Penguins To Place Matt Dumba On Waivers

The Penguins announced this morning that they will place defenseman Mathew Dumba on waivers today at 1:00 pm Central. He’s been placed on the non-roster list until his waiver period ends tomorrow. The move makes room for rearguard Brett Kulak to join the active roster after being acquired from the Oilers in today’s Tristan Jarry/Stuart Skinner goalie swap.

Dumba, 31, hadn’t been much of a factor to this point in the season. Acquired from the Stars over the summer in a salary dump, he’s been in the press box more than he’s been on the ice.

When dressed, he’s recorded a 1-2–3 scoring line and a -5 rating in 11 appearances. He’s averaging 14:56 of ice time per game, his lowest figure since averaging 12:27 in his first taste of NHL hockey as a 19-year-old with the Wild back in 2013-14. His poor two-way play is reflected in his 46.2 CF% and 47.9 FF% at 5-on-5, both the second-worst among qualified Penguins defenders, ahead only of Caleb Jones.

With Kulak in the mix, Jack St. Ivany returning to health, and Ryan Graves flourishing in a bottom-pairing role after starting the season on waivers, Dumba might have played his last game as a Penguin. At a $3.75MM cap hit, he won’t be claimed off waivers, even though he’s on an expiring deal.

If the righty is deadset on returning to the NHL this season, he could refuse to report to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, allowing the Penguins to terminate his contract. He’d be walking away from whatever he’s still owed of his $3.5MM salary but could catch on somewhere else for the back half of the season on a cheaper, prorated one-year deal. If he does clear waivers and opts to report to the minors, the Penguins will still be on the hook for a $2.6MM cap hit.

While Dumba may have been one of the more offensively dynamic defensemen in the league at his peak, those days are long in the rearview. Drafted No. 7 overall by Minnesota in 2012, he broke out for 50 points and 136 hits in the 2017-18 season, prompting the Wild to sign him to a five-year, $30MM deal the following summer. He racked up 12 goals and 22 points through the first 32 games of 2018-19 before sustaining a season-ending upper-body injury.

He hasn’t been the same player since. Dumba was still a minute-muncher for the rest of his tenure in Minnesota, averaging over 22 minutes per game between 2019-20 and 2022-23, but he never sniffed 30 points again – let alone 50. Still, he turned his reputation into a pair of relatively high-value, short-term free-agent deals. He first signed a one-year, $3.9MM pact with the Coyotes in 2023 and was flipped to the Lightning at the following year’s trade deadline.

Tampa didn’t show interest in retaining him, but he still landed a two-year, $7.5MM pact from the Stars. Dumba underwhelmed from the start, though, posting 10 points and a -5 rating in 63 games while averaging 15:18 of ice time per game. He was then a healthy scratch for Dallas’ entire playoff run. His cap hit quickly became untenable for the big-spending Stars, paying a 2028 second-round pick to unload the last year of his contract on the Penguins.