Penguins
Penguins Q&A: Dubas Presser, Criticism, and Optimism
CRANBERRY — Pittsburgh Penguins president/GM Kyle Dubas won’t hire a full-time GM to handle those duties, had some criticism for players, disappointment in the team, and had reason for optimism following the Penguins dramatic playoff charge that fell just short.
Dubas took the time to answer all questions, even though he admitted that not all of his answers contained conclusions or a definitive direction.
However, he criticized defenseman Ryan Graves and challenged him to improve this summer. Dubas also set forth his decision tree on the goalie situation, which is good or bad news depending on your loyalties or desire to see young players in the lineup.
PHN’s Dan Kingerski went over the presser news, including the goalie plan (0:50), Dubas opting to keep all Sidney Crosby conversations private (2:36), details on Kris Letang’s injuries (3:36), and the Graves criticism (4:24).
Getting to the Q&A section, What is there to be excited about next season, what changed the organizational momentum (5:45), what would a Tristan Jarry trade look like (8:37), will Dubas be able to move on from struggling veterans (10:30), Reilly Smith’s precarious fit and why he seemed to like playing with Lars Eller better than Evgeni Malkin (12:00), solutions for Graves (13:00), responding to P.K. Subban who believes trading Jake Guentzel cost the Penguins a playoff spot (16:18), replacing Todd Reirden (18:07), and Dan put a bow on the Penguins season travel (18:50).
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Bunting is a more complete player then Jake, I really like what he brings to the team
I like what bunting brings too. Clearly a missing. But I would take Jake over bunting any day of the week. Jake is a first line 40 goal scorer, and playoff performer. Those don’t grow on trees. The grit from bunting can be found elsewhere but not as easy to find a 40 goal playoff performer.
What bugs me is Dubas could have signed bunting in the off-season himself instead of the money given out to hinostroza, johnsson, johnstone, nieto, and butcher.
Now imagine you had Jake and bunting on second line.
I am curious how those 5 guys’ NHL salaries add up to Bunting’s salary. Each one would need to make roughly $1 million at the NHL level AND be regulars on the NHL roster to think not signing them clears the way to signing Bunting last summer.
Take Graves off the list, and it works. But that’s with the full benefit of hindsight.