TORONTO — For 40 minutes on Monday night, under the Scotiabank Arena lights, the Pittsburgh Penguins rewound the clock.
They were the Pens of old, the high-flying outfit that dominated highlight reels for years when Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were a few years younger and a few ticks faster. It was No. 71 swooping through the centre of the sheet like he did back then, picking pucks off defenders and cutting to the net to wreak havoc. It was Crosby coming up with spinning backhand dishes in the slot, feathering perfectly timed saucer passes to teammatesâ€Â blades on the power play, as the black-and-gold ran right over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Through two periods, there was no denying it — those Penguins were back. And the group whoâ€d stumbled through three seasons without playoff hockey, the one thatâ€s prompted more trade talk than Cup dreams, was put to bed.
Then came the third period — an ice-tilting, lead-destroying rush from the Maple Leafs that saw them come out swinging, erase a three-goal deficit, and tack on a win-stealing fourth tally before all was said and done. For Toronto: the type of win that can turn a season around. For Pittsburgh: a sign of old ghosts still hanging around.
“The first two periods is the way we want to be playing. It needs to be a full 60, though,†said Dan Muse, whoâ€s 14 games into his tenure as the black-and-goldâ€s new head coach, once the dust settled on the 4-3 loss. “We got away from it. I think it was a number of different factors — they took momentum there, and we werenâ€t able to pause the momentum. It kept coming, and we were back on our heels, and we canâ€t play the game that way.
“I think the things that were working in the first two periods are things that can be sustainable, but we got away from them. It canâ€t happen.â€
While the night ended with a warning about past habits still in need of uprooting, with reason for some to doubt Pittsburghâ€s dominant start to the new campaign, there were signs, too, of why this group has found new life in 2025-26.
It starts with the 18-year-old who seemed to find himself in the centre of the fray every time he took the ice: Ben Kindel.
It took just one shift for Kindel to introduce himself to the Maple Leafs faithful. The first time the 2025 11th-overall pick hopped over the boards Monday night, he picked up the puck near Pittsburgh’s net, flew up the ice along the right wall, and threw a puck on Anthony Stolarz. That same shift, Kindel found himself back in his own zone, collecting the puck in the corner as two Toronto forecheckers closed in — the teenager paused, turned, and whipped a silky backhand pass to a streaking Ville Koivunen, who carried the puck out of trouble and set up a chance on the other side of the sheet.
Before the night was through, Kindel had tallied two of Pittsburghâ€s three goals, joining his captain as one just five players in franchise history to record a multi-goal game as an 18-year-old.
“Iâ€m just trying to learn something from every game,†he said from the visiting locker room post-game, assessing his big-league progress so far. “Taking something away and bringing it into the next game — thatâ€s really important. And just kind of keep building confidence, get more comfortable each game.â€
The young centreman has looked plenty comfortable through 12 games as an NHLer, tallying five goals so far and earning more trust from his coaching staff with each passing night. He earned the most minutes of any Penguins forward not named Crosby or Malkin on Monday, taking shifts with the future Hall of Famers when the game was on the line late, and drawing into a top power-play unit thatâ€s looked dominant through the seasonâ€s early going.
It was Kindelâ€s goal on the man-advantage Monday that served as a microcosm of why these Penguins have looked like a more dangerous group so far this season — the combination of Pittsburghâ€s veterans reminding the hockey world they can still operate at an elite level, and the clubâ€s new blood injecting some much-needed pace and energy and skill into the lineup, too.
Such was the case late in the second period when Crosby faked a slapshot, dropped a Maple Leaf penalty-killer to one knee, and spun to set up a dangerous wrister from Malkin — the chance stymied, No. 71 collected the puck again, weighed his options, and fed a cross-ice pass to Kindel, who wired it past Anthony Stolarz with ease.
The teenagerâ€s first of the evening couldnâ€t have come about more differently, Kindel cashing in a period earlier by simply crashing the net, battling in the crease, and seeing a rebound sent skyward eventually bounce in off him — a reward for a night spent pushing the Pens forward, driving play north, and crashing the cage.
“Iâ€m not really sure where it comes from,†he said Monday night, when asked about the hockey sense thatâ€s allowed him to become such a pivotal, versatile piece of this revived Penguins offence. “I just kind of have a good feel for the game. I watched a lot of hockey growing up, I played soccer as well, so I think I got a lot of different things from that. Thereâ€s a lot of different things that go into it.â€
For Muse, his young pivotâ€s continued growth is no doubt a key positive to be taken from the night, even if it came amid a rollercoaster that ultimately swung the game in his opponentâ€s favour. And thereâ€s all Pittsburgh showed through the first 40 minutes of the game, too, the signs of what this team can be if it shores up the cracks that Toronto found a way through on this night.
The man leading the other bench saw it, too.
“I didnâ€t think the first period was that bad. … But what upsets me is, we come out in the second period, down 2-0, we think weâ€re going to make a push but we didnâ€t — they controlled the period with the puck,†Craig Berube assessed late Monday night, Torontoâ€s head coach clearly perturbed at what the Penguins managed to do to the Maple Leafs before the late comeback.
“That second period, they got the puck and did whatever they wanted with it.â€
For Muse, itâ€s just a matter of getting the balance right — of getting these Penguins to look more like they did early than they did late, more often than not.
“We were moving pucks, I thought our puck support was good. … I thought we were defending well, we were limiting their chances. Thatâ€s more in line with how we want to play, but itâ€s got to be a full game,†Muse said. “We put ourselves in a really good situation to go into the third period. Thatâ€s a good hockey team, theyâ€ve got dangerous players — everybody in the leagueâ€s got dangerous players. You canâ€t take multiple shifts off.
“We just got away from playing the type of game that we want to play.”
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