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<\/p>\nNEWARK, N.J. \u2014 For the first time in four years, it will soon be a great day for playoff hockey in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
The Penguins clinched a playoff spot Thursday night by beating New Jersey, ending their postseason drought that lasted three seasons. They had made 16 postseason appearances in a row before that, last missing in Sidney Crosby’s rookie year in 2005-06, with that stretch including three Stanley Cup titles.<\/p>\n
It was an up-and-down season that included an eight-game skid in December and a pair of six-game winning streaks later in the winter. Far from assured a place in the field in late March when the Eastern Conference race was a crowded mess, they’ve won five of six games since March 30 to get in.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple weeks ago (we realized) it\u2019s really in our hands (because we) play a lot of the teams in it,\u201d defenseman Connor Clifton said. \u201cWe figured it was going to work itself out, and first and foremost it\u2019s about us and getting points and we\u2019ve done that, so it\u2019s been good.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has also been a surprise. Pittsburgh was a 6-1 long shot to qualify before the puck dropped on opening night, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. This looked like one last kick at it together for an aging core of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, who at 20 seasons together are the longest-tenured trio of teammates in North American professional sports. <\/p>\n
Instead, new coach Dan Muse has made general manager Kyle Dubas look brilliant for hiring him from relative anonymity: five years as an assistant under Peter Laviolette with Nashville and the New York Rangers. Succeeding two-time Cup-winner Mike Sullivan was not an easy task, but Muse aced the test in his first chance to run an NHL bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been great: Calm there behind the bench, and he\u2019s just a really personable guy, easy to talk to away from the rink,\u201d forward Justin Brazeau said. “Any time you create that atmosphere in here, it\u2019s not too tense or anything like that. I think guys are just willing to go out there and play free.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Penguins center Tommy Novak skates with the puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New Jersey Devils, Thursday, April 9, 2026, in Newark, N.J. Credit: AP\/Noah K. Murray<\/p>\n
Center Ben Kindel, picked 11th in the draft last year, made the team at 18. Defenseman Erik Karlsson thrived at 35. Crosby was a point-a-game player for a 21st consecutive season, even if it was interrupted by the injury that knocked him out of the Olympics.<\/p>\n
Asked where his team’s resilience came from, Muse said: \u201cI ascribe it to the locker room, our leadership, our captain. I think it\u2019s these guys. I think you need to have that in order to find success. I think that stems from this locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP Sports Writer Will Graves in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWARK, N.J. \u2014 For the first time in four years, it will soon be a great day for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5158,4843,73,75,74,1067,5342],"class_list":{"0":"post-161967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-pittsburgh","11":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","12":"tag-pittsburgh-news","13":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}