The Bridge That Isn't There

Kyle Dubas stood at a podium at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in May and said the quiet part out loud.

"We've got the veterans and the very young players, and now it's just that bridge across the middle. What we really lack are those players in their mid-20s or later-20s who are true difference makers."

Then he spent six weeks trying to build that bridge, and he couldn't.

He couldn't move up from 22nd overall. He couldn't land Jason Robertson. He couldn't pull off the trade he'd promised himself. By the end of the first round of the draft in Buffalo, sitting in a temporary downtown Pittsburgh war room, he was already conceding it: "Yeah, I think we'll continue to work away at it. What I wanted to get was maybe not so much late 20s, but in the range of some of the guys that have been moved… there were multiple top 10 picks moved, which isn't overly common."

He laughed out loud when someone asked about free agency. "If you look at the players available, that could be an expensive mistake. And I try to learn from the past."

He was, of course, talking about Ryan Graves and Tristan Jarry.

So here's where the Penguins actually are, on July 10, 2026: coming off a 41-25-16, 98-point season that nobody saw coming, a Jack Adams finalist behind the bench, a first-round exit at the hands of the Flyers that stung worse than it should have, a new owner, roughly $17 million in remaining cap space, and a franchise built like a barbell — heavy at both ends, hollow in the middle.

Training camp is two months away. Let's take stock.

Part I: What Actually Happened

The Season Nobody Predicted

The preseason odds were +30000 to win the Stanley Cup. The over/under was 76.5 points. Most models had them in lottery contention. This was supposed to be the tank year.

Instead: second in the Metropolitan Division. Third in the NHL in goals scored (290). Twelve players with 13+ goals, four with 20+. Second in the league in 5-on-5 goals (201). Seventh-best power play in hockey at 24.1%.

The ugly side: 24th in goals against (258). A December stretch where they lost eight straight and blew leads that defied physics. But an SRS of 0.33 — ninth in the NHL — says the underlying team was real, not lucky.

Dan Muse, 43 years old, in his first NHL head coaching job after stops at Yale, the Chicago Steel, Nashville, USA Hockey's NTDP, and the Rangers bench, took a roster projected to be bad and made it structurally sound. Jack Adams finalist. Kris Letang's description at locker cleanout is the one that matters:

"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."

That's a hockey team. That's what Muse built.

The Flyers Series

Down 3-0. Won Games 4 and 5. Lost Game 6 in overtime, 1-0, on a Cam York seeing-eye shot through traffic with two and a half minutes left in OT.

Read that box score and it looks like the Penguins got run over. Watch the last three games and you'd think the opposite. They outshot Philadelphia 23-11 in the third period and overtime of Game 6. They tilted the ice. They were the better team for three straight games. If it goes seven, you like their chances.

They just spent the first three games digging a hole they couldn't climb out of.

Here's what actually killed them:

Read that again. The Penguins' power play gave up expected goals at a rate 65% higher than the worst regular-season power play in the league. They surrendered a backbreaking shorthanded goal to Garnet Hathaway in Game 2. The power play didn't just fail to score — it actively lost them the series.

The rest of the ledger: 5-on-5 goals went 11-5 Flyers over six games, after Pittsburgh finished second in the NHL in that category. They had a 394-310 edge in shot attempts but only 159-155 in shots on goal — they led the entire playoffs in missed shots (128) and blocked shots (107). Anthony Mantha, who led the team with 33 goals, scored zero. Egor Chinakhov, 18 goals in 43 games after the trade, scored zero.

Eight Penguins scored a goal. Fourteen Flyers did, including five defensemen.

Fifth straight first-round exit. No playoff series win since beating these same Flyers in 2018.

Part II: What Changed This Summer

The Owner

On June 25, the NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale of the Pittsburgh Penguins from Fenway Sports Group to the Hoffmann Family of Companies — reportedly around $1.7 billion, up from the $900 million FSG paid in 2021.

Geoff Hoffmann is governor. Greg Hoffmann, David Hoffmann, and Kyle Dubas are alternate governors. The family owns Shepler's Mackinac Island Ferry and Arnold Transit Company, and has run the ECHL's Florida Everblades since 2019 — winning multiple Kelly Cups, including this year's.

