Pittsburgh Penguins clinch playoff berth, end three-season drought

With their blowout win over the New Jersey Devils in Newark on Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins have officially locked up their spot in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

A season that began with expectations of a high pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and reports that it would certainly be Evgeni Malkin’s last with the Penguins has turned into another opportunity for the veteran trio of Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang to take a crack at a fourth Cup together.

President of hockey operations and general manager Kyle Dubas has pushed all the right buttons, adding quality depth on the wing in free agency with Justin Brazeau and Anthony Mantha along with a mid-season trade for Egor Chinakhov.

All three of those players have played at or near the best level of their respective careers this season, as Crosby and Malkin have turned back the clock while 18-year-old rookie Ben Kindel has exceeded any reasonable expectation for his post-draft season.

Defenseman Erik Karlsson has completely turned his game around under first-year head coach Dan Muse, and Dubas and Muse are likely to be in the running for GM and Coach of the Year honors come June.

The Pens got off to a hot start, going 8-2-2 in the month of October, and they never looked back from there. They relinquished the Metropolitan Division lead to Carolina, but were never in real danger of missing out on the playoffs.

When the first round rolls around next week, it looks likely that Pittsburgh could meet up with its Keystone State rival in the Philadelphia Flyers, who have used a lengthy hot streak to take pole position for third place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Penguins have not appeared in the playoffs since the 2022 postseason, and they have not won a series since falling to the Washington Capitals in 2018.