Salary Cap: Pens Salary Thread: Pens Ownership "Dubas... that Coca-Cola machine. I want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some waiver players in there."

[Gurglesons]

If you can't see how Hextall's mismanagement of the roster did not in some ways contribute to the current situation, then I have no idea what to tell other than "seek help".

If things were going so well for Hextall and we were on the right path, why was he fired?

Dubas has been here 1/2 a season. Hextall was here three. The majority of Dubas's work has been cleaning up Hextall's mess. And that's coming from someone who doesn't think Dubas has done all that great of a job. I can just recognize what a disaster the Hextall era was (both for the present and future of the team).


How many zero's are in "Head Coach Mike Sullivan"?

FSG needed someone to blame.

Dubas has created a much bigger mess than Hextall did.

Hextall sucked btw. But this year is just what Hextall likely would have done minus the EK65 trade.

 

[HandshakeLine]

I mean, I still largely think FSG is the ultimate root of the failure since a fish rots from the head down.

Not that Mario wasn't insanely checked out by the end of his tenure, but things have gotten noticeably worse since then.

 

[SEALBound]

Probably as many as grains of sand on the beaches, my friend.

All kidding aside, clearly the team is worse this year in the standings than last but I'm not sure how much of that is really "Hextall's success vs Dubas's failure".

This year, the overall team performance is just a continuation of last year. There's not much difference other than a putrid powerplay and goalies at random times handing the other team the game.

I would say this year is consistent with the established downward trajectory the team was already on, in which case Mike Sullivan is a far bigger culprit than either Hextall or Dubas.

Side Note: Ron Hextall...dear lord what an odd mountain to want to fight and die on.

FSG needed someone to blame.

Dubas has created a much bigger mess than Hextall did.

Hextall sucked btw. But this year is just what Hextall likely would have done minus the EK65 trade.

Couldn't possibly have been crappy trades and signings that he was responsible for.

Relative to Hextall, what "mess" specifically, as Dubas created?

 

[HandshakeLine]

The Sullivan extension really in my mind is the one that killed this team. It was poison the minute it was signed. The roster moves are bad to meh, but the inaction over the coach and the arrogance of his coaching is really what killed this era, not financial misfortune or injury.

 

[SEALBound]

The Sullivan extension really in my mind is the one that killed this team. It was poison the minute it was signed. The roster moves are bad to meh, but the inaction over the coach and the arrogance of his coaching is really what killed this era, not financial misfortune or injury.

Agreed. At the end of the day, we are talking about chairs and tablecloths on the deck of the Titanic here.

Nothing will change unless Sullivan gets the boot. As I pointed out, he's MUCH more the culprit than Hextall or Dubas (Hextall arguably, certainly more than Dubas).

 

[HandshakeLine]

Agreed. At the end of the day, we are talking about chairs and tablecloths on the deck of the Titanic here.

Nothing will change unless Sullivan gets the boot. As I pointed out, he's MUCH more the culprit than Hextall or Dubas (Hextall arguably, certainly more than Dubas).

Preach. I've been on the "Fire Sullivan" train for years now. Hell, @Peat and I used to have regular dust-ups over it.

At the end of the day, leadership has to come from the top on this one though, and I see no sign of Dubas or FSG wanting to break the status quo. As misguided as the signing drama was with Hextall, at least that was some sort of attempt at change. I guess we'll see if that was better or worse than whatever the f*** it is Kyle Calculations is doing.

 

[Gurglesons]

All kidding aside, clearly the team is worse this year in the standings than last but I'm not sure how much of that is really "Hextall's success vs Dubas's failure".

This year, the overall team performance is just a continuation of last year. There's not much difference other than a putrid powerplay and goalies at random times handing the other team the game.

I would say this year is consistent with the established downward trajectory the team was already on, in which case Mike Sullivan is a far bigger culprit than either Hextall or Dubas.

