Top-5 Moves That Shaped Penguins' Successful 2025-26 Season

The 2025-26 regular season was a magical one for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who concluded their 82-game schedule on Tuesday in St. Louis and are now fully focused on the task of facing the Philadelphia Flyers in Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

And, man, it’s crazy how they got here.

Seven months ago, no one on the outside was talking about the Penguins securing the second seed in the Metropolitan Division four games prior to the conclusion of the NHL regular season. Many had them as a bottom-five lottery team, and even if folks didn’t have them finishing that low – including us here at THN – Pittsburgh Penguins – outside expectations were overwhelmingly predicting that this wasn’t a playoff team.

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Well, as the Penguins have been marketing since they clinched against the New Jersey Devils on Apr. 9, this team “flipped the script.” They were not only one of the league’s deepest and highest-scoring teams – they had 12 players finish with 13 or more goals and 10 players finish with 15 or more, both league-highs – they were a legitimately good five-on-five team with top-10 special teams units on both ends, and they won more in regulation than all but seven teams and lost less in regulation than all but six teams.

The belief in the Penguins’ locker room was contagious and genuine, and the family-like, tight-knit atmosphere of that locker room has been palpable as ever all season long.

And it all started with a few savvy moves from general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas over the summer as well as during the season.

While there were a whole lot of moves that defined the 2025-26 season, some made a pretty sizable impact on the team – and some outright fueled their turnaround and led to their first postseason berth in four years.

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Honorable mention: The trade for Stuart Skinner

The move that sent goaltender Tristan Jarry and his entire $5.175 million AAV salary for three more seasons to the Edmonton Oilers for Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak, and a 2029 second-round pick may go down in franchise history as both one of the best and one of the most baffling trades.

The fact that Dubas managed to deal a goaltender with term who was on waivers just 11 months prior for a similar-caliber goaltender on an expiring contract – in addition to a typically reliable top-four defenseman on a down year and also an expiring contract, plus a second – is just bonkers. And he also flipped Kulak for another second-rounder and Sam Girard, who has played well recently for the Penguins and is younger.

No notes on that trade. It may not have had as gigantic an impact on their season as some of the other moves – as goaltending is still an issue – but it was such a clean piece of business by Dubas. Plus, Skinner provides a kind of endearing and genuine personality to the locker room that is always good for team chemistry – especially during a playoff run.

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5. The decision to keep Ben Kindel

Apr 9, 2026; Newark, New Jersey, USA; Pittsburgh Penguins center Ben Kindel (81) skates with the puck against the New Jersey Devils during the first period at Prudential Center. Mandatory Credit: Luther Schlaifer-Imagn Images

This one may fly under-the-radar a bit in terms of “big moves,” but boy, was it a big one. And this is one of the few predictions I got right this season.

When both Kindel and young blueliner Harrison Brunicke both made the Penguins’ roster out of training camp – with a combination of injuries as well as their stellar camp performances opening spots for them – many thought they saw where things were going: “Here are two teenagers making the team, but once the team gets healthy, they’ll be sent back to junior hockey to avoid burning a year of their entry-level contracts (ELC), and the Pens will still favor the veterans.”

Well, for Brunicke, that was more or less true, even if the path to junior for him this season had a lot of stops along the way before the final destination. Of the two, it was widely believed that Brunicke, 19, would remain the entire season, while Kindel, 18, would get his taste of the NHL and be returned to the Calgary Hitmen of the WHL.

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But Kindel was simply too good to send back. He proved he belonged in the NHL, and instead of making the easy, less risky choice, Dubas elected to allow Kindel to not only stick around past the 10-game mark (where his ELC kicked in), but also past the 40-game mark, where the Penguins lost a year of team control.

And that decision impacted the roster profoundly. Kindel has been their everyday third-line center and performing well in that role on both sides of the puck, giving the Penguins far more center depth than they would have had otherwise and giving them more dangerous options at wing in their top-nine.

This decision altered the course of the Penguins’ season, and, perhaps, the outlook for the future as well, as the sooner-than-expected emergence of Kindel – who put up 17 goals and 35 points in 77 games – gave this team’s depth the boost it needed to roll four lines successfully all season long.