DK: These Penguins have earned their place atop the NHL
Marc-André Fleury meant well, naturally. He always does. He's not one of the most beloved athletes in our city's history for nothing.
But, as it's played out, his preseason projection for these 2025-26 Penguins couldn't have been any more off the mark ... than everyone else's.
Remember it?
It was back in June at a charity golf tournament near Montréal that Fleury told the French-language daily La Presse that, if it were up to him, he'd prefer to see his still-close friend Sidney Crosby leave Pittsburgh for a chance to win elsewhere.
"I can't answer for him, but I hope for him that he does leave,” Fleury said, as translated by our Nic Lavigne. “It's been three years in a row that Pittsburgh has missed the playoffs, and it's not looking good for next season."
No, it wasn't.
And then, formally, following a grind-it-out, goaltending-rich 4-1 flattening of the Wild on this Thursday night at Grand Casino Arena, it was looking like this in the NHL's overall standings:
NHL
Oh, my.
Just so happened I ran into Fleury after this. He and his family still live here.
I had to ask what he thought of the old Core still doing what they do.
"Same guys," he'd reply in flashing that familiar smile. "They don't want to go down easy."
____________________
I've been over why I've believed this would be a competitive team -- though I stopped well short of forecasting contention -- for months now.
I've been over why I've believed this has happened, from both the individual and collective standpoints. And, like Fleury assessed, it has started with Sid, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, plus Bryan Rust, Erik Karlsson, Tristan Jarry and, before his injury, Rickard Rakell. It's been, for the most part, about those who've been here the longest.
I've been over the newcomers, from the teen prospects to the twenty-something projects.
Ben Kindel's 18, and his day here morphed as follows: Found out in the morning he'd be playing his 10th NHL game and, thus, activating his entry-level contract. Took to the ice for the skate, for the first time, as a member of the top power play. And then, because all good hockey things occur in threes ...
... he'd pop one on the power play for late insurance.
I've been over the data, too, exhaustively at times. My latest: In the salary-cap era that began in 2005, of the 80 teams that started a season 8-2-2 or better, 71 of them made the Stanley Cup playoffs, or 89%. In this decade alone, there've been 24 teams in that category, and all 24 made the playoffs. And I'm gonna guess that not a lot of those teams were also No. 1 in the league standings, No. 1 in goal differential at plus-13, No. 2 on the power play, No. 3 in goaltending save percentage, and a ton more.
What I haven't been over anywhere near as much is the underlying stuff. The heart-and-soul stuff. The stuff that can't ever show up in the statistics, advanced or otherwise.
I've held a stance forever that the intangibles don't lead to success but, rather, they follow it.
They're following. In droves.
"We have a good group here," Filip Hallander, one of those twenty-somethings, was telling me after this game. He's an NHL rookie, and he's skating on the top line with Sid and Rust, while also killing penalties. "We believe in each other."
____________________
Examples abound, but I'm not sure there's a better one than Jarry.
I don't need to retell his tale to anyone this deep into a column covering the Penguins. I'll instead just retell his tale from earlier this calendar year, when he was recalled from his months-long banishment to Wilkes-Barre, only to stun the Wild -- and likely his coaches and teammates with a dominant showing. One that fed into a solid final two months and that, as far as I can see, carries over to this day.
As in ... this very day:
That's Kirill Kaprizov, Minnesota's newly minted $136 million man and the highest-paid player in NHL history, getting stoned in succession on a redirect and a rebound. Opening minute of the second period. Penguins down one.
Another minute later, the Penguins tied. Seismic swing.
"He was awesome," Muse would say when I brought up Jarry's name.
That was accurate. He'd stop 26 of 27 shots, and his vitals would improve to 5-1 with a 2.35 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage, the latter ranking fifth in the NHL among goaltenders with six-plus starts.
I'd reminded Jarry in the morning about the significance of St. Paul. Let's just say it wasn't needed.
____________________
The goal that followed Jarry's above saves belonged to Ryan Shea:
He's 28, he's yet to spend a full season in the NHL, this was his second goal ... and his teammates are having a blast branding him as 'Bobby' Shea. After Bobby Orr, of course. As he was doing a TV hit outside the locker room after the game, one of them poked his head out of the room and belted out, "BOB-BEEEEEEEE!"
