Penguins named former Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas director of hockey operations | ProHockeyTalk

PITTSBURGH (AP) Kyle Dubas wanted to take a breather and take a break after being fired as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Then the Pittsburgh Penguins called.

The hiatus ended shortly after this.

Dubas joined the Penguins as the team’s director of hockey operations less than two weeks after being traded by Toronto in the second round of the playoffs to Florida.

The 37-year-old Dubas is moving from one hockey pot to another. In Toronto, he was tasked with helping the Maple Leafs overcome two decades of futility. In Pittsburgh, his job is to open the Stanley Cup window Sidney Crosby, Yevgeni Malkin and Kris Letang a little longer.

All three are 35 or older and haven’t won a playoff series since 2018. Still, Dubas strongly believes that the problem isn’t the age of the franchise’s core, but deficiencies elsewhere on the roster. Dubas replaces Brian Burke, who was fired along with general manager Ron Hextall in April after the Penguins missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

I heard a lot of people who were very skeptical about the ability of the teams to fight here and my approach to it. If people want to bet (Crosby, Letang and Malkin), they can go ahead and do that, Dubas said. But I’m going to bet on them and go with them here. I think it’s a group that can fight for the title.

Crosby and Malkin were excellent for most of last season, and Letang showed remarkable resilience in dealing with multiple setbacks, including a stroke and the death of his father. However, aside from a 14-2-2 stretch in November and December, the Penguins struggled to find consistency and ultimately stumbled down to snap the longest active playoff streak in major North American sports.

While the Penguins have a $20 million cap hit and are the 14th overall pick in this month’s NHL draft, significant changes or upgrades may be difficult in the short term.

Dubas inherits a team that was the oldest in the NHL last season and is full of question marks, especially in goal and in the forward group with Crosby, Malkin and Jake Guentzel.

Two-time All-Star goaltender Tristan Jarry He will be a free agent this summer and was plagued by injuries in the second half of the season. Ahead Jason Zuckerwhich served as an emotional spark plug for long periods, is also set to hit the market and may have priced itself out of town.

Pittsburgh also has several aging players with full or partial non-movement clauses, including the 38-year-old forward Jeff Carter30 year old Bryan Rust and a 35-year-old defender Jeff Petry.

I think these are obviously very real situations, everybody knows they exist, Dubas said. I think the impact on that is what we can add in terms of depth parts? What can we add in terms of younger players? That’s the real key.

Dubas plans to hire a CEO to fill the vacancy created by Hextall’s vacancy after a short but largely fruitless tenure. Dubas will act as GM temporarily until the beginning of July.

Dubas arrives in Pittsburgh after nine seasons with the Maple Leafs, including the last five as general manager. Toronto won a postseason series for the first time since 2004 this spring before falling to the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference semifinals in five games.

Shortly after the Maple Leafs’ playoff exit, Dubas said he wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in Toronto. His contract was set to expire on June 30, but team president Kyle Shanahan decided to preemptively fire Dubas instead. Toronto hired former Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving to replace Dubas.

Dubas helped build the Maple Leafs into a regular season power during his tenure. Toronto set single-season records for wins and points, going 221-109-42 on the season. Dubas wasn’t one to shy away from big moves either, firing Stanley Cup-winning coach Mike Babcock in November 2019 and replacing him with Sheldon Keefe, but struggled to find the right combination in the playoffs until this spring.

In the end, advancing past the first round for the first time since 2004 wasn’t enough to keep Dubas in Toronto.

He joked that he might be a little too honest with the Maple Leafs during his postseason press conference when he expressed reservations about returning. Shanahan’s sudden decision to move on came as a bit of a surprise, and Dubas planned to take some time to hit the reset button before looking for a new job.

Still, the Penguins, who had already been given permission by the Maple Leafs to interview Dubas, offered a compelling reason to speed up the schedule. Dubas due diligence included speaking with Crosby and longtime coach Mike Sullivan to get the pulse of a management group that remains firmly in place.

Dubas called them the best rivals in hockey. Competitors who, for one reason or another, have not managed to recapture the magic of their run to consecutive Cups in 2016 and 2017.

Time is running out for Crosby to put his name on the Cup for the fourth time in a career that will almost certainly end in the Hall of Fame. Dubas knows that Hell is judged in part by whether he can make it happen. It took more than six weeks of searching before landing Dubas, Fenway Sports Group Chairman Tom Werner believes Dubas is up to the challenge.

Our philosophy is to give Kyle and his associates the best possible resources to win, Werner said. Kyles was very clear today about his success and was very confident that Kyle would execute the plan he presented to us.