Maybe The 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins Were A Surprise. But This Is Only The Beginning.

When Pittsburgh Penguins' goaltender Arturs Silovs made what was, quite possibly, the Penguins' save of the year when he dropped his stick and blockered away a Porter Martone shot in overtime during Game 6 against the Philadelphia Flyers, it really felt like something special was about to happen. 

The Penguins - down 3-0 in the series before forcing Games 5 and 6 - had all the momentum, as they had controlled play for the majority of the third period as well as overtime. Unfortunately, they had nothing to show for it in a 0-0 game.

And, just like that, they ended up on the wrong side of the result - Flyers' defenseman Cam York scored the series-clincher just moments after the save - and their magical 2025-26 season came to an end. 

With the ending came the discourse about the season as a whole, too. 

As everyone is aware of at this point, the Penguins did not have high expectations going into this season at all. They were projected by many to be a team in lottery contention, and even if that wasn't the case, very few had them making the playoffs. 

Now, with another first-round loss - their fifth-straight in the years they've made the post-season since 2018 - many are clamoring that the Penguins' 2025-26 season came with the worst possible result: making the playoffs just to lose in the first round and not having any shot at a franchise-changing player at the top of a strong 2026 draft class.

On the surface, that may be understandable. But, in the grand scheme of things, the team competing this season didn't change all that much. In fact, if anything, they were just a year ahead of schedule, as there have been many indicators pointing to the summer of 2026 being an active one in terms of trying to improve the NHL roster to compete in 2026-27.

So, even though many are still clamoring for some kind of "teardown" - despite the fact that the Penguins' rebuild started more than two years ago already at this point - it's reasonable to believe that this is only the beginning of a competitive window for the Penguins.

"There's a feeling, when you're in a room for over like six months of time and you play the game every single time, there's a feeling that gets inside of you," defenseman Kris Letang said during the Penguins' locker cleanout on Friday. "It was not a group that was just going out there and winning with skill. Some nights, would go their way or not. It was the pace of the game we played at and the commitment we did, playing better defensively.

"So yeah, it can always go up from there."

And that's the key: The Penguins were playing better systemic hockey this season under Jack Adams finalist Dan Muse, and they weren't a team that was solely reliant on scoring to bail them out. Even during the series against Philadelphia, it may have taken them too long to get to their game - which is why they went down 3-0 in the first place - but once they did find it, they were playing a dominant brand of hockey and getting everything but the final result.

Despite a few odd-man breaks, they were mostly able to neutralize the Flyers, and they shut them down almost completely in the third period and beyond in Games 4, 5, and 6. The Flyers had just gotten their first scoring chance of the overtime period before York ended the series on a seeing-eye shot through traffic with two and a half minutes remaining, and this was after the Penguins outshot Philadelphia 23-11 in the third and in overtime and were largely possessing the puck and thwarting opposing scoring chances.

This series - contrary to what some have said - is not indicative of the Penguins not being a playoff team. Had they played the entire series the way they played the last three games, the result is probably different. The issue is that it, simply, took them too long to start playing the dominant brand of hockey that they played through stretches of the regular season, and that includes against some elite competition.

Saying the Penguins are a long way off from being contenders is simply off-base. Sure, teams like the Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes, and Minnesota Wild look like true contenders, and there is a degree of separation between the Penguins and those teams.

But that degree is probably smaller than most people think.

The Penguins went 1-1 against the Avs this season - with blowouts in each game - as well as 1-1 against the Wild. The season series against the Hurricanes was a bit tougher of a matchup for them because of the style the Canes employ, but the 1-1-2 record suggests a much closer series than that.

Had the overtime or shootout losses gone the other way, the season series would have been a different conversation, as each team stomped the other, 5-1, in the two regulation-decided contests. In fact, had overtime and shootout losses gone the other way even half the time, period, for the Penguins, they may have been in the mix for a Metropolitan Division title this season.

It's a game of inches, and those breaks largely didn't fall the Penguins' way this season. And they still managed to finish second in the Metro despite missing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin for much of March, when they had the most difficult schedule in the NHL.

Sure, the roster is getting older, but there is young talent on the horizon. Ben Kindel had an impressive rookie campaign and only figures to get better, and Egor Chinakhov showed legitimate top-six goal-scoring prowess during the regular season.

Harrison Brunicke should be in the mix next season full-time after developing a stronger defensive side to his game this year. Sergei Murashov offers a lot of promise between the pipes - as do Joel Blomqvist and Gabriel D'Aigle - and that's not even accounting for Silovs, who is a proven playoff performer and almost forced a Game 7 between the Penguins and Flyers. Then, there's also Avery Hayes, Tristan Broz, Tanner Howe, Jake Livanavage, Will Horcoff, and Bill Zonnon, all who figure to be in the mix in the near-term.

There are still a few key pieces to add, and the Penguins aren't quite there yet. They could really use more talent on the blue line in their system. But they have a boatload of draft capital in the coming years, more cap space than they know what to do with, Sidney Crosby still playing a very high level, and some tradeable assets that should be able to net them some of the young NHL talent they covet.

All in all, this season was a building block - not a hindrance - to their short-term and long-term. As Letang said, it can always go up from here, and it very well should.

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