2025-26 Season in Review: Rickard Rakell

Monthly Splits

**via Yahoo!**

Story of the Season

Rickard Rakell entered 2025-26 coming off the best season of his professional career, and the biggest question was whether he could sustain it. The answer ended up being mostly yes. While he did not quite replicate the career highs he posted during the previous season, Rakell remained a major offensive piece for Pittsburgh and continued to thrive alongside Sidney Crosby. Even through stretches where the Penguins battled injuries and inconsistency, Rakell found ways to produce offense. Early on, Rakell looked like a perfect fit on Sidney Crosby’s wing once again, registering eight points through nine October games and building on the chemistry previously established alongside Bryan Rust on the opposite wing. By midseason, things became more complicated. A hand injury that required surgery cost Rakell several weeks and disrupted some of the momentum he had built. Rakell and fellow Swede Erik Karlsson became two of the biggest drivers of play post-Olympic break, however. And it couldn’t have come at a better time. His March surge became one of the biggest reasons Pittsburgh stayed competitive late in the year. Rakell piled up 19 points in 17 games, generating offense at five-on-five, and even filled in at center while Crosby was rehabbing an injury, despite being a natural winger.

Regular season 5v5 advanced stats

**Data via Natural Stat Trick**. Ranking is out of 18 forwards on the team who qualified by playing a minimum of 150 minutes. Corsi For%: 49.91 (9th) Goals For%: 55.00 (10th) xGF%: 42.97 (6th) Scoring Chance %: 49.32 (12th) High Danger Scoring Chance%: 52.43 (7th) 5v5 on-ice shooting%: 11.43 (11th) On-ice save%: 90.32 (7th) Goals/60: 0.94 Assist/60: 0.94 Points/60: 1.87 Rakell’s underlying numbers continued to paint the picture of a strong offensive winger, even if his defensive impacts fluctuated. Then again, the 2025-26 Penguins weren’t exactly known for their defensive prowess. Playing major minutes with Crosby naturally inflated some offensive opportunities, but his ability to finish and complement Crosby makes him difficult to replace.

Charts n’at

Via Advanced Hockey Stats and NHL Edge

Highlights

Questions to ponder

Questions swirled last summer (as they might again in 2026) about whether Rakell, now 33, has a future in Pittsburgh as the team still aims to get younger. The Penguins have to decide how aggressively they want to reshape the roster around younger talent over the next two years. This season showed the Penguins are not yet in the same tier as the Hurricanes or the Avalanche; the rebuild is far from over. Those contenders will always value a productive top-six winger at $5 million, especially because the salary cap continues to rise. After another strong season, moving him now would not be about freeing up cap space. Put the tinfoil hat on and throw Rakell into a hypothetical trade proposal for, say, Chicago’s fourth overall pick? Kyle Dubas has no problem taking a few big swings to improve his team. Trading up in this draft to further accelerate the rebuild and also get younger might be too good of an opportunity to pass up if it presents itself. But it would mean giving up one of the few reliable finishers on the roster.

Ideal 2026-27

Assuming Rakell remains a Penguin, he most likely continues to see time as a top-line winger. The Penguins don’t have any wingers in the system (in the short-term) that Rakell would be blocking with his presence. You can pretty comfortably pencil 6-7 in for 20 goals and 50 points, assuming he’s healthy and deployed as he has been in the past.

Bottom line

Rakell followed up his breakout 2024-25 campaign with another highly productive season and further solidified himself as a valuable piece of Pittsburgh’s core. After the uncertainty surrounding him in 2024, that represents a massive turnaround, a win for the player and team.

Final Grade: B

Equalling or surpassing the career marks he had in 2024-25 would have been the dream scenario, and even though he had 22 fewer points this go-around, Rakell remains a dependable top-six veteran. What did you think of Rakell’s season? Share your thoughts below.