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After Tristan Jarry officially cleared waivers on Thursday, one might sit back to question where exactly the Pittsburgh Penguins are headed.
As it stands, the Penguins are in fourth-to-last place in the Eastern Conference and carry a goal differential of minus-36. It’s a Penguins season that is on pace to be the worst since Sidney Crosby’s rookie year in 2005-06.
If the Penguins can’t get things back on track in the second half of the season, they will miss the playoffs for their third consecutive season.
So why have things taken a southern turn as of late? As NHL insider Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff recently pointed out, general manager Kyle Dubas has only dug a financial hole since taking over the front office in the summer of 2023.
Maybe there was a miscommunication in the change of guard between former general manager Ron Hextall and Dubas. After winning three Stanley Cups with the core of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, the organization looked ready to begin a rebuild. The Penguins lost in the first round of the playoffs in four straight years from 2019-2022.
Dubas’ first decisions in the front office implied he was trying to move dollars around to keep the Penguins competitive.
In his first trade, Dubas helped the Vegas Golden Knights by acquiring forward Reilly Smith, who had two years left on his contract at $5 million annually, in exchange for a third-round pick. After an underwhelming season where Smith’s goal totals dropped significantly, Dubas flipped him to the New York Rangers on July 1, 2024, for a second-round pick in the 2027 Draft—a selection unlikely to benefit the Penguins until 2030.
To complete the deal, Dubas retained 25% of Smith’s salary, adding $1.25 million in dead cap space to the Penguins’ books.
Yikes.
But the buck doesn’t stop there. When free agency opened a few days later, Dubas kept the spending going.
He signed Jarry to a five-year contract worth $26.875 million after a 2022-23 season in which the goaltender posted a 2.90 goals against average in 47 starts. That contract was less than one third of the way through when Dubas waived Jarry on Wednesday.
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Next, Dubas committed to defenseman Ryan Graves for a six-year, $27 million contract. Graves has yet to record a point in 31 games this season, making him dead weight on the books since the length of his deal makes him an untradeable asset.
Center Lars Eller was inked that summer to a two-year, $4.9 million contract, but was traded to Washington on Nov. 13, 2024, for a third-round pick and a conditional fifth-round pick.
Forwards Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto signed three-year and two-year deals worth $2 million and $900,000 per year, respectively. However, Nieto has been limited to 46 games over two seasons due to injuries, while Acciari unexpectedly secured a three-year contract after being acquired by Dubas at the previous trade deadline in Toronto.
Then Dubas went after a regressing Erik Karlsson in a three-way trade with the Sharks and Canadiens, shedding off Jeff Petry (with retained salary), Mikael Granlund, and Jan Rutta in the process.
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While this move aimed to strengthen the Penguins’ defense with the 33-year-old Karlsson (who has four years left on a $10 million-per-year deal), his production dropped by 45 points compared to the previous season.
Meanwhile, as Seravalli points out, the first-round pick sent to San Jose turned into standout OHL prospect Sam Dickinson, a defenseman with an impressive 49 points in 28 games this season for the London Knights.
Lastly, there was the botch job on trading away Jake Guentzel at the deadline last season. Dubas failed to receive a first-round pick for the star forward while a handful of other players below Guentzel’s value that were dealt garnered one for other teams.
The optics of Dubas being the wiz kid of the hockey business seems to trump any merit he’s acheived between manning the phones for both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Penguins.
Dollars are everywhere and the team is only worse.
As Crosby leads the Penguins with 48 points in his 20th NHL season, one might question if the Hall of Fame legend might be better off giving another kick at the can elsewhere.
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