Pittsburg, PA
Offseason Checklist: Pittsburgh Penguins
The offseason has arrived for all but a handful of teams who are still taking part in the playoffs. Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Pittsburgh.
The Pittsburgh Penguins came into the 2023-24 season with playoff expectations after turning over nearly half of their roster last summer and acquiring reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson. However, things didn’t go as planned as the power play and poor team defense were the Penguins’ undoing, leading them to miss the playoffs for a second straight season and just the third time since Sidney Crosby’s arrival in 2005. General manager Kyle Dubas made a lot of moves last summer after arriving from Toronto and has now had a full season to evaluate the team’s needs and how he can help get the group back into the playoff picture. The Penguins have one of the oldest rosters in the league and Dubas has expressed interest in getting younger which will make for a busy summer in Pittsburgh.
Extension Talks
The Penguins have plenty of holes to fill on their roster but all the talk over the next month will be about Crosby’s potential extension that he is eligible to sign on July 1st. It seems likely that the Penguins will be extending Crosby as both he and the team have expressed strong interest in him ending his career in Pittsburgh. Until that deal is done and sealed, the talk in Pittsburgh will be about the future of 87. Crosby had a season for the ages at 36 years old and could command any number he wanted on the open market. However, he has taken a hometown discount on each of his last two extensions and has had an $8.7MM average annual value since 2008-09. With his next deal, Crosby may finally elect to carry a cap hit north of $10MM for the first time in his career, although it wouldn’t be shocking to see him take less once again so the Penguins can add to their lineup. Much of the chatter has been about Crosby inking a short-term extension in July, one that could take him to the end of Kris Letang’s current contract.
The Penguins also have a few other players of note that will become extension-eligible on July 1st. Marcus Pettersson is the most defensively consistent player on the Penguins roster and has developed into a very effective shutdown defender for Pittsburgh. The 28-year-old posted career highs this past season tallying four goals and 26 assists while registering a plus-28 rating. He plays a quiet responsible game and has been asked to play alongside both Karlsson and Letang, leading to both players showing more effectiveness when paired with the big Swede. Karlsson struggled when he wasn’t paired with Pettersson and showed a noticeable decline when flanked by Ryan Graves. Pettersson is slated to make just $4.025MM in the final year of his five-year deal and could command upwards of $6MM on a long-term deal should he reach unrestricted free agency. The Penguins have reportedly already initiated contract talks with Pettersson, which makes sense given that they don’t have many effective defenders in their lineup. The team could explore a potential offseason trade, but it would leave a massive hole in their top four and provide another issue for Dubas to solve.
Drew O’Connor is another Penguins player who will be eligible for an extension this summer and is coming off a career year. The 25-year-old has been on the cusp of becoming an NHL regular for a number of years and finally lived up to the potential that many pundits thought he had when the Penguins signed him out of the NCAA back in March 2020. O’Connor had 16 goals and 17 assists in 79 games this season while finally using his speed and size to become a disruptive force on the Penguins forecheck. O’Connor spent the final few weeks of the regular season paired with Sidney Crosby and didn’t look out of place on the Penguins’ first line scoring six goals in the Penguins final 12 games. A contract extension with O’Connor would carry a great degree of risk, but plenty of upside as well depending on the version of O’Connor the Penguins could get long-term. He has proven himself to be a solid third-line winger on the Penguins, but if he were their answer on Crosby’s wing, it would open up an opportunity to extend him at a discount for the foreseeable future. At this stage it seems likely the Penguins will wait to see the kind of player that have in O’Connor this season before extending him long-term.
Add/Replace Depth Scoring
The Penguins don’t have many pending free agents as most of their top-end players are already signed for the 2024-25 season. However, they don’t have many impact players in the bottom of their lineup at the moment and desperately need to inject some offensively gifted players into their bottom-six forward group.
The Penguins don’t have much in the pipeline in terms of young NHL-ready forwards, but a few prospects could challenge for roles next season. Valtteri Puustinen appears ready for full-time NHL work and could see time on the Penguins’ third line, as well as recent trade acquisitions Ville Koivunen and Vasili Ponomarev, both of whom were acquired in the Jake Guentzel trade.