"This is a defining moment for our family," Geoff Hoffmann said. "The Penguins represent everything Hoffmann Family of Companies stands for — community, excellence and long-term thinking."

The subtext that matters to Pittsburgh: Mario Lemieux is circling.

Lemieux's distance from the organization in recent years was reportedly tied to a financial dispute with Fenway that kept him away from PPG Paints Arena for something like two years. He came back for Jagr's jersey retirement in February 2024. Once FSG put the team up for sale, he started showing up regularly again. Nothing is official. But the smoke is real, and a formal Lemieux role would be the single most stabilizing thing that could happen to this franchise right now.

The Core, One More Time

All three of them are back. Probably for the last time together.

Sidney Crosby, 38 (39 in August), signed through 2026-27 at $8.7 million. He put up 74 points in 68 games — his 21st point-per-game season — despite a lower-body injury at the Olympics that wrecked the back half of his year. His first two months were A+ work. Then he got hurt, and the goals dried up, and the Penguins made the playoffs anyway because eleven other guys stepped up.

That last part is the story. Crosby has spent three years being the argument for blowing it up and the argument against it simultaneously. This year he didn't have to be the whole team. He's eligible to extend on July 1 for 2027-28 and hasn't. "I don't ever think I've really looked too far ahead," he said. He waited two and a half months to sign the last one. Nobody should read anything into the silence.

He's 10th all-time in NHL scoring. He turns 40 shortly after this contract expires.

Evgeni Malkin, 39 (40 before the season starts), re-signed May 26 on a one-year, $5.5 million deal with up to $3.5 million in bonuses — $250K at 42 games, another $250K at 63, $1 million if they make the playoffs, and $500K for each round won. Full no-movement clause.

He moved to wing and posted 61 points in 56 games — his first point-per-game season since 2022-23 — plus two goals and an assist in six playoff games. He was Pittsburgh's best forward against the Flyers.

"Best city, best fans, I stay one more year."

That's the whole quote. That's the whole thing.

Kris Letang, 39, signed through 2027-28 at $6.1 million. Two goals in the Flyers series, tied for the team lead. Josh Yohe reports Letang is available for the right price — his full no-move converted to a 10-team approved list on July 1. Nobody expects it. But the door is technically ajar.

Since 2005-06, no NHL team has won more playoff games than the Penguins. None has been to more Stanley Cup Finals. Only one has won as many Cups. These three men are that entire run. Whatever this season is, it is almost certainly the last one where all three wear the sweater.

The Moves

Dubas said he wouldn't spend, and then he didn't. This was a summer of bottom-six additions and right-side defensemen, not a summer of stars.

IN:

RE-SIGNED:

• Egor Chinakhov — three years, $6.25M AAV through 2028-29. He's the most important contract of the summer.

• Arturs Silovs — one year, $2.8M. A prove-it deal for a guy who earned it at literally the last possible minute.

• Joel Blomqvist — two years, $875K AAV

• Evgeni Malkin, Connor Dewar (2yr, $2.25M AAV), Ilya Solovyov (1yr, $850K)

OUT:

• Anthony Mantha — 33 goals, team high, career year. Zero in the playoffs. Walked.

• Stuart Skinner — Winnipeg, 2yr/$3.75M AAV

• Ryan Shea — Edmonton, five years, $4M AAV. Thirty-five points last season. That's a real loss.

• Kevin Hayes, Noel Acciari, Connor Clifton, Parker Wotherspoon, Jack St. Ivany

Here's the thing Dan Kingerski put his finger on: through the first days of free agency, the Penguins packed their bottom six and the right side of their defense. That's either a strategy or an accident of availability. Right side of the blue line now runs Karlsson, Letang, van Riemsdyk, Korczak, with Harrison Brunicke pushing. The left side is bare.

That's not a roster. That's a pile.

The Draft

Six picks. Two brothers.

Liam Ruck put up 45 goals and 104 points in 68 WHL games. ESPN's write-up: high-end hockey IQ, versatile, scores at the net front, finds shooters in space. He returns to Medicine Hat this season and is committed to North Dakota for 2027-28.

Then, at 39, they took his twin brother.

