The Penguins don't talk about it much.

They don't have to.

It is the unspoken subtext to the remarkable story line being written at Mellon Arena these days. It has been for months and will be for weeks to come.

That won't change no matter how they fare in the Stanley Cup final, whether they end the season with a raucous celebration or sobbing with disappointment.

The truth is that this team, as currently constituted, has a limited shelf life. Seven more games, max.

Not just because NHL rosters are almost constantly in a state of flux, with pieces being added or removed. The Penguins aren't facing the usual offseason personnel changes all teams experience; they're facing the possibility of something more like a seismic upheaval.

Of the 26 players on their NHL roster at the moment, 12 will qualify for unrestricted free agency July 1.

They are forwards Marian Hossa, Ryan Malone, Jarkko Ruutu, Gary Roberts, Pascal Dupuis, Adam Hall, Georges Laraque, Jeff Taffe and Kris Beech, defensemen Brooks Orpik and Mark Eaton and goalie Ty Conklin.

Include goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who is eligible for restricted free agency -- that means the Penguins can retain him by matching any offer he receives from another team or receive compensation if they would opt against doing so -- and it's easy to see why it's almost inconceivable that general manager Ray Shero will be able to keep the core of his team intact.

Not because ownership lacks the resources -- upper management has made it clear that Shero will be allowed to spend as much as he deems necessary, even if it means operating at a loss next season -- but because the Penguins won't have the salary-cap space.

Shero has been diligent about trying to set aside as much of that as possible during his two years on the job, but even with the NHL's cap maximum expected to rise from $50.3 million this season to somewhere near $55 million in 2008-09, squeezing all of his key players under it doesn't seem realistic.

Not when the deal Sidney Crosby signed last summer, which will represent a cap hit of $8.7 million per season, is about to kick in, and when space must be reserved for the deals Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal figure to have in place when their entry-level contracts expire in 2009.

The Penguins have qualified for the Cup final, in large part, because free agents-to-be such as Fleury, Hossa, Malone and Ruutu, among others, have elevated their games as the stakes have risen. That's great for the franchise in the short term, but strong playoff performances also drive up the value of players who are going on the open market.

With each victory the Penguins have earned this spring, the odds that their depth chart will look a lot different in a couple of months increases.

"You'd hope not, but realistically, looking at it, you'd say that's going to be the situation," Orpik said.

Shero isn't ready to concede that, if only because he still doesn't have many concrete numbers with which to work. Although he and his staff have done countless projections, there's no way of knowing exactly what kind of contract proposals guys such as Hossa or Malone or even Fleury could receive.

It's tough to put the jigsaw puzzle together when you don't know what the pieces look like.

"I'm not resigned to anything," Shero said. "Basically, I'm not resigned to it, because I haven't talked about it or speculated about it.

"We have nothing hard and fast. We can do all the projections we want, but when reality sets in and we have to make those hard decisions ... we have to plan as best as possible."

Until the Penguins' playoff run ends, contracts for their impending free agents will remain a back-burner matter. Something rarely discussed when players are together -- "I don't know you want to bring in [to the locker room] and get too consumed with, because it can be a distraction," Orpik said -- but never too far from the thoughts of many of them.

"Every guy who is approaching it, it comes across your mind quite often," Orpik said. "I think guys who say they don't think about it at all are completely [dishonest]."

The situation doesn't seem to have added any urgency to the Penguins' desire to win a Cup -- "Everybody always wants to do well," Dupuis said -- but all concerned recognize that, for this particular group, there will be just one chance to leave an indelible mark.

"It's not going to be the same team next year," Ruutu said. "That's guaranteed. ... That's why you have to make it special."