Could the Penguins be the team coming out of the Metropolitan Division in the playoffs?
It’s been a season of surprises in the Steel City, as the Pittsburgh Penguins went from being perceived as a likely landing spot for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft to a clear-cut playoff team that clinched its spot with a week to spare.
Evgeni Malkin looks revitalized. Erik Karlsson has completely turned his game around. Depth acquisitions like Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau and Egor Chinakhov have provided exceptional depth scoring, and the goaltending and defense has done enough to allow Pittsburgh to win games with its high-octane offense.
But do the Penguins have more surprises in store? They’re likely to be slight favorites in their first round matchup, but a second round showdown with either the division-winning Carolina Hurricanes, or against a high-quality wild card team from the Atlantic that would be coming off of an upset of those Canes, would be a tall task.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender discussed whether or not the Penguins have what it takes to keep pulling off surprises and emerge from the Metropolitan Division into the Eastern Conference Final.
Carter Hutton: For the Pittsburgh Penguins, they’ve been a great story. Like a really, really great story in my opinion. You look at Karlsson with 66 points. You look at Anthony Mantha and Chinakhov, that move bringing him in, Dubas has done a very good job with this. Now going into the playoffs, you have a factor of Stuart Skinner who’s been to the Stanley Cup Final a few times now, and now you have Arturs Silovs who’s played playoff hockey, and he’s won a Calder Cup. There’s a lot of good things to go off.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, and there’s a lot of things I look at with that Penguins team, whether it’s Mantha scoring 30 or Chinakhov basically playing at a 35-40 goal pace… I don’t think these are sustainable year-over-year. You mentioned Karlsson, he’s been the number one scoring defenseman in the league since we came back from the Olympic break… It’s not sustainable season-over-season, but I think it’s sustainable for this season. Round one, whether it’s the Flyers or the Islanders, you better believe I’m taking Sid and the Penguins, and we just talked about how are the Canes maybe a team that can get upset in round one? Maybe? If Pittsburgh wins one round, and they take on Carolina, I don’t know, I’m not fully writing off the idea that this Pittsburgh team could win two rounds, Hutts. I don’t think that’s the craziest thing to suggest. It’s going to come down to goaltending… Just the fact that they’re in this division where Carolina’s flaws kind of line up with what their flaws are… man, you’ve got to be feeling good about your chances.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…