Side Note: Ron Hextall...dear lord what an odd mountain to want to fight and die on.

Couldn't possibly have been crappy trades and signings that he was responsible for.

Relative to Hextall, what "mess" specifically, as Dubas created?

Losing a potential top ten pick this year or next while you sit on your ass and watch the season fade away and the Ryan Graves contract are more egregious than anything Hextall did.

 

[ZorkEnchanter]

All kidding aside, clearly the team is worse this year in the standings than last but I'm not sure how much of that is really "Hextall's success vs Dubas's failure".

This year, the overall team performance is just a continuation of last year. There's not much difference other than a putrid powerplay and goalies at random times handing the other team the game.

I would say this year is consistent with the established downward trajectory the team was already on, in which case Mike Sullivan is a far bigger culprit than either Hextall or Dubas.

Side Note: Ron Hextall...dear lord what an odd mountain to want to fight and die on.

Couldn't possibly have been crappy trades and signings that he was responsible for.

Relative to Hextall, what "mess" specifically, as Dubas created?

This... Dubas just didn't bring players in randomly.

Sullivan definitely approved all of these players. It's why he keeps playing them. "Harkins" and "Ruhs" are the exact identity that Sullivan wants- the more vanilla the better.

75% of the Penguins issues are the coaching staff.
25% the players and Dubas.

 

[Ulf5]

And???
FYI, last years entire Pens roster had zero playoff goals............ZERO

McCann still blows .

 

[SEALBound]

Losing a potential top ten pick this year or next while you sit on your ass and watch the season fade away and the Ryan Graves contract are more egregious than anything Hextall did.

Resigning Jeff Carter and adding a NMC was far worse than the Graves contract.

I would argue the Granlund for a 2nd was dumber as well. At the very least, at the time of the signing, I can see why they liked and wanted Graves. Granlund was a complete and utter blunder from start to finish. There was no sensible reasoning to it.

 

[Darren McCord]

Blueger and Carter looked to be way better fits than McCann.

Looking for fits for sullivans "system" has been the issue though. This team should have been going for the best players available not just fit.

 

[Darren McCord]

Losing a potential top ten pick this year or next while you sit on your ass and watch the season fade away and the Ryan Graves contract are more egregious than anything Hextall did.

Nope the most egregious thing Hextall did was not firing sullivan after 2021 before FSG came in and made him a deity. If Sully is gone Hextall is probably still here and the team would be in better shape.

 

[Gurglesons]

Resigning Jeff Carter and adding a NMC was far worse than the Graves contract.

I would argue the Granlund for a 2nd was dumber as well. At the very least, at the time of the signing, I can see why they liked and wanted Graves. Granlund was a complete and utter blunder from start to finish. There was no sensible reasoning to it.

Carter was a two year contract.

Granlund was pretty bad, but as evident in San Jose there was a role he could have played here.

 

[Pens x]

Sullivan, FSG, Dubas, and Hextall all have blood on their hands.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Please end this Guentzel saga just so I don't have to read any more Canucks fans trying to justify how Podkolzin, Raty and a 2025 2nd for Guentzel is enough

 

[Turin]

Dream TDL: sign Guentzel, trade Rakell, Smith, Graves and Jarry- and Harkins for fun.

 

[Ulf5]

Please end this Guentzel saga just so I don't have to read any more Canucks fans trying to justify how Podkolzin, Raty and a 2025 2nd for Guentzel is enough

Completely insufferable. Doubt I'm going back to main boards other than to check for trades. They are damn fast in posting trades, I'll give them that.

 

[wej20]

Resigning Jeff Carter and adding a NMC was far worse than the Graves contract.

I would argue the Granlund for a 2nd was dumber as well. At the very least, at the time of the signing, I can see why they liked and wanted Graves. Granlund was a complete and utter blunder from start to finish. There was no sensible reasoning to it.

and the whole Petry, Matheson and Marino debacle.