Last summer Dubas opted for a defensive first bottom six in hopes that the Penguins top six forwards could carry the weight offensively. While the likes of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust, Letang and Karlsson provided the offensive punch, the bottom six didn’t offer much help in the scoring department, particularly the fourth line that had several long stretches without a single goal. Lars Eller had a good season as the Penguins’ third-line center, but given his skill set and age he would probably be better suited as the Penguins’ fourth-line center, a move that would push current center Noel Acciari to the wing. 32-year-old Acciari struggled in his first year in Pittsburgh posting just four goals and three assists in 55 games and would benefit from an easier assignment on the wing. Acquiring a third-line center would have a positive ripple effect on the bottom two lines and could be enough to create some additional scoring throughout the Penguins lineup. Pittsburgh’s limited cap space will make an addition like that a challenge, but a few names to keep an eye on would be free agents Chandler Stephenson and Jack Roslovic.
If the Penguins are unable to add a third-line center, a speedy winger such as Anthony Duclair would be a good addition under head coach Mike Sullivan’s system.
Add Top-Six Winger
The Penguins will have roughly $13MM in cap space this summer when free agency opens and they have a need for another top-six winger, particularly if they trade Reilly Smith. The Penguins made a sound move in acquiring Smith last summer from the Vegas Golden Knights, however, the 33-year-old didn’t fit with Pittsburgh and struggled to 13 goals and 27 assists while playing primarily with Evgeni Malkin. If the Penguins are able to move Smith and his $5MM cap hit, it would open up a lot of options in free agency, or potentially the trade market.
A name that has been thrown around has been former Penguin Jake Guentzel who was Crosby’s running mate since breaking into the NHL in the 2016-17 season. Crosby and Guentzel have remarkable chemistry and in theory, the move is a no-brainer. However, the Penguins never fully engaged Guentzel on an extension when he was with the team and signing him would run against Dubas’ comments about the team getting younger.
Another potential reunion that would be available for the Penguins could be Jason Zucker who split last season between Arizona and Nashville. The 32-year-old had 14 goals and 18 assists in 69 games, a steep drop from his final season in Pittsburgh when he tallied 27 goals and 21 assists in 78 games. Zucker had good chemistry with Evgeni Malkin in his final season with the Penguins and his speed would be a good fit in Sullivan’s system.
Outside of former Penguins, one winger that Pittsburgh could target would be Jake DeBrusk of the Boston Bruins. DeBrusk is one of the younger free-agent wingers at just 27 years old and would be a great addition to Pittsburgh’s top-6 forward group. A solid two-way forward, DeBrusk had a down year this season posting just 19 goals and 21 assists in 80 games. The former first-round pick has the talent to be a 40-goal scorer in the NHL but has never topped 27 goals in a season, despite hitting the 25-goal mark on three separate occasions. DeBrusk could be a cheaper option for the Penguins to slide in alongside Sidney Crosby and could provide Crosby with a solid scoring winger during the twilight of his career.
Make The Goalie Splash
The Penguins coaching staff didn’t show much trust in starter Tristan Jarry down the stretch as backup netminder Alex Nedeljkovic started Pittsburgh’s final 13 games and nearly willed the club into the playoffs. Nedeljkovic steadied the Penguins goaltending situation at the end of the season but is a pending unrestricted free agent and likely priced himself out of Pittsburgh with his solid play down the stretch. That leaves Jarry and youngster Joel Blomqvist as the Penguins’ top two options heading into next season and could become a real issue as the Penguins look to get back to the playoffs.
Jarry was signed to a five-year deal last July in a move that was a necessity for the Penguins since there weren’t many better goaltending options available. The 29-year-old started the season well and had some solid stretches of play, but overall, his numbers were pedestrian as he finished the season 19-25-5 with a 2.91 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage. Jarry remains a talented netminder and could probably generate some interest on the trade market but he has a history of playing poorly when the games matter the most and also has a long injury history as well.
