Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's 101-point season shows growth beyond standings
A six-game regulation sprint, a 101-point finish and Sergei Murashov’s breakout showed Wilkes-Barre/Scranton grew far beyond its final playoff loss.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton did not leave 2025-26 with a championship, but the season still changed the shape of the Penguins’ future. The club finished 46-17-7-2 with 101 points, good for the third-best record in the AHL, and its .701 points percentage ranked fourth in franchise history. More important, it opened by winning its first six games in regulation for the first time in franchise history, an early sign that this group was built to drive play, not simply survive it.
That start mattered because the roster kept changing around it. Pittsburgh moved out stable offensive pieces as the year went on, including Danton Heinen, Phil Tomasino, Sam Poulin and Valtteri Puustinen, forcing younger players to take on more minutes and more responsibility. Tomasino was traded to Philadelphia on Dec. 31, 2025, and Puustinen went to Colorado on Jan. 20, 2026, in a deal that brought defenseman Ilya Solovyov back the other way. For Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the lesson was less about replacement parts than about adaptation, with the lineup learning to keep its edge even as the parent club reshuffled the pipeline.
The clearest development win came in goal. Sergei Murashov was named to the AHL Top Prospects Team and the All-Rookie Team after a first full season that produced a 24-9-4 record, a 2.20 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage in 38 appearances. Those numbers gave Pittsburgh a real answer in net and gave Wilkes-Barre/Scranton a foundation it could trust when games tightened.
The playoff run reinforced the point. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton reached the Eastern Conference Final for the first time in 12 years and advanced to the division final for the first time since 2016, then beat Springfield 8-1 in Game 5 of the Atlantic Division finals to reach the conference final. Toronto ended the run 2-1 in overtime of Game 6 on June 7, 2026, at Coca-Cola Coliseum, and claimed the Eastern Conference championship and the Richard F. Canning Trophy.
That finish left the Penguins with more than a strong record. It left them with a higher standard, a goaltender ready for the next step and a younger core that proved it could absorb NHL-level turnover without losing its identity.
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