where the previous regime in Pittsburgh failed most egregiously; the last set of depth players didn’t do anything with any degree of competence.
This one does; all three new guys put up expected goal percentages and shot percentages better than their teammates last season. They can play their shift, then turn things back over — but make no mistake, scoring goals is not part of the deal.
Such affairs remain the domain of the top six forwards and top two defensemen. Nieto had the most efficient point-producing stretch of the group last season, putting up 1.52 points per 60 at five-on-five during his 45 games with San Jose. Colin White, with the team on a PTO, brings more of the same.
There are a couple of interesting players in the mix — Drew O’Connor showed a flash or two when he made it in the lineup last season, and Alex Nylander could end up adding some sort of offensive element to the third line — but nothing good enough to positively affect the projections.
In net, Tristan Jarry is projected to be a better-than-average starting goaltender. That’s been the case for the past few seasons. Still, injuries have been an issue, and his play in the postseason hasn’t been good. When he’s in, he’s likely to help them stack points at the rate they need to make the postseason. If they get there, though, all bets will be off.
The right side of the third defensive pair could be an issue. Chad Ruhwedel is the incumbent, but his best fit at this point in his career is as a spare piece. Mark Pysyk was in camp on a PTO after missing all of 2022-23 with an Achilles tendon injury and might have had the inside track on the job, but he’s again out long term, Sullivan said.
Crosby is 36. Malkin is 37. Letang is 36. Karlsson is 33. That is one geriatric Core Four and even including Guentzel, 28, doesn’t really help much. The Penguins’ best players are ancient in hockey terms, and that’s a problem when it comes to forecasting the next season after accounting for age-related decline.
By Net Rating, the Penguins rank 12th at plus-16, which is solid, a testament to the strong work Dubas has done this offseason to get Pittsburgh back in the playoff mix. Solid — just not contender-worthy. In a strong East, the Penguins are only expected to earn 96.4 points and make the playoffs 64 percent of the time. The Cup is a tough ask at just 1.3 percent.
Penguins’ big question: Did Kyle Dubas do enough to get Pittsburgh back into the playoffs?
But that assumes everyone ages as expected, which would be disastrous for Pittsburgh, whose average age is 31. That ranks last in the league. The Penguins are one of three teams without a player aged 25 or younger in a key role and, in fact, have just one player aged 25 or younger, period. Every other team has at least three.
If Father Time is unavoidable, the Penguins are really tempting fate this season and it should come as no surprise that no team gets hit harder from age adjustments than the Penguins.
Without age adjustments, the Penguins’ Net Rating would jump to plus-29, their projected point total would jump to 99.5, their playoff chances would climb to 72 percent and their Stanley Cup chances would double to 2.7 percent.
That’s a much better spot than they’re in now, but that also means Pittsburgh has room to surprise. All the Penguins need is for their elderly elite core to stave off the effects of age for just one more season. Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Karlsson have defeated Father Time before and haven’t shown many signs of slowing down, either — what’s one more year of proving they’ve still got it?
Crosby and Malkin put up carbon copies of their 2022-23 seasons. Karlsson provides them with another elite talent to skate with and an offensive needle-mover in his own right. Jarry stays healthy and provides above-average goalie play in the regular season. The combo of high-end offensive production across the top of the lineup and a reliable netminder carries them through at least a couple playoff rounds.
Crosby and Malkin hit the wall, turning into average first- and second-line centers overnight. Karlsson struggles to adjust and doesn’t produce enough to counterbalance his defensive issues. The bottom six adds nothing. Jarry misses another chunk of the regular season. Pittsburgh misses the postseason.
This version of the Penguins doesn’t have a lot of time left. There aren’t many dances left for Crosby and company. That’s a shame.
An even bigger shame would be allowing this core to go into the night without a fight, allowing its legacy to end in humiliation last season against one of the worst teams ever assembled.
Pittsburgh did well to hire Dubas and, in turn, he did well to give this team an actual shot. It’s up to them to do the rest and write the end of their on-ice legacies in whichever way they see fit.
