Playoffs are a crapshoot. Nobody wants to admit that but it's true. We won b2b cups and then lost in the 2nd round and 4 straight in the first round.
Joe Starkey had an article for the Post-Gazette entitled, “It’s alright to be underwhelmed by the Dubas hire” lol
Their arguments against him coming here suck. Toronto's problems don't apply here. They never mention his draft and development ability and that is massive for us.
Yeah, like they were gonna get someone that gives them a bigger chance to make the playoffs and can do draft and development better than him.
My only cause for optimism in regards to the bolded is Dubas seemed to be sought after by multiple teams. So I can't see him choosing the Pens over the other options unless he was guaranteed some level of autonomy to run things how he wants to.
Truthfully and I'm being very sincere here, other than getting Bedard or a top five pick, getting Dubas is the best thing to happen to this team in a long long time!
Sid's sports hernia comes back and he gets a prolapsed rectum.
I guess the question Dubas has to answer for himself first, with this team with their core in their upper 30's, with Jake with only a year left on his contract and likely gone after, is whether this team has a good chance in that crap shoot or not.
:format(webp)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/sports/leafs/opinion/2023/06/02/the-boy-wonders-does-kyle-dubas-know-what-hes-getting-into-with-the-penguins/dubas.jpg)
Opinion | The boy wonders: Does Kyle Dubas know what he’s getting into with the Penguins?
Pittsburgh has an old, tired group and the cupboards are bare.www.thestar.com
In Pittsburgh, the team essentially has no top young prospects. The Penguins haven’t had a top-20 pick in a decade. When they had the No. 8 and No. 22 picks in 2013, the Penguins screwed up both, taking Derrick Pouliot and Olli Maatta, passing on the likes of Jacob Trouba, Filip Forsberg, Tom Wilson and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Pittsburgh’s cupboard is bare. The Penguins have the No. 14 pick next month in the draft, and no second-rounder. That pick was dealt to Nashville for veteran Mikael Granlund, one of the last of the pointless moves made by the Brian Burke/Ron Hextall regime.
The good news is that Crosby, Malkin and Letang are all still very good players, if no longer what they once were. Crosby was 16th in league scoring this season, while Malkin was 26th. Jake Guentzel, meanwhile, had 36 goals, Rickard Rakell had 27 and Jason Zucker scored 26. Still, the team missed the Stanley Cup playoffs in the final week because it couldn’t beat awful Chicago or horrible Columbus.
As Burke and Hextall could tell Dubas, the new owners of the Penguins aren’t interested in a teardown or a rebuild. They want whoever is running the team to take another run at a Cup, as unrealistic as that might be to everyone outside of Pittsburgh. That probably means more moves like the Granlund deal, and no possibility of moving one of the stars for some badly needed futures.
Dubas has no experience with this type of situation. With the Leafs, he had to take a young group, augment it with other players, and try to get the team to a level of success it hadn’t experienced in 20 years. Outside of the regular season, he failed.
Obviously the Penguins saw in that failure glimpses of brilliance that convinced them Dubas was the best choice to take over their hockey department. His age, expertise in analytics and preference for a puck-possession style of hockey may have been what made the Penguins believe he is their future.
He has already won over the local media, which went gaga over his hiring on Thursday, calling him “one of hockey’s most famous people” and a “genius.” Perhaps those qualities were obscured somewhat in Toronto while his teams were losing in the first round six years in a row.
It’s interesting that the common element between Toronto and Pittsburgh is that, in both places, Dubas didn’t get to pick his own coach but instead inherited an experienced head coach with a record of championships. In Toronto, that was Mike Babcock. In Pittsburgh, it’s Mike Sullivan.
We know Babcock and Dubas weren’t on the same page, and Dubas won that MLSE political battle. Sullivan, however, is a more formidable personality on the Pittsburgh scene, and he is extremely well-connected inside the organization and throughout the sport.
Maybe he and Dubas will see eye to eye, although this perception that they embrace exactly the same style of hockey may require further analysis. If the team stumbles next season, Sullivan shouldn’t count on more support than Babcock got. At least Sheldon Keefe isn’t waiting in the wings. Not yet, anyway.
Most people would agree Dubas did good work in Toronto. But the job ahead in Pittsburgh looks to be much more complex and difficult, even if the glare of the spotlight is less. As well, Dubas no longer has a buffer between himself and ownership like he did in Toronto with Brendan Shanahan.
Dubas must meet the expectations of immediate success set down by the Fenway Group and simultaneously start restocking the team’s depth chart with talented young players. Plus, he may have to find a goalie, never his strong suit in Toronto.
Maybe he is a genius. In Pittsburgh, he’s going to have to be.
Why? Do you watch other teams? Penguins are playing in mudSullivan on same page as Dubas to have Penguins contend for Stanley Cup
Coach agrees with new boss that it's best to 'surround' Crosby, Malkin, Letang with more talent
Sullivan on same page as Dubas to have Penguins contend for Stanley Cup | NHL.com
Coach agrees with new boss that it's best to 'surround' Crosby, Malkin, Letang with more talentwww.nhl.com
Speed is what's most needed, Sullivan said.
Oh I'm going to vomit
from where I'm at, I can't see a way to go for the "one more time." every time i start up a path i run into a wall. the trade all our junk for the other team's gold (as some posters here want to do) just doesn't fly. not enough jr's in the world. even doing the rebuild will take more time because of all the walls the prior administration has left us. even getting free agents will be hard because they will be blocked by unmovable rocks.
We'll know the direction when we see what Dubas does with our 1st rounder this year. It's got a heck of a lot of value. If they trade it, and throw in Pickering or deal him separately to get an actual high impact player, then we'll know we're all in, and planning to bottom out in a couple years.
You did not even go into how all the core are yet another year older. That Malkin and Crosby both were healthy for the entire year for the first time in their careers. Letang for the most part too. All the core was there for the playoffs.
I want to give your post a like but I can't because I hate how true it is.
Maatta was very good til his injury. And he wasn't as bad as people made him out to be after his injuries.
Winning the Cup may be a crapshoot, but putting together a real playoff contender means you will typically make at least a couple of deep runs over a half decade when your core is in their primes.
Bringing up Maatta is just such an obvious proof the Toronto writer doesn’t know anything about the Pens
If it makes you feel better, they're probably gonna trade the 1st for Garland and use him as Zucker's replacement, because this team just has to stay stocked to the gills with smaller, 40-45pt middle-6 forwards making $5 million a year.
It's not going to be rad because they will not trade that first round pick unless they get a ridiculously great offer. They will keep that first round pick as they should! Remember, the Mandate is to look forward to the future just as much as now. Giving up your first round pick wouldn't make much sense now would it? They keep the mother f****** pick! Or maybe move up!
The Toronto media and some of their fans a pissed that the Leafs haven't won a championship since the NHL expanded; while the pens have won five championships.
I sincerely hope Dubas helps curb all of this Stockholm Syndrome moves like resigning Dumo....If it makes you feel better, they're probably gonna trade the 1st for Garland and use him as Zucker's replacement, because this team just has to stay stocked to the gills with smaller, 40-45pt middle-6 forwards making $5 million a year.
And they'll also re-sign Dumo and put Carter at 3C.