 

[HandshakeLine]

\

and the whole Petry, Matheson and Marino debacle.

I feel like a lot of these debacles (Reaves, Petry/Matheson/Marino) are the various GMs trying to force Sullivan to go in a direction he doesn't want to go and so he just doubles down and f***s things up.

 

[Darren McCord]

Dubas in the grand scheme of things gave up a first for EK65

If Sullivan keeps puustinen, zohorna and gruden up over scrubs like harkins and white, this team is in a playoff spot.

Outside of the first Dubas didn’t push the team back much.

Hextall turn Kap, Tanev, McCann, Marino and Matheson into like a 3rd round pick once Ty Smith isn’t resigned.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Dubas in the grand scheme of things gave up a first for EK65

If Sullivan keeps puustinen, zohorna and gruden up over scrubs like harkins and white, this team is in a playoff spot.

Outside of the first Dubas didn’t push the team back much.

Hextall turn Kap, Tanev, McCann, Marino and Matheson into like a 3rd round pick once Ty Smith isn’t resigned.

Don't forget about the dead cap from retaining on Petry.

But apparently the Marino and Matheson trades weren't bad because this team still lost in the 1st round with them or something.

Completely insufferable. Doubt I'm going back to main boards other than to check for trades. They are damn fast in posting trades, I'll give them that.

It's like they think the Canucks are the only team interested in Guentzel, so they feel they can lowball the Penguins and still get him because "he likes their management!".

Someone went on to suggest that Guentzel had Vegas on his NTC, so the Canucks shouldn't have to pay a high price for him. Vegas is literally the last team I think would be on anyone's NTC, between them winning the cup last year, being a top contender this year and having no state income taxes. I literally can't think of a team that is less likely to be on anyone's NTC than Vegas.

 

[Darren McCord]

Don't forget about the dead cap from retaining on Petry.

But apparently the Marino and Matheson trades weren't bad because this team still lost in the 1st round with them or something.

Ya Hextall made this team a mess. Dubas hasn’t turned it around but also hasn’t made it that much worse.

I’ll give him a full year too.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Ya Hextall made this team a mess. Dubas hasn’t turned it around but also hasn’t made it that much worse.

I’ll give him a full year too.

Exactly my opinion. He's done a poor job so far, but anyone acting like he's Hextall 2.0 is just forgetting how truly atrocious Hextall was.

His first year hasn't given me much confidence about him going forward, though.

 

[cygnus47]

One thing that our GMs have refused to do for a while is just leave a hole in the lineup at the start of the season if there isn’t a perfect fit. When we were winning, we’d sometimes have missing pieces that we just had to patch as best we could. Question marks are ok as long as it’s not top 6 centre top 2 D.

We’ve got to the pointy end of the season and found out that our AHL guys are actually good enough at forward, and no sign they couldn’t be at D too. We could have just had those guys up earlier and dealt with it. If we’d had random guy instead of graves we’d have been fine and we’d have cap space to pick up someone better now.

Obviously I blame sully.

 

[Gurglesons]

Dubas in the grand scheme of things gave up a first for EK65

If Sullivan keeps puustinen, zohorna and gruden up over scrubs like harkins and white, this team is in a playoff spot.

Outside of the first Dubas didn’t push the team back much.

Hextall turn Kap, Tanev, McCann, Marino and Matheson into like a 3rd round pick once Ty Smith isn’t resigned.

Hextall turned all of these players into multiple playoff runs and then a team that missed the playoffs by one point.

I don't really get the butt wringing about this.

McCann and Tanev were lost due to the expansion draft. Our options were losing Blueger, Carter, or Kapanen instead of Tanev. At the time that would've been moronic.

Our other options were paying to lose Zucker or Pettersson.

Following that we traded Marino and Matheson for Poehling, Petry, and Ty Smith.

Ty Smith hasn't gotten any rope from this management group. Poehling was asininely moved by Dubas so we could sign Nieto?