How are the Penguins generating so much offense?

The 2026-27 NHL season is still in its early days, but the Pittsburgh Penguins—a team with a core far closer to the twilight of their careers—are thriving with two wins, a loss and 15 goals, the second most in the Eastern Conference. 

While the core of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson have continued to play well, the supporting cast has stepped up alongside them. In net, Arturs Silovs may have taken the next step in his development. 

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, co-hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton were joined by video analyst Steve Peters to break down why the Penguins have enjoyed their early season success. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: There have been a lot of good and bad surprises around the league, but a couple that fall into the good category are the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers getting off to solid starts. So let’s begin in Pittsburgh. They’ve scored 15 goals in three games, including the seven they put down on the Philadelphia Flyers on opening night. What’s going well for this Penguins team right now?

Steve Peters: First of all, you talk about the goals that they put in. This is without Justin Brazeau, who got his career-high in goals last year, and Bryan Rust, who’s working on seven straight 20-plus-goal seasons. Both those guys are out of the lineup, and they’re still putting up goals. 

So let’s see what they’re doing right. One of the things happening on the film with the Penguins is, as always, we’ve got to talk about their senior leaders. Evgeni Malkin has been off to an unbelievable start to the season, and he’s got four points already and has been involved in the offense, both on the power play and off of the rush. He’s able to distribute that puck to put up points. He’s going to be a key figure here. But the key with Malkin is: can he stay healthy, and can he play enough games? He got 19 goals and then 16 goals in the last two seasons. 

Then you’ve got to look at the addition of Sam Girard; you look at Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang, both starting to get a little older, and Girard has given them a bit of a jump. He’s been able to get pucks through the net; he’s got a little bit of speed off of the back end. Can he be a guy that can add some offense from the back end? 

The other thing this team is doing is they’re scoring on the bottom six. They have to get secondary scoring. Can that help support Sidney Crosby and Malkin at the top end? 

And then there’s their goaltending. They’ve gone through Stuart Skinner and Tristan Jarry, but it looks like Artur Silovs is the guy. The 25-year-old played 39 games last year; he’s got a 2.47 GAA this year through two games, and with the 22-year-old Sergei Mirashov, who played earlier this week and posted 31 saves against the Winnipeg Jets, it looks like they have a solid tandem. 

Pittsburgh has done a lot of things right. They’re an older team, but they’re still putting those young players in through the bottom. I think this is a well-balanced team. Once they get Rust and Brazeau back in the lineup, this team will be dangerous. 

You can catch the full segment with Steve Peters, and the rest of Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, right here…