Built on Belief: How the Penguins Turned Doubt Into the Battle of Pennsylvania
- Karinna Leonard
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
The Penguins are playing postseason hockey right now—a sentence that would have seemed improbable to most people at the start of the season. With a first-year head coach, an aging core, and outside expectations low, Pittsburgh entered the year with little national belief. Inside the room, though, belief never wavered. If you followed the team closely, you knew this group thought differently. Every day they walked past a taped-up “Believe” sign on their way to the ice, and they carried that mindset all season.
It hasn't been without adversity. There was a December slide, injuries piled up throughout the year, and Tommy Novak was the only Penguin to appear in all 82 games. But at every turn, every time someone questioned when their luck would cool off, the Penguins responded with resilience.
Before opening night, Vegas oddsmakers gave Pittsburgh a 91% chance of missing the playoffs again, but the Penguins never let that define them. Now they head into the postseason for the first time since 2021-22 as one of the NHL’s best stories: a 43-year-old first-year coach in Dan Muse, veteran stars still producing, a resurgent Erik Karlsson, rookie sensation Ben Kindel, and an array of players having career years after being overlooked elsewhere.
Bryan Rust summed up the team’s mentality perfectly: "That confidence we had at the beginning of the season, it's still there. There is a belief. There's a chip on our shoulders right now. There's an F-U attitude at the moment. We know what the expectations were outside of this room entering the season, but we also know what the expectations were in this room. We believed from the beginning."
The good vibes arguably started before the season even began, when franchise icon Marc-Andre Fleury signed a PTO to return for a preseason appearance and salute the crowd one last time. It served as a reminder of the standard and history this organization still carries, and it seemed to spark belief throughout the fanbase and locker room alike.
After winning three Stanley Cups in the Sidney Crosby era, it may sound surprising, but this 2025-26 Penguins team is the highest-scoring Pittsburgh club of Crosby’s tenure. Their 290 goals ranked third in the NHL, trailing only Carolina (291) and Colorado (296). As of April 9, they also led the league in goals scored by new additions with 99, a testament to the roster-building job done by Kyle Dubas and the immediate impact of fresh faces. For context, the next closest team was Anaheim with 79.
While this season has been a thrill for the Penguins, Muse’s success in his first season could also resonate beyond Pittsburgh. In a league that often recycles the same names behind the bench, the Penguins’ turnaround may encourage other organizations to take chances on new voices.
The reward for Pittsburgh’s breakthrough season is a familiar enemy and the resurgence of one of hockey's fiercest rivalries. On April 13, Tyson Foerster scored the shootout winner that sent Philadelphia into the postseason and officially set a first-round Battle of Pennsylvania. Social media exploded, with edits and old clips resurfacing almost instantly. The Flyers entered the season with optimism after Rick Tocchet took over behind the bench, but this outcome exceeded even the most hopeful expectations. Now they meet a Penguins team that authored one of the league’s best stories.
For many teams, proximity breeds contempt, and that has always been true for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. When the NHL expanded in 1967, Pennsylvania received two of the league’s six new franchises: the Penguins and Flyers. From their inception, the teams became natural enemies, and the rivalry quickly earned the nickname “The Battle of Pennsylvania.” Despite decades of divisional realignment, conference changes, and roster turnover, the intensity has remained.
The last time the teams met in the playoffs was 2018, but the most memorable recent chapter came in 2012: a six-game series that was packed with goals, fights, chaos, and genuine hatred. One infamous moment came in Game 3, when Sidney Crosby swatted away Jake Voracek's dropped glove that had fallen onto the ice. Even if you haven't seen the moment, you're sure to have heard Crosby's postgame comment on it: "I don't like any guy on their team. So [Voracek's] glove was near me, he went to pick it up and I pushed it." Asked afterward why he did it, Crosby didn’t hesitate: "Because I don't like them…I don't like any guy on their team."
That's the rivalry in one sentence.
As The Athletic described it, this matchup is "two opposing identities facing off." Under Dan Muse, Pittsburgh's offense has exploded with 11 players reaching new career highs—and that doesn’t even include the rookies who made their way up to the big club. One example came when Noel Acciari recorded 10 assists on the season, a milestone he had never reached before.
Courtesy of penguins/X
The team celebrated it with the same energy as Evgeni Malkin hitting 1,400 points, one of many milestones inside the Penguins’ locker room this year. This has become one of the most close-knit and likable Penguins teams in recent memory, a group whose chemistry has been evident all season. Ryan Shea described the team culture, saying, "I feel like everyone is always hanging out and doing something. When you have a family-like culture like that and it's been here for years, it's easy to fit in and easy to be yourself. And, when you're happy off the ice, you're happy on the ice."
The Penguins also led the league in high-danger shots on goal, a reflection of just how aggressive and effective their offensive approach has been. They also bring something no metric can fully capture: experience. Sidney Crosby alone has recorded 175 points in 116 career games against Philadelphia. Since the playoff debuts of Crosby, Kris Letang, and Evgeni Malkin in 2006-07, no franchise has more playoff wins (103), playoff goals (575), or Stanley Cups (3) than Pittsburgh.
On the opposite side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Philadelphia has made their mark through elite defensive structure and standout goaltending from Dan Vladar. The Flyers finished the season fourth in fewest shots against, and their gritty style carried them to an 18–7–1 record after the Olympic break. They closed out the regular season with 43 wins, their highest total since 2011-12, when they won 47. If Philadelphia can slow the pace and turn this series into a grind, low-event battles will become their clearest path to an upset.
Today, we can say with certainty that a team from Pennsylvania is guaranteed a trip to the second round, a sentiment that would have been unheard of in October. But here we are.
The Penguins’ Cinderella season now meets one of hockey’s nastiest rivalries. Belief got them here, but it's their talent and skill that will determine how much further they can go.
Edited by Reese Dlabach
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