Medicine Hat coach Willie Desjardins on the Rucks: "There's stuff that they see. They just have that. They do things and you go, 'How did they know?' I think when they are together, there's just another level of chemistry and ability that goes with that."

Dubas — who "worked our asses off" trying to move up and couldn't — settled for building his own Sedins. It's a lovely story. It is also, unmistakably, a consolation prize.

Nikonovich is the one to file away: a 17-year-old Belarusian goalie who posted a 1.96 GAA and .939 save percentage in 38 games for a team that has since disbanded. Fifth-round lottery tickets in net occasionally hit.

No. 1 overall in this draft was Gavin McKenna, to Toronto. Making the playoffs cost Pittsburgh any shot at him. That's the trade they made, whether they meant to or not.

Part III: What to Watch

1. The Bridge Problem Is Not Solved

This is the whole article, really.

Dubas has two groups. The veterans — Crosby (39), Malkin (40), Letang (39), Karlsson (36), Rust (34), Rakell (33). And the kids — Ben Kindel, Bill Zonnon, Will Horcoff, Harrison Brunicke, Sergei Murashov, Ville Koivunen, Owen Pickering, Tanner Howe, Rutger McGroarty.

Between them: nothing. Kingerski's line is brutal and correct — the closest thing to a bridge is Tommy Novak and Justin Brazeau, "not exactly franchise pillars."

Chinakhov, at 25 and $6.25M, is now the first real attempt at that bridge. So is Robertson at 24. So is Lapierre at 24. So is Kuzmenko as a one-year swing.

The counterargument — and Dubas would make it — is that this is the plan. He explicitly said he'd rather wait than spend badly. "If it's not a significant move in the short run, rather than do something for the sake of doing it, I'd rather say we aspired to do it, but the options weren't there."

The counter-counterargument is that Crosby is 39 and every summer this doesn't happen is a summer subtracted from the only asset that can't be replaced.

Watch: whether Dubas is still hunting into September, and what he's willing to give up. Reports of a Rakell-plus-Rust-plus-picks package to Dallas for Jason Robertson — effectively four first-round-caliber assets — were floated and (correctly) shot down. Elliotte Friedman confirmed there was momentum in late June that died.

2. Rakell, Rust, Karlsson: Who Gets Moved?

Bryan Rust, 34: 29 goals, career-high 65 points last season. No trade protection at all. Yohe: "He's one of the more beloved teammates in franchise history and is pretty much good for an automatic 25 to 30 goals a season. Dubas doesn't want to trade him, but contending teams have wanted Rust for years and still do. The market stinks. If one team gets really ravenous for Rust and offers a significant package, Dubas will pull the trigger."

Rickard Rakell, 33: 24 goals, 48 points in 60 games. $5M AAV through 2027-28. Eight-team no-trade list. Friedman floated Montreal on 32 Thoughts, though he admitted he had "no idea if it's even possible." His trade value has been mystifyingly low for two straight summers.

Erik Karlsson, 36: final year of his deal, $10 million cap hit but only $1.5 million in actual salary owed after a $6M bonus payment. That's a cap-dump structure a contender can absorb at the deadline for pennies of real money. He was rejuvenated last year. Kingerski's assessment: keeping Karlsson past the trade deadline without a new contract would be "extraordinarily shocking."

Odds all three are still here at camp? Kingerski, on July 8: "I think it gets closer to 100% every day."

Odds all three are here in April? Considerably worse.

3. The Crease

Stuart Skinner is gone. Arturs Silovs is the incumbent starter on a one-year, $2.8M prove-it.

Silovs' regular season: 39 games, 19-12-8, 3.07 GAA, .887 SV%. That's bad. Career highs across the board in games, wins, and shutouts — and still bad.

Silovs' playoffs: 2-1, 1.52 GAA, .939 SV% in three games, coming in cold with the team down 3-0 and damn near forcing a Game 7.

That's the entire debate. Is he the guy who can't hold a save percentage above .890 across 82 games, or is he the guy who won a Calder Cup as playoff MVP with five shutouts in a single AHL playoff run and then did it again in the NHL postseason?

