History does repeat itself, and Pittsburgh Penguins fans have seen the scenarios of the 2025-26 season play out before.
But it has been a while.
The last time the Penguins missed the playoffs in four-consecutive seasons was the 2001-02 season through the 2005-06 seasons, which straddled the locked-out 2004-05 season as owners demanded a salary cap.
Twenty years later, the Penguins are (successfully) trying to avoid missing the playoffs for a fourth straight season once again.
But there’s just something reminiscent of the kindling at the beginning of Sidney Crosby’s career. In several instances, this season’s team more resembles that 2006-07 team that rose from the ashes of the NHL’s second-worst record in 2005-06 and made the playoffs, rather than a team that will miss out on the post-season again.
For those of you too young to remember, the 2006-07 team of young stars sprinkled with some veteran leaders lost in the Conference Quarter-Finals (4-1) to the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Ottawa Senators. The very next season, they catapulted all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Detroit Red Wings (4-2).
Fortunately or unfortunately, the Penguins of the past three seasons never quite bottomed out like those teams in the early-mid 2000s. Not only did those teams miss the playoffs in four-consecutive seasons, but they agonizingly finished in last place in the Atlantic Division in each of those seasons.
SeasonRecordPointsFinish2001-0228-41-8-5695th (last) in the Atlantic2002-0327-44-6-5655th (last) in the Atlantic2003-0423-47-8-4585th (last) in the Atlantic2004-05CanceledCanceledCanceled2005-0622-46-14585th (last) in the Atlantic
The 2006-07 team improved from an abysmal record of 22-46-14 (58 points) in the 2005-06 season to a record of 47-24-11 (105 points) and a second-place finish in the Atlantic Division. That team was led by 19-year-old Crosby, who led the NHL in points that season with 120. The roster also had rookie Evgeni Malkin, rookie Jordan Staal, second-year player, Max Talbot, Brooks Orpik in his third full season, and a young Marc-Andre Fleury taking the net full-time that season, playing in 67 games.
A 19-year-old Kris Letang also played seven games for the Penguins early that season before being sent back to his Junior team. There were also plenty of veterans sprinkled throughout that lineup, including Mark Recchi, John LeClair, Gary Roberts, Jocelyn Thibault, and Sergei Gonchar. The 2006-07 team actually featured nine players who won the Stanley Cup in 2009 (Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, Letang, Gonchar, Talbot, Orpik, and Mark Eaton).
The roster composition of this season’s team is very similar. With Crosby, Malkin, Letang, Bryan Rust, and Erik Karlsson filling the roles of Recchi, LeClair, Roberts, Thibault, and Gonchar. Meanwhile, youngsters Ben Kindel and Egor Chinakhov are filling the roles of the young, offensively gifted players ready to get their first taste of playoff hockey.
In ’06-07, there were also the young role players that filled out the bottom-six, such as 23-year-old fourth-liner Chris Thorburn, 23-year-old shootout specialist Erik Christensen, and 23-year-old Ryan Whitney on the blue line. Christensen was later traded in February of 2008, along with a young Colby Armstrong, prospect Angelo Esposito, and a first-round pick, for Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis.
Of course, Hossa was instrumental in helping the Penguins to the 2008 Cup Final, while Dupuis became a mainstay in the Penguins’ top-six for parts of the next nine seasons.
Whitney was traded to Anaheim in February of 2009 for Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi; the former became a key cog on three Stanley Cup Championship teams. While this season’s team is a bit older than that team, they still have many role players under 30, including 28-year-old Tommy Novak, 26-year-old Connor Dewar, and 28-year-old Blake Lizotte.
This year’s team also has more young players waiting in the wings, including forwards Rutger McGroarty, Avery Hayes, and Tristan Broz, defenseman Harrison Brunicke, and goaltender Sergei Murashov.
For comparison’s sake, the 2006-07 team had preseason odds of +6500 to win the Stanley Cup. This season’s team had preseason odds of a whopping +30,000. This season’s team is currently in second place in the Metropolitan Division, the same spot that the 2006-07 team finished, and very likely to make the playoffs.
Ironic to the point of almost unbelievable that 20 years later, it is still Crosby leading the team in points with Malkin not far behind. Crosby and Malkin were first and second on the 2006-07 team in points with 120 and 85 points, respectively.
Will this season’s team bow out in the first round of the playoffs like that 2006-07 team? Would that be considered a successful season? Only time will tell, but if a first-round playoff series loss this season means a Stanley Cup Final appearance next season, just as the script played out 20 years ago, then most Penguins fans would probably accept that scenario.
Tags: Bryan Rust Evgeni Malkin Kris Letang Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby
Categorized:Penguins Analysis