The big problem I have with Dubas, and if I am being honest I don't know for sure that it is entirely on him per se, is his lack of activity. Yeah, he makes big moves on July 1 and at the deadline, but what about the other 363 days of the year? I see players signing ELCs coming out of college hockey all around the league. I see teams signing their own picks from Europe, college hockey and junior hockey. Whom have we signed since the start of this regular season? Puljujarvi, ok. Not terrible. We claimed Ludvig, that might be something. We also claimed Harkins. Horrible.
I feel like he is a part-time GM at a time when this organization needs one of the most pro-active GMs in franchise history. That is my main beef. The deadline was underwhelming. It started with a bang (Ruhwedel deal was a steal) but ended with a whimper. I actually like the Guentzel deal (yeah yeah, quantity over quality. Where this franchise is at, I want as many prospect bullets as possible). But the Guentzel deal makes zero sense when Smith, Eller and Ned (or Jarry I suppose) is still here.
Go sign some ELCs. This summer, if the plan is to do anything other than trade Eller, Smith and probably one more vet (Acciari, Graves, Rakell, Jarry et al), then that is it for me. I don't want to hear any talk of staying competitive during the core's remaining years. That literally has nothing to do with trading underachieving veterans and making the team younger on the NHL roster and accumulating more future assets to better your situation moving forward.
In fact, if you want to use some cap space to add a player or two via free agency this summer, go ahead. But only AFTER you created space both on the salary cap and the roster by moving out the above names. If you want to bring back Nedeljkovic, I have no problem with that. But you have to have a trade in place for Jarry first. If you want to bring back Guentzel or some other top-six winger, I am fine with that. But not before you trade Smith, Eller et al for futures. It is about asset management and bettering your overall situation.
And we all know that none of this matters if Sullivan is still the coach. But do we have to keep all of his assistants? Can we bring in a high-level assistant a la Andrew Brunette with New Jersey?
I'm giving Dubas one more summer to clean some of this mess up. Some things are (seemingly) out of his hands, like the coach. But some of this is on him, too. We don't know to what extent Crosby is upset with the current situation. But I would like to think that Dubas can have a relationship with 87 similar to what MacLellan has with Ovi. The Capitals have been retooling on the fly waaaay better than us. Ovechkin seems fine with the moves, even those that involved his pals (Orlov last season, Kuznetsov this season, the whole Backstrom situation et al). THAT is how you do it. They are in better shape than we are despite the fact our veterans are better than theirs (in my humble opinion). But they have Lapierre. They have Miroshnichenko. Sandin was a shrewd acquisition. Etc.
The simple truth is they kept more first-round picks than we did over these last 5-6 years. They did not subscribe to this stupid all-in nonsense. They added AND subtracted every year. The Pens? This is the first year we subtracted. The Guentzel move should be the start of something much bigger. Not a one-off.
Let's see if they have (finally) learned from several years of making the same mistake.