Behind him: Sergei Murashov, 22, who went 24-9-4 with a 2.20 GAA and .919 SV% in Wilkes-Barre and 1-1-2 with a .897 in five NHL games. Dubas said flatly that Murashov and Blomqvist have both earned an NHL spot.

Most likely tandem: Silovs and Murashov. Blomqvist third. Taylor Gauthier probably in Wilkes-Barre.

That's a young, unproven, high-variance crease on a team that finished 24th in goals against. It could be the best thing that happens to this franchise or the thing that sinks the season by American Thanksgiving.

4. Muse's Second Act

First-year coaches who overachieve get a target on their back in year two. The book is out now. The Flyers wrote the first chapter of it — clog the neutral zone, force Pittsburgh to shoot from the perimeter, let their power play beat itself.

Muse's fixes, in order of urgency:

1. The power play. 2.30 xGA/60 is not a slump. That's a structural failure. Too stationary, too much perimeter passing, not enough chances generated. Todd Nelson is the man on the spot.

2. The goals against. 258, 24th in the league. Dubas said publicly that the defensive work "was not at a good enough level throughout the season and especially during the playoffs."

3. Managing Letang's minutes. Brunicke is ready to take real ice time on the right side. Letang is 39.

Muse has never been an NHL head coach past year one. Nobody knows what year two looks like.

Part IV: What I Saw in Cranberry

I went to development camp at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex the last week of June. Two guys were playing a different sport than everybody else on the ice.

The standard disclaimer applies, and I'll say it first so nobody has to say it for me: this was development camp. Nineteen-year-olds and free-agent invites in non-contact 3-on-3, in June, with no defensive structure and no consequences. Nathan Legare looked like a first-line winger at this exact event in 2019. The graveyard is full of guys who dominated a summer scrimmage.

Now let me tell you what I saw anyway.

Pierce Mbuyi

The third-round pick, 86th overall, out of Owen Sound. Five-foot-ten, 160 pounds. He looked like the smallest human being in the building and he was the best player on the ice by a distance you could measure with a yardstick.

He never stopped moving. He was on every puck. He'd force a turnover at the neutral-zone line, get it back, and be at the net front three seconds later. In a format designed to reward pure skill, he kept winning battles he had no business winning against players fifty pounds heavier.

Here's the part I didn't know until later: he's not actually small — he's just light. At the NHL Combine, Mbuyi posted the top score in the isokinetic squat, the second-best bench press, and 14 pull-ups (tied for sixth). He's a fire hydrant. He also racked up 85 penalty minutes last season, which tells you exactly how he plays. Wilkes-Barre's writeup called it right: he "forechecks like a honey badger."

The résumé backs it up. OHL Rookie of the Year in 2024-25 with 52 points in 63 games as a 17-year-old. 75 points (32G, 43A) in 68 games last year. Team captain by spring. And the thing nobody mentions: he led the entire OHL in power-play goals with 19.

That last number matters more than it looks, because his calling card is a one-timer from the half-wall — and he doesn't just park there with his stick loaded. He manipulates. He'll receive it, see no lane, touch-pass it away, force the defenseman to rotate, then relocate two feet to a spot with more room and re-load. Jesse Marshall of DK Pittsburgh Sports built a thirteen-minute video breakdown of it. It's the kind of thing you can't teach and most 18-year-olds never think to do.

The Penguins did not expect him to be there at 86. Wes Clark's staff had him higher. Pens sources are calling him a steal.

Tom Kostopoulos, Director of Player Development: "Pierce is an underdog. He had 74 points this year… he's dealt with some things in his lifetime that you don't want people at that age to deal with."

He goes back to Owen Sound this year, then Penn State in 2027-28. He is a long, long way from Pittsburgh. He is also the most fun player in this organization to watch.

Zam Plante

The other one. And with Plante, "men against boys" isn't hyperbole — he's 21 years old and was skating against high schoolers.

Fifth-round pick, 2022, 150th overall. Nobody's prospect list. And then last season at Minnesota-Duluth he put up 20 goals and 50 points in 40 games — sixth in the entire NCAA in scoring.

Sit with that. Sixth in college hockey. That's production in the same neighborhood as Gavin McKenna, Porter Martone, and Michael Hage — all first-round picks, one of them the No. 1 overall selection in this draft. A fifth-rounder from four years ago.