Dubas has stated that the Penguins could start next season with Jarry and Blomqvist as their top two netminders but haven’t exactly shown a lot of confidence in Jarry given his lack of play in April of this past season. If the Penguins do opt to move on from Jarry it would not be easy as goaltender trades have been complicated in recent seasons as evidenced by the Flames’ inability to move netminder Jacob Markstrom. The Penguins could look to swap contracts with another club that has a struggling goaltender or attempt to go after a bigger fish such as 2023 Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark, but that would require additional resources that Dubas may not be willing to commit.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Pittsburg, PA
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Hear from the Buro Happold team on the engineering behind Pittsburgh International Airport’s new landside terminal.
When Pittsburgh International Airport opened its new landside terminal in November 2025, it wasn’t just a ribbon‑cutting – it was a reset. The project replaced a 30‑year‑old layout designed for a hub airline that no longer exists, transforming the airport into a streamlined, Pittsburgh‑first operation built around the people who actually use it.
The Terminal Modernization Program (TMP) did more than link a new 800,000 ft² landside terminal directly to the existing concourses. It rethought a half‑mile disconnect between tickets and gates, retired the underground tram called the Automatic People Mover (APM), and re‑established clarity, comfort, and efficiency as the organizing principles of the passenger journey.
For Buro Happold, the challenge was both technical and cultural: engineer a right‑sized terminal that would feel effortless to travelers while quietly delivering resilience, efficiency, and long-term operability. In this Q&A, the team walks through the decisions behind the systems – from displacement ventilation to microgrid integration – and the choreography required to modernize an airport without ever shutting it down.
Meet the engineering team behind the new terminal
A building shaped by use, not nostalgia
The old Pittsburgh terminal felt stuck in the early 1990s: a mall‑like landside building, security, and then a tram ride to a distant airside concourse. It was a spatial diagram designed for connections, not for the 98% of travelers who now begin or end their journeys in Pittsburgh. The new plan positions the landside terminal directly against the airside concourses. “The split made a stressful trip more stressful,” said Joe Gaus, associate principal. “Now the sequence is straightforward: check in, central screening, and a short connector – no train, fewer unknowns.” The modernization project reversed the logic. Ticketing, screening, and arrivals were consolidated into a single hall linked directly to the gates, cutting time and uncertainty while opening up generous meet‑and‑greet spaces for a city that prefers to walk inside to welcome family and friends.
The architecture – led by Gensler and HDR, in association with luis vidal + architects – doesn’t hide its regional references: an undulating roof suggestive of rolling hills; columns branching like trees; fiber‑optic “stars” that glance off glass at night. What it does hide, by design, is the machinery of comfort. “You see the nature,” Gaus says, “and only when you look closer do you realize the technology is doing the work in the background.”
Integrating today with yesterday – while never closing
Modernizing a live airport is not a matter of swapping parts. The new terminal was built “separate ‑through‑construction,” as Yelena Nelson, senior mechanical engineer, describes it, to preserve operations until the moment of carefully sequenced tie‑in. That meant temporary routes, scaffolding, and wayfinding choreographies that changed as the building neared the old concourse. “The challenge wasn’t wiring old equipment to new,” Nelson says. “It was delivering next to a live airport without breaking its rhythm.”
Phasing became the delivery mechanism: one package for everything underground – utilities, stormwater, and the remnants of the train infrastructure – and another for everything above. The connector bridge formed a new passage aligning the security exit with the existing concourse. “LED walls, the bridge motif – it’s a reveal that feels like Pittsburgh,” says Mike Weleski, who led portions of the MEP and site integration. “All while the airport kept moving.”
Behind the scenes, the team wrote a white paper for the airport authority on its building management system. Do they double down on the incumbent platform or open the market to competition? Matt Hochberger, the project lead, explains the calculus: keep the operator workflows and alarm philosophies that staff know, but design the new terminal’s BMS to interoperate – not lock in. The owner chose open bid, preserving flexibility without sacrificing a seamless handoff to facilities. It’s the kind of decision passengers never feel, but operators make every day.
Power that protects operations
Pittsburgh International Airport is powered by a 23‑megawatt microgrid – a blend of on‑site natural gas generation and solar – capable of operating independently from the regional grid. The new terminal had to integrate seamlessly into that system. “We tied in at medium voltage with new 3.5 kV switchboards, then stepped down to 480V for the building,” says Jeremy Hall, associate electrical engineer. That strategy allowed the team to shrink the diesel generator to life‑safety loads – emergency lighting, egress, fire/life safety – and to rely on the microgrid’s redundancy for optional standby, cutting emissions and fuel risk.
