Kyle Dubas’ very bad first year.
#LetsGoPens #PittsburghPenguins #NHL
Hear award-winning columnist Dejan Kovacevic’s Daily Shots of Penguins every weekday morning! And much more!
SUBSCRIBE ► https://youtube.com/@DKPittsburghSportsPenguins
CHANNEL MEMBERSHIPS ► https://DKPS.net/join
APPS ► https://dkps.net/apple | https://dkps.net/android
WEBSITE ► http://dkpittsburghsports.com
PODCASTS ► https://linktr.ee/dkpghsports
FACEBOOK ► https://www.facebook.com/DKPittsburghSports/
THREADS ► https://www.threads.net/@dkpghsports
INSTAGRAM ► https://www.instagram.com/dkpghsports/
X ► https://x.com/DKPghSports
Dejan Kovacevic on X ► https://x.com/Dejan_Kovacevic
ABOUT US ► DK Pittsburgh Sports is the proud, pioneering, fully independent venture begun in 2014 by award-winning columnist Dejan Kovacevic and featuring a professional staff covering the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates year-round and everywhere they go! This is where it all started!
17 Comments
😶
The Guentzel trade was the gavel slam for me. Dubas has made a joke of this roster. I'm starting to think that's why he was actually brought here. It's the only way to really beat Crosby or Lemieux. Sabotage. ❤🔥🍻
Former UFA Daniel Sprong plays bottom 6. Sprong signed a 1year $2million AAV contract with the Detroit Red Wings. Sprong's stats: 68GP/17G/23A/40pts. Patrick Kane was also available as a UFA. Kane signed a 1 year $2.75AAV contract with the Red Wings. Kane's stats: 38GP/15G/23A/38pts. Dubas could have shown interest and signed these 1 year deals. Instead Dubas just like Hextall overextends people like Graves, etc.
There were a lot of people, media included, who wanted Rutherford gone after year 1. GMs need a couple years before they can really be properly evaluated.
Is it that these players were not playing well for their former teams and we took them on to rehab them, or were these good players with a history of playing well who came to this team only to underperform? I suggest the latter and put the blame squarely on the coaching staff.
Under performing – The entire Defense . Half of the Offense . They had Malkin change his style of play . Crosby is NOT God . He scores when the team is winning and not so much when a goal is really needed . Why is PO Joseph still in the Line up ? Oh never mind that is obvious . Letang and Carter both need to retire .
J1Q which aging member of the Core is most likely to exit the roster first, based upon a move other than expiration of his contract?
Get younger but def keepp eller !
Dubas fans are like helicopter parents , come flying right atcha for a saying anything negative about ‘the boy’
Yeah? Jager wont be playing in the nhl until hes 30 and pickering 40
Dubas brought in Graves( contract)which cancels out Eller. He needs to revamp the roster and assist coaches.
Lol Yea this guy sucks glad leaf's got rid of him
Dubas's first year is the same quality as Hextall's years. One bone I have to pick is the concept that the Karlsson trade was anything other than a huge mistake. I'm not a hockey professional, but even these layman's eyes could see Karlsson's playstyle didn't fit the roster or system. And I was telling people that when the trade was made.
Like I said once before, you could have had Holland, Lamoriello, or Pollock as GM and nothing was going to save this season, or next for that matter. This is the inevitable destiny of a team that's locked into a core of aging superstars, and holding onto a past that is literally just that, while stubbornly doubling down on it by refusing to change the identity, culture and coach. No one retools and rebounds around a bunch of mid to late 30-year, old been there done that before players with nothing left to shoot for, and as good and unheard of effort as the Bruins have accomplished, they aren't going to be hoisting any cups soon either.
This is a sport that's all about youth, energy and youthful exuberance. That's why they refer to themselves as boys, even when is sounds borderline creepy when older graying hockey players are saying it. This happened to Chicago, Detroit and the Kings post-cap just like it happened to the Islanders, Edmonton, and the Lemieux Penguins pre-cap. Just be happy to see Sid skate around as a player for the last couple of seasons while you can, because that's all that this will be about no matter what Dubas can salvage from things by reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.
You can say get some kids but Sully has shown he doesn't like playing them often.
I was almost classmates with Dubas in university. He went into the Sports Management program at Brock U. in Ontario. I was accepted into it for the same year and decided it wasn't going to get me a job afterward, so I went to another university for a different program. Now I wonder if I should have taken that program. Maybe I could have done something, even if it wasn't to become the President and GM of my favourite NHL team lol
In retrospect it's easy to say these things about Dubas. He brought in a ton of guys to see who gels and who doesn't, but it's on the coaching staff to figure that out… Dubas gave them something to work with. At the time of most of the trades, I was fine with them. Looking back, the Graves contract is the only thing that bothers me, but I thought it was fine at the time.
I'm still entirely focused on the coaching staff. I'm not a Dubas fanboy (and I criticized hiring him), but his mission of taking this ancient core and making it cup competitive is just not possible. He can't fix the situation where the team just can't get their shit together. I'm putting that entirely on Sullivan. Dubas needs full support of the organization to start the rebuild.