NHL Rebuild Review: What Kyle Dubas Has Done For The Penguins Is Incredible

Kyle Dubas is a polarizing GM.

Critics point to his failures with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which won only one playoff round under him. When he joined the Pittsburgh Penguins after the 2022-23 season, he then signed Tristan Jarry and Ryan Graves to overpriced contracts and made an ambitious trade for Erik Karlsson.

But Dubas joined a team with all-time NHL superstars that was falling out of relevance. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang had underwhelming support and no reinforcements in the prospect pool.

The Penguins were in a bad spot, and they stubbornly wanted to remain competitive. They chose the once-heralded "boy genius" who helped spearhead the new wave of advanced analytics in the front office to lead their hockey operations and take on a difficult challenge.

Dubas, in turn, has brilliantly executed the Penguins' bold vision of staying competitive while rebuilding.

In less than three years, he's managed to bring the team back from the depths of despair to a potential playoff contender while also building a much more formidable prospect pipeline, adding young NHLers and stocking the cupboard full of draft picks.

The Pens sit third in the Metropolitan Division and could end their three-year playoff drought.

They have their first-round pick in each of the next four drafts, along with nine second-rounders and six third-rounders.

Dubas reinvigorated Pittsburgh's supporting cast by bringing in free agents Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau, Parker Wotherspoon and Arturs Silovs while hanging onto Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell when they were frequent topics of trade speculation.

Mantha has 26 goals and 53 points in 71 games. Brazeau is fifth on the team in goals, with 16, and he's brought a physical presence to the Pens as well. Wotherspoon has 26 points in 71 games, and he's been a solid presence on the blueline. Rust and Rakell continued to be steady producers on the Pens.

Even the trades that Dubas has made have worked out fairly well. Stuart Skinner has been a bit up and down, but he's managed to win games. Silovs has arguably been the best netminder all year for the Pens. Egor Chinakhov has 26 points in 33 games since joining Pittsburgh.

Drafted players and prospects, such as Ben Kindel, Harrison Brunicke, Owen Pickering, Will Horcoff, Bill Zonnon and Joel Blomqvist, have also made a positive impression, and acquired prospect Rutger McGroarty is on the rise.

Here's a deeper dive into the details that made Kyle Dubas' renovations pay off from the time he joined the team to now.

Initially hired as the president of hockey operations, Dubas' search for a GM ended with him taking on the title himself. This meant that any success – or failure – that the team would have under Dubas would be squarely on his shoulders. 

The stars the Penguins built Stanley Cup-winning rosters around were aging. Sidney Crosby was set to turn 36 that summer, while Evgeni Malkin, 37, and Kris Letang, 36, were both signed to long-term deals that would bring them to 40 and 41, respectively. They were the oldest team in the NHL.

But the Penguins still wanted to win a Cup right away, so Dubas went all-in.

At the draft, the Pens traded for Reilly Smith just weeks after he played a massive role in the Vegas Golden Knights' run to winning the Stanley Cup. They also selected Brayden Yager in the first round, who instantly became their top prospect.

When free agency kicked off on July 1, the Penguins signed 14 contracts in the first week. The big-ticket contracts included an extension of goaltender Jarry as well as UFA signings of defenseman Graves and depth center Lars Eller.

Although many pundits were harsh on the signings, the true madness of the first Dubas off-season in Pittsburgh hadn't yet arrived. 

During the dog days of summer, Dubas acquired Erik Karlsson, who was coming off the first 100-point season by a defender since 1991-92, in a three-team deal with the San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens. 

Pittsburgh acquired Karlsson, forward Rem Pitlick, forward Dillon Hamaliuk and San Jose's 2026 third-round draft pick. San Jose acquired Pittsburgh's 2024 first-round draft pick (top-10 protected), forward Mikael Granlund, defenseman Jan Rutta and forward Mike Hoffman. Montreal acquired Pittsburgh's 2025 second-round draft pick, defenseman Jeff Petry, goaltender Casey DeSmith and forward Nathan Legare.

In one move, the Penguins added one of the best offensive defensemen we've ever seen in the NHL while clearing cap space and getting out of a couple of bad contracts, all at the cost of essentially a first- and second-round pick.

