Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas addressing the media
Photo credit: DK Pittsburgh Sports

Kyle Dubas Reveals Why the Penguins Won't Rebuild Right Away

Published March 27, 2024 at 7:55 PM
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The Pittsburgh Penguins are just wrapping up their first season with Kyle Dubas as general manager. The year certainly hasn't gone the way the team hoped, but Dubas remains adamant that the team is not considering a full rebuild.

The Penguins are certainly in a tough spot as an organization right now. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are past their prime and they only continue to get older despite the fact that both players are still putting up good on-ice results. However, that is not enough for the team to make the playoffs. Still though, Kyle Dubas is confident he can turn things around quickly.

Dubas hoping to avoid proper rebuild with Penguins



The team made their first step towards a proper rebuild this year when they trade Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes. Apparently, the move was unpopular on all fronts as the former Penguin revealed today that he never wanted to leave Pittsburgh.


Jake Guentzel: «My intention was to stay. They thought there was a better direction.»



That being said, the NHL is a business and Dubas had to do what he thought was best for the team in the long-run given that the team had very little hope of making the playoffs by the March 8th deadline. However, Dubas has since come out and said that he hopes to avoid a full-scale rebuild with the club.

"Though I don't push back on the notion that it's a tall order (to win and rebuild simultaneously). So I don't hide from that or think it's incorrect, but my hope is that we don't get to that point (of a full-scale rebuild). There are certainly some examples around the league that when you get to that point, you get some good fortune in certain draft years, but there are more examples of if you go down that path, you can wander in the abyss for quite a while, and that's not what anybody wants."

There just might be a world where the team keeps Crosby around and gets back to the playoffs next season.While drama unfolds around him, Sidney Crosby remains one of the NHL's best players, and he's shown that he won't give up on the Penguins. His latest push to keep his team alive likely won't amount to anything, but it does show that he can still lead the team if they rebuild around him.


It will be very difficult for Kyle Dubas to figure out how to make that happen though. Even if the Penguins are able to get back to the playoffs next year, the odds of them making a serious push for the Stanley Cup are slim to none. Rarely have we ever seen a team as old as the Penguins miss the playoffs one year only to return to peak form the following campaign.

Source PittsburghHockeyNow: Penguins' Dubas Answers Guentzel, Why Pens Don't Rebuild, Needed Changes
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Kyle Dubas Reveals Why the Penguins Won't Rebuild Right Away

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