Recent Moves By GM Dubas Lead Penguins Further Into Era Of Mediocrity
Recent Moves By GM Dubas Lead Penguins Further Into Era Of Mediocrity
Blog Article
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.