It was a risky move because it saw Pittsburgh add to its aging core, but it was a sign that Dubas would be true to his word and push this team to compete. 

Karlsson, Smith and the rest of the additions didn't bring the Penguins back into contention.

In fact, their 2023-24 campaign went off the rails fairly quickly. By the trade deadline, they were eight points out of a playoff spot.

That led Dubas to make another massive move. But this time, he was selling. He took the first major step in rebuilding their prospect pool.

Jake Guentzel was a pending UFA, and they couldn't agree on a contract extension. So they traded the 40-goal scorer to the Carolina Hurricanes at the deadline.

On top of bringing in a second-round pick and veteran Michael Bunting, the Penguins acquired prospects Ville Koivunen, Vasily Ponomarev and Cruz Lucius.

While only Koivunen has made an NHL impact at this point, the second-round pick was used to select Harrison Brunicke, who appeared in the NHL earlier this season. 

In the off-season, they moved Smith for a 2027 second-round pick and 2025 fifth-rounder. He didn't fit in Pittsburgh after excelling with Vegas, so Dubas essentially admitted to a mistake and got value for the asset while he still could.

Dubas also took advantage of the St. Louis Blues' need to get their second-round pick back to sign Philip Broberg to an offer sheet. The Pens swapped the previously acquired 2025 second-rounder from the Blues for a 2026 second-rounder. The Penguins also traded a 2026 fifth-round pick for a 2025 third-round pick to take advantage of the Blues' situation.

But the most interesting trade from that summer came when the Winnipeg Jets' top prospect, Rutger McGroarty, requested a trade.

The Penguins took advantage of the situation, swapping Yager for McGroarty. The consensus is that McGroarty has been an upgrade.

The franchise looked over the hill yet again in the 2024-25 season, forcing Dubas to pivot again from competing for a playoff spot.

Marcus Pettersson, Drew O'Connor and Michael Bunting were sent out in deals in the lead-up to the deadline. He even traded for Luke Schenn before flipping him for a second- and third-round pick.

As the season came to an end, they were sitting with plenty of draft capital, a prospect pool that wasn't nearly as barren as it once was, and they seemed to be viewing this team for what it was: old, slow, and uninspiring.

The Penguins went into the summer as one of the very few teams that were "trying" to lose during the 2025-26 season.

They made seven picks in the top 100 at the draft, including three first-rounders.

Ben Kindel's selection at 11th overall was possibly the biggest surprise of the first round. Bill Zonnon (22nd overall) and Will Horcoff (24th overall) were more expected picks in that range, but they certainly weren't the consensus picks at the time.

The Penguins also made a few pick swaps throughout the draft and added some quality prospects to their pipeline in the process.

After parting with longtime coach Mike Sullivan, Dubas tabbed former New York Rangers assistant coach Dan Muse as the new voice for the Penguins.

Muse had been a successful coach at the junior level, winning a Clark Cup title with the Chicago Steel in the USHL and capturing a U-18 and U-20 gold medal with Team USA.

He was viewed as the perfect coach to bring along the young players, blending them throughout the roster with the future Hall of Famers still sprinkled throughout. 

Their activity in free agency and the trade market started quickly as they sent veterans they no longer needed and brought in younger NHLers and reclamation projects.

They traded netminder Alex Nedeljkovic for a 2028 third-rounder. The Pens took on the contract of Matt Dumba from the Dallas Stars for the price of a second-round pick in 2028. They went out and acquired a young netminder in Silovs with some NHL track record without selling much of value at all.

In free agency, the team signed Mantha, Brazeau and Wotherspoon, who all needed a chance to boost their stock. Each has had some level of success this season for the Pens.

What they notably didn't do this past summer was rush into moving Rakell or Rust. Despite rumors swirling all summer and into the early months of the season, the Penguins knew what they had in those players, and they weren't budging on their asking price. That has worked out well as both have had quite solid seasons.  

They also refused to sell low on Karlsson, with Dubas challenging him as the team cleaned out their lockers the previous season.

Dubas said Karlsson's "actions have to match his ambitions" in a moment that proved the GM wasn't treating his team with kid gloves. 

There was even a conversation about whether Crosby would be looking to move on from the only franchise he's ever known. Ultimately, the captain was consistent in his messaging that he was committed to the Pens. 

When the NHL season started, Pittsburgh was one of the very few squads that looked unlikely to even be in the playoff race.

Of course, when it looked like the Penguins were finally less worried about making the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup, they began winning games. By Nov. 1, they were 13 games into their season and sitting second in the division.

When December rolled around, the Pens had fallen into a wild-card spot, and many had begun to wonder if the hot start was smoke and mirrors. 

Dubas' vision for the Penguins wasn't complete, and he was on the hunt for a shake-up.

With Tristan Jarry having a decent season in net, Dubas sought to sell high on a player who was sent down to the AHL a year earlier.

With the Edmonton Oilers desperate for a change in goal, the stars aligned for Dubas. 

The Penguins sent Jarry and minor-leaguer Sam Poulin to the Oilers for netminder Stuart Skinner, defender Brett Kulak and a 2029 second-round pick.

Dubas added a goalie who helped the Oilers make back-to-back Stanley Cup finals, a defender who plays a lockdown game, and a premium draft asset. The cost of doing so was a netminder who had rehabilitated his game to start the season but had been fairly unreliable in the past. The immediate reaction was that Edmonton overpaid for Jarry, and Dubas was happy to add the value. 

Just before the new year, the Penguins made a trade to help add some scoring punch to their roster. They dipped their hand into their plethora of draft picks, sending a 2026 second and a 2027 third to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Yegor Chinakhov, a former first-round pick who had fallen out of favor with the coaching staff in Columbus.

Once again, the Pens were adding a potential rehabilitation project who could end up being a piece of the future. 

The Penguins got back to their winning ways. By the time the Olympic break arrived, the team was back in second place in the Metro.

At the trade deadline, the Pens were looking to add to their roster, but they weren't looking to deplete their draft pick cupboard or their newly built prospect pipeline. They needed to look for value and opportunity. 

They flipped Kulak to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Samuel Girard and a 2028 second-round pick. The Avs ended up adding a pick to the deal to take on Girard's contract after they found themselves with a bit of redundancy on the blueline.

Pittsburgh then added Elmer Soderblom, a hulking center with sneaky skill. They wound up sending the Detroit Red Wings a third-round pick this year, but with a cupboard full of draft capital, it was viewed as a worthwhile price.

Flash forward to now, and the Penguins are still in a playoff spot. Although they aren't securely in a playoff spot, with Columbus and the New York Islanders right on their tails, the Pens have pushed some of their chips in while keeping an eye on the future. 

When Dubas and his front office stepped into their positions, the prospect pool was barren.

Pickering was their clear-cut top prospect, with Blomqvist and Poulin rounding out the top end of their pipeline. 

Today, Pickering is arguably outside the top five despite the D-man getting into a handful of NHL games already. He has 23 points in 60 AHL games this season.

Kindel, the surprise first-rounder from last June, has been a fixture in the Pens lineup this season as an 18-year-old. He's been the third-line center for most of the year, and had this year's rookie crop not been incredible, he would have had an outside shot at a finalist nod for the Calder Trophy, with 32 points in 68 games.

Brunicke, the second-rounder from 2024, spent the first half of the year with the Penguins. Although he only got into nine games, he has greatly exceeded expectations to this point. He continued his campaign in the WHL, where he put up 24 points in 24 games.

Horcoff and Zonnon have looked great when they've been on the ice this year.

McGroarty continues to develop in the AHL and has shown flashes of impressive offensive flair, with 26 points in 25 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

Those players are just the top end of their prospect pool. They may not be a top-10 pipeline in the NHL, but they are far from the conversation for worst in the league, as they were just three years ago.

And the prospect pool can only improve with the draft picks Dubas accumulated.

The Penguins may not be true contenders for the Stanley Cup when the playoffs start, but Dubas and the Penguins' front office have managed to rebuild the franchise quite quickly after the previous administration left them in the depths of hell. 

So, regardless of what he did in Toronto and how he left that squad to join Pittsburgh, and besides making some arguable mistakes early in his helm as Penguins GM, what Dubas has done is extremely impressive. 

His work in Pittsburgh has been the perfect blend of focus on the present and future. He deserves his flowers for that. 

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