With growing family and optimism intact, Penguins' Rickard Rakell wants to stay put
Life has been good for Rickard Rakell ever since he joined the Pittsburgh Penguins via a trade with the Anaheim Ducks in February of 2022.
He’s become a father twice since arriving in Western Pennsylvania.
Son Ziggy was born in April, joining sister Daisy and mother Emmeli.
“He’s been really nice to us so far,” Rakell said. “Daisy loves having a younger brother. It’s been really good just spending time with family back home. Just a great summer.”
His personal life has been a series of triumphs. His professional existence, however, has been a bit more cluttered.
Primarily because he and the Penguins haven’t been to the postseason in three years.
The team’s futility was particularly frustrating last season because the Penguins missed the playoffs again despite Rakell registering career highs in goals (35) and points (70) over 81 games.
Power play goal for Pittsburgh!
Scored by Rickard Rakell with 05:24 remaining in the 3rd period.
Assisted by Bryan Rust and Ville Koivunen.
Chicago: 2
Pittsburgh: 1#PITvsCHI #Blackhawks #LetsGoPens pic.twitter.com/wjxBZ5CDiF— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) April 7, 2025
“The year before, I had a really tough year, and you feel like you let the team down,” Rakell said Sept. 28 in Cranberry. “Last year, I had a better year and you want to just keep playing. You don’t want it to stop. Obviously, it was a big disappointment that we couldn’t pull through and push for a playoff spot. You play hockey to win. You play hockey for a chance to win and to play games in the playoffs and have success there. Anything short of that is always a disappointment.”
Few expect the Penguins to break their postseason drought this season, at least externally. The team is in the midst of a rebuild of sorts, and new coach Dan Muse hasn’t been afraid to experiment. To wit, Rakell, typically utilized on either of the wings, was deployed at center during the preseason and even got some penalty-killing minutes (to go along with his usual power-play duties).
“The versatility is huge,” Muse said. “I feel like you can put him in any situation. For somebody like him, he’s seen it first hand, the benefits of being able to have that versatility and to build that trust with a new coaching staff. He earned that right away. It’s all situations. Any forward position, it’s both special teams. When you have somebody like that, it’s a huge benefit. Especially during a long season, too, where you just never know where a certain game is going to go.”
Specific games Rakell would like to be a part of will take place during the Olympic tournament in February. After skating for Sweden in the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off exhibition tournament last season, he wants to wear the three crowns on a blue and yellow jersey in contests that really matter.
“Getting a chance to play in the Olympics, I never really had a chance before,” said Rakell, a native of Sundbyberg, Sweden. “That would be huge for me and a great motivator for this year.”
What does he do for an encore after a career year?
“I always try to get better,” Rakell said. “I’m really happy with how things went last year. But I think having done that, I can take another step, reach another level. That’s my goal coming into this year is to try to be even better. Take the good things that I did and just improve them.”
Of course, the better he does, the more discussion there is about him being traded away. As the Penguins slipped further and further out of the playoff picture last season, more and more trade speculation surrounded the team, with much of it focused on Rakell.
That chatter didn’t stop over the summer, and it hasn’t been stifled at the start of the season.
“I’m doing my business here,” said Rakell, whose contract has an eight-team no-trade list. “I’m looking forward to another year here. Just going to try to do the best for this team and myself. Obviously, you read a lot of stuff and you hear a lot of things. It is what it is.
“You do really well, people are going to start talking. You do really bad, people are going to start talking. I guess when you’re just even, everybody stops talking. That’s not a good thing for yourself either.”
The ultimate good for Rakell would be to win a Stanley Cup title.
When he signed his current contract, a six-year extension with an annual salary cap hit of $5 million, he explained his reasoning for accepting a deal seen as frugal by the typical going rate for All-Stars capable of 30-goal campaigns.
“A big thing for me was having the chance to win,” Rakell said in July of 2022. “I had a really good feeling about the Penguins the second when I got there.”
Despite the gulf of three years without even a playoff appearance, Rakell maintains faith he can win the Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh.
“Looking around this room,” Rakell said. “I feel like we have really good players still. Now, Dan comes in and has some new thoughts. It’s been feeling really good so far.
“I’m excited to see where this can go. … We have the star power to make good things happen.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.