Later, once at his stall, as more cameras and microphones surrounded him, Letang jabbed from the next stall: "He's Bobby FLAY! He's cooking out there!"
"I can take it," Shea'd tell me later. "This is all good."
He's been better than good to date, and that matters so very much within a left-handed corps that almost everyone, myself included, declared DOA after, oh, maybe a single shift at Madison Square Garden. Which isn't bad for a guy on a one-year, close-to-minimum contract.
I was wrong about him. Saw him as no better than a seventh option, wondered why he was even brought back. I'll eat that. He's been by far the most active defensemen in terms of shooting, and he's shown an occasionally electric jump into the attack, even from a standstill.
Vision, too:
"Shea-zo's been incredible for us, offensively and defensively," Rust, the beneficiary of that service, would tell me. "You can tell he worked really hard this summer, came in here with a chip on his shoulder, ready to prove something. He's earned everything he's gotten this year."
It might be rubbing off: Another left-handed defenseman, Parker Wotherspoon, might've had his best game in a Pittsburgh sweater, as well.
____________________
Wotherspoon's 28. Pretty much the same timeline. And again, nice game. But his most impressive achievement here might've been his own resurrection.
Before the Penguins took to the ice for their morning skate, someone put mock tape markings on the ice to symbolize a police-style chalk outline, undoubtedly a reference to how hard he'd fallen in Philadelphia a couple nights earlier upon being poked by one of the Flyers.
The culprit's apparently still on the loose.
"We'll find him," Muse would say through a big grin.
____________________
Mini-golf with Fleury at the Mall of America in the afternoon?
PENGUINS
Yeah, check on that, too.
____________________
Intangibles can be super-serious, as well.
Both of the Penguins' regulation losses were heavily influenced by awful officiating, and this was trending that way, too, first because of this indefensible negation of a Geno goal for alleged goaltender interference by Justin Brazeau ...
... and then for an even more egregious whiff when Rust was penalized for tripping even though the only contact he'd made with his opponent was shoulder to shoulder.
The response to Garrett Rank's rank calls?
The penalty-killers went 4 for 4 against the NHL leader in power-play goals. And get this: In those eight minutes, the Penguins had two shots to the Wild's ... three.
No one had a better view:
“It’s huge, obviously," Jarry would reply when I raised this before smiling and adding, "They’re not wearing as much gear as us, and it hurts a lot more. For them to be able to do that and go down there willingly, it helps us a ton.”
There were 15 blocks in front of Jarry, a game-high three by Wotherspoon, one of which sent him limping back to the bench in obvious pain. He'd return for his next shift.
____________________
I'd been waiting for a PK guy to interview. Finally, Noel Acciari emerged from the athletic trainers' room ... all bandaged up, wrapped in ice, hobbled in more ways than one and ... yeah, I'll get by without the quote.
____________________
Not that anyone was about to feel sorry for themselves in this particular postgame session:
Tonight's player of the game helmet went to 10-year-old Weston Paszkiewicz, who’s battling leukemia and signed a one-day contract with the @mnwild through the Make-A-Wish Foundation đ pic.twitter.com/C5Ra5gFIG0
Out of view from what's above: Sid then followed the boy's family out into an adjacent hallway and spent extra time with all concerned.
One thing about Sid is that he's never not being the best version of Sid.
____________________
For Geno, another point, another claim to Mr. Hockey's ages-old, age-based mileposts:
NHL
I'd taken Geno's temp earlier in the day. He just wants to be great, just wants to win.
Fleury got that part right.
____________________
I asked Rust after the morning skate about playoffs, fully anticipating he'd come back with some sort of bravado. He's good for that kinda thing on occasion.
"For us and for me, I think we're just taking it one day at a time," he'd come back instead. "Obviously, we've had a start that we like here, but there've been some inconsistencies in our game that we're still trying to work out. I think we've got better in this room."
So ... playoffs?
"I don't think anyone in here's even thinking about it?"
Really?
"We're just playing."
