PENS TOOK STRIDES WITH THEIR PLAY AND “CHARACTER” IN 2025-26

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – There were high hopes for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins coming into the 2025-26 season. Their roster was stuffed with talent, a makeover on the blueline was intended to make them more formidable in their own zone, and the team was neck-deep in goaltending depth. Everything was set up for them to build on the previous year, a 40-win season under first-year head coach Kirk MacDonald.

The Penguins finished this season with 46 wins, 101 points and a .701 points percentage that made it the fourth-best record in franchise history. They then engaged in a thrilling stay in the Calder Cup Playoffs, reaching the conference final for the first time in 12 years.

On the surface, it seems like everything progressed as planned. But dismissing the middle portion of the 2025-26 Penguins – how they reached 101 points and a conference final berth, would be a disservice to what the team accomplished. Throughout the year, many challenges arose. The young core in the Pens’ locker room tackled those obstacles head on and came out the better for it.

The American Hockey League prides itself on serving NHL clubs as a developmental league for players. The Penguins organization is one that places added emphasis on development, all the way to the ECHL level. Too often, the concept of “development” gets whittled down to easily tracked, perfunctory boxscore stats such as goals, assists, or saves. Others who observe prospects more closely will point to attributes like skating and physicality.

When talking about the growth of young players, what often gets overlooked is character development.

Throughout the season and playoffs, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s young players experienced a swell of character development.

“Once you go to bed and you look at the man in the mirror, that’s the biggest thing, and I think every guy on this team can look in the mirror and know we built a winning culture,” said Rutger McGroarty. “We didn’t win (a championship), but we built a winning culture with a bunch of good guys, just good dudes in that locker room.”

The final standing of the 2025-26 Penguins was a testament to the team’s steadfast resilience in the face of adversity. The season kicked off with a tremendous 7-0 start. Several individuals were producing at a point-per-game pace or better, but gradually, weapons were taken out of the team’s arsenal. Tenured NHLers Danton Heinen and Phil Tomasino were traded by Pittsburgh in late December. Sam Poulin and Valtteri Puustinen, two longstanding members of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s offense, were also dealt in December and January, respectively.

These moves erased multiple sources of steady offense, but a secondary effect was that it also made the team younger. Consequently, they were less experienced, in theory.

The voids left by those departures were filled almost immediately, as if they were never a concern in the first place. AHL-contracted forwards Gabe Klassen, Atley Calvert and Aidan McDonough blossomed in increased roles. Defense and goaltending continued to click. Wins kept coming in with the team finding different ways to get the job done.

“Everybody was happy for the other guy when something good happened to him,” said head coach Kirk MacDonald. “It wasn’t like, ‘How come I didn’t get my cookie tonight?’ It was all, ‘That guy did well, I’m happy for him. The next day, we know somebody else is going to go be the hero,’ right? That speaks a lot to the people we had in the dressing room.”

Whether intentional or unintentional, the trades also presented a challenge of “It’s on you now” to the Penguins’ stable of talented prospects. Those young players did not balk at the invitation.

After Puustinen was dealt, Avery Hayes unloaded 15 goals and 22 points in 17 games (in addition to a magical NHL debut). In that same window, McGroarty produced well over a point-per-game with 26 points (6G-20A) in 24 games. Tristan Broz and Sergei Murashov were named AHL All-Stars. Ville Koivunen led the entire AHL in points during February (16), and he finished the season leading the club with 28 assists despite appearing in just 34 games.

Through the trade departures, other injuries and call-ups, the season could have gone sideways at countless different stages. The players simply refused to be knocked off course.

“There was never a ‘woe is me’ time throughout the year,” said MacDonald. “We had a couple tough games, but it never festered, and I think it speaks to the group and what kind of people that we have in the room. They just stuck with it, and they supported each other.”

With a 46-17-7-2 finish, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton sure looked good with the third-best record in the league. However, after two-straight years of postseason disappointment, even the youngest, most inexperienced members of the locker room knew that their true story would be written in the playoffs.

They then defeated their oldest rival, the Hershey Bears, in the Atlantic Division Semifinals. It was the ninth time ever that the Penguins and Bears squared off in the playoffs, but it became the first time that Wilkes-Barre/Scranton forced a handshake line in the unfriendly confines of GIANT Center.

A team doesn’t do that without steely nerves. And character.

The Penguins then had to square off against the underdog darlings of the 2026 Calder Cup Playoffs, the Springfield Thunderbirds. Springfield had already taken out Cup hopefuls in the Charlotte Checkers and league-leading Providence Bruins, and now it had the Penguins in its crosshairs. When pushed to the brink in a winner-take-all Game 5, the Black and Gold refused to be the latest bounty collected by the T-Birds. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton put forth one of the most singularly impressive team performances in franchise history, steamrolling their competition to the tune of an 8-1 win.

Indomitable, their character was on full display once again.

The Eastern Conference Final was where the Penguins ultimately met their doom, but they did not go down without a fight. After back-to-back stunning losses at home to start the series down 2-0, the Penguins did not succumb to pessimism. They were not discouraged after two close games and numerous strange bounces went against them. They trusted in one another, rolled up their sleeves, and swiftly evened the series with back-to-back, gritty, road wins.

That alone demonstrated their resolve, and when you factor in the added guts that come into battling injuries during the playoffs, things get ratcheted up to a new level. It was revealed after the playoffs that Owen Pickering was playing through a broken foot. Team captain Phil Kemp was battling through pain that MacDonald classified as “a normal person isn’t getting out of bed,” and that Kemp played “until he physically couldn’t do it anymore.” Five different defensemen missed games due to injury during the Conference Final, yet the team still valiantly pushed the series to six.

An overtime loss was a crushing way to go out, but even in defeat, their character could never be called into question.

“[We] went through so many challenges together, so may fun moments,” Murashov said in the aftermath of his team’s elimination. “I think the main thing, there are no regrets. We played for each other. Great efforts, even tonight. I can tell that it’s something where you’re really grateful for in this life.”

“Obviously, it’s tough in the moment, but looking back on the season, no regrets.”

Murashov has developed a reputation for his poetic way with words, but perhaps Owen Pickering offered the most concise encapsulation of the Penguins’ season and playoff run…

“It’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing hockey,” he said, “and I was playing on a broken foot.”