If the Pittsburgh Penguins are not Stanley Cup contenders, why do they have so many players 33 and older?

It has been the question since former general manager Ron Hextall essentially scribbled a rebuild plan in a conference room for former owners Fenway Sports Group. When exactly will the next chapter and era of the Penguins begin?

Make no mistake, GM Kyle Dubas has turned over the underbelly of the Penguins lineup faster than a fry cook during the lunch rush. Yet the Penguins roster remains an odd coupling of the old foundation and transient temporary pieces.

Dubas is entering the fourth year of his seven-year contract, but it’s still not entirely his team. Nay, it’s still Sidney Crosby’s team with Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin, Rickard Rakell, and Bryan Rust.

Dubas has shuffled all of the pieces around those players, but they remain the granite pillars of the team. The general manager’s only addition to the top of the lineup has been Erik Karlsson, and that relationship may soon end.

Perhaps Egor Chinakhov and Ben Kindel also become pillars, but it will be a few moments before they do.

3 Penguins Thoughts

1. Is the clogged roster the result of failed trade talks?

The hard push for a premier player, moving up in the draft, and acquiring more first-round picks is an accepted fact, as confirmed by multiple reports and the Ottawa Senators’ released video.

Yet, nothing came to pass for Dubas and the Penguins until the morning of July 1, when they acquired Nick Robertson from the Toronto Maple Leafs for merely a fourth-round pick.

Robertson has long been a tantalizing young player, somewhat trapped in the Toronto bubble of a settled roster and oppressive pressure to win yesterday, now, and tomorrow. He is the exact type of player for which Dubas has been shopping, but now he is one of 18 or 20 forwards who will fight for NHL ice time during an abridged training camp.

After a summer of adding, no subtractions upfront, and a lot of analysis wading into the confusion, did Dubas pad his roster assuming some departures?

Following that thread of attempted trades, it feels like there is another shoe to drop sometime between now and the March 6 trade deadline. Actually, there might be a couple of shoes to drop.

2. College Prospects, Good and Bad

If the NCAA doesn’t badly mangle college hockey, unlike the pure destruction they’ve foisted upon college football, hockey will be better off. It seems inherently beneficial for more young men to attend college, thus matriculating in a classroom and on the ice, rather than pursuing the traditional path of junior hockey, which relies on billet families hundreds of miles from home and receiving an education that ends at the high school level.

For most players, the college hockey route offers more benefits than the junior route. However, hockey hasn’t caught up yet. More players should be able to enter the AHL at 18 or 19 if a drafting team deems it appropriate, and—here’s the big one—college players need to be able to attend NHL training camp.

Junior players, such as Liam and Markus Ruck, will be able to attend the Penguins’ training camp to learn from the professional players, while a myriad of the Penguins’ 2025 picks who chose college will not. Penguins prospects in college, including Will Horcoff, Ryan Miller, Brady Peddle, Charlie Trethewey, and more, won’t be in camp and cannot attend due to NCAA rules, but would greatly benefit.

The NCAA has buckled on every major issue for years, and it’s time for the NHL to apply a little pressure here.

3. Shuffled Prospect

So, what about goalie Joel Blomqvist? With all of the hype growing around rookie Sergei Murashov, who is the likely choice to be the other NHL goalie this season, Blomqvist remains in the ether.

Blomqvist, 24, was given a good look in the 2024-25 season but was roughed up in his big audition in the second half of the season. In fairness, former coach Mike Sullivan kept him on the bench for about two weeks after his call-up before putting him into the lineup, but Blomqvist did not perform well.

Last season, Murashov got the opportunity and acquitted himself well enough to feed the hope.

Blomqvist remains solid in the AHL, and his numbers have been consistent, though they have declined slightly since his 15-game NHL run (save percentage dropped from .921 to .913). Nor are they better than Murashov’s. The word around the organization has always been complimentary of Blomqvist as a potential NHL goalie, but his time could be short if Murashov proves worthy of his NHL shot.

Last season, there was a hint of tension between Murashov and Blomqvist. The pair were not close, and Murashov got every playoff start, and Blomqvist was visibly dealing with the emotional difficulty of being passed on the depth chart.

Blomqvist is a puck stopper; he’s not the biggest (6-foot-2, 183 pounds) and has average athleticism. Fortunately for the Penguins, he is still waiver-exempt, but one of the goalie-starved teams could very well see an opportunity… much like Minnesota did when they scooped up Filip Gustavsson after he washed out in Ottawa.

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