The Pittsburgh Penguins’ Thursday loss to the Buffalo Sabres had a jarring effect. It did not feel like a one-off that is easily broomed away and laughed about later.

No, Buffalo upstaged the Penguins. Evgeni Malkin will likely be suspended, and justifiably so, and a few secondary players are separating themselves while others are not.

The Penguins are a team comprised of numerous players who have thus far posted surprising seasons, but are they merely Cinderella dancing until midnight? Have the carriages of players such as Tommy Novak and Justin Brazeau popped into pumpkins?

Such are the ponderings of this writer as the 3 p.m. NHL trade deadline hurls ever closer.

After 61 games, we have a pretty good idea of which teams are legit and which are cutesy window dressing to fill the Stanley Cup Playoff brackets for one round and never more.

However, the Penguins are sliding from a dangerous team to an unknown, and facing the final buzzer, holding second place in the Metro Division or even the playoff position seems less important than setting up for the future.

1. Novak? Brazeau?

Penguins coach Dan Muse really likes Novak’s game. Indeed, Novak is a significantly better player than he showed for the first six weeks of the season and in his final year-plus in Nashville.

Yet Novak, 28, has just two points, including one goal, in the five games the team has been without Sidney Crosby, due to a lower-body injury. Novak is the de facto No. 1 center, is playing with talented wingers Malkin and Egor Chinakhov, yet has not produced in the face of adversity.

The games are getting tougher, the opponents have been better, but it’s not going so well for Novak, and he is losing a disproportionate number of faceoffs, too.

Novak was a solid third-line center, but the stinging critique of Nashville GM Barry Trotz, who poked Novak on his way out the door at the 2025 NHL trade deadline as failing to perform against top competition or in physical contests, does suddenly ring loudly.

Dubas might look at Novak as a movable asset in a package for a younger center.

Justin Brazeau has similarly been quiet. Last season, Brazeau had just two points in the final 19 games of the season with Minnesota, after they acquired him from the Boston Bruins for a package including Marat Khusnutdinov, who is now a Boston Bruins top liner.

Brazeau needs to get back to playing hard near the net and on the wall, using his size to affect the game in the offensive zone. Since the calendar flipped to 2026, Brazeau has just nine points (4-5-9) in 24 games.

Brazeau’s third-line wing position also looks to be an upgradeable spot; perhaps Dubas could clear the spot for prospect Rutger McGroarty, who is already a complete player but needs to the NHL ice to take the final steps in his development.

2. Owen Pickering and Tristan Broz

PHN believes both players can and will be solid NHL players, and both are really good kids. However, both are slipping down the depth chart and don’t seem to be in the Penguins’ immediate plans.

Broz, 23, is injured and out weeks, so he is not a candidate to be recalled anytime soon–yet another blow to his bid to become an NHL player. Pickering got a four-game look this season but didn’t do much with it.

It seems Pickering, 21, was changed by his 25-game run last season that included some friction with veteran players. He’s not been the same player who forced his way to the NHL last season, showing real shutdown ability and tight gaps in his first 15 or so NHL games. He was tepid in training camp and has been a bit inconsistent at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season.

The view here is that Pickering would benefit from a new organization. Broz, too. And both could be valuable assets in a trade package for young players at the NHL level.

Winnipeg has a couple of young players (Cole Perfetti) and a couple of whom are languishing in the AHL or the NHL press box (Brad Lambert, Ville Heinola). Pickering is a Winnipeg native who likes the area–perhaps the deadline or summer is the right time for a change-of-scenery trade.

3. Evgeni Malkin

The Pittsburgh Penguins are still the core-three. In face and construction, Crosby, Malkin, and Kris Letang still define the Penguins.

Make no mistake, the writing is on the wall, that at least one member of the three–Malkin–is unlikely to be back with the team next season.

Much will be talked about and written following this season, but Malkin did not do himself any favors Thursday with his swinging slash on Rasmus Dahlin. It was a defining moment in the game and severely hampered the already weakened Penguins.

Dubas is following the GM manual with Malkin and has done nothing wrong; when it’s time to move on, move on, and that’s that. But Malkin defies the textbooks. He is woven into the fabric of the organization and history of the team, and to a lesser degree, the history of the league. His standing and his unique personality make him a special exception to the rules.

Malkin deserves a contract for next season. He badly wants one, and he knows he deserves it, but he is also figuring out that Dubas wants to move on. After all, if Dubas wanted Malkin back, it would have been done already.

Sure, Dubas could sit down after the season and come to the belief that one more year is a good thing. But the current fallout from Dubas’s resistance is causing friction and frustration.

Dubas might have been well served to use the Olympic break to have the hard conversation with Malkin, let him use the time off to process the bad news, have a farewell tour, or perhaps even make the decision to finish his career elsewhere.

The frustration would be the same, but there could be some resolution. After all, what sort of boatload would Colorado, Detroit, or Montreal offer for Malkin? What would Florida have given earlier this season when Barkov was injured? Or just imagine how glowing the farewell tributes from the media and fans across the league would have been.

There are no bad guys in the situation, but mistakes have been made. Those can’t be fixed now, but Malkin needs to get a handle on his frustration if he wants to preserve any chance of getting a new deal or simply go out with his head held high.

Tags: Evgeni Malkin justin brazeau kyle dubas nhl trade Penguins Trade tommy novak

Categorized:Penguins Trade Talk