Hours later, after the final horn, I tried again. One-word question: Playoffs?
THE ASYLUM
DK: These Penguins have earned their place atop the NHL
Marc-André Fleury meant well, naturally. He always does. He's not one of the most beloved athletes in our city's history for nothing.
But, as it's played out, his preseason projection for these 2025-26 Penguins couldn't have been any more off the mark ... than everyone else's.
Remember it?
It was back in June at a charity golf tournament near Montréal that Fleury told the French-language daily La Presse that, if it were up to him, he'd prefer to see his still-close friend Sidney Crosby leave Pittsburgh for a chance to win elsewhere.
"I can't answer for him, but I hope for him that he does leave,” Fleury said, as translated by our Nic Lavigne. “It's been three years in a row that Pittsburgh has missed the playoffs, and it's not looking good for next season."
No, it wasn't.
And then, formally, following a grind-it-out, goaltending-rich 4-1 flattening of the Wild on this Thursday night at Grand Casino Arena, it was looking like this in the NHL's overall standings:
NHL
Oh, my.
Just so happened I ran into Fleury after this. He and his family still live here.
I had to ask what he thought of the old Core still doing what they do.
"Same guys," he'd reply in flashing that familiar smile. "They don't want to go down easy."
____________________
I've been over why I've believed this would be a competitive team -- though I stopped well short of forecasting contention -- for months now.
I've been over why I've believed this has happened, from both the individual and collective standpoints. And, like Fleury assessed, it has started with Sid, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, plus Bryan Rust, Erik Karlsson, Tristan Jarry and, before his injury, Rickard Rakell. It's been, for the most part, about those who've been here the longest.
I've been over the newcomers, from the teen prospects to the twenty-something projects.
Ben Kindel's 18, and his day here morphed as follows: Found out in the morning he'd be playing his 10th NHL game and, thus, activating his entry-level contract. Took to the ice for the skate, for the first time, as a member of the top power play. And then, because all good hockey things occur in threes ...
... he'd pop one on the power play for late insurance.
I've been over the data, too, exhaustively at times. My latest: In the salary-cap era that began in 2005, of the 80 teams that started a season 8-2-2 or better, 71 of them made the Stanley Cup playoffs, or 89%. In this decade alone, there've been 24 teams in that category, and all 24 made the playoffs. And I'm gonna guess that not a lot of those teams were also No. 1 in the league standings, No. 1 in goal differential at plus-13, No. 2 on the power play, No. 3 in goaltending save percentage, and a ton more.
What I haven't been over anywhere near as much is the underlying stuff. The heart-and-soul stuff. The stuff that can't ever show up in the statistics, advanced or otherwise.
I've held a stance forever that the intangibles don't lead to success but, rather, they follow it.
They're following. In droves.
"We have a good group here," Filip Hallander, one of those twenty-somethings, was telling me after this game. He's an NHL rookie, and he's skating on the top line with Sid and Rust, while also killing penalties. "We believe in each other."
____________________
Examples abound, but I'm not sure there's a better one than Jarry.
I don't need to retell his tale to anyone this deep into a column covering the Penguins. I'll instead just retell his tale from earlier this calendar year, when he was recalled from his months-long banishment to Wilkes-Barre, only to stun the Wild -- and likely his coaches and teammates with a dominant showing. One that fed into a solid final two months and that, as far as I can see, carries over to this day.
As in ... this very day:
That's Kirill Kaprizov, Minnesota's newly minted $136 million man and the highest-paid player in NHL history, getting stoned in succession on a redirect and a rebound. Opening minute of the second period. Penguins down one.
Another minute later, the Penguins tied. Seismic swing.
"He was awesome," Muse would say when I brought up Jarry's name.
That was accurate. He'd stop 26 of 27 shots, and his vitals would improve to 5-1 with a 2.35 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage, the latter ranking fifth in the NHL among goaltenders with six-plus starts.
I'd reminded Jarry in the morning about the significance of St. Paul. Let's just say it wasn't needed.
