Penguins' Kyle Dubas comfortable with Sidney Crosby contract talks, plans for 'hungrier' team around him

LAS VEGAS — There is little doubt the Pittsburgh Penguins and their captain, Sidney Crosby, will maintain a wonderful marriage that has lasted nearly 20 blissful years.

The only questions are the details.

On Friday, Crosby and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas each maintained a vow of (mostly) silence on the matter of him potentially signing a contract extension.

Entering the final year of a 12-year contract he signed in 2012, Crosby is eligible, per NHL rules, to sign an extension Monday.

Crosby, who turns 37 on Aug. 7, is notoriously intolerant to change to his personal surroundings and would presumably be interested in agreeing to a deal that would allow him to complete his spellbinding career in Pittsburgh.

The details of any such discussions are private among Crosby, agent Pat Brisson and Penguins management.

“It’s something that I’ll keep between Kyle and I but we’ve had some conversations,” Crosby said during a video conference Friday. “I’ll just kind of leave it at that.”

Dubas largely echoed that sentiment of silence.

“It will stay that way,” Dubas said before the start of the NHL Draft at the Sphere entertainment venue in Sin City. “It’s a private matter with Sid, Pat and myself and our ownership. And we’ll keep it that way.”

Dubas did indicate he is comfortable with where negotiations sit and spoke of having a more competitive team around Crosby in the ensuing seasons.

“Of course,” Dubas said. “Sid’s an ultra-competitive person and wants the team to be a contender. As long as you have someone like Sid on the team and the players that we have, the process that we have to follow — as urgently as possible — is acquire younger, hungrier players that can help us to get back to that time. The real goal is to try to take where we’re at and the era that the team has just been through … and to be able to hand that over to the next era. But we have to build that era up. It started last year, it goes to the trade deadline. Not a popular decision (to trade forward Jake Guentzel) but something we felt we had to do. Then tomorrow at the draft and then again on Monday (when the free agent signing period opens).”

Dubas touched base on a number of subjects as the offseason truly opened.

• He indicated he is not interested in trading away assets currently on the roster simply to unload salary to create cap space. Something of value that could help the current roster of pool of future assets would be required for any such transaction.

“If we’re moving players out, the return has to be good,” Dubas said. “I don’t think we’re a team with where we’re at right now where we’re going to be looking to do these types of deals where we’re looking to move salary out and willing to do poor deals or attach any assets. I don’t think we have any players that fall in that trench. … It would be more of the opposite. If there were deals that best serve us to get to that goal, we would probably look to take those on. If there are draft picks, young players or prospects that would help us get back to contention sooner, it would be more in that realm than we would be to try to move off our guys to create more space to get into free agency.”

Don’t expect the Penguins to go after any long-term unrestricted free-agent signings.

“I think the free agents, it’ll be guys on shorter-term,” Dubas said. “With where we’re at, bringing in one guy on a long-term deal or two guys on long-term deals, it’s not really what we need. We need to make sure that we have the flexibility and the options to bring in younger, hungrier players that can help us to get back to where everyone wants the team to be as quickly as we can. I understand looking at it, people say well, it’s not clear one way or the other. But to me, it is. Last year in the summer, we tried to jump-start it in free agency and in trade. We ended up missing on the next-to-last day of the season again, which is where the team was the year before.

“So now, we need to begin to pivot away from the way that we’ve gone about it into a more clear-cut, guys for shorter-term deals who want to play with good players and play for a good coaching staff in a great city. We’ll be a good option for them if they don’t get what they want longer-term and they want to come to Pittsburgh. That would be really at all positions, aside from in net. We won’t be active there. We will be active in all the other facets to try to help the team and remain flexible. That’s the way we’ll go about it.”

Chaz Palla | TribLive

Penguins goaltenders Alex Nedeljkovic (left) and Tristan Jarry.

• After goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic was re-signed earlier this month to a two-year contract extension, it appears the goaltending position will have more of an open competition along with incumbent starter Tristan Jarry and rising prospect Joel Blomqvist.

“With the goaltending market the way that it was, knowing that (Nedeljkovic) wanted to come back and also gives us some breathing room with Joel. But it’s not to say that any of the competition is locked in because of where we’re at. I expect all five goalies that we have signed to push. And nothing is going to be given to anybody. And that was the message to (Nedeljkovic) when he signed.

“I’d rather have the goalies in the barn than be chasing them on Monday. It’s not a fun place to be.”

• The team’s most prominent pending restricted free agent is defenseman P.O Joseph. Dubas said negotiations are ongoing but was somewhat ambiguous as to where they may lead, suggesting Joseph might not receive a qualifying offer, allowing him to potentially become an unrestricted free agent.

“(Director of Hockey Operations and Legal Affairs Vukie Mpofu) has continued to talk to P.O.’s representative,” Dubas said. “I think the defense market of that type of free agent has been quite interesting. A lot of the players are not getting qualified. There’s an arbitration element to it that is important to us and cap space. So, we’re trying to measure the players that aren’t going to be qualified, the players that are going to get to free agency.

“If you go down that path, what is that cap space? What type of player do we have? Is it better or equal? Can we get the same for less money? There’s all those types of things. So we’ll work through that.”

• Like Crosby, defenseman Marcus Pettersson is entering the final year of his current contract and is eligible to sign a contract extension on Monday. Dubas maintained privacy on that topic. Via e-mail, Pettersson’s agent, Peter Wallen, said there was nothing to report on the topic.

• Dubas indicated forward negotiations with pending restricted free agent forward Emil Bemstrom continue and forward prospect Corey Andonovski, another pending restricted free agent, will receive a qualifying offer.

• The Penguins do not have a selection in the first round on Friday but are scheduled to have six selections in the final six rounds Saturday, including two in the second round (No. 44 and 46). Dubas did not express a preference for any positions.

“With where we’re at right now, it has to be the best players available,” Dubas said. “With the two picks so close together, we’ve had a lot of talk about that. We just need to get the two best players we can there, then continue to try to help ourselves stock that pipeline, and we’ll see what we end up with 24 hours from now.”