Penguins Rebuild: The Undeniable Lesson from the NHL’s Final 4

As rebuilding strategies go, gambling on several years of having the top picks in the NHL Draft might have the same odds of rebuilding a team as a handful of scratchers from the local convenience store.

Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas has also alluded to the uncertainty of chasing top draft picks at the top of the draft, and the 2025 lottery rewarded that view as the 11th and 14th teams won. The New York Islanders, not the Chicago Blackhawks or San Jose Sharks, or even the surprisingly woeful Nashville Predators, got the first overall pick.

Teams selecting between fourth and 10th actually lost two draft spots because the Utah Mammoth won the lottery for the second pick, thus moving up 10 spots to No. 4 (teams can only move up a maximum of 10 spots).

Even the Philadelphia Flyers, who held the fourth overall pick, slid back to sixth. That’s a significant difference for a team that made sure to lose a few more games down the stretch, while others like the Penguins and Seattle Kraken were reinforcing their culture with wins.

Fortunately, as the NHL winds to the dramatic conclusion of the 2024-25 season, there is a lesson that should sing to the Penguins and Dubas:

Depth over stars.

Sure, the star-studded Edmonton Oilers, led by all-time great Connor McDavid, might look like favorites to reverse last year’s heartbreaking Stanley Cup Final loss and restore the Stanley Cup to the Great White North, the first Canadian team to win it since 1993. Still, they also have the toughest road in recent memory to get there.

The top-heavy Oilers stand in contrast to the other three teams remaining.

The other top-heavy teams are already at home. They either didn’t make the playoffs (*Ahem, Penguins) or were summarily dismissed from the aforementioned proceedings (See also: Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights).

The term superstar or star player is rife with semantics, the primary example being the very, very good Winnipeg Jets players Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck, and Vegas, led by Jack Eichel and some very well-paid defensemen, Noah Hanafin, Shea Theodore, and Alex Pietrangelo.

The Deciding Factor

Skipping the tedious and pedantic arguments over superstars, the simple lesson for the Penguins to learn is: Lineup depth is the key.

The Dallas Stars have only six players who make more than $6 million, and we’re counting Miko Rantanen, whose $12 million average annual value deal kicks in next season. Otherwise, Dallas doesn’t have a player in eight figures, and they are flush with players who fit their role perfectly, from the top line to the third pairing.

Roope Hintz, Matt Duchene, and Wyatt Johnson are the first, second, and third-line centers, respectively.

Dallas is perfectly balanced and deeper than the Gulf of Mexico. Or America? You can pick which.

Brad Marchand is a third-liner in Florida with center Anton Lundell and left-wing Eetu Luostarinen, and the line is unstoppable. Winning and championships may have elevated Florida’s salary cap structure. Still, the players Florida is spending on are highly productive role players, like Sam Bennett (who will get a hefty payday next season, either in Florida or elsewhere via free agency) and Swiss Army knife Evan Rodrigues.

Remember when the Penguins balked at paying E-Rod just $2 million? Yeah, that was another whiff by former GM Ron Hextall. But I digress.

There’s not a bad contract in the Florida bunch, though goalie Sergei Bobrovsky had to play his way into his $10 million cap hit that he signed six years ago.

From Sam Reinhart to the Selke favorite Aleksander Barkov at the top of the lineup to Nate Schmidt on the third pairing, they don’t have a weakness.

The third of the four teams to prove the theorem is the one that does it the best: the Carolina Hurricanes.

Perhaps Sebastian Aho would be a star player in another system or another city. Still, the blue-collar Hurricanes are the most tenacious, gritty, annoyingly hard-to-play-against team to grace the NHL in a long, long time.

The team resembles third-line center Jordan Staal, who lacks the flash or panache of star players, but has been a bedrock of consistency and responsibility. Defenseman Jaccob Slavin is the most underpaid D-man in the NHL, by a country mile.

Slavin might finish second or third in the Norris Trophy voting this season, but he won’t make more than $6.3 million for three more years.

Aside from Carolina’s top line with Andrei Svechnikov, Aho, and Seth Jarvis, there aren’t many players who strike fear into opponents. There aren’t players for whom opposing coaches need to game plan against, but instead, teams must steel their patience and prepare for a 60-minute battle for every puck when they play Carolina.

One of those four teams is going to win the Cup, and depth will be the deciding factor.

Fortunately for the Penguins, depth is a replicable, achievable goal that Dubas can chase. It’s not as fun or sexy as having the best in the world. After all, that’s how the Penguins should always rebuild, right? Lose for a few years, get a few top overall picks who will make the Hall of Fame, win a couple or few Stanley Cups, and do it over again.

If only it were that easy.

It’s quite possible that many of us will never see a player like Mario Lemieux or Sidney Crosby in a Penguins sweater again. Many organizations haven’t had one player even close, yet Pittsburgh has snared four generational players (Evgeni Malkin and Jaromir Jagr are the others). The lottery and the rarity of those types of players at the top make rebuilding that way an iffy proposition. Finding the next hero is up to fate and the lottery gods, but what Dubas can achieve is rock-solid, impenetrable depth if he wants the Penguins to win more championships.