Pittsburgh Penguins Lock Down the Middle: Novak Extended, Robertson Signed, Crosby Raise Talk Begins

Nobody in Pittsburgh set off fireworks this week, but the Pittsburgh Penguins got a surprising amount of business done between July 26 and August 2. They extended center Tommy Novak for three years, settled with winger Nick Robertson two days before an arbitrator could do it for them, and let the rest of the league chew on trade speculation linking them to two very different young players. Meanwhile, Sidney Crosby's agent went on the record about what his client's next contract might look like, and the number he floated should make Penguins fans sit up. For a rebuilding team in the dead of summer, that is a full week — and it says a lot about how Kyle Dubas sees the next two seasons.

A three-year handshake for Tommy Novak

The headline move came Friday, July 31, when the Penguins signed Novak to a three-year extension carrying a $4.65 million cap hit beginning in 2027-28. Novak, acquired from Nashville at the 2025 trade deadline in the deal that sent Michael Bunting the other way, put up 16 goals and 42 points in 82 games last season while averaging 14:17 a night, then added eight points in eight games for Team USA at the World Championship. Pittsburgh Hockey Now's Dan Kingerski admitted he was surprised — he had pegged Novak as expendable — but the logic is straightforward. Novak stabilized the second-line center spot after Evgeni Malkin's mid-season injury, and locking him in means 19-year-old Ben Kindel doesn't have to be rushed into a middle-six center job before he's ready. The faceoff numbers (42.9 percent) remain ugly, and sub-45-point production is modest money-for-role, but $4.65 million for a legitimate NHL center in a rising-cap world is defensible business, not a splurge.

Robertson settles before the gavel

The week's other signature was Nick Robertson's. Acquired from Toronto on July 1 for a 2028 fourth-round pick, Robertson had a July 28 arbitration hearing on the calendar — the only Penguins case on the league's summer docket — and the two sides beat it, agreeing to a two-year deal worth $7.5 million total, a $3.75 million average. The 24-year-old scored 16 goals and 32 points in 78 games with the Maple Leafs last season, and Pittsburgh is betting a change of scenery and real ice time unlock more. Assistant general manager Jason Spezza explained the quick acquisition earlier this summer by pointing to Pittsburgh's cap space and stockpile of picks: "Because we had the space and we had the ability and the picks to make the move quickly, we were able to move fast on it." Robertson joins a genuinely crowded wing group after the Penguins added Andrei Kuzmenko in free agency, signed Hendrix Lapierre, and extended Egor Chinakhov on a three-year deal. Somebody in that group is going to be unhappy with their deployment by November, which is a better problem than the alternative.

About Crosby's next contract

The most interesting Pittsburgh Penguins news of the week might have been a conversation rather than a transaction. Agent Pat Brisson discussed Crosby's situation publicly, and per Pittsburgh Hockey Now, he suggested the captain's next deal could finally break from tradition: "His next deal, he may do an extension next summer. He may sign a one-year deal for $12 (million)." Crosby has played on an $8.7 million cap hit since his 12-year contract began, and he re-upped at the same figure on his current two-year deal because, in Brisson's telling, he "didn't care much" about squeezing for more. PHN ran the math and estimated Crosby left roughly $29.9 million on the table over the years relative to what his leverage could have commanded. The context makes the number feel even starker: San Jose's Macklin Celebrini just signed for an $18.8 million cap hit — more than double Crosby's. Nobody expects Sid to chase the market at 39, but a raise to something with a "12" in front of it would be less a cash grab than a market correction, and the Penguins would pay it without blinking.

Trade winds: Shane Wright and Alexander Nikishin

The rumor mill kept Pittsburgh busy too. The Hockey News reported on July 28 that the Penguins are among the teams eyeing Seattle Kraken center Shane Wright, the 2022 fourth-overall pick whose camp went public with a trade request earlier this summer. Pittsburgh reportedly checked in after missing out on Jason Robertson, though Seattle's asking price — the Kraken wanted a premium young defenseman from Vancouver in earlier talks — may be prohibitive for a team that has hoarded its picks and prospects on purpose. A 22-year-old center with pedigree is exactly the profile Dubas should be hunting; the question is whether Seattle's price ever meets Pittsburgh's discipline. On the blue line, Carolina's Alexander Nikishin spent the week addressing the trade rumors that have followed him all summer. The Hurricanes are reportedly weighing a trade rather than a new contract for the 24-year-old, who posted 33 points in 81 games as an NHL rookie, and while St. Louis has been the team most consistently linked, Pittsburgh columnists spent the week making the case that the Penguins — thin on young, top-four defensemen — should be in that conversation. File it under smoke, not fire, but it's the right kind of smoke.

The bigger roster picture

Zoom out and the shape of the 2026-27 Penguins is basically set. Malkin is back for his age-40 season on a one-year, $5.5 million deal signed in May, coming off a remarkable 61-point run in 56 games after moving to the wing — production that helped push Pittsburgh into the playoffs for the first time in four years before a six-game loss to Philadelphia. Kris Letang's fight with the aging curve got the long-read treatment from Pittsburgh Hockey Now this week, with Dubas sounding cautiously optimistic that Letang can dodge the rough history of defensemen pushing 40. Down the middle it's Crosby, Novak, Blake Lizotte, and eventually Kindel; on the wings, the Kuzmenko-Robertson-Chinakhov-Lapierre cluster fights for top-nine minutes; on defense, July additions Trevor van Riemsdyk and Declan Carlile add veteran depth around the kids. Even the margins got tidied: Rem Pitlick was flipped for a conditional seventh-round pick in July, and in the system, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's signing of goalie Cam Johnson has PHN wondering whether prospect Gabriel D'Aigle gets squeezed in the Wheeling shuffle. None of it is glamorous. All of it is coherent.

What's next on the Penguins calendar

The runway to real hockey is short now, and the league's new 84-game schedule — the first expansion of the season since 1994 — gives Pittsburgh four meetings with every Metropolitan rival. Key dates worth circling:

• Mid-September: Training camp opens, with an abbreviated preseason under the new format
• September 30: Season opener at Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m. — a rematch of last spring's Game 6 at Xfinity Mobile Arena
• October 3: Home opener vs. Montreal at PPG Paints Arena
• January 1: New Year's Day game against Minnesota
• January 2027: 10-year anniversary celebration of the 2017 Stanley Cup team

Add it up and this was a quietly definitive week of Pittsburgh Penguins news. The middle of the lineup is signed, the arbitration docket is clear, and the front office is lurking on exactly the kind of young talent — a Wright, a Nikishin — that could pull the rebuild forward a year. The one loose thread is the captain's, and even that now has a shape: an extension conversation next summer, possibly with the biggest number of Crosby's career on it. Opening night in Philadelphia is eight weeks out, and for once the Penguins arrive with more answers than questions.