The Pittsburgh Penguins had a big season offensively last year. Their 293 goals ranked third in the NHL. They scored 201 of those goals at 5-on-5 play, second in the league – shooting 11.1% (that ranked second as well). Their power play converting 24.1% of the time, good for seventh.
This scoring outburst was done largely balanced and by committee – 13 players had double-digit goal seasons. Only four players had 20+ goals, and none more than Anthony Mantha’s 33. They had six players score between 15-19 goals, some of whom certainly would have gotten to 20+ with more games (Egor Chinakhov scored 18 goals in 43 games with the team, injuries and suspensions limited Evgeni Malkin to 19 in 56 games).
Advertisement
Ten players had tied or set career-best goal scoring years, including Mantha and Chinakhov but also for modest numbers like Avery Hayes and Elmer Soderblom scoring five times. Justin Brazeau, after scoring only 16 total goals in the first 95 games of his career prior to 2025-26 ended up beating that with 17 goals last season.
NHL.com included a blurb about the Pens’ shooting in their offseason recap:
The Penguins led the NHL in high-danger shots on goal (740) last season and have now finished no lower than sixth in that category during the puck and player tracking era (since 2021-22). Despite being limited to 60 games, forward Rickard Rakell led Pittsburgh and ranked highly at his position in high-danger shots on goal (90; 97th percentile). Another EDGE standout for the Penguins in terms of shot location was Karlsson, who ranked in the 94th percentile or higher among defensemen in high-danger shots on goal (14), midrange shots on goal (44), long-range shots on goal (81), midrange goals (six) and long-range goals (six; tied for fourth in the League). — Troy Perlowitz
The first sentence stood out as far as high danger shot generation being sixth or better for the last five years. That hasn’t always been reflected in total goals scored, the Pens numbers there have been:
Advertisement
Last season was the first time that having a high number of chances led to being near the top of the league in goals. The formula was simple enough. The Penguins scored a lot of goals and on a high percentage of shots in large part due to generating so many scoring chances from the high danger area. Whether it was fresh, freeing concepts from new coach Dan Muse, sheer better luck, the addition of a nice finisher like Anthony Mantha (who went onto have a career-year), or as always a combination of many factors, it worked out. It’s no secret that things under Mike Sullivan got stale and goals fell each season from 2022 to 2025 before last year’s big turnaround.
That makes the question multi-faceted moving forward, can the Penguins once again generate some of the most chances in the league and will that lead to being at the top of the NHL for total goals? Maybe even improve on last season’s totals and hit 300 goals? It’s a big number, but if they can build off Muse’s first year that would be the number to track.
There’s some reason for optimism. Nick Robertson and Andrey Kuzmenko ought to continue the high amount of finishing. Both are known via their advanced stats for their ability to convert chances into the red light flashing behind the goalie. Losing Mantha will be a big hole to fill from his contributions last season, but the Pens did a pretty good job to make sure they could bring in some players with similar finishing ability.
It takes a lot of work and consistent scoring for a team to get near 300 goals, it’s only happened eight times in the last five seasons. That threshold gets a little easier now that the schedule is increasing from 82 to 84 games, and at this point it’s a barometer worth seeing if the Penguins could try to threaten again in 2026-27.
Advertisement
They have the playmakers able to create chances, and supporting players like Rakell, Kuzmenko and Robertson have shown the ability to finish. As has Chinakhov, whose metrics for shot speed and odd man rushes are virtually off the charts.
Under Dan Muse, and let’s face it since the days of Sidney Crosby (and of course Mario Lemieux before him), Pittsburgh has thrived as an uptempo offensive team and struggled when an ill-fitting coach like Kevin Constantine or Mike Johnston attempted to limit creativity by building in too much structure. You have to let the wild ponies run free to get the most out of them. This season, that would mean taking a run at the 300 goal mark and trying to do what the team did in 2025-26 by attempting to out-score their defensive and goaltending issues.
Shooting variances or a decrease in chance generation could easily derail the progress of results made in 2025-26 and don’t make progress a sure proposition, but it sure would make for a fun season of hockey if next year’s Penguin team can make a run at the 300 mark.
Read the full article here