Keeