Patience pays off as Penguins get their man in Kyle Dubas

June 01, 2023
511 views

TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.

David Beeston was true to his word.

On April 14, the day previous general manager Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke were fired by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Beeston, Fenway Sports Group executive and Penguins alternate governor, indicated finding replacements would not be a hurried endeavor.

“We would like to get somebody in sooner than later,” Beeston said that day. “But without ever compromising quality.”

That pensive pursuit paid off for the Penguins as they introduced Kyle Dubas as the new president of hockey operations 49 days later.

“I think the process was a massive success because we’re sitting here right now with Kyle,” Beeston said during a news conference Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. “So we were really happy. We ran a robust search. As everyone was aware of, we took our time. The last time I (spoke publicly), I said that we wanted to get it right, not do it quickly. And so I think we’re really really happy with where it ended up.”

Added Fenway Sports Group chairman Tom Werner: “Kyle has been very articulate today about his path to success. We’ve acknowledged it’s a balance between success this year and long-term success, and we’re very confident that Kyle will execute the plan that he articulated to us.”

Thursday represented Dubas’ first day to enact that plan. He seems to have a basic but firm grasp of the franchise he is now the steward of.

The Penguins, who failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, have one of the oldest rosters in the NHL and a filing cabinet full of contracts that contain some form of no-movement or no-trade clauses.

“It’s going to be a hard look,” Dubas said. “Obviously in goal, there’s big decisions that need to be made. On defense, both at the top of the defense group and on depth, there’s big decisions to be made. Up front (with forwards), there’s less big decisions to be made. But there’s more of the number of commitments there. So it’s going to be taking these next several weeks to sort through that.”

“I heard a lot of people that were highly skeptical of the team’s ability to contend here. And the way I view it is that if people want to bet against (coach) Mike Sullivan, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and others, they can go ahead and do so. But I’m going to bet on them and go with them here.

“So, I do think that it’s a group capable of contending to win a championship. I do think that we need to build up the depth of the group and supplement the greatness that those people bring each day. I think there are some of those pieces that are already here. But in the next several weeks, we’ll get to work on more of that. At the same time, really having a huge amount of focus on (the) long term as well.”

One player Dubas did address directly was starting goaltender Tristan Jarry, a pending unrestricted free agent July 1 who endured a lackluster and injury-filled 2022-23 campaign.

AP

“I’ll rely on (goaltending coach) Andy Chiodo and (Sullivan) in terms of what he’s all about,” Dubas said. “As a person, I’ll probably try to take the chance to meet him myself and get to know him. It’s a big decision for the club. And then it’s going to be doing a very thorough evaluation of Tristan, where he stands in the marketplace, get a real scope of who’s going to be available, whether that’s in free agency or trade. And then if Tristan is at the top of that, at the top of that mix, we’re in that mix because he’s familiar and you know him, it’ll be to try to establish a concept that can get done with he and his agent.

“But that’s a big priority. Because goaltending is vitally important. As you see, it’s also difficult to project and predict and there’s a lot of variance year to year in terms of performance. But that’s the method that we’ll take here really in the next 48 hours, 72 hours.”

Dubas addressed a number of subjects Thursday:

• The general manager’s office remains vacant and Dubas indicated he will take on those duties through the remainder of June and into July.

“I’ll handle that on an interim basis here through to July and then begin to go through candidates and make the decision that’s best for the hockey department. If we do go down that path, I think the type of person we would be looking for is someone progressive that can really add an element to the organization that perhaps I don’t have as a skill set, in some regard.”

• Crosby and Dubas chatted last week about the state of the franchise.

“I wanted to be able to have a discussion with Sidney about where he felt the team was at, but more than anything, to be able to sit with him and ensure that winning was the No. 1 thing for him. And it was very evident in talking to him that winning is his major focus every day.”

• The Penguins were 10-10-6 within the Metropolitan Division during the 2022-23 season. That clearly needs to improve.

“I think that the major focus, No. 1, is inside of our division,” Dubas said. “That’s the way that I always look at things. Rather than try to stack ourselves up against all 31 other teams, let’s focus on our division. And let’s focus on trying to win our division. We play the most games there. That’s what’s going to set our playoff seeding. We’ve got to be inside the top three to lock ourselves in. And our goal is going to be to win the division.”

• Dubas is largely seen as one of the leading proponents of using analytics among NHL management types.

“I know that that’s the reputation I have, but what I came to deeply appreciate was that the data and objective information can provide you with a lot of detail and a lot of great insights that you can use to make better decisions,” Dubas said. “I just met the staff here very briefly on my walk over to (Thursday’s news conference). So, I don’t know the exact extent of the work that they’re doing. They all have great reputations. And if they need more staff added at different elements, that’s the route that will go down.

“I think that data and analytics can help to serve player personnel, player development, high performance, in addition to systems and tactics, and whatever (Sullivan) and the coaching staff needs. It would be trying to integrate them all. In Toronto, at the start, it was tough. There was walls and silos between. I don’t know exactly what exists here, because this is my first 15 minutes on the job. But once we get through that, the goal that we’ll be looking for is to have a deeply collaborative group that works together and serves to work together. And that’s what we’ll try to extract here as quickly as possible.”

• Dubas likes his forwards on the top two lines.

Chaz Palla | Tribune-Review

“The top end of the forward group I think is very, very good,” Dubas said. “You look throughout the league and to have that group that’s there in whatever formation you want to place it in on that night, it’s going to be good. You have Jake Guentzel and Crosby on one (line). You’ve got Malkin centering the other. Wherever you want to put the other pieces around, you’re going to have a good group there.

“Do we need another piece at that level to really put us over the top and what’s that going to do? The team does have a very good opportunity with the salary cap this summer as well. There’s about $20 million in space. So do we need a piece there to supplement?”

• The bottom two lines and defense appear to be another matter.

“Those players are going to have to be super, super competitive, but they’re also going to have to be good. And so being able to find those types of players is going to be very important over this next stretch. Examining what we have here on a deeper basis, it’s really getting the read and digging in more on film on the players that have performed at the so-called bottom-six (forwards). And then on defense, it’s going to be going through and determining what exactly we need or what some of the younger guys that have played a little bit more last year, what they’re capable of and stepping up and decisions there as well. But that’s how I see it in the next several weeks.”

Source: TribLIVE