Leave it to the longtime Penguins voice to breathe life into an economic assessment.

"All you need to know about Mario is," Mike Lange began the other day, "everything he touches turns to gold."

Or, if nothing else, it turns into a $200 million-plus value.

With his once-bankrupt, twice-for-sale franchise entering its first Stanley Cup final since Lemieux first rescued it in 1999 and ultimately held on to save it for a third career time -- yet another hat trick for him -- his formerly Flightless Waterfowl are truly soaring in a financial sense, so a couple of experts contend.

Kurt Badenhausen is a senior editor and co-author of the Forbes survey that ranked the Penguins among the NHL's fastest-rising properties amid the magazine's latest league assessment last November. Forbes ascribed the club primarily owned by Lemieux and Ron Burkle as being worth $155 million, a 17 percent hike from the 2006 ranking that placed the Penguins third from the professional-hockey bottom.

He expects a much higher hike come next November's survey.

"Going to the Stanley Cup finals, it's certainly going to boost that value without a doubt," Badenhausen said. "Long-term, the most important thing certainly is the new arena. We had the value up 17 percent last year, a pretty significant bump, and that was because of the new arena [deal in March 2007]. As we get closer to a new arena, we'll see the value climb, especially if they're still successful."

Consecutive playoff and 100-point-plus seasons beget a record-shattering 64 consecutive sellouts, which beget roughly $1.7 million in revenue for each additional postseason home game. Not only is the club 8-0 at Mellon Arena this spring, it's an estimated $13.6 million richer, before expenses.

Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie withdrew his $175 million bid to buy the Penguins in 2006, which Forbes estimated at a $133 million worth.

Purchase prices usually are more inflated than such computational values. So combine this Stanley Cup run -- Anaheim sustained a 25 percent boost in winning last year, Badenausen pointed out -- with the construction of a new arena set to open in 2010, and any potential Penguins price tag ascends exponentially. Not that Lemieux and Burkle plan to sell anytime soon.

"To give you an idea what new arenas can do, we had the New Jersey Devils going up 31 percent," Badenausen said, and it was the largest increase in a league where the Penguins' hike was the ninth-biggest.

"Winning teams and, moreover, championship teams are worth more," Clemson economics department chair and TheSportsEconomist.com founder Raymond Sauer wrote in an e-mail. "This is because they generate more revenue."

But "new arenas, built right, are big things. They add tens of millions of dollars to a team's value, since they are designed to generate modern revenue streams which the old designs didn't fully contemplate."

The Penguins' early-twentysomething stars -- Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal and Marc-Andre Fleury -- also represent future infusions of cash.

"Having marketable stars translates into dollars and cents as far as getting people into the building, which brings you ticket revenue and concession revenue and creates a demand for tickets," Badenhausen said. "Which gives you room for price increases.

"Obviously, the fact that they're all young bodes well for the future."