Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas wants no talk of tanking and quickly pushed back on any insinuations to the contrary.<\/p>\n
Dubas appeared on the Hockey PDOcast with host Dimitri Filipovic, which was released Friday. The podcast is not the usual hockey talk and can steer toward analytics, though Dubas and Filipovic kept their love of numbers to a minimum.<\/p>\n
Instead, Dubas took a bit of offense at those who believe he is weakening the Penguins in exchange for draft picks and, hopefully, the top draft pick.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that I do disagree with is, is just the notion that we\u2019re actively trying to get worse. That doesn\u2019t really enter into our mindset at all that we\u2019re going to go out, we\u2019re going to purposely, you know, become worse,\u201d said Dubas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe group of young players that you\u2019re you\u2019re referencing that we\u2019re going to pick with this draft capital or younger players that we acquire with that draft capital, once they start to make their way, we just don\u2019t want to have those types of guys be going into decline and hindering what we could do once those young players begin to hit. So the strategy that we\u2019ve elected to use\u2013and time will tell how it all fares out\u2013but we\u2019ve had a very precise plan, and we\u2019ve just tried to execute it, has been to identify players that we think haven\u2019t received a great opportunity yet. (We will) try to give them that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Penguins Free Agents<\/p>\n
The free agents Dubas signed this off-season weren\u2019t the tops of anyone\u2019s list, including defensemen Parker Wortherspoon<\/a>, Caleb Jones, and Alexander Alexeyev, and forwards Justin Brazeau<\/a> and Anthony Mantha. Dubas also re-signed Philip Tomasino and Connor Dewar.<\/p>\n Mantha was the big signing. He inked a one-year, $2.5 million deal with another $2 million more in incentives. Mantha has bounced around the league since his arrival, always being viewed as having the potential to be a top-six winger but struggling to live up to the possibility, first with Detroit and then Washington. Since making his NHL debut in 2015-16, Mantha has three 20-goal seasons, including 2023-24 when he netted 23, split between Washington and the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, he played just 13 games last season before suffering a torn ACL.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Mantha is a bit of a different case because of the injuries sustained in Calgary last year, but he has always been a player that right from the draft all the way through, people view as having tremendous potential,\u201d Dubas said. \u201cNow, he can come in here, coming off the injury, with an incentive-laden deal and prove it. And given his age (30), be a part of helping the team move ahead and get back to where we want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n In the long-form interview, Dubas brought it back full circle.<\/p>\n \u201cCan these players establish themselves as part of the core and help us move ahead? So that\u2019s the way that I look at these (coming) seasons. The coming seasons are trying to identify the players that are going to form that core group. And that\u2019s both at the NHL level and at the development level,\u201d said Dubas. \u201cOur players in Wilkes-Barre and Wheeling, but also (those) that are outside the system, whether it\u2019s a Will Horcoff<\/a> at the University of Michigan or Bill Zonnon<\/a> and who will be in Blaine Hill (QMJHL) or Ben Kindel in Calgary (WHL) and Harrison Brunicke in Kamloops, on and on down the list. So that\u2019s how we view it. But every single thing that we do is about returning the team to contention.\u201d<\/p>\n Draft Strategy, Skating Downgraded?<\/p>\n Filipovic\u2019s most pointed question for Dubas regarded the volume of prospects the Penguins acquired through the 2025 NHL Draft and their rankings. Not only did the Penguins go a bit off-book by drafting Kindel 11th overall and Horcoff at No. 24, but many of the players selected were not ranked as great skaters.<\/p>\n Given that the league is about speed, why did the Penguins take so many players with middling skating grades?<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I think there are a number of different ways to answer the question. First, I think developmentally, over time, the ability to effect change in skating, through a combination of on-ice, high-level instruction, and work ethic, but also off-ice components. Now that the skating stuff is essentially\u2013especially at the NHL level\u2013it\u2019s purely objective. So you can measure precisely the work that you\u2019re doing for a player in development sessions and in the gym and how that will impact or change their speed, outright speed.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, here is where Dubas really exposed the Penguins\u2019 draft thinking with him and vice president of player personnel Wes Clark:<\/p>\n \u201cThe last whatever number of years, we\u2019ve been able to also luckily, unfortunately, identify which physical limitations also pose a large barrier to skating development. And so those are the two sorts of developmental aspects of it. But then the other part if you can go really fast, but you don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going or what you\u2019re going to do with the puck if you have it, or how you\u2019re going to get it back\u2013Like, you just go to a lot of bad places really quickly.<\/p>\n More so than outright speed, I think what we\u2019ve come to really value most is the ability to change speeds and create space. Because the fact that the game is so fast and so tightly checked, especially as the season goes on and the stakes get higher, the players that have the ability to change speeds and accelerate or combine all of that, their speed, their change of pace, their acceleration, their agility, change of direction to be able to create space for themselves and then be able to create that space for others. It\u2019s it\u2019s a combination of both their physical ability and their intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n The Goalie Solution<\/p>\n The Penguins have a trio of goalies, two of whom spent most of last season in the AHL but are under 25 years old, and one of whom spent more than a month in the AHL after being waived. All would like to be in the NHL this season.<\/p>\n Tristan Jarry reclaimed the Penguins\u2019 net late last season after being waived, while Joel Blomqvist faltered in his opportunity to stick in the big show. After Dubas traded backup goalie Alex Nedeljkovic<\/a> to the San Jose Sharks, it seemed the goalie situation would settle on Jarry and Blomqvist, until last week when the team acquired Arturs Silovs from the Vancouver Canucks for a fourth-round pick.<\/p>\n On Vancouver\u2019s part, their goaltending depth chart was full, and Silovs was blocked. So, Vancouver, run by former Penguins GM Jim Rutherford, did Silovs a favor by dealing him to a team with ample opportunity.<\/p>\n