Kyle Dubas has been trying to establish a new era of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, and it should be interesting to see what he does this off-season.
The Pittsburgh Penguins find themselves out of the NHL playoffs again with an aging roster that has more questions than answers surrounding it. They have an aging core of star players that can still play, but not really at the elite level that we have become accustomed to. Crosby is still one of the games elite, but Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have lost more than a step. General manager Kyle Dubas has never used the word “rebuild” to describe where the team is, but that’s exactly where they are.
How quickly people seem to forget that before Dubas was hired the Pittsburgh Penguins had traded away several draft picks. Now? They have a total of thirty picks over the next four years. Fifteen of those picks are in the first three rounds. It’s not just impressive because of the acquisition of capital, it’s largely impressive because Dubas did it so quickly within the span of a couple of seasons. Dubas was able to turn Jake Guentzel into Ville Koivunen, Vasily Ponomarev, Cruz Lucius, a conditional first round pick in 2024, and a conditional fifth round pick in the same year.
Dubas was also able to turn another future free agent in defenseman Marcus Petterson and forward Drew O’Connor into a nice return for Pittsburgh. This included ex-Penguin Danton Heinen, forward prospect Melvin Fernstrom, defenseman Vincent Desharnais (who was flipped to San Jose for a seventh round pick not too long after being acquired in the aforementioned trade) and a conditional 2025 first round pick.
I think it’s obvious that Kyle Dubas has done more right than wrong. Thirty draft picks in the next four years, 50% of them being in the first three rounds is very impressive. Sure, none of the picks have been made yet, and we don’t know who they’re going to take, or if most of these players are going to work out. When you look at where the roster was, especially in terms of prospects, Dubas took a bare cupboard and now has the ammunition to build a top farm system.
The Pittsburgh Penguins already have defensemen Owen Pickering, Harrison Brunicke and forwards Rutger McGroarty, Sam Poulin and Tristan Broz. Pittsburgh also has two very good goaltending prospects in Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are in the midst of a changing hockey landscape, and Kyle Dubas has taken initiative to make sure the Pittsburgh Penguins will have prospects for the future. They obviously have the draft picks and will have cap space to play around with whenever the likes of Malkin or Letang retire. If Dubas keeps this up, there’s no reason why the Penguins can’t go back to competing for their sixth Stanley Cup. Dubas has put the Penguins on the right path, “rebuild” or not.
(photo courtesy of Clutch Points)