The Penguins made it four straight Saturday afternoon with a 7-3 win over the New Jersey Devils. Badly out-attempted Tuesday and Thursday night, the Penguins were impressive 5 vs 5 against the Devils and felt in control of the play at even strength. Scoring chances were 24-18 Pittsburgh to go with+3 in High Danger Chances that was capped off with a 5-1 advantage in Goals For 5-on-5.

We had so many instances this season where the battle level was questionable and this little stretch, you’re seeing a team just really battle over sixty minutes and a much more improvement with their play away from the puck. We will see where this how goes but could a second straight strong Mid-March through April finish have different ramifications for the Penguins next season?

Aside from putting too much stock into Alex Nedeljkovic win-loss record down the stretch, last year it meant nothing to GM Kyle Dubas. After the Jake Guentzel trade, Dubas was locked in on basically punting for the 2025-2026 season as evidenced by Pittsburgh acquiring players teams didn’t want for draft picks and making it a year about accumulating future assets.

In the end, a great finish to this season could be a building block to next year as going from potentially 5th to 10th in this draft means little and the significance is management will and plans to be much more aggressive to improving the NHL roster compared to last year. Yes, 2026-2027 is internally looked at as the best-case scenario year where the organization feels they can possibly re-emerge as a legitimate playoff team, albeit smartly, the Penguins are going to take some swings on accelerating things for next season.

Penguins at 69 Game Mark in 2023-2024: 69 Points

Penguins at 69 Game mark in 2024-2025: 66 Points

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Connor Dewar/Conor Timmins | Dewar is having a Michael Bunting 2024 March/April type immediate impact with the Penguins. He’s a very smart forechecker with his angles/puck pursuit and the last two games we’ve seen unlikely offensive production. Another important element of his game; He gets to the net front. What you have here is guys competing for jobs next season and it’s impacted this group in a good way. There just seems to be more push in the lineup. Timmins, though, was the real target in the trade with Dewar more as a throw-in with the Leafs needing to move salary. There’s an opening here into next season for Timmins who has adjusted quickly to Mike Sullivan’s system. The Penguins current regime doesn’t see anything long-term with Jack St. Ivany and we will see how serious the Penguins are of giving impressive 2024 2nd rounder Harrison Brunike a legitimate shot in the NHL next season. The Penguins have controlled 60% of their shot attempts with Timmins on the ice through four games.

Vladislav Kolyachonok | A very raw player but team officials have felt his speed to retrieve pucks has added another needed element to the lineup of the last week.

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2025 1st Round Pick (NYR) Buzz: Multiple NHL executives To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

College Free Agents Buzz: Penguins were in on a couple offensive upside centers, Northeastern Jack Williams among them, per sources, while Michigan’s To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

Team Source: Organization hopeful coaching staff embraces Imama: One emerging trend in the Penguins organization is the management To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”! A few weeks ago, several members of the organization were said to be pissed off when Imama was scratched for the Boston game To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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