Imagine, for a minute, that you’re a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. For years – since the 2007-08 season, really – you’ve been accustomed to deep Stanley Cup playoff runs and championships. But for this season, and for the past two seasons, it’s been an entirely different story. Pens management, led by GM Kyle Dubas, has been unable to get this team into the post-season, let alone turn them into a legitimate Cup contender. And at this point in the regular season, when it’s clear a playoff appearance isn’t going to happen, Dubas has been peeling off players, with no obvious plan in terms of what the Penguins are going to look like moving forward.
At the end of January, Dubas began the dismantling process by trading valuable defenseman Marcus Pettersson and winger Logan O’Connor to the Vancouver Canucks. Then, on Wednesday of this week, Dubas moved one of the players he acquired in the Pettersson/O’Connor deal – blueliner Vincent Desharnais – to the San Jose Sharks for a fifth-round draft pick in 2028. And also on Wednesday, Dubas acquired D-man Luke Schenn and center Tommy Novak from Nashville for left winger Michael Bunting and a fourth-rounder in 2026.
If you can make that make sense, you’re either Dubas, or you’re smarter than we are. The possibility exists that he’s going to flip Schenn to a playoff-bound team, but it’s not like he’s going to be getting a first-rounder or anywhere close to it for a player who would likely be a third-pair defenseman on most playoff teams. And now, what does Dubas have left to trade? Absent some type of hockey miracle, he’s not trading Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. And dealing star defensemen Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang also seems like a serious longshot. So this could be the way the Penguins look until the off-season, and that shouldn’t be a thrill for Pens fans.
At this point, skeptics of Dubas have a lot of material to make their arguments with. Rather than taking this franchise to the top of the Metropolitan Division, Dubas has fiddled and tweaked the roster, with the exception of adding Karlsson in a blockbuster move. And all the tweaks have amounted to nothing but disappointment.
To wit: the five-year contract extension Dubas gave to goalie Tristan Jarry just one month into his tenure running the team has been an utter disaster. Jarry’s $5.375-million contract essentially makes him untradeable, and the only solution we see at this point is a contract buyout for Jarry – something that will put a ton of dead money on Pittsburgh’s salary cap.
In addition, the contract Dubas gave to UFA defenseman Ryan Graves – handed out the same day as the Jarry contract – has also aged horrendously. Graves is earning $4.5 million for another four seasons after the current campaign, and this year, Graves has exactly one point in 44 games. Graves wasn’t brought in to be an offense-minded D-man, but his defensive efforts haven’t redeemed him.
Then, there are the role players Dubas has brought in – centers Cody Glass, Kevin Hayes and Noel Acciari, wingers Blake Lizotte, Danton Heinen, Anthony Beauvillier and Philip Tomasino. None of them are the sole reason Pittsburgh has faltered so badly, but none of them have elevated the Pens’ game, either.
It’s incredible to say, but on a team with four icons including Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Karlsson, all the supplemental moves Dubas has made have effectively been moving around deckchairs on the Titanic. And with the trade deadline less than a day away, it sure doesn’t look like Dubas is going to be able to make lemonade out of the lemon of a team he’s created. Penguins ownership can’t be pleased after another year of excuses and dismay, and sooner or later, Dubas’ job security is going to come into question, if that hasn’t already become the case this year.
Again, put yourself in the shoes of a Pens fan. What exactly do you have to look forward to for the foreseeable future? You can’t have confidence in Dubas at this point. He may pull a Hail Mary move that somehow turns things around for the better, but given the recent history we’ve seen from Dubas, you’d be taking a major gamble by predicting such a development. In a Metro Division that’s going to have surefire playoff teams in Carolina, New Jersey and Washington next year and beyond, and improving teams in Columbus and Philadelphia, it feels like the Penguins are once again going to be seriously challenged to be a post-season team until further notice.
If that sounds bleak, that’s because it should sound bleak. The Penguins’ latest golden age appears to be well in the rear-view mirror, and nothing Dubas is doing can convince us that’s going to change for the better.
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