The Pens’ Potential Success Is in the Eye of the Beholder

There’s a different approach this season, and it’s one that needed to be embraced. It won’t be popular but it might serve the franchise well in the long run.

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The Penguins’ season opener on Wednesday night against the Rangers arrived with an anticipation appropriate for the occasion but also with perspective.

The latter was delivered by President of Hockey Operations Kyle Dubas, who made it clear in no uncertain terms the difference between aspirations and expectations.

“We aren’t favored by anybody to accomplish anything,” Dubas noted a couple of days before the puck dropped on the 2024-25 campaign. “And that’s not to build a narrative, that’s just simple fact. We’ve missed the playoffs the last two seasons here.

“We don’t come in with any preconceived notions anymore that we’re going to walk in and be a favorite or we’re gonna walk in and strike fear into anybody. We’re going to have to earn that.”

Almost on cue, the Pens opened with a gap-confirming, 6-0 loss to last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winners at PPG Paints Arena.

Beyond Dubas’ implication that “preconceived notions” of how the Pens perceived themselves individually and collectively was part of the problem last season, a message was sent to the fans regarding the need to temper expectations.

The goal, Dubas maintained, is to “play meaningful hockey in March, April and beyond.”

But the season won’t be judged a success or failure solely on whether the Pens make it to April.

Related: Turning the Page Is Essential for the Penguins

That’s not what anybody wants to hear, particularly a fan base that can still remember when the organization’s defining two-year streak chronicled the number of consecutive Stanley Cups won, not the number of seasons that ended short of the postseason.

But it’s nonetheless an honest assessment.

The Pens still intend to compete, but right now they’re a team and an organization that’s caught in between the old guard aging out and the next wave picking up the baton.

They still have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, but they’ve had those three the last two seasons and still failed to achieve their postseason objective. (Erik Karlsson, who arrived last season, doesn’t have a Cup connection in Pittsburgh but like Malkin and Letang is past his prime.)

New this season are some youngsters (Rutger McGroarty, Jack St. Ivany and Valtteri Puustinen) but not enough to constitute that next wave Dubas is anticipating (they’re still waiting on the likes of Vasily Ponomarev, Ville Koivunen, Avery Hayes and eventually Harrison Brunicke, Tristan Broz and Owen Pickering, to name a few).

The Pens have also had, by design, veterans on short-term contracts who “either needed a greater opportunity or were coming off of difficult or challenging seasons and had a lot to prove.”

They might get a desired spark from Matt Grzelcyk, Anthony Beauvillier, Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass.

But they might not.

So they’re in a tough spot.

Dubas knows it (there is, after all, only so much a beefed up analytics department can do to transition a franchise into a new era).

He also knows another near miss in the race for the playoffs is a possibility this time around, as it has been the last two seasons.

It might even be a likely eventuality.

But if it works out that way, Dubas will be able to accept such a result provided there’s tangible progress made by “those younger guys coming in and pushing,” as Dubas put it, with an eye toward future Cup runs.

For the Penguins, this isn’t playoffs or bust.

It’s transition they must.

“If the expectation is that this chapter of the Penguins is going to go the same place as the previous two chapters, it will lead to a story that will slowly draw this era of the Penguins to a close,” Dubas says. “The way I look at that is this season and this chapter represents our chance to change the story.

“It’s gonna be hard, there’s no doubt about it. It’s going to be very difficult, but I believe we can make it a successful season and be a playoff team, as well.”

Just understand the former isn’t necessarily dependent upon the latter.