BELIEVE.<\/p>\n
There has been a sign with that word hanging above the Penguins locker room doors for a while now. It\u2019s a replica of the one used in \u2018Ted Lasso,\u2019 with Sidney Crosby a fan of the show (do with that what you will).<\/p>\n
There\u2019s certainly a bit of a parallel between the journeys of AFC Richmond and this year\u2019s Pittsburgh Penguins, particularly when it comes to low external expectations. Before the season, Vegas oddsmakers gave the Penguins a 91% chance of missing the playoffs for the fourth year in a row.<\/p>\n
But internally, the feeling was different here in Pittsburgh. That was expressed in quotes to the media, and within the walls of the Penguins facilities.<\/p>\n
As President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas wrote in an email to the entire organization ahead of opening night, \u201cone of the major points that Coach (Dan) Muse and I have discussed since we hired him in early June, and one that he shared with all of our players and hockey operations staff upon training camp opening, is that we control our own story here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, in Game 79, the Penguins have clinched a spot in the postseason as they continue to write their own narrative. And it has been one hell of a story.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of the year, nobody picked us or expected us to be there,\u201d Dubas told Josh Getzoff in this season\u2019s final edition of the GM Show. \u201cI think it\u2019s a testament to the attitude that the players and coaches and staff have had all year \u2013 which is no matter what\u2019s come our way, when we\u2019ve had bad stretches or bad games, or injuries, there\u2019s no excuses. (We don\u2019t) allow it to seep in. We\u2019re going to make the most out of what we have every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really what has given us the chance to potentially flip the script on what everyone said would be the 2025-26 Pittsburgh Penguins.\u201d<\/p>\n
It can’t be said enough \u2013 Dubas and his staff deserve so much credit for the work they did to assemble this group around the Big Three, particularly over the last year.<\/p>\n
They drafted Ben Kindel with the 11th overall pick, despite many outside projections having him ranked far lower. The youngest player in the league has been a key part of the team this season.<\/p>\n
During free agency, they brought in players like Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau and Parker Wotherspoon, who are all having exceptional individual seasons for their respective games.<\/p>\n
Going back to the 2025 trade deadline, they acquired Connor\u00a0Dewar, Tommy Novak, Arturs Silovs, Connor Clifton, Stuart Skinner, Egor Chinakhov, Ilya Solovyov, Elmer Soderblom and Sam Girard, who have all contributed in some way since joining the team.<\/p>\n
And instead of trading Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell, they kept both players here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be honest, it\u2019s a whole hell of a lot more fun having these conversations about us winning and moving forward the rest of the year than having the other conversations, sitting on pins and needles, thinking (of) what might happen,\u201d Rust said around this year\u2019s trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Muse, a first-year NHL Head Coach, and his staff deserve so much credit as well. Muse should absolutely be in the running for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL\u2019s Coach of the Year for the job he has done.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe feels part of the team, one of us,\u201d Rakell said. \u201cBecause you can talk to him about anything. He loves talking about hockey, different players, different strategies. He\u2019s never told us not to try anything in a game. The freedom to do things on the ice is really helpful, but at the same time, everybody has a job on our team that\u2019s expected. I think everybody feels their value. It takes a lot of different players to have a good team, to work. Everybody\u2019s owned their part and feeling pride in playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s where the lion\u2019s share of the credit should go \u2013 to the players who believed, and who have been tirelessly motivated all year to get the Penguins to this point.<\/p>\n
Back in December, talking with Blake Lizotte about what was driving his stellar play, he said, \u201cJust wanting to get back to the playoffs. People don’t always realize these games, game one is worth two points and game 82 is worth two points. So, I think each and every night kind of fuels me, just wanting to put two points in the bank and get closer for the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a big win in Ottawa last month, Rakell \u2013 who has put together an excellent run for Pittsburgh \u2013 said, \u201ceverybody wants to get in. And I mean, we want it so bad. So, we got to do everything we can to win hockey games.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now that they\u2019ve taken this major step, as Dubas said, it\u2019s time to do some damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to finish the story here. We have that chance,\u201d Dubas said.<\/p>\n
Because the Penguins aren\u2019t just squeaking in. They enter the postseason with one of the NHL\u2019s most potent offenses, near the top of the league in goals scored. \u201cI think the biggest thing for me is seeing it come from a lot of different lines, a lot of different situations,\u201d Muse said.<\/p>\n
They have a blue line led by three-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, who was voted Penguins Team MVP.\u00a0He\u2019s been playing alongside Wotherspoon all season, and they\u2019ve formed a complementary pairing. In-season acquisition Girard has been finding his groove alongside Kris Letang, while Ryan Shea has been as steady as it gets alongside Clifton, whose game lends itself to the playoffs.<\/p>\n
They have depth in the crease that includes Skinner, who played in the last two Stanley Cup Finals with the Edmonton Oilers. And in talking with the playoff-tested goaltender, two other important elements stick out about this team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one, the way that we play, just structurally,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen all of us stick to the game plan, when we do the very, very small little details, I feel like we’re a very hard team to beat.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only that, but you’ve seen over the course of my time being here, especially \u2013 but even before that \u2013 this is a very resilient group. You know you can never count us out. Being down 4-1 against Columbus, we were able to come back and win in overtime. And you could go on and on and on about different scenarios that we’ve done that. So, from my experience, that’s honestly exactly what you need to go for a long stretch. We definitely got the group of guys in here. I have 100% belief in this group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELIEVE. There has been a sign with that word hanging above the Penguins locker room doors for a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":717596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-717595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116379204834671605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}