Where the power system provides resilience, the controls framework ensures efficiency. The design incorporates daylight‑responsive dimming, occupancy and vacancy controls, and a full LED specification that cuts lighting power density to roughly 30 percent below ASHRAE code. The result is an automated, low‑waste operation that performs without demanding attention. It’s engineering that works in the background – constantly optimizing, rarely seen.
Comfort engineered into the background
If the project has a signature technical move, it’s displacement ventilation. In halls of this scale – soaring ceilings, long sightlines, and air volumes that would typically demand brute‑force conditioning – Buro Happold rethought the physics. Instead of pushing large quantities of air from high above, the team supplied conditioned air low and slow, allowing natural stratification to lift heat and contaminants clear of the occupied zone.
“The airflow isn’t felt – no drafts,” Hochberger says. “You’re calmer in the place people are usually most anxious: baggage claim.”
Those lofty ceilings, a defining architectural element of the new hall, were made possible precisely because the engineering retreated from them. By delivering air at the floor and letting the upper volume act as a quiet thermal buffer, the team avoided cluttering the roofline with the typical web of ducts, grilles, and mechanical hardware. The height could read as pure architecture – light, airy, unbroken.
Function followed form: diffusers are integrated into benches, walls, and carousel surrounds, preserving valuable floor‑to‑floor height and keeping the focus on the sweep of the roof instead of the machinery behind it. “We worked carefully with the design team to hide the big openings,” Nelson adds. The result is a space that feels open and intuitive, while the engineering works invisibly in the background to keep it comfortable at every scale.
Modeling as risk management
The integration platform for all of this was BIM. “We modeled space by space with exact elevations,” says Rachel Weaver, an electrical engineer who helped with BIM coordination. The point wasn’t just clash detection; it was construction intent. Electrical conduits and feeders were pre‑cut from the model to minimize waste. On the plumbing side, the team used Revit to thread storm piping through the undulating structure – a challenge made more urgent when the plumbing group proposed a stormwater reuse system that hadn’t been in the initial brief. “You have a roof this large,” Weleski says. “Why not capture and treat a portion for the landscape terraces and reduce domestic water demand?” The owner agreed.
A local project with global reach
The talent bench shifted as the program matured: early concept work drew on Buro Happold’s global aviation experience, then moved through New York and Pittsburgh for design and construction administration. What never shifted was proximity.
“We were on site weekly,” Gaus says. “Half the time it was faster to drive to the airport than to the office.” Problems that might have lingered on emails resolved in thirty‑minute hallway meetings or impromptu field walks with the contractor and architect.
Jeremy Snyder is direct about why that mattered: “It’s the airport’s building. They have to operate it. We moved efficiently and treated the owner as part of the team making decisions on design.”
What people will notice – and what they won’t
Travelers will recognize the ‘Pittsburgh-ness’ of the new hall immediately: the lift of the roofline, the light from all sides, the constellations overhead. They’ll also notice what’s missing. The tram is gone; the walk is shorter; the signage reads clearly. Much of what makes that possible is deliberately invisible – air delivered where people are; power and data routed where they need to be; sensors adjusting light to the day – so the building can do more with less.
For the engineers who lived with it for years, the pride is more granular. “We had to keep a complex campus breathing while we changed a lung,” Hochberger says, smiling at the metaphor. Weleski calls it a legacy project. “You don’t build a new airport here every decade,” he says. “I came to work on this. I can’t wait to fly out of it.”
In the end, the terminal modernization reflects the spirit of the city it serves: a clarity of purpose, an economy of means, and an insistence on doing the hardest work out of view so the experience feels effortless. It is, as the team repeatedly noted, an airport for Pittsburgh, by Pittsburgh – engineered to carry the region forward.
For us, the measure of success wasn’t just opening a new terminal – it was giving Pittsburgh an airport that feels effortless to use and resilient to operate. When engineering disappears into the experience, that’s when we know we’ve done our job.”
— Jeremy Snyder, US Aviation Director
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