The Penguins’ 2026-27 over/under game gets to the top of the lineup now, and that means Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson. Four veteran stars.
Four different questions. And, in Karlsson’s case, one extra wrinkle that changes the whole number.
Crosby’s line is set at 90.5 points, which feels like the natural place to start whenever the conversation turns to how long he can keep doing this. The age question is real - at some point the decline has to show up - but 2025-26 didn’t exactly scream “the end.”
He finished with 74 points in 68 games after an Olympics injury cost him extended time, a pace that worked out to 89.2 points over 82 games and 91.4 over 84. He had also gone over 90 in each of the three seasons before that.
A 39-year-old forward is always carrying some injury risk, but until that Olympic setback, Crosby was in one of the healthiest multi-year stretches of his career. Even if he no longer has the same extra gear from his peak, there’s still plenty there to drive a major offensive season.
Malkin’s number is lower, but the same basic conversation hangs over it. His over/under sits at 22.5 goals, and the veteran center is back for at least one more year.
In 2025-26, he put together a strong bounce-back season when available, scoring 19 goals with 42 assists for 62 points in 56 games. The problem was availability: for the second straight year, he played fewer than 65 games, and this time suspension was part of the reason.
Over the last four seasons, he has scored at a 25-goal pace per 82 games, and in 2025-26 he was at a 27-goal pace. That matches the 27 goals he scored in each of his last two full seasons.
The question is simple enough: will he be on the ice enough to get there again?
Letang’s line comes in at 5.5 goals, and this one feels the most delicate of the three. Of the Penguins’ big-money veterans, he looks like the one who has slipped the furthest.
The production has dipped, sure, but the bigger issue is the overall impact. There were stretches last season where he looked closer to a liability than the steady force Penguins fans are used to seeing.
Even with that, he did play 154 of a possible 164 games over the past two seasons. The goals just haven’t followed in the same way, with only 12 total over that span.
He used to hit 12 in a single season even while missing 15 to 20 games. At 39, the line is low on paper, but after what he showed a year ago, it still doesn’t look easy.
Karlsson is the outlier here, and not just because he arrived later than the others. His over/under is 50.5 points with the Penguins, which matters.
He’s a Hall of Fame player, the team’s highest-paid player, and one of its best. There’s even a case that he was their best player in 2025-26.
The coaching change from Mike Sullivan to Dan Muse seemed to unlock him more than anyone else, and he started looking like the player Pittsburgh thought it was getting when it traded for him before the 2023-24 season. He was sensational.
He has produced at least 53 points in each of his first three seasons with the Penguins, and last season he reached 66 in 75 games. So the over on 50.5 points feels pretty solid.
The bigger issue is where those points come from. Karlsson is 36, in the final year of his contract, and that opens the door to an in-season trade if the Penguins fall out of the race.
If they’re in the hunt, maybe the story changes. Maybe there’s even an extension.
But for this exercise, the line is framed around points with the Penguins, not necessarily points overall.
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