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The Penguins have already successfully pulled off a mini-rebuild within their current era of championship success.

What’s now being called the “core three” of the Penguins team — Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin — used to have a much broader membership.

The perception was that “core” also used to include the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Brooks Orpik, Jordan Staal and Sergei Gonchar; all of whom have either retired or long since been traded.

Oh yeah. Head coaches Michel Therrien and Dan Bylsma and general manager Ray Shero, too.

With the exception of Chris Kunitz, a lot of the valuable support players who helped the team reach to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals in 2008 and 2009 didn’t bridge the gap to the next Finals runs in 2016 and 2107.

Totaling three Stanley Cup titles.

Now the suggestion from general manager Jim Rutherford and head coach Mike Sullivan is that those three players will be back and the Penguins will retool around them.

If reconfiguring a roster for a second time in six years sounds challenging, it’s no more daunting than the idea of facing a full rebuild.

Remember how long it took to build that “core” in the first place? About half a decade.

As soon as the Penguins lost in the 2001 Eastern Conference Final, Jaromir Jagr was traded. The K-L-S line was picked apart. Mario Lemieux’s second career began to fade. And the financial future looked bleak.

But if you use the draft selection of Fleury in the first round of 2003 as a landmark, it was five years between that point and the Penguins’ trip to a Stanley Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings in 2008.

Six years before winning one.

Malkin, Crosby and Staal would be drafted first or second overall the next three years. Gonchar signed in 2005 after the lockout.

Then, everything changed.

Does the franchise have that kind of appetite for a five-year rebuild with so much money left on the payroll over the next few seasons and the financial distress associated with the covid-19 revenue loss?

Unlikely.

But for those calling for a full rebuild, that five-year timeline is probably a pretty good marker of patience that would be needed by the Pens front office.

As some Pittsburgh sports history would illustrate.

Steelers of the ‘70s

Those four-time Super Bowl championship Steelers teams weren’t really a rebuild. They were just … a build. From nothing.

Many associate the rise of that team as being built through the draft. Specifically the 1974 draft which yielded the likes of Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, Mike Webster, John Stallworth and Donnie Shell (undrafted free agent).

For as heralded as that draft was, much of the foundation was in place already, which is why the Steelers were able to win Super Bowl IX that year.

Mean “Joe” Greene, Jon Kolb and L.C. Greenwood were drafted in 1969. Terry Bradshaw and Mel Blount were selected in 1970. Jack Ham, Larry Brown, Dwight White, Ernie Holmes, Gerry Mullins and Mike Wagner arrived in 1971. Franco Harris and Steve Furness in 1972. J.T. Thomas in 1973.

Go back to Sam Davis in 1967 or Andy Russell in 1963, if you want. But, roughly, it took five years to build the great core into what that team became.

Once that group faded into retirement, it took 16 years to get back to another Super Bowl and 26 before winning another one.

Pirates of the ‘90s

The first of those three N.L. East championship-winning teams under Jim Leyland occurred in 1990. They were cobbled out of the rubble of what remained after the World Series teams of 1971 and 1979.

If you see the drafting of Barry Bonds as planting the seed of competitiveness for that team, the five-year window applies again. He was selected in 1985 and made it to the major leagues in late May 1986.

Syd Thrift became the general manager in ‘85 as well. Thrift hired Leyland in 1986. He reacquired Bobby Bonilla that same year. The trade for Mike LaValliere and Andy Van Slyke occurred in 1987. Doug Drabek and Jose Lind came on board that year as well. John Smiley became a full-time starter in 1988. Jay Bell came to town in 1989. Jeff King got called up that year. And Wally Backman signed before the 1990 season. Randy Tomlin was called up in August, two days before the Zane Smith trade.

In October 1990, they made the playoffs for the first time since 1979 and won the division the next two years as well.

What proceeded from 1993 to the end of 2012 was two decades of darkness.

Steelers of the 2000s

The Steelers moved out of Three Rivers Stadium following the 2000 season. It was the third straight without a playoff berth.

Within five years, they were Super Bowl champions. Between 2001 and 2005, the Steelers drafted 15 players who would be starters or first-line contributors on at least one of their three teams that went to the Super Bowl since the turn of the century.

Those draft picks included the likes of first-rounders Ben Roethlisberger, Casey Hampton, Heath Miller and Troy Polamalu.

And the undrafted free agent pick-up of Willie Parker. He had a run in Detroit you may remember.

Not to mention free agent signings such as Jeff Hartings and James Farrior.

Additionally, the likes of Antwaan Randle El, Chris Hoke, Brett Keisel, Ike Taylor and Larry Foote broke into the league as Steelers in that era via the draft or undrafted free agency.

So the five-year rebuild we all used to joke about as jaded Pirates fans back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s seems to have some merit as a barometer by which the Penguins may have to gauge if they do commit to a full rebuild. If not longer.

So, in other words, buckle up, Penguins fans.

For whenever it happens.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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