The Penguins’ second-tier group in 2026-27 comes with a lot of intrigue, and a few of these names feel like they could swing the season in one direction or another. Egor Chinakhov, Rickard Rakell, Tommy Novak, Elmer Soderblom and Samuel Girard all sit in that awkward middle ground: not kids, not depth fillers, not stars, but still players expected to matter.
Start with Chinakhov, because the number attached to him is the most eye-catching one on the board: 28.5 goals. His first Penguins season after arriving from the Columbus Blue Jackets was one of the biggest developments of 2025-26, not just because of the trade itself but because of how quickly he settled in and started looking like a different player. He became one of Pittsburgh’s most impactful pieces in the second half and finally resembled the player Columbus had hoped for.
Across both teams, Chinakhov finished with a career-high 21 goals and 42 points. In 43 games with the Penguins, he put up 18 goals and 36 points, which works out to a 34-goal, 68-point pace over a full 82-game season. That is first-line territory, especially when paired with the stronger work he showed away from the puck.
Still, there’s a real question hanging over what comes next. Was that stretch in Pittsburgh the start of something real, or was it simply a hot run where everything came together for a gifted but uneven player?
The answer probably sits somewhere in between. He looks better than he did in Columbus and may have needed a new setting to unlock that level, but a full season above 17 percent shooting is hard to bank on.
The shot is real. The finish might cool a bit.
That’s why 28.5 feels like a fair line.
Rakell’s line is set at 30.5 goals, and he might be the most quietly dependable name in this whole group. His Penguins tenure has been better than it gets credit for.
Outside of one down year in 2023-24, he has performed like a top-line scorer and done it on what now looks like a pretty team-friendly deal as the cap keeps climbing. He also showed last season that he can handle center when needed.
His goal paces over four seasons in Pittsburgh have been 28, 17.5, 35 and 32.8 over 82 games. That middle season stands out as the exception, not the rule.
The last two years have been especially strong, and he’s done it as a finisher. Age is the only obvious warning sign here, since he’ll be 33 this season, and injuries have cost him at least 10 games in two of the last four years.
Even so, if he stays on the ice, 30 goals is absolutely within reach.
Novak’s number is less about scoring and more about usage: 15 minutes of ice-time per game. That makes sense, because his value comes from being a flexible middle-six forward who can slide around the lineup and chip in somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 goals and 40-45 points. He has skill, but also a clear ceiling, and the Penguins clearly value him after giving him a three-year extension.
His career average sits at 13:45 per game, and with Pittsburgh that has ticked up to 14:15. But the real clue came late last season, when his ice-time climbed over the final two months of 2025-26 and into the playoffs, even reaching levels he had never seen before.
He topped 16 minutes per game during that stretch. Before that, he had only three other months in his NHL career above 15 minutes a night, including one where he played just five games.
With Evgeni Malkin looking more like a winger than a center and Ben Kindel still only 19, Novak could be in line for a bigger second-line center role from the start.
Soderblom’s line is 10.5 goals, and he fits the same broad theme as some of the other additions: a younger player with strong rate stats who never really got a steady chance to show more. The Penguins took a swing on him, and after he arrived he scored five goals and 10 points in 20 games while still posting strong underlying numbers. His career box score totals don’t leap off the page, but he has still averaged 12 goals per 82 games.
There’s obvious skill here, and there’s also massive size. The combination leaves room for more, especially if he gets a bigger role than he had with the Detroit Red Wings. Add in the fact that the schedule is now 84 games, and double-digit goals for the first time in his career is a real possibility.
Girard rounds out the group with a plus-6.5 rating line, and his first run with the Penguins wasn’t exactly smooth. Even so, it’s too early to write him off.
He’s 28, he has a solid NHL track record, and despite the rough patches after coming over from the Colorado Avalanche in a trade, he still finished at plus-5. That doesn’t scream dominant debut, but it does leave the door open for a more positive year ahead.
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The Penguins recent draft record has come back into focus again, and not just because the conversation around the 2019 class keeps aging into a larger indictment. A redraft of Pittsburghs picks from the past several years has reopened the familiar debate about how much value the club has actually found in the draft since that point, a question that tends to linger when a team is trying to restock while still competing at the NHL level.
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For the Penguins, the appeal is obvious: use the space to add talent, or at least absorb a contract that comes with a sweeter return. But the risk is just as clear, because not every expensive player is a clean fit and not every trade helps in the short term. Dubas would have to weigh how much flexibility he wants to spend, how much value he expects back, and whether the move is worth tying the Penguins to another complicated contract situation. [Read more 🡒]