Penguins GM discusses offseason plans

Last offseason was an eventful one for Penguins President and GM Kyle Dubas. He wound up losing his job in Toronto only to be hired by Pittsburgh soon after. Meanwhile, a search for a GM resulted in Dubas simply removing the interim tag from himself.

On the ice, the Penguins were active both on the trade front and free agency. They added Erik Karlsson in a three-way deal with San Jose and Montreal and Reilly Smith from Vegas on the draft front while adding Ryan Graves, Alex Nedeljkovic and Lars Eller (among others) on the open market. But the end result wasn’t an improvement in the standings as they finished fifth in the Metropolitan Division for the second straight year and missed the playoffs.

This time around, it appears the Penguins will be taking a different approach to their summer activity. Dubas told NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman that the priority will be replenishing their younger assets:

"The major focus for us is on right now acquiring as many young players, as many prospects and as many draft picks as we can to try to infuse the team with really good young talent, young players and then have that stocked up for the future as well and attempt to get us back into contention as quickly as we can," Dubas said.

The stated goal of trying to get younger should come as no surprise. After all, the Penguins had the highest average age of any NHL team in 2023-24. But it also then stands to reason that Dubas might not be as aggressive when it comes to adding veteran win-now pieces. Per CapFriendly, they have a little under $13M in cap room, and if prospect Joel Blomqvist ultimately replaces Nedeljkovic (a pending UFA), they won’t have any key free agents of note to contend with; there will be room to add pieces as a result.

In that scenario, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Dubas look to some of the younger options on the open market, such as Jake DeBrusk or Anthony Duclair, players who can help the team but are still a few years younger than the average age of the team, to help them get a little younger and quicker.

Meanwhile, one of the other items on their summer to-do list will be working on an extension for Sidney Crosby.

"The key for us is, because of the importance of it and how much Sid means to the organization and the city, we want to keep that as quiet as possible and go through it," Dubas said about getting Crosby extended. "And then hopefully as we get through this summer, get a sense where everybody’s at and then let everybody know at the right time."

The 36-year-old has been Pittsburgh’s franchise forward since he was selected first overall back in 2005.  He has averaged more than a point per game in all 19 NHL seasons, tying Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record while Crosby now sits tenth in all-time scoring.  He has carried a cap hit of $8.7M since the 2008-09 season, and with how he has played since then, there’s a case to be made that he could get that much or more on an extension.

The length of the deal will ultimately dictate what happens on that front, as it’s quite possible that Pittsburgh could do what it did with mainstays Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang when their deals were up, giving them a longer term than expected in an effort to keep the cap hits down. One way or the other, it seems quite likely that a new deal for Crosby will get done at some point this summer.