The Pittsburgh Penguins were once an established playoff contender in the NHL. Now it appears they could miss the playoffs for the third straight season. And while people want to point the finger at general manager Kyle Dubas, the construction of this roster started before he got there.
While you could argue the Penguins rebuild should have started after they lost to the Washington Capitals in 2018 in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Penguins did make the playoffs the following seasons from 2019-2022 losing in the first round. In the case of 2020 the Penguins “didn’t make the playoffs” losing to the Montreal Canadiens in the qualifying round.
But the signs were there that this was an aging team. The Penguins got outplayed by the New York Islanders in 2019 and 2021, and the Canadiens in 2020. In 2022, the Penguins were up 3-1 in the series, Sidney Crosby got hurt and the series changed. The Penguins could not defend or hold leads losing to the New York Rangers in seven games.
Kyle Dubas Has Made Two $11 Million Mistakes in His Career
The summer of 2022 was crucial. That summer, the Penguins should have made a decision on Kris Letang or Evgeni Malkin, not both. Not to mention Rickard Rakell was a free agent too. When Letang signed his six-year deal at $6.1 million and Rakell signed his five-year deal at $5 million, many thought Malkin was gone.
At the time, President of Hockey Operations Brian Burke and General Manager wanted to move on from Malkin and start the rebuild. Ownership had other ideas. They wanted to keep Letang, Malkin, and Sidney Crosby together. Malkin gets a four-year deal at $6.1 million. An aging team just got older.
The Pittsburgh Penguins missed the playoffs in 2023 because they can’t beat teams with losing records. This allowed the Florida Panthers to get in and the Chicago Blackhawks to draft Connor Bedard. But changes needed to come.
NHL Rumors: Have the Pittsburgh Penguins Considered Trading Tristan Jarry?
Similar to Malkin, it seemed goaltender Tristan Jarry was leaving Pittsburgh. At least that is what the reports were. And then new GM Kyle Dubas signed Jarry to a five-year extension worth $5.375 million. Jarry is now in the AHL on a conditioning stint.
Jarry did not play great in 2023 as Casey DeSmith took the starters’ reign. In 2024 it was Alex Nedeljkovic. This season it is Joel Blomqvist.
In addition to the Jarry signing, Dubas signed Ryan Graves to a six-year, $4.5 million a season cap hit. He also traded for Erik Karlsson. This was another $11 million a year player that a team Dubas ran did not need (The Penguins are on the hook for $10 million of Karlsson’s $11.5 million cap hit). In the 2022-23 Karlsson had over 100 points on a bad San Jose Sharks team. But Dubas and ownership thought this was the piece to put the Penguins over the top. It was not.
Then this past off-season he traded for Kevin Hayes and signed Matt Grzelcyk. Again, this was after the trade of Jake Guentzel at last year’s trade deadline which did not net him much in return.
The chemistry is off for an aging team that is lacking interest and attention to detail. Crosby, who just signed a new two-year deal is off his game to begin the season. It feels like he is missing Guentzel on his wing. Now Crosby will never say this, but you have to imagine he was not happy about the trade.
NHL Rumors: Pittsburgh Penguins and Marcus Pettersson
It feels like head coach Mike Sullivan could be the first coach to lose his job if things don’t turn around. Again it might have happened this past off-season, but his extension only kicked in, so how much of a buyout does ownership want to pay him?
That factors into the decision not to fire a coach. But Sullivan would likely get picked up quickly. But something has to change and the Penguins have a lot of unmoveable contracts. Lots of these players have modified or full no-trade clauses. So this team needs to come to a decision on what they want to do before it is too late.
But the Pittsburgh Penguins are a paying a price for over a decade of being a consistent playoff team in the NHL. Eventually, their reign had to come to an end. If only they followed their rival the Washington Capitals, it might be a little more bearable.
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