For Penguins president Kyle Dubas, nothing is off the table as the trade deadline approaches
Kyle Dubas was surprised Tuesday.
Disappointed by the Penguins’ 5-4 overtime loss to the New York Islanders? Absolutely.
But the team’s president of hockey operations was very surprised by what he saw in PPG Paints Arena.
Coming off an emotional weekend in which the franchise celebrated the legacy of icon Jaromir Jagr, Dubas thought the fans in attendance would be deflated a bit.
They weren’t.
“It’s an early-week game coming off a big weekend (with the Jagr celebration), my expectation going to the game was it was probably going to be a relatively quiet building just given the circumstances,” Dubas said. “And I think the fans were incredible (Tuesday) night. That was a big part. Every time we would show some life, they would double it.
“Our performances have not been the most consistent, especially at home. But the fans have more than done their share and done their part.”
The Penguins have largely been disappointing to anyone with a vested interest in the team this season. At 24-21-8, a mark that equates to 51 points, they sit in seventh place of the Metropolitan Division and sixth place in the Eastern Conference’s wild-card race.
That station is clearly a disappointment at this late juncture into the season, especially with the NHL’s trade deadline looming March 8.
Questions about the direction of the team, the performance of players and coaches as well as who or what might be traded have been circulating around the Penguins as a result of their predicament.
On Wednesday, Dubas held a news conference that lasted approximately 27 minutes to address many of those issues:
• Perhaps of most prominence, the future of All-Star forward Jake Guentzel hangs in the balance.
One of the team’s top players, Guentzel is on long-term injured reserve because of an undisclosed ailment. He is also a pending unrestricted free agent this offseason.
Dubas was asked if he expects Guentzel to remain a member of the club past the trade deadline or even past July 1, the first day of the NHL’s free agent signing period.
“It’s, obviously, at the forefront,” Dubas said. “He’s injured now. He’s on (long-term) injured reserve, and he’s eligible to come back on March 10. The way that our whole strategy plays out in the next two and half weeks — how our team continues to play — will dictate the short-term answer at the trade deadline. We’ll continue to have those discussions leading up to that and afterward where it’s at.
“I understand how valuable he’s been as a teammate, person in the community, contributor to helping the team win the Stanley Cup. It’s important. But at the same time, we have to take stock of where we’re at and be realistic about the fact that one of the issues we need to get younger. We have a lot of guys in their 30s signed. Some of them are the best players in the history of the franchise. It’s tough with Jake, as I’ve said to him, because he’s an excellent player and playing at an elite level. We have to have a way to continue to have those solid veteran guys but continue to get younger at the same time.”
• Dubas preached patience with how the team will approach the trade deadline. In other words, he’s going to let the team’s success or failures before March 8 dictate how it will operate:
“We’ve received a lot of calls on a lot of our players, especially as our team has been in that spot that it’s at,” Dubas said. “Out of respect to the group here and what they’ve accomplished, I’m trying to be as patient at possible and give the group the time. I’ve outlined to them to show that we can really make a push and make a run at it. … Is the group capable of it? Yes. We’re sure that we are, but we’re running out of time to show that we can do it consistently. As we’ve had, coming out of the All-Star break, we lose two of three. Last week is the same, we lose two of three.
“These are really good players here. So, teams are calling more and more asking, ‘Are they going to be available?’ That’s my job to listen to it. But there’s been no discussion about ‘These guys are, these guys aren’t available.’ A lot of teams are just calling and asking about a litany of our players.”
• Head coach Mike Sullivan and staff have the backing of Dubas:
“He takes this very seriously and takes the ups and downs very seriously,” Dubas said. “That’s the respect I’ve developed for him throughout the year. You know that from afar and when you get in with somebody it only helps you. So to me, with the coaching staff, I envision Mike Sullivan, based on what I’ve learned from him in our discussions this year, his ability to take the development of each individual player seriously, I think he’s the type of coach that can help you win. … He’s the type of coach that shows he can win but also that he can develop people.
“I don’t think that there needs to be any discussion about Mike. As I will do with my own staff and any staff, I’ll sit down with Mike at the end of the year and go through his view of it, and we’ll be very thorough. But I know he has great belief in the work that they’re doing, and I see the work that they’re doing every day. Questions come because it hasn’t manifested itself consistently on the ice.”
• When asked specifically about associate coach Todd Reirden and the woeful power play that he oversees, Dubas largely avoided addressing Reirden directly.
“When you have an element of your organization that is underperforming, I think it falls on everybody,” Dubas said. “It falls on me. The personnel, the accountability, I have my part in it. (The power play has) obviously, not performed at near the level that any of us want it. … Number one, there’s an issue in the organization and regardless of who you want to attribute it to, I think it has to start with me. I have to investigate why, and I’m the one who should be accountable for it. Everybody in that locker room is unhappy with where that is at. I don’t want to delve into individual coaches or players and their play on power play. But I have to do everything I can to help them all get to that next level.
“There’s no dancing around it, it hasn’t been where we wanted it to be at. That said, we have continued opportunity here to rectify it. That would be a really easy way for us to start to move in a more consistently strong direction as a club here in the next couple of weeks.”