At camp he was captain of Team Rutherford and MVP of the tournament day. Kostopoulos: "I thought he stood out probably more than anyone today, with just his creativity, his hockey sense. And then he can finish, he can make plays."

Then Kostopoulos volunteered something better:

"One of the interesting and cool things about development camp is we get to know these kids off the ice too, so we put them in little competitions all throughout the week. He won the cornhole tournament. We're at a bowling alley, he won't sit down from the bowling. We do trivia, he's all over the answers. Seems like anything we play, he's involved in, and guys gravitate to him, and he just seems to like competing and winning."

That's not a scouting report. That's a personality profile, and it's the kind of thing organizations remember.

He and Mbuyi found each other immediately. They connected on play after play in the 3-on-3. Plante on Mbuyi: "Yeah, he's a little sniper. He's fun to play with."

The Complication Nobody's Talking About

Here's where it gets uncomfortable.

Zam Plante has two brothers. Max Plante — his linemate at Duluth, who won the Hobey Baker Award last season with 52 points in 40 games — was drafted 47th overall by Detroit in 2024. Victor Plante, the youngest, was drafted 47th overall by Detroit in 2026. Same team. Same slot. Two years apart.

All three will play at Minnesota-Duluth this coming season. Coach Scott Sandelin has promised them at least one shift together.

And Max, at Detroit's development camp, said this out loud to reporters: "I was kind of telling Drapes the other day how we have to let him graduate and he'll be a free agent. He has a couple years more of college."

That is a Red Wings prospect publicly floating a plan to poach a Penguins prospect. Pittsburgh's exclusive signing rights on Plante expire after his senior season. Two more years of college and he walks, free, to whichever organization he wants — and one of them has both his brothers in it.

To his credit, Zam pushed back immediately: "The Penguins are the team that picked me. They've been really loyal to me, helped me through development, helped me through injuries and stuck with me. This is where I want to be."

Believe it or don't. But Cruz Lucius just took exactly that path out of this organization, and for far less compelling reasons than keeping a family together.

What Dubas should do: sign Plante to an NHL contract that burns year one in 2026-27, and get him into real NHL games down the stretch. It's the same carrot they used on Jake Livanavage. Tell a 21-year-old he can be in the league at 22 instead of turning pro at 24, and see how much the family reunion is worth.

Because if the Penguins let this play out passively, they're going to lose a top-ten NCAA scorer for nothing, and everyone in Pittsburgh is going to spend 2028 asking how a fifth-round pick who was the best player at his own development camp ended up in a Red Wings sweater.

I watched him for four days. He'll be worth the contract.

Part V: Risers, Sleepers, and Guys Who Change the Math

Egor Chinakhov (25, LW). The single most important player on this roster who isn't named Crosby. Eighteen goals and 36 points in 43 games after the December trade from Columbus — a 69-point full-season pace — for the low price of Danton Heinen, a 2026 second, and a 2027 third. He now carries a $6.25M cap hit through 2028-29. The warning label: he ran a 102.7 PDO. That is not sustainable. Zero goals in six playoff games. If he's a 60-point winger, that contract is a bargain and Dubas is a genius. If he's a 40-point winger who got hot, it's a problem.

Ben Kindel (19, C). 11th overall in 2025. Jumped straight in and, per Dubas, was the standard the other young guys are measured against: "You'd want everyone to jump in like Ben did this year." The Athletic's Yohe has him in the "almost untouchable" tier. Watch for him to slide into Tommy Novak's second-line center spot.

Harrison Brunicke (D, 20). The prize of the Guentzel trade, indirectly. Terrific Calder Cup playoff for Wilkes-Barre. Dejan Kovacevic went so far as to suggest he could supplant Letang in meaningful ways this season by taking special-teams and heavy minutes. A no-brainer to make the roster.

Sergei Murashov (G, 22). Not anointed. Dubas made clear he's earned a shot. Could be the franchise goalie.

Nick Robertson (LW, 24). A zero-risk fourth-rounder for a guy Toronto gave up on after years of anticipation. If the talent that made the Leafs wait ever shows up, that's found money.