____________________
The goal that followed Jarry's above saves belonged to Ryan Shea:
He's 28, he's yet to spend a full season in the NHL, this was his second goal ... and his teammates are having a blast branding him as 'Bobby' Shea. After Bobby Orr, of course. As he was doing a TV hit outside the locker room after the game, one of them poked his head out of the room and belted out, "BOB-BEEEEEEEE!"
Later, once at his stall, as more cameras and microphones surrounded him, Letang jabbed from the next stall: "He's Bobby FLAY! He's cooking out there!"
"I can take it," Shea'd tell me later. "This is all good."
He's been better than good to date, and that matters so very much within a left-handed corps that almost everyone, myself included, declared DOA after, oh, maybe a single shift at Madison Square Garden. Which isn't bad for a guy on a one-year, close-to-minimum contract.
I was wrong about him. Saw him as no better than a seventh option, wondered why he was even brought back. I'll eat that. He's been by far the most active defensemen in terms of shooting, and he's shown an occasionally electric jump into the attack, even from a standstill.
Vision, too:
"Shea-zo's been incredible for us, offensively and defensively," Rust, the beneficiary of that service, would tell me. "You can tell he worked really hard this summer, came in here with a chip on his shoulder, ready to prove something. He's earned everything he's gotten this year."
It might be rubbing off: Another left-handed defenseman, Parker Wotherspoon, might've had his best game in a Pittsburgh sweater, as well.
____________________
Wotherspoon's 28. Pretty much the same timeline. And again, nice game. But his most impressive achievement here might've been his own resurrection.
Before the Penguins took to the ice for their morning skate, someone put mock tape markings on the ice to symbolize a police-style chalk outline, undoubtedly a reference to how hard he'd fallen in Philadelphia a couple nights earlier upon being poked by one of the Flyers.
The culprit's apparently still on the loose.
"We'll find him," Muse would say through a big grin.
____________________
Mini-golf with Fleury at the Mall of America in the afternoon?
PENGUINS
Yeah, check on that, too.
____________________
Intangibles can be super-serious, as well.
Both of the Penguins' regulation losses were heavily influenced by awful officiating, and this was trending that way, too, first because of this indefensible negation of a Geno goal for alleged goaltender interference by Justin Brazeau ...
... and then for an even more egregious whiff when Rust was penalized for tripping even though the only contact he'd made with his opponent was shoulder to shoulder.
The response to Garrett Rank's rank calls?
The penalty-killers went 4 for 4 against the NHL leader in power-play goals. And get this: In those eight minutes, the Penguins had two shots to the Wild's ... three.
No one had a better view:
“It’s huge, obviously," Jarry would reply when I raised this before smiling and adding, "They’re not wearing as much gear as us, and it hurts a lot more. For them to be able to do that and go down there willingly, it helps us a ton.”
There were 15 blocks in front of Jarry, a game-high three by Wotherspoon, one of which sent him limping back to the bench in obvious pain. He'd return for his next shift.
____________________
I'd been waiting for a PK guy to interview. Finally, Noel Acciari emerged from the athletic trainers' room ... all bandaged up, wrapped in ice, hobbled in more ways than one and ... yeah, I'll get by without the quote.
____________________
Not that anyone was about to feel sorry for themselves in this particular postgame session:
Out of view from what's above: Sid then followed the boy's family out into an adjacent hallway and spent extra time with all concerned.
One thing about Sid is that he's never not being the best version of Sid.
____________________
For Geno, another point, another claim to Mr. Hockey's ages-old, age-based mileposts:
NHL
I'd taken Geno's temp earlier in the day. He just wants to be great, just wants to win.
Fleury got that part right.
____________________
I asked Rust after the morning skate about playoffs, fully anticipating he'd come back with some sort of bravado. He's good for that kinda thing on occasion.
"For us and for me, I think we're just taking it one day at a time," he'd come back instead. "Obviously, we've had a start that we like here, but there've been some inconsistencies in our game that we're still trying to work out. I think we've got better in this room."
So ... playoffs?
"I don't think anyone in here's even thinking about it?"
Really?
"We're just playing."
Hours later, after the final horn, I tried again. One-word question: Playoffs?
"Talk to me after Christmas."
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
Become a member, and enjoy premium benefits!
Weâd love to have you!