• According to Cap Friendly, the Penguins have 13 players with either a no-movement or no-trade clause in their contracts. Dubas indicated he has not asked anyone to waive them to facilitate a transaction.
He also professed faith that the roster as currently constructed, is capable of pursuing a playoff berth when asked if the team could be a buyer approaching the trade deadline:
“I still believe our group is capable,” Dubas said. “My view of it is that I can’t see us moving future draft capital at this point to try to bolster the team. At the same time, are there moves that will allow us to add good younger players to the organization that can help to expedite things here and help us and support the group that’s already here? We’re trying to look through all of that.
“But I can’t see us expending a ton of our future draft capital this (draft) year. We don’t have a ton, but in the future years, we’re well stocked. I don’t think that will go out the door. But if there are some scenarios where we have some of our younger prospects that maybe we can add players that are a little bit older and (closer) to ready for them, I think we would look at all those things. I don’t think there’s anything at all that’s off the table here.”
• What has been the gap between Dubas’ plans entering this season and the reality of the Penguins’ underachievement?
“The obvious place to start is if our power play was clicking along at an average rate or the rate that we expect, that tangibly changes. … We go back to the beginning of the year and our discussions that we have in here about the way that we wanted to construct the group, it was to have a group in the bottom-six (forwards) — one line led by (Lars Eller), one led by Noel Acciari — that could take the defensive pressure away from (the lines of top centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin) and let them go out and flourish. When you don’t produce on the power play, it puts an added pressure on even-strength production on those groups which is not really how we set it out at the beginning of the year. That falls on me.
“(Tuesday) night, we got that from (the bottom-six forwards), and it was great to see because those guys worked their tails off and they don’t get a lot of power-play opportunity. To see (forwards Drew) O’Connor, (Valtteri) Puustinen, (defenseman Marcus Pettersson) find the back of the net was great. But that’s not really the way that it was set out at the beginning of the year. If there’s a criticism of that, it falls to me and that decision to build it out that way. That’s probably the area … where there’s been the greatest disappointment. I would say that’s as simple as it gets.”
• What is the possibility that the Penguins simply continue to retool the roster around pillars like Crosby and the other core players versus a complete rebuild?
“Now, it’s focused on getting the team more consistent when players are more readily available, whether it’s at the trade deadline or in the offseason,” Dubas said. “I think what you’re alluding to is a full-on (situation) where you’re in the bottom five of the league. When you have players like that, they prevent you from getting there because they’re too good.
“At the same time, what they can pass on to the players that come into the organization in terms of the standards that we have here — the impact that being around Sid, (Malkin), Letang, Karlsson each day can have on a young player — it’s impossible to measure. That’s what we would set out to do. So whether that’s our own guys in (forward Brayden) Yager, (defenseman Owen) Pickering, (forward Sam) Poulin, (goaltender Joel) Blomqvist or more tangibly, draft picks but also any other younger players we can bring in via trade … I think that can serve to expedite things and make sure there isn’t a massive breach.
“When we went through this process (with the Maple Leafs) in 2014, ‘15, ‘16, there were a lot of guys that we moved out, but we did keep on a lot, whether it was (forward James) van Riemsdyk, (forward Tyler) Bozak, (defenseman) Jake Gardiner, (forward Leo) Komarov and I think that really helped our younger guys when they came in. Here it’s not close in terms of the production, the ability they still have in their late 30s and more importantly, their character and what they can lend to younger players.”
• Why is Dubas willing to give the core group of players an opportunity to save the season over the next two-plus weeks leading up to the trade deadline:
“We’re locked for in that next stretch here,” Dubas said. “If the group didn’t have the pedigree it has or the history that it is, I wouldn’t feel that they’re owed that same latitude. But I feel this group, in respecting them and what they’ve accomplished in the past here and how proud they are — others may not agree — I think that’s the right, fair thing to do. It’s been outlined to them. They know what’s at stake. We’ve got the last two remaining games, a (trip to Western Canada and Seattle) then we’re back here again to show where we want to go. I just think that’s the right, fair way to handle it with the group.”
• Dubas indicated he has explored a trade to simply shake up the team and pull it out of its doldrums:
“We’ve explored that in the last several weeks going into the All-Star break (Feb. 1-3),” Dubas said. “We’ve tried. This year, I’ve found those opportunities have been less. There haven’t been many like that. The two (major trades in the NHL) that have been made have been expiring contracts for (future assets).
“We’ve tried to do that, give that element of a shakeup. I’m not usually a huge proponent of it, but I’ve felt with where our group was at, especially coming out of the break — not having a really strong surge out of it — that was one of the things that we tried to do and continued to try to do. The opportunities to do it haven’t really been there, and we’ve exhausted them. The level of the urgency from the situation should be what shakes it up, especially given that the last two games … three of the four points, we’ve conceded. If there’s ever going to be a chance we’re going to shake ourselves free, starting (with a home game against the Canadiens on Thursday) would be it.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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