Pittsburgh Penguins

The Igloo, two bankruptcies and a first overall pick

The Penguins joined the NHL in the 1967 expansion, their backers paying $2.5 million for entry, and took their name from a public competition won by an entrant called Mark Peters, who was playing on the shape of the domed Civic Arena downtown — the Igloo. The building, whose capacity had to be lifted from 10,732 to 12,500 to satisfy the league, housed them until 2010.

Money nearly ended them twice. In 1975 creditors demanded payment of back debts and the club went into bankruptcy. The 1984 draft handed them the first overall pick and Mario Lemieux, which changed the team's standing without fixing its balance sheet: by 1998 it owed more than $90 million to a long list of creditors. Lemieux, by then retired, bought the franchise out of bankruptcy in 1999 with help from Ronald Burkle and said plainly that it would stay in Pittsburgh. He remains a minority owner today.

That history explains why the current arena matters as much as any trophy. Without the building that opened in 2010, the team's own chroniclers accept, the Penguins would have moved to Kansas City or Las Vegas.

Five Cups across three generations

The titles come in two clusters. Lemieux and Jaromír Jágr won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992. Then the club drafted Evgeni Malkin second overall in 2004 and Sidney Crosby first overall in 2005, and that pairing produced a Cup in 2009 and two more in 2016 and 2017 — the first successful defence of the trophy since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings, and the first of the salary-cap era.

Only two numbers hang in the rafters. Michel Brière's 21 was retired in 2001, three decades after the car accident that ended his career in 1970. Jágr's 68 followed in 2024.

The franchise scoring record changed hands in December 2025, when Crosby passed Lemieux and reached 1,724 career points. Lemieux had made his in 915 games; Crosby needed close to 1,400, which is the whole argument about the two of them in one line.

Three years outside, one year back in

After the 2016-17 run the team spent three consecutive seasons out of the playoffs. Kyle Dubas, hired as general manager and president of hockey operations, replaced Mike Sullivan with Dan Muse on 4 June 2025 — the 23rd head coach in club history and a first-time NHL head coach.

Muse's first season worked. The Penguins finished 41-25-16 for 98 points, second in the Metropolitan Division and seventh in the Eastern Conference, clinching on 9 April 2026 with a 5-2 win over New Jersey — their first postseason berth since 2021-22. Crosby led the side with 74 points (29 goals, 45 assists) in 68 games, extending his record of seasons averaging at least a point a game to 21. Erik Karlsson added 66 points with a team-leading 51 assists; Anthony Mantha scored 33 goals in 81 games. Arturs Silovs won 19 games with a 3.07 goals-against average.

The first round was a divisional grudge match against Philadelphia between 18 and 29 April 2026. Pittsburgh lost the first three games, won the next two, and went out in overtime in game six. Dubas set the tone for the summer afterwards: "I'm not satisfied with us having just made the playoffs."

A $1.75bn change of ownership

The Hoffmann Family of Companies agreed in December 2025 to buy a controlling interest from Fenway Sports Group, and the NHL Board of Governors approved the deal unanimously on 23 June 2026, ending FSG's four-plus years in charge. Gary Bettman put the transaction at roughly $1.75 billion. Geoff Hoffmann, who runs the family's private equity arm and is the son of founder David Hoffmann, became the club's governor. The family already owns the ECHL's Florida Everblades and operates SportsNet Pittsburgh.

The new owners kept the people they inherited, promising support and resources to Dubas and the hockey operations group as well as the existing business-side leadership. Geoff Hoffmann's framing on approval was that "the Penguins represent everything Hoffmann Family of Companies stands for: community, excellence, and long-term thinking."

Long-term thinking is the awkward part, because the roster is not built for it. Crosby, 39, is in the final season of the two-year, $17.4 million extension he signed on 16 September 2024 at an $8.7 million annual value. Malkin, 40, re-signed for one year at $5.5 million on 26 May 2026, with bonuses worth up to $3.5 million more. Karlsson, 36, has one year left of his eight-year, $92 million deal. Letang, 39, is signed through 2027-28. Dubas has been buying time on both sides of the ledger: Andrei Kuzmenko on one year at $5 million, Nicholas Robertson on two years at $6.5 million, Trevor van Riemsdyk on two years at $8 million, and — the only genuinely long bet — Ville Koivunen for eight years and $32 million on 6 August 2026.

Seven games into an 84-game season

This is the NHL's first 84-game regular season, with two extra divisional fixtures for every club. Pittsburgh opened on the road at Philadelphia on 30 September and held its home opener against Montreal on 3 October. The season ends on 10 April 2027 at New Jersey.

The start has been uneven. A 2-1 shootout win over Dallas at home on 10 October — Connor Dewar scoring in regulation, Silovs making 24 saves, Rickard Rakell, Kindel and Crosby converting in the shootout — put them at 3-2-1 and drew the most positive thing Muse has said so far: "This was way better. We were on the same page." Three days later they lost 5-3 at Chicago, where Crosby scored twice and Karlsson had two assists but the defence was repeatedly caught on bad pinches and Sergei Murashov let in a soft third-period goal from Teuvo Teräväinen at 15:42. The power play went 0-for-4 that night and had failed on 16 consecutive chances across five games.

The schedule gives the rest of the year obvious markers: Carolina, the reigning champions, visit on 29 December; Philadelphia come in on 31 January for the first meeting since the playoff series; Washington arrive on 13 March for what will be the last Crosby-Ovechkin regular-season fixture in Pittsburgh; and the final home game is against Philadelphia again on 3 April.

What a night at PPG Paints Arena is like

The club has put more than $30 million into the building in two phases. The first was a scoreboard roughly three times the size of the old one, plus a new sound system and lighting rig, including moving-head washes mounted beneath the board that work the team introductions, the anthem and goal celebrations. The second, this season, is food and retail: eight new Aramark stands, among them Mic Drop in the club levels, serving sandwiches named after the calls of the late broadcaster Mike Lange — the "Lord Stanley" is shaved steak, provolone, waffle fries and coleslaw. Polish Hill Grill does pierogies and sausage at Section 105; Fuku, Steel City Smashburgers and Tacos on 5th sit at Sections 108 and 122. The PensGear shop has been expanded to around 6,000 square feet.

Costs are worth knowing in advance. Tickets run from about $60 in the upper 200s to roughly $200 at ice level before fees, ticketing is mobile-only through Ticketmaster or the club's own app, the arena garage charges $43 and surface lots $28 to $35. Locals recommend arriving an hour early and parking in a downtown garage at the $8 evening flat rate instead. Locker-room tours run on non-game days at 10am and midday.