PHILADELPHIA \u2014 With about 20 minutes remaining before Game 5\u2019s puck drop on the event level at PPG Paints Arena, a familiar figure climbed out of a car from the indoor parking spot that has only belonged to him.<\/p>\n
Mario Lemieux, flanked by a couple of friends and family members, took the elevator to the suite level and watched the team that exists because of him<\/a> stay alive against the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n Lemieux, whose preference for privacy is perhaps only exceeded by the talent that made him a hockey legend, even consented to being shown on the scoreboard during Game 5<\/a>. Naturally, a raucous standing ovation followed. The king was in his castle, and all was well.<\/p>\n Truth be told, he\u2019s been checking out his old team more than usual. Lemieux was in attendance for the first two games of the Penguins-Flyers series and attended a couple of games in March during his fantasy camp<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is a stark contrast to the period immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic, when he went two years without attending a game in Pittsburgh. Only Jaromir Jagr\u2019s 2024 jersey retirement ceremony compelled Lemieux to return.<\/p>\n Lemieux has a strained relationship with Fenway Sports Group, which bought the Penguins in 2021<\/a> and agreed to sell the team<\/a> to the Hoffmann Family of Companies<\/a> in December. Presuming the final steps go smoothly \u2014 NHL commissioner Gary Bettman met with media in Pittsburgh before Game 2 against the Flyers and said he believes the sale will be done soon \u2014 FSG won\u2019t be in charge of the Penguins for much longer.<\/p>\n Does this mean Lemieux could be around more? And does it mean Lemieux could play a role in the team\u2019s ownership or management?<\/p>\n Yes and yes. Sources close to Lemieux and the Penguins believe he will be involved in some capacity once the Hoffmanns take control of the franchise. Exactly what capacity remains to be seen.<\/p>\n The sources, who were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive information, have indicated that the Hoffmann family, well aware of Lemieux\u2019s importance to the Penguins, is eager to have a good working relationship with him at worst \u2014 and perhaps more.<\/p>\n In 2025, Lemieux, along with former Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle and former CEO and team president David Morehouse, had casual conversations about possibly re-purchasing the Penguins from the group they sold them to four years earlier. Those talks never turned particularly serious, but Lemieux telegraphed his desire to be involved with his old team.<\/p>\n Lemieux, Morehouse and Burkle have the financial means to be minority owners, if that interests the Hoffmann family. FSG would have been happy for Lemieux to play some kind of role in their ownership, but the relationship became strained after the sale was complete, and a business partnership was never in the cards.<\/p>\n Lemieux\u2019s regular attendance at recent games is just another indication that he\u2019s itching to be around his old team.<\/p>\n Any involvement from Lemieux, who sat with Morehouse for Game 5, would be a public relations bonanza for the Hoffmann family. Lemieux is probably the most beloved athlete in Pittsburgh history, as evidenced by the crowd\u2019s response to his mere presence on Monday.<\/p>\n Coaches praise Novak<\/p>\n Sometimes, a coaching staff appreciates certain players more than the media or fans do.<\/p>\n Tommy Novak is one of those players.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that fans or the media have been all that hard on Novak. But he\u2019s been fairly quiet in the playoffs and goes through stretches when he isn\u2019t all that productive. The Penguins coaching staff, team sources say, is a huge fan of Novak\u2019s work and never considered removing him from the lineup despite some rough patches early and late in the regular season.<\/p>\n Kindel wearing down<\/p>\n The Penguins love Ben Kindel\u2019s hockey brain, but they think he\u2019s running out of steam.<\/p>\n It makes sense. Kindel, the sensational rookie center, just turned 19 and has played in four preseason games, 77 regular-season games and five postseason games in the past seven months. That\u2019s an awful lot of hockey for a player that age, especially someone who isn\u2019t particularly big.<\/p>\n He hasn\u2019t looked as explosive in the postseason. However, as a couple of team sources noted, he\u2019s so smart that he hasn\u2019t hurt the Penguins in the least, even if his legs might be a little heavy.<\/p>\n Skinner\u2019s demotion<\/p>\n Several team sources told me goaltender Stuart Skinner has handled his first-round benching with class and that he has gone out of his way to help prepare Art\u016brs \u0160ilovs for some of the most important games of his career.<\/p>\n Skinner arrived in Pittsburgh with a reputation for being a wonderful teammate, and it\u2019s been on display again in the postseason.<\/p>\n Hathaway haters<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to assume the Penguins won\u2019t be sending any holiday cards to Garnet Hathaway come December. They roundly believe the Flyers forward\u2019s high-sticking incident with Sidney Crosby in Game 3 was premeditated. Penguins players told me Hathaway does things of that nature regularly and typically gets away with it.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not their favorite opponent. No surprise there, of course.<\/p>\n Sweet reunion<\/p>\n Game 6 will mark the third straight game in which Evgeni Malkin and Egor Chinakhov have played together. The two showed great chemistry during the second half of the regular season, and it served as a surprise when coach Dan Muse separated them late in the regular season.<\/p>\n Team sources said Malkin and Chinakhov were surprised by the decision to place them on different lines because they feel comfortable together. They\u2019re thrilled to be reunited on the Penguins\u2019 second line.<\/p>\n Praise for Hayes<\/p>\n Even though he\u2019s not with the Penguins in this series, I continue to hear from people in the organization about how bright they believe the future is for Avery Hayes. I\u2019d be shocked if he\u2019s not on the opening-night roster next season.<\/p>\n Despite how well Noel Acciari has played, I think it\u2019s unlikely the Penguins will bring him back. There\u2019s a good chance Hayes will simply slip into Acciari\u2019s spot on the right side of the fourth line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 With about 20 minutes remaining before Game 5\u2019s puck drop on the event level at PPG…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,1790,99],"class_list":["post-613868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}