The Penguins have long been stuck in the NHL\u2019s mushy middle. Not good enough to make a playoff run, not bad enough to get truly impactful draft picks.<\/p>\n
But now that mushy middle has turned into quicksand.<\/p>\n
The Penguins can\u2019t escape.<\/p>\n
That evidence was presented once the NHL\u2019s off-season kicked into gear.<\/p>\n
President of hockey ops\/GM Kyle Dubas couldn\u2019t make any significant moves, and it wasn\u2019t for lack of desire.<\/p>\n
The Penguins lacked trade capital compared to other teams.<\/p>\n
The Penguins\u2019 first-round pick was a ho-hum No. 22 overall.<\/p>\n
Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell have passed their sell-by dates at ages 34 and 33, respectively. Dubas would be lucky to get a second-round pick for either.<\/p>\n
Dubas likely planned to take runs at players like defenseman Simon Nemec (who moved from New Jersey to Calgary) and center Mason McTavish (Anaheim to St. Louis).<\/p>\n
Nemec is 22, McTavish 23, Both are former first-round picks with untapped potential and fit the description of what Dubas wants.<\/p>\n
But Nemec fetched two first-round picks and a second, McTavish two first-rounders.<\/p>\n
The market got set too high.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s disappointing that Dubas wasn\u2019t in for explosive winger Pavel Dorofeyev, who went from Vegas to the New York Rangers for a first, a conditional first and a third. This year\u2019s first was at No. 26, not very early. Dorofeyev, 25, is a legit sniper and a steal at that price.<\/p>\n
There was never any chance of getting 26-year-old star winger Jason Robertson from Dallas, as this space fantasized.<\/p>\n
The Penguins don\u2019t have the trade capital to get Robertson\u2019s rights from Dallas.<\/p>\n
Signing Robertson when he hits restricted free agency on July 1 would cost them four first-round picks.<\/p>\n
Robertson will command upwards of $15 million per on a seven-year contract (eight years if you do a sign-and-trade).<\/p>\n
Robertson wouldn\u2019t want to come to Pittsburgh. It\u2019s not a destination franchise like it was 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
The Penguins had what appears to be a decent draft, but who knows? None of those picked will arrive for at least 2-3 years.<\/p>\n
Getting twins Liam and Markus Ruck with the first two picks is worthwhile. They\u2019re smart and skilled, and the whole could be greater than the sum of the parts.<\/p>\n
But will they be the Sedins or the Ferraros? (Or maybe the Shenderoviches. Let\u2019s hope they score 40, not 25.)<\/p>\n
Exacerbating Dubas\u2019 dilemma is that Washington, which didn\u2019t make the playoffs, made moves in an attempt to win now, which they probably won\u2019t. They got a couple of top-six forwards in Jordan Kyrou from St. Louis and Alex Tuch from Buffalo.<\/p>\n
Dubas will hear about that. \u201cThe call is coming from inside the house!\u201d<\/p>\n
The Penguins won\u2019t pick a direction, continuing to pursue the impossibility of contending and rebuilding at the same time but doing neither.<\/p>\n
Old doesn\u2019t improve.<\/p>\n
Old can\u2019t be built upon.<\/p>\n
Will a bland start to this off-season force Dubas to finally choose a path?<\/p>\n
Given contracts and no\/limited-movement clauses, it\u2019s tough to pick rebuilding. It\u2019s difficult to strip assets.<\/p>\n
But Dubas could never acquire enough to win now.<\/p>\n
Dubas could gut his system and future drafts but still not get enough to compete with Eastern Conference powers like Buffalo, Florida, Montreal and Stanley Cup champion Carolina. Washington may leapfrog the Penguins.<\/p>\n
Further complicating is that the new owners don\u2019t want to come in and lose, or run off franchise legends. (As when Fenway Sports Group bought the Penguins in 2021.)<\/p>\n
More than anything, the Penguins are old.<\/p>\n
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson are all 36 or older.<\/p>\n
Their talent and accomplishments duly noted, that\u2019s a one-way ticket to Palookaville.<\/p>\n
The Penguins will wallow in quicksand and become further trapped.<\/p>\n
It was magic to see Crosby back in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
But how did it end?<\/p>\n
A first-round playoff loss was not worth picking so late in the draft.<\/p>\n
Won\u2019t have a playoff run, won\u2019t bottom out.<\/p>\n
Same old story.<\/p>\n
Quicksand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Penguins have long been stuck in the NHL\u2019s mushy middle. Not good enough to make a playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-733084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}