For the first time since 2022, the Pittsburgh Penguins are officially Stanley Cup Playoff-bound – and then some.
On Thursday, the Penguins beat the New Jersey Devils, 5-2, to secure two points and punch their ticket to the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. This is the first time the Penguins will appear in the postseason since 2022, and with a Philadelphia Flyers 6-3 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday, they were able to secure home ice advantage in round one as well.
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So many on the outside wrote off this Penguins’ team before the season even began. Now? It’s all come full-circle, and the team is happy to have proven folks wrong.
“I’ll be honest, it feels a little better given the outside expectations all year,” Bryan Rust said. “Giving everyone a big middle finger feels good.”
The road for the Penguins this season wasn’t an easy one, nor was their post-Olympic stretch. And even this game had its moments early on.
The Devils registered the first five shots of the hockey game, peppering Penguins’ netminder Stuart Skinner early. Skinner answered the bell, though, and Pittsburgh finally responded just under five minutes in. The Penguins were in the offensive zone, and Kris Letang managed to get the puck to a breaking Egor Chinakhov on the left side. Chinakhov sold “shot” all the way, but instead, sneakily threaded a perfect seam pass to Rust on the other wing, and he was able to execute a perfect one-time touch redirection into the net to give the Penguins the 1-0 lead on their first shot.
The Penguins took over the rest of the period for the most part, but they were still giving up some dangerous grade-A looks against. That came to a head approaching the midway point of the second period, when Paul Cotter took advantage of an Erik Karlsson misplay and took off on a breakaway, beating Skinner and tying the game at 1-1.
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But, as they often do, the Penguins didn’t sit back or sulk. Instead, they got right back to work. Less than two minutes later, Pittsburgh gained the offensive zone on the rush, and Karlsson slipped a nice pass to Evgeni Malkin, who was breaking through the middle. Malkin then slid the puck forward to Tommy Novak, who went top-shelf to score his first goal in 13 games and restore the Penguins’ lead.
They’d never surrender that lead, and, in fact, kept adding. Ryan Shea got possession of the puck off the ensuing faceoff, and he backed up and fed a breaking Chinakhov a perfect pass on a Murphy dump. Chinakhov managed to separate just enough to knock down the bouncing puck, and – off-balance, nonetheless – he reached forward with his stick, somehow getting a solid backhand shot off and beating Jake Allen blocker-side to put the Penguins up 3-1 just nine seconds later.
Jack Hughes added a tally for New Jersey within the final five minutes of the middle frame to bring the Devils back to within one, but the Penguins put any hopes of a comeback to bed in the third. Almost seven minutes in, Chinakhov pounced on a puck down low and used his foot to redirect the puck to Crosby at the net-front. Crosby made a nice move on Allen and almost scored a highlight-reel goal of his own, but he couldn’t finish it – which wasn’t a problem for Evgeni Malkin, who found the puck on the doorstep and put it home for his 19th of the season to make it 4-2.
Then, with three minutes left, Karlsson put the cherry on top with an empty-netter from long-range to give the Penguins the 5-2 and seal the deal on clinching for the first time in four years.
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“It’s exciting,” Crosby said. “That’s why you play. That’s the best time of the year. To know that we’re going to be there, to set out to do that… it’s nice to get rewarded. Everybody has had a part in this, especially with this group. Everybody’s contributed to get here.”
BREAKING: Penguins Clinch First Playoff Berth Since 2022 With Win Over New Jersey Devils
Here are just a few notes and takeaways from the Penguins’ biggest win of the season:
– Honestly, I am not going to say a whole lot down here this time. There will be plenty of pieces, plenty of discourse, and plenty of writing to be had in the week and a half between now and when the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin on Saturday, Apr. 18.
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That said, boy, this has been such a fun hockey team to cover this season.
Head coach Dan Muse was asked after the game when he first remembered feeling like this team could be special. And without hesitation, he said “Training camp.”
Honestly, I get it. I am not going to sit here and claim that I thought this team was going to make the playoffs, even if I did not think they would be a lottery team. I was convinced that it would be much of the same from last season, when they finished ninth-worst in the league.
But there was a different air in training camp this season. With the coaching change, with a pretty overturned roster, with legitimate youth talent pushing… you could feel an energy that simply wasn’t there prior to the 2024-25 season. There was a lot of positivity. A lot of encouragement. A lot of hard work. A lot of responsiveness between the players and coaching staff. Just high spirits in general, and not the regular kind when a team returns to camp after months off in the summertime.
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No. You could sense the belief in this group from day one. You could tell the veterans – from Crosby to Rust to Karlsson and everyone else – felt they had underachieved in the previous three seasons. There was unfinished business with this core of players, and they intended to finish it.
Well, this season was a testament to that. What a special group this is. They earned this opportunity, and that belief and that energy carried them through the season.
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– That said, it’s not like they operated entirely on belief. The talent and the depth is there, too, and it was on full display in this game.
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Chinakhov registered three points to give him 18 goals and 36 points in 41 games with the Penguins this season, including four goals and 10 points in his last five games. Karlsson scored his 15th goal of the season, yet another notch in an outstanding season and giving the Penguins 10 players with 15 or more goals. Novak got back on the board. The big guys put in some work.
Making sure the two points were earned in this game was a group effort that took everyone. That’s been the case all season, that next-man-up mentality. I’m sure it will be the case in the playoffs, too.
– Skinner was outstanding for the second time in the last three games. He made some huge stops early on – when the Penguins weren’t playing so well – to neutralize the Devils and keep his team ahead. And he made sure they didn’t fall behind within the first five minutes of the game.
He has separated himself as the Game One starter at this point. The Penguins have serious goaltending depth in their organization, so I’m not sure any of them are the “wrong” answer.
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But experience wins out, as does clutch performances in games like this. Skinner has brought such positive energy to this team – even more than it already had – and he deserves the net to begin the playoffs.
– There were a lot of other notes from this game, but I’ll save some of them for later. I’ll leave you with this:
Enjoy the back-to-back with the Washington Capitals this weekend. Make time to watch it and take it in. It will be nice for fans to not have to worry about the result, too, but the Caps will surely be pushing.
And this, very well, could be the last time we see Crosby, Malkin, and Alex Ovechkin go head-to-head.
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Ticket prices for these two games are absurd, but it’s no mystery why. The Penguins and Capitals were the gold standard in the NHL for two decades. They employ the two biggest hockey icons of that respective generation as well as two of the greatest to ever play. Three, too, if you’re counting Malkin, who certainly deserves that recognition.
Don’t take it for granted. Again, enjoy it. You’ll probably never see a rivalry quite like this one again.
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