DK'S GRIND FEED

Rickard Rakell doesn't get it.

Like, for real, no-spin, no-act, he genuinely doesn't seem to get why so many forecasts for the coming NHL winter see the Penguins as being a lot closer to the draft lottery than the Stanley Cup playoffs. This following a 2024-25 season that finished with a 10-5-2 flurry, highlighted by victories over some of the league's legit contenders.

"I mean, I think, I think that if you look around the room with the players that are here," he'd tell me today, motioning with his right hand toward the surrounding stalls at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, "I know we have game-changers in here."

Yep. Sidney Crosby's still a star. Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang aren't that anymore, but they'll still summon up something special on occasion. Same for Erik Karlsson. And, while I'm at it, Bryan Rust and Rakell himself are coming off career-high goal marks of 31 and 35, respectively.

"And also, if we get this competition in these groups throughout the whole lineup, I think that ... you know, when you have a whole team pulling in the same direction, I mean, who knows what we can be? Like, why not? Why wouldn't we be one of those teams?"

A playoff team?

Honestly, as I responded to him, I'm not sure how that'd be decreed in advance, even without weighing that Kyle Dubas still sits on $12,099,300 in salary cap space.

Start with this: It's plain to see that the roster remains top-heavy in an unhealthy way and that the top-heavy portion's the one gaining in age. But it's equally plain to see that there remains a reasonable level of productivity: Crosby, Rust and Rakell were among the NHL's top forward lines at five-on-five, for example, with a combined 99 goals, and the power play ranked sixth in the NHL with a 25.6 percent conversion rate.

What's missing, then?

Well, a lot. But it's not the hardest part to acquire, which is what's above.

The third and fourth lines can't just be Matt Nieto-like clock-killers, as they've been for far too long. They can't just eat up shifts until Sid or Geno's back on the ice. They've got to make something happen. Might not be goals, but show energy, get physical, defend hard, wear the opponents' defense down, jab at the goaltender ... do some bleeping thing.

That might not be here, but it also might. I watch Tristan Broz, on and off the ice, and not just that sweet one-timer Monday night in Montreal ...

... and I can't wait for his NHL debut. He's only 22, he can play all three forward positions, he's got equal parts grit and skill, and he really, really, really hates to lose. That's welcome.

Between him, Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty, maybe Filip Hallander and maybe Sluggin' Sam Poulin, that's a fair amount of freshness infused up front. Almost half the forwards. And to repeat this: It'd be awesome if they scored, but the pressure there stays with the stars, with the youngsters only needing to be woven inward.

Defensively, it's not ideal. I won't pretend otherwise, and neither should anyone from Dubas on down. The production from the back depends almost entirely on Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang, and that's not OK. The youth component's likely limited to Owen Pickering, though it'd be a blessing and a half if ice-cool Harrison Brunicke could break through. Most of the rest's built on some needed physical additions but without much skill or mobility, both of which are a must in the modern NHL. So if Dubas uses that space, whether now or closer to the trade deadline should these players force his hand -- and everyone involved, including Dubas, acknowledges that could occur -- I'd bet it'll be on the blue line.

In goal, I'd imagine I hold more hope than most. Tristan Jarry's still here, still Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown, but I found authenticity in both his performance and poise upon his return from AHL banishment last season. Arturs Silovs is 24, he was just the AHL Calder Cup playoff MVP for his championship team in Abbotsford, British Columbia, and management aims to offer him a chance to stick. And if one or both were to bomb, the two prospects in the scenario, Sergei Murashov and Joel Blomqvist, are the two most promising the Penguins have had at the position in nearly a decade, even if Murashov requires patience.

Could anyone be convinced that all four will fail?

And all of this is to say nothing of the one subject that comes up most often in this environment: Dan Muse. I wasn't sure what to think of his hiring, just as I wasn't sure what to think of Dubas shoving out Mike Sullivan. But both ends have become much, much clearer this month, in that Muse -- through his booming voice and bounce-all-over-the-rink practices -- already has instilled a very different feel to a culture that, under Sullivan, as I'd lamented countless times late in his tenure, had turned sickeningly passive.

This team, it'd appear, won't just push back. It'll do the pushing.

"If you look at the teams that are winning in this league, they've got star players, but they're not filled with star players," Rakell would say. "But they have a full team that's performing at the highest level. Each line, each player, with a role. And if everybody, inside that role, is hard to play against, why can't we do that?"

Got me. I'll take 82 games of Boko Imama scaring the crap out of the opponents, as he just did in Montreal in yanking some dude off first-round pick Ben Kindel in a pile, and then never having to do so again. I'll take a former first-rounder in Poulin telling our Taylor Haase up there that he realizes fighting's got to be part of his "identity" if he's going to finally make it. I'll take Connor Clifton leveraging upward to level the Canadiens' elite prospect, Ivan Demidov, then never having to answer for it. 

Once more, for emphasis: This wasn't happening under Sullivan. At all.

Neither was this: The Penguins are sticking together on the ice, in all three zones, as if they're in survival mode. Which ... looks a little odd, but a pack mentality never hurts in a team sport, and it's already earned applause.

"I think the big reason we've gotten off a great start to this training camp is just getting used to the competition," Rakell would say. "Not just all the players competing for spots, battling to be on the roster. But the small area games that are closer to what we see in real games."

I knew what he meant but asked him to expound.

"It's winning in the small areas of the ice. It's having players who win those. It's having players who are comfortable doing that. That's how we're all gonna get comfortable at being in those areas when we get into the season instead of just going through the motions in training camp."

Oh.

"I like what we have here. I like what we're doing," he'd proceed even after I fell silent with that last remark. "Look at who we have. Look at what we're doing. Why shouldn't we be in the playoffs?"

Maybe he does get it.