Follow our live coverage of the 2024 NHL Draft
LAS VEGAS — The word “rebuild” was never used. Maybe it wasn’t necessary.
When Kyle Dubas met with the media at Sphere on Friday before the first round of the NHL Draft, there was a very clear sense that a transition was underway, that Sidney Crosby will now be ushering in a new era of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey even as he continues to represent the team’s golden era.
Advertisement
There are no quick fixes. The Penguins are taking their medicine now.
Crosby has one year remaining on his contract, and, while Dubas didn’t want to shed any light on those negotiations, he did illustrate where he sees the Penguins moving. Don’t expect any last gasps in free agency or any blockbuster trades.
“You hit the nail on the head,” Dubas, the team’s president and general manager, said when asked if Crosby’s contract negotiations would remain private. “It will stay that way. It’s a private matter with Sid, Pat (Brisson, Crosby’s agent), myself and our ownership. And we’ll keep it that way.”
He was pressed about Crosby.
“I’m not going to comment,” he said.
But when asked if he was comfortable with the Crosby talks and where things are going in regards to his place on this team, Dubas did expand.
“Of course,” Dubas said. “It predates my time here by a decade and a half or more. 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 to acquire younger, hungrier players that can help us get back to that time.
“The real goal is to try and take where we’re at, and that era that the team has been through … and 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 Jake Guentzel) but something we felt we had to do.”
The Athletic and other outlets have reported that Dubas has attempted to unload some salaries in recent weeks to no avail. He neither confirmed nor denied it but he did speak of his philosophy moving forward.
“With where we’re at, the only thing that’s really important to us is that 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.
Advertisement
“With where we’re at right now, 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. We won’t be involved in the long-term free agency stuff.”
Dubas said that he’ll look to make signings as free agency opens on Monday, but only of the short-term variety.
• I found it interesting that Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, when meeting with the media, did not commit to Tristan Jarry as his No. 1 goaltender entering next season. During his meeting with the media before the draft, I asked Sullivan if there was a planned open competition between Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic in training camp, or if Jarry was already viewed as the No. 1 guy.
“We think Tristan is a starting NHL goalie,” he said.
He didn’t pronounce him as the guy, however.
Sullivan said his decision to play Nedeljkovic exclusively down the stretch was a matter of “playing the hot hand.”
Dubas was asked about the Penguins’ goaltending situation and the fairly expensive reality of having Jarry ($5.35 million annually) and Nedeljkovic ($2.5 million annually) on the roster.
“I’m comfortable with the number,” Dubas said. “I think the team in front of them, that stretch before and after the trade deadline, it was not a great group to play in goal for. And then we got it back on track and Tristan got sick. And Ned took the ball and ran with it.
“I just thought as well that with the goaltending market the way that it was, knowing that Ned wanted to come back, it also gives us some breathing room with (prospect) Joel (Blomqvist). But it’s not to say that any of the competition is locked in because of where we’re at.
Advertisement
“I think we’re coming into the season and 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 Ned when he signed. It was a good finish to the year and obviously he brought a lot to our team. But now let’s continue to push here in the offseason.
“In regards to the money, I think in the end we will end up around 10th in the league (on goaltending), depending on who comes in and out. But all told, I’d rather have the goalies in the barn than be chasing them on Monday. It’s not a fun place to be.”
• When the Penguins recently announced David Quinn as an assistant coach, the team didn’t specify if he would be coaching the power play. That changed on Friday.
Sullivan confirmed that Quinn will coach the power play and that he is already hard at work on figuring out what went wrong last season and how to fix it.
While Sullivan and Quinn are longtime friends, Dubas isn’t worried about Quinn being a “yes man.”
Far from it.
“The key thing for me with Quinny was that it was very clear to me that he is very much his own person,” Dubas said. “Because of the relationship, I think the positive is that he’s maybe disagreeing or pushing back on Sully. They’ve been challenging each other for a long time. I think when you have two people that can have that strong of a relationship, that can push back on one another.”
• Sullivan believes Quinn is going to be very helpful in producing the best hockey out of star defenseman Erik Karlsson. After a mediocre year with the Penguins, Karlsson will be reunited Quinn, his coach when he produced 101 points two seasons ago with the Sharks.
• Dubas on restricted free agent P.O Joseph: “(Penguins director of hockey operations) Vukie (Mpofu) has continued to talk to P.O’s representative. 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.”
Advertisement
• Dubas declined to comment on contract talks with Marcus Pettersson who, like Crosby, has one year remaining on his deal.
• Sullivan and former Penguins player and assistant general manager Bill Guerin met with the media before the draft to discuss their partnership as the coach and general manager, respectively, of Team USA in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Auston Matthews, Matthew Thachuk, Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox and Charlie McAvoy (Sullivan’s son-in-law) were named as the first six players to Team USA’s roster for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off.
• Crosby (Team Canada) and Karlsson (Team Sweden) were named to their respective teams on Friday, too.
• The Penguins did not have a first-round selection on Friday night but have two second-round selections (No. 44 and 46) on Saturday. Dubas expressed that, given the lack of blue-chip prospects in the Penguins organization, he’ll take the best players available regardless of position.
(Photo of Kyle Dubas and Vukie Mpofu: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