Ville Koivunen (22, LW). The make-or-break year. Kovacevic's assessment from camp last fall was blunt: showed up out of NHL shape, "looked lost, clumsy and even fragile, routinely being bowled off his skates." Stars in the AHL, gets rag-dolled in the NHL. He turns 23 next month.

Owen Pickering (D, 22). 2022 first-rounder. 6-5, 206, real wheels. Spent all but four games in Wilkes-Barre despite a left-defense depth chart that was wide open. Never delivered the physicality management wanted. The left side is still wide open. This is the opening.

Andrei Kuzmenko (30, LW). One year, $5M. He scored 39 goals in Vancouver in 2022-23 and has been in freefall ever since through Calgary, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Fourth team in three years. If Muse gets anything out of him, it's a deadline chip. If not, it's $5M and a shrug.

Liam Ruck (18, RW). He's not on the NHL roster this year. He's the reason to watch Medicine Hat. Quiet development camp, for what it's worth — so was Ben Kindel's, a year before he played 77 NHL games.

Part VI: The Prediction

Here's how I see it.

They will be better than people think and it won't be enough.

The 2025-26 team was not a fluke. An SRS of 0.33 and 290 goals scored is a real hockey team, not a mirage. Muse has a system that works. Crosby, healthy for a full season, is still a point-per-game player at 39. Malkin, motivated by a farewell tour and $3.5 million in bonuses, will be worth watching every night. Chinakhov is legitimately good even if he's not 69-point good. Kindel and Brunicke are ready to contribute.

But look at the goaltending. Silovs at .887 across 39 games. Murashov with five NHL appearances. That's not a playoff crease — that's a hope and a prayer. And the team in front of them finished 24th in goals against, then lost their most reliable defensive defenseman (Shea) to Edmonton and replaced him with a 35-year-old and a 26-year-old with 42 games of NHL experience.

And look at the left side of the blue line. There's nothing there. Pickering or bust.

And look at the power play. Until somebody proves the structural rot from April is fixed, that's a unit that surrendered expected goals at a historic rate in the highest-leverage minutes of the season.

My number: 88-92 points. Ninth or tenth in the East. They miss the playoffs.

The Metro is a meat grinder — Carolina is a machine, and the Devils, Rangers, Islanders, and Capitals are all live. Pittsburgh needs a bounce, and last year they got all of them.

By March 3 — the trade deadline — I think Erik Karlsson is a Cup contender's rental, because his cap hit is a fiction and his actual salary is $1.5 million. I think one of Rust or Rakell goes with him. I think Dubas finally gets the young, NHL-ready 25-year-old he's been chasing since May, and everyone in Pittsburgh spends April being furious about what it cost.

And then Evgeni Malkin skates one final lap at PPG Paints Arena, and it will be the best night in that building in a decade.

Here's what I actually believe, though, and it's why this season matters more than the standings:

Dubas is right, and it's costing him.

He's right that you can't win a Cup with a barbell roster. He's right that overpaying in July is how you end up with Ryan Graves. He's right that the price for a Jason Robertson — three first-round-caliber assets and change — is a price you shouldn't pay when your best player turns 40 in two years.

And he is going to be crucified for all of it, because the thing you cannot explain to a fan base watching Sidney Crosby's clock run out is patience.

The Penguins made the playoffs last year and it cost them Gavin McKenna. They'll probably miss this year and get a middling pick. That's the whole trap of the retool: you're never bad enough to be rewarded and never good enough to matter.

The way out is Kindel, Brunicke, Murashov, Chinakhov, the Ruck twins, Mbuyi, Plante — if they can keep him — and whoever Dubas finally lands at the deadline or next summer. Every one of them has to hit. Some of them won't.

That's what I keep coming back to about that week in Cranberry. A 160-pound third-rounder and a fifth-rounder nobody drafted high enough, both of them making everyone around them look ordinary. It doesn't mean anything. It's development camp.

It's also the only place in this organization right now where the future is visible.

Crosby, Malkin, and Letang have played roughly 3,900 NHL games between them. This is the last year they'll play any of them together.

Watch it while you can.

Rookie camp and captain's practices begin in early September. Training camp opens shortly after. Fifty-eight seasons in, and for the first time since 1999, somebody new owns the building.