The NHL is honoring its best players over the past 25 years with a Quarter-Century Team for each club, and the Pittsburgh Penguins’ lineup was revealed Thursday evening.

Featuring a first- and second-team of three forwards, two defensemen and one goalie, all players considered had to have appeared in a game for their respective franchise since Jan. 1, 2000.

First Team

Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin

Defensemen: Sergei Gonchar, Kris Letang

Goalie: Marc-Andre Fleury

Second Team

Forwards: Phil Kessel, Chris Kunitz, Mario Lemieux

Defensemen: Brian Dumoulin, Brooks Orpik

Goalie: Matt Murray

• Crosby and Malkin headlining the first-team’s forwards was hardly surprising. The two franchise pillars have suited up a combined 2,501 times for the Penguins in the 21st Century, guiding the club to Stanley Cup titles in 2009, 2016 and 2017.Crosby entered Thursday’s puck drop vs. the Edmonton Oilers with 1,640 career points, the most among all NHL players this century, and Malkin has 1,328.

• While Guentzel’s tenure with the Penguins ended last March when he was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes, his parts of eight seasons in Pittsburgh were full of memorable moments. Guentzel was a two-time 40-goal scorer in a Penguins sweater, managing 219 in total.

• Gonchar played just five seasons with the Penguins from 2005-10, but his tenure with the club corresponded from its rise from the basement of the NHL’s standings to Stanley Cup contender. Gonchar, who scored 54 goals with 205 assists in 322 games with the Penguins, was a stable force on the ice and in the locker room for a young club and its rising phenoms, Crosby and Malkin.

• Letang’s inclusion aside Gonchar on the first team was predictable. Over his 1,124 games played, he has risen to the top of the Penguins’ franchise leaderboard among blue liners in most statistical categories.

• Fleury’s career in Pittsburgh is increasingly a thing of the past as the 40-year-old netminder is in his ninth season since departing the Penguins, but while with the club that drafted him first overall in 2003, he accrued 375 wins. Fleury, the Penguins’ leader in wins, games played and shutouts, was a member of all four of the team’s Stanley Cup appearances this century.

• Lemieux being second-team in anything feels off the mark. While the majority of his career had been played by Jan. 1, 2000, Lemieux still played in 170 games from 2000, when he came out of retirement, through 2005-06, Crosby’s rookie year. Over that span, he scored 77 goals with 152 assists, averaging 1.35 points.

• Kunitz, who arrived via trade to the Penguins in 2009, in time to assist the club to a Stanley Cup title, played a key role on its ensuing two championships in 2016 and 2017. Scorer of the series-winning goal in the 2017 Eastern Conference Finals, Kunitz contributed 464 points in 695 regular-season and playoff games with the Penguins from 2009-17, forging a strong bond as one of Crosby’s wingers.

• Kessel played in Pittsburgh from 2015-19, never missing a game. He ranks seventh in points (303) among all Penguins players this century.

• On the blue line, Dumoulin played a valuable role for the Penguins from 2015-23 before departing in free agency. Pairing with Letang, Dumoulin offered a steady contrast to the aggressive style of his partner. In 546 games played with the Penguins, he scored 19 goals with 120 goals and had a plus-93 rating.

• Like Dumoulin, Orpik was known for his defensive presence as opposed to an offensive threat. Orpik’s years with the Penguins (2002-14), like Fleury’s, saw the Penguins transform into a regular Stanley Cup contender. A frequent deliverer of crushing hits to opposing players, Orpik skated in 795 total games for the Penguins.

• Behind Fleury, Murray has a strong case as the most impactful Penguins goalie of this century. From 2015-20, he went 117-53-19 with a 2.67 goals-against average in the regular season, and during the playoffs, he won 29 games and had a 2.18 GAA.

Notable names excluded

Looking at players currently on the Penguins, Bryan Rust was a notable omission. Rust ranks fifth behind Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Orpik in games played by a Penguin since 2000 (603) and is fifth in points (401).

Jaromir Jagr also didn’t make the cut.

In terms of points per game (1.39), no Penguin ranks higher in the 21st century, although Jagr only played 109 post-2000 games for the club before joining the Washington Capitals at the start of the 2001-02 campaign.

Alex Kovalev (274 points in 266 games) was another exclusion from the Penguins’ Quarter-Century squad, as were Pascal Dupuis and Patric Hornqvist.

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