Penguins
Dubas’s Numbers vs. Reality; A Lot Riding on Next Decisions

The Pittsburgh Penguins were behind the times. After the Penguins and owners Fenway Sports Group hired Kyle Dubas as president of hockey operations and later as general manager, Dubas immediately embarked on a modernization of the front office.
It’s been said the Penguins were 10 years behind before Dubas revamped the analytics department, including swiping some numbers folks from Major League Baseball, including Jonathan Erlichman from the Tampa Rays in August 2024 and Wells Oliver from the Padres last December.
According to the Penguins website, there are five members of the Hockey Research and Development staff and PHN has knowledge of some of the biggest numbers people in hockey media who interviewed for jobs with the organization, too.
Dubas was also known as a modern numbers guy as the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Hence, it fits the Penguins’ proper revamp to have all the tools and perhaps some advantages by using numbers others don’t have. After all, FSG principal John Henry owned the Boston Red Sox, the first big-market baseball team to adopt sabermetrics, and hired wunderkind GM Theo Epstein.
In 2004, the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years. Epstein is now part of FSG ownership and is a senior advisor to the group.
But this is hockey, and the Penguins are again a tale of mismatched stats and results. There is a significant difference between the deeper statistics and the bottom-line stats, most importantly, goals and wins.
Penguins Analytics
With a strong research team, a GM who believes in them, and ownership that advocates them, it should be no surprise that the Penguins show well on the advanced stat sheets.
It should be noted that NHL teams spend a lot of money on advanced statistics and have far more complex modeling than the publicly available numbers. The Washington Capitals bought CapFriendly.com for a hefty sum of money just to avoid spending millions and months building their own infrastructure.
Here’s the rub with the Penguins: They have average to good numbers but mediocre to terrible results.
The Penguins have the seventh-best Corsi in the Eastern Conference, which is the ratio of shot attempts for and against. Corsi is generally seen as a good measure of puck possession. They’re also seventh in the East for expected goals for (xGF).
The Penguins have slightly more high-danger chances than the opposition (50.6% ratio), but in a nod to their lack of finish and a terrible save percentage against, they have a 46% high-danger goals ratio.
The roster sports several analytics darlings added in the last 12 months. Cody Glass has almost ridiculously good advanced statistics across the board. Philip Tomasino struggled to stick in the NHL with Nashville but has typically posted better than 53% of expected goals-for (xGF) throughout his four-year career, including his time with the Penguins.
Dubas has almost exclusively acquired players who pass the analytics test, including embattled defenseman Ryan Graves, who had exemplary advanced stats before Dubas tossed him a six-year contract.
So, if the numbers followed through, the Penguins would be in a playoff spot; they have superior puck possession and slightly above-average scoring chances.
Yet, they have the second-worst winning percentage in the Eastern Conference.
The last handful of Stanley Cup champions were certainly not seen as having analytics-heavy front offices. Conversely, as of last season, Chicago had a staff of nine, Toronto had eight, and several other teams had six, but only Dallas has recently advanced to the Conference Final. New Jersey and Seattle are the others with six. The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman compiled the research.
ESPN believes Toronto and Philadelphia have the biggest analytics staffs when contractors and consultants are factored in.
The Carolina Hurricanes hired Eric Tulsky as their GM last summer to replace Don Waddell. Tulsky began his hockey career writing for a Flyers blog and Nate Silver’s 538. He had a PhD in Chemistry with 27 patents before the hockey world called.
There’s no question that numbers are important tools in decision-making. Every GM uses them, including 82-year-old Lou Lamoriello, who had a listed staff of three.
Does the lack of top-tier success mean analytics are fool’s gold? No. It does mean there’s a larger context, and hockey hasn’t yet figured out–and quite possibly never will–how to quantify some of the basic human elements and emotions of hockey.
As FSG principal Tom Werner said during an impromptu presser in October tucked in the press box hallway of PPG Paints Arena, the ownership group is “In the mode of being impatient.”
Numbers or hockey gut, success still comes down to hockey judgment, and Dubas has had a rocky start with the Penguins. As Dubas shuffles the deck at this NHL trade deadline and coming offseason, his third year at the helm will be pivotal. His third year will essentially begin with this trade deadline because it will set up Year 3.