the Pittsburgh Penguins made it official by hiring Kyle Dupas as the new President of Hockey Operations. This was 10 days after Dubas was fired as the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Recall, Dubas said he wants to be general manager in Toronto or he won’t be general manager this summer. Well, after a bizarre situation occurred in Toronto with him and team president Brendan Shanahan, Dupas found himself out of a job and made calls to the Fenway Sports Group.
While there were reports that he might not want to be the general manager or that he was waiting for another job in another Canadian city, Dubas eventually signed with the Penguins and got a chance to manage the hockey club.
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But if you look at it, the Pittsburgh Penguins are in exactly the same position as the Toronto Maple Leafs. The only difference is that the Penguins are an aging team, while the Maple Leafs are a younger team.
Like the maple leaf, the penguins are facing the salary cap. They must deal with the bottom six, goaltending, and defending. Sounds familiar. Maple Leafs have the same issues. Pittsburgh has $20 million in salary cap space to work with and has tough decisions to make.
Now, Dubas has stated in his year-end press that he’s open to scouting a single trade from Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares. In Pittsburgh, however, he’ll have to build around aging Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Chris Letang. Crosby showed he was still one of the best players in the world.
While Dupas had a great deadline for trading players like Ryan O’Reilly, Jack McCabe, Luke Shane, Sam Lafferty, and Noel Acciari, we didn’t see the chapter in the book where he had to make the tough hockey decision.
Kyle Dubas has learned so much during his five years as general manager of the Maple Leafs that he could take over as president of hockey operations. And by the way, he’s the interim general manager until the Penguins hire one. But then again we never saw him make the tough hockey trade.
He’s a great manipulator and analytics guy. And see property steady in construction around Crosby, Malkin and Letang. So he’ll have to figure out a way to move the money around and open up a salary cap to keep this team competitive.
Bet on our talent. pic.twitter.com/9ILObIq3Xm
– Pittsburgh Penguins (penguins) June 1, 2023
These teams are very similar in the areas of need and salaries in which they are located. There is no doubt that Dubas can succeed, as he did in Toronto. They just couldn’t win. Not since 2017, however, have the Penguins won a second back-to-back Stanley Cup championship.
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Their record in the first round is as bad as Toronto’s. After losing to Washington in 2018 in the second round, the Penguins lost in the first round in 2019, lost in the playoffs (did not qualify for the playoffs) in 2020, lost in the first round in 2021 and 2022, and missed out. qualifiers last year.
You could argue, the Penguins were supposed to win in 2022, but they didn’t. Again, defensive issues Dubas will need to address. The penguins’ depth remains an issue.
Let’s see if Dubas can make some hockey deals to keep this team fit. Because there is a lot of work to be done a la Toronto if he had resided there.