Kyle Dubas maintains goal of trying to keep Penguins living in 2 worlds at once

During the second period of Monday night’s 7-3 Pittsburgh Penguins’ win over the Philadelphia Flyers, Pens general manager Kyle Dubas joined the SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcast team.

While speaking with Josh Getzoff and Phil Bourque, Dubas was asked where he wants the team to be by the end of the calendar year. Dubas reiterated the franchise’s previously stated goal of trying to remain competitive in 2024-25 while at the same time trying to build for the future.

“Where we want the group to be at the end of the year is, we want them to be one of the eight teams (in the playoff bracket),” Dubas said. “But even in my job now, and coming into it in Pittsburgh, the key to us has been, can we build it back into contention in the long run? More so than even, ‘Can we be a playoff team?’ The focus is on, ‘What do we have to do to get ourselves back into contention?’”

That nebulous straddling of the line between what feels like a push-pull in opposite directions might actually be further clouded for Dubas, given the soft state of affairs in the Eastern Conference right now.

After the Penguins’ struggles early this year, some onlookers may be surprised to realize that the Pens are entering the Christmas break just one point out of a playoff spot. That’s despite the fact that they have lost four more games than they have won this season.

So, even though the Pens may not have had the look of a playoff team for much of this season, they are going into the holidays with wins in nine of their past 13 games and are at least in the hunt for a spot in an Eastern Conference playoff bracket that doesn’t appear to be very dense at the moment.

As a result, for Dubas, that means in early 2025, he has to figure out if his eyes should be more on moving assets to build for the future or maintaining the current roster (and perhaps even adding to it) if the Penguins’ momentum carries into January.

“The focus for us — the coaches and players — it is on the day-to-day. They’re trying to win the day,” Dubas continued. “Management, we’re trying to set the environment that enables them to do so while at the same time building the organization into a spot where they can contend every single year.”

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Santa Claus successfully visiting every house across the globe in one night to deliver presents sounds like an easier task than that. Much like their place in the standings, the Penguins’ current business model sounds like it’s stuck in the middle right now.

Where that really manifests is in who the Penguins decide to trade for picks and prospects and who they decide they have to retain. Just consider the types of players Dubas talked about on the broadcast.

“We moved (Lars) Eller out, brought in two picks,” Dubas said. “(We) used one of the picks we got last year from the Rangers on Chad Ruhwedel to bring in (Philip) Tomasino. Philip has scored to start with us, but I think his potential is so much greater if he can continue to move in the right direction.”

That’s where these Penguins are — and seem destined to be.

Moving Eller back to Washington felt like a sizable admission that the Penguins were looking toward the future. But he wasn’t such an important cog in the machine that the Pens were instantly signaling a rebuild by trading him. In fact, the Pens are 10-6-2 after his departure.

Trading Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust or Tristan Jarry would’ve been more of a commitment toward a rebuild. Maybe even someone the level of Rickard Rakell or Marcus Pettersson.

Meanwhile, getting Tomasino is a card to put in the deck for the future, but he is not a cornerstone for years to come.

Those were middle moves for a team that sounds like — and is playing like — they are going to be staying in the middle for quite some time to come.

Unless the Eastern Conference raises the Penguins’ tide while all the other boats sink.

I’m pretty sure that’s not how that analogy is supposed to work. But given how things are in that half of the NHL landscape, it seems to fit.

Given the free fall of the three New York State teams and the failure of the Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Canadiens and Flyers to improve all that much, the Pens have the potential to put some distance between themselves and the bottom of the conference so they can contend on the fringes of the wild card race.

Then again, “on the fringes of the wild card race” doesn’t exactly have the kind of ring to it that an organization of the Penguins’ stature is used to hearing about itself.

And that’s why Dubas has a lot of thinking to do over the holidays and into 2025.

LISTEN: Tim Benz and Brian Metzer talk about the Penguins, Kyle Dubas’ quotes and the Eastern Conference.