Last week, Vladislav Kolyachonok was the 37th to do it. Tommy Novak made it 38 on Friday. Two days later, Conor Timmins and Connor Dewar upped the total to 40.
That’s the number of players who have played a game for the Penguins this season.
“Forty? Wow,” Ryan Graves said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t have guessed that high.”
And with 15 games still left in a lost season, there is a very real chance Sidney Crosby, in his 20th NHL campaign, will have his highest total of teammates in a season.
You would have to go all the way back to his rookie season in 2005-06 to find a higher number of total players than this one. That Penguins team dressed 41 of them.
This has the makings of a good trivia question. But inside a Penguins dressing room that has undergone incessant roster shuffling, it’s not exactly viewed as a fun fact.
“We obviously haven’t been in the position we would have liked to be in for pretty much the entire season,” Bryan Rust said with a sigh after Wednesday’s practice.
No, they have not. The Penguins started the season slow, had a promising but brief surge between the holidays, then sunk like a stone in the Metropolitan standings.
Proud players had their own designs. But Kyle Dubas and team management had this pegged as a transition year. And as the losses piled up, so did the transactions.
“I think it speaks to where we are at as a team,” Graves said. “When you’re not in the hunt, you have young guys come in and play. We’ve had a lot of injuries, too.”
The roster turnover has challenged many within the organization, from the players and coaches down to the team’s equipment staff and director of team operations.
Mike Sullivan understands the “circumstances” that created this revolving door. He believes those are “obvious” based on where the Penguins are as a franchise at the moment. Sullivan added, “It’s my job to coach the group of players that we have.”
“We talk a lot about what it means to be a Pittsburgh Penguin and about a certain standard that has been built here for a few decades. We all have a responsibility to that,” their longtime coach said. “That’s how we go about our business every day.”
The Penguins actually utilized 40 players in each of their back-to-back Stanley Cup years in 2016 and 2017, as well. But this feels much different, Rust acknowledged.
“I think with trades and things like that, it can be a little bit of a mental battle for players, just seeing guys go in and out and knowing that you’re not where you want to be in the standings,” Rust said. “But I think it’s just part of being in this league.”
The many, many players who have suited up for the Penguins in this season range from a pair of 20-year-old rookies in Owen Pickering and Rutger McGroarty to the core trio of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, who are all inching toward 40.
The long list includes Nate Clurman, who at 26 made his NHL debut. And Boko Imama, the journeyman forward and human hit stick. And recently-dealt Vincent Desharnais, who became a real-life embodiment of that Grandpa Simpson meme.
Midseason, Pittsburgh acquired eight new players through a trade or waiver claim. And that total doesn’t even include Luke Schenn, who was Penguins property for less than 48 hours before Dubas rerouted him to Winnipeg on NHL trade deadline day.
And three players on the roster today started the season in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
“Guys are getting opportunities they may not have had otherwise,” Rust said. “And other guys are getting a change of scenery and they can prove some people wrong.”
Rust said Crosby and the rest of the team’s leadership group has been busy, helping all of those newcomers find their footing on the ice and a sense of comfort off it.
“For the guys coming in, it’s a bit of a nervous time, trying to mesh and meet new guys and find a new place to live and all those things,” Rust said. “That can be tough.”
Philip Tomasino, who arrived via trade from Nashville in November, appreciates it.
“It’s awesome that we have a great coaching staff and leadership group,” he said. “All the players have done a great job of making me feel comfortable. The moment I got here, they welcomed me with open arms, and the transition was really easy.”
Get this — Tomasino isn’t even one of the “new guys” anymore. Nine players on the current NHL roster were not here yet when he was acquired four months ago.
The 23-year-old winger shook his head in disbelief when we informed him of that.
With team management not keen on the idea of shaking up what they have going on in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the Penguins record for most players used is safe. That was 48 men in 1983-84, another losing year that landed them Mario Lemieux.
But for the Crosby era, this season could unfortunately be one for the record books.
First Published: March 12, 2025, 8:29 p.m.
Updated: March 13, 2025, 8:02 p.m.
