5 Young Penguins With The Most To Prove In 2026-27

The 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins were, no doubt, a deep team chock full of players who exceeded expectations, even if many of those players are on the wrong side of 30. 

Evgeni Malkin - who just signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract extension for next season - was point-per-game for the first time since 2022-23 last season. Free agent signing Anthony Mantha had career-highs in both goals (33) and points (64). Forwards Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust both put together another season’s worth of solid top-line production. Erik Karlsson enjoyed his best season as a Penguin and was the team MVP. They had 12 players with 13 or more goals, which was a league-high.

However, if the team is to take significant strides forward toward sustainable contention - as GM/POHO Kyle Dubas suggested - they need to see some of their younger players begin to make a larger impact in 2026-27.

Ben Kindel is already well on his way, as his emergence as a legitimate third-line center option as an 18-year-old last season is a big deal - especially when considering his ceiling is much higher than that. However, some of the Penguins other younger players need to show something sooner rather than later, and a few of them have a lot to prove next season. 

There is no young player for the Penguins who has more to prove than the 22-year-old Koivunen next season, who had two goals and seven points in 39 games last season.

Acquired as part of the trade that sent Jake Guentzel packing in 2024, the Penguins and Dubas still have high hopes for the right wing, who has been wildly impressive at the AHL level and has shown flashes in the NHL but has struggled to find consistency so far. Development isn’t linear, and things are far from over for Koivunen. 

However, he looks a bit behind in terms of processing things at NHL speed, and he could still stand to bulk up a bit more. With a lot of young players pushing for NHL roster spots at the exact same time, Koivunen needs to find a way to differentiate himself next season if he wants to remain part of the longer-term picture for the Penguins. 

McGroarty, in some ways, is in a similar boat to Koivunen, even if he should be afforded a fair amount of grace for the NHL results last season. After missing all of training camp and not seeing game action until deep into the fall due to injury, McGroarty produced just three goals and six points in 24 games during an NHL stint when the Penguins had a ton of injuries. 

McGroarty was a huge factor for the WBS Penguins in the regular season (10 goals, 34 points in 30 games) and has continued that into the Calder Cup Playoffs, where he has two goals and five points in nine playoff games. The Penguins believe McGroarty has the tools to be an effective player in all zones, and he has the intangibles to be an impact player. 

The 22-year-old forward continues to improve his skating, and he is slowly gaining more and more traction at the professional level. Like Koivunen, though, he now has legitimate competition, and he needs to separate himself from the outset of training camp next season. 

Even if time may not quite be winding down for Koivunen and McGroarty yet, it definitely is winding down for Pickering, the Penguins’ 21st overall pick in 2022.

It’s worth noting that defensemen often take longer to develop than forwards do. Dubas said as much during his season-ending press conference, especially for tall, 6-foot-5, “gangly” blueliners like Pickering, who needed to find himself an identity throughout the course of his development. 

And, according to Dubas, he did find an identity this season in WBS — notably, during the second half of the AHL season and into the playoffs.

“I don't think you could look at it and say there’s anything truly dynamic,” Dubas said. “But it was just steady, solid, reliable hockey, and that’s what we’re looking for him to develop into.”

It would be a massive development for Pickering to develop into a legitimate shutdown left-side blueliner, as it’s something the Penguins desperately need more of. But, with two AHL seasons under his belt - and a brief yet poor showing at the NHL level early in the 2025-26 season - time is of the essence, and he needs to show tangible improvement in whatever NHL minutes he gets next season. 

Brunicke is a bit of a different story in comparison to others on this list. Time is still on the young, dynamic blueliner’s side, as he just turned 20 and has been turning heads since his first NHL training camp at 18 years old prior to the 2024-25 season.

For him, this is more about proving himself to the Penguins that he will be a difference-making player for this team moving forward. 

Brunicke broke camp - alongside Kindel - as a 19-year-old this past season, but nine games at the NHL level exposed that he wasn’t quite ready at that point. As Dubas explained, mistakes are harder to hide when it comes to defensemen, and Brunicke was making a fair amount of them early on. 

However, his point-per-game run to close out his junior career this season preceding an impressive showing in the Calder Cup Playoffs with WBS so far indicates a lot of growth on his end. He’s playing top-pairing AHL minutes ahead of defenders who had been with the club all season, has three goals and 12 points to go along with a plus-16 across 20 combined regular season and playoff games this year, and he’s noticeably having a positive impact in all three zones.

Dubas is impressed with Brunicke, and the Penguins, as an organization, are high on him. Now, it is up to Brunicke to prove that he can stick at the NHL level for good next season and take bigger strides toward becoming a cornerstone piece of the team’s future. 

On the surface, it may seem like a reach that a 24-year-old winger who had 18 goals and 36 points in 43 games with the Penguins last season has more to prove than some other young players. 

But, actually, Chinakhov still has a lot to prove. As in, he needs to prove that what he did last season is sustainable. 

It’s worth noting that Chinkahov, up to this point, is still a pending-RFA and remains unsigned. That said, it seems like a no-brainer that he’ll be back next season, but there’s a good chance that it will be on a “prove-it” bridge deal of sorts. 

The Penguins believe they may have a star winger in Chinakhov, and hey, that’s a hefty billing to try and live up to — especially when you do put up the numbers and prove capable of being just that. Chinakhov set the bar pretty high for himself last season, so it’s on him to continue meeting and raising that bar. 

Chinakhov’s emergence as a legitimate top-six winger would be a remarkable development for the Penguins, who already have a young stud down the middle in Kindel, a potential stud on the blue line in Brunicke, and a stud-in-the-making between the pipes in Sergei Murashov. If he can assert himself as part of a young core group going forward for the Penguins, it makes a big difference for them in the short- and long-term. 

No pressure, Egor. But, actually, there is a bit of pressure for him to prove his 2026 performance with the Penguins wasn’t a fluke. As someone who got the change of scenery he desired, he needs that — and his team needs that.

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