PITTSBURGH — If you've been watching the Penguins lately, you know that nothing is decided until it's decided. Four-goal, third-period leads disappear like smoke. One-goal leads with a tenth of a second on the clock and your team on the power play can vanish, too.

That is my first thought with news of an expected sale between the Fenway Sports Group and the Chicago-based Hoffmann Family of Companies. The deal would still have to be approved by the NHL's Board of Governors, and it's not just the Penguins' recent on-ice history that makes me reluctant to operate as if it's fait accompli.

It's their entire history.

You might know that the Penguins are the NHL's all-time leader in bankruptcies (two). You might also recall that in 2007, Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie reached an agreement to buy the team from Mario Lemieux for $175 million (peanuts) before abruptly withdrawing his offer.

Nobody was sure of Balsillie's intentions for keeping the team in town. Nobody seemed sure of his intentions in general — and that could be said of multiple other Penguins owners, pre-21st Century.

That's the thing with new owners with no background in major league sports: You don't know anything about them, really, until they arrive and start running the team.

At least with FSG, you know you have a proven entity that wants to win and is willing to spend to the max. Do they come off as coldly corporate? Yes. Did they alienate Lemieux? Yes. And that was a mistake.

But let's be very clear here: FSG has done right by the Penguins, even if it appears they might have used the franchise to make an incredible profit, nearly doubling their purchase price of $900 million.

Money has never been an issue, and that, to me, is the most important function of sports ownership: to spend. Give your team a chance to win, as opposed to, you know, Bob Nutting. FSG has done so on all fronts. It also appears to have hired the right man to run the operation in president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas.

That's the other thing I look for in sports ownership: Hire the right people and let them do their jobs. Dubas was given total autonomy. He has exercised it in matters such as firing coach Mike Sullivan. The Penguins appear to be headed down the right path under Dubas, although it's early yet in their quasi-rebuild.

Let's assume the sale — believed to be right around the sticker price of $1.75 billion — is approved and that the Hoffmann Family lives up to its excellent reputation. This is a multi-generational private equity firm with a billionaire CEO in David Hoffmann and a massive portfolio that includes more than 100 brands in real estate, manufacturing, media and agriculture. The group also owns the ECHL's Florida Everblades, who have been highly successful.

This would be my first question for the Hoffmanns, and it is posed in a time of financial challenge for the Penguins, as attendance dips annually and the team continues to miss the playoffs every year:

Are you willing and able to sustain operating losses while still spending to win?

In other words, what is your tolerance for losing money — if indeed that were to happen — while you rebuild the team to the extent that justifies the exorbitant sale price?

I ask, because it's not about the money you allocate on the purchase. It's the money you allocate afterward, and that has to include your willingness to spend in the lean times, as FSG has done (perhaps knowing a huge pay day was ahead). A salary cap floor sure helps in this matter, but it doesn't guarantee outbidding teams for free agents, for example, or sparing no expense in all areas of your operation.

Based on the little we know of the Hoffmann family, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But all the pertinent questions remain.

FSG, for all its flaws, seems like a sure thing. New and unproven sports ownership is by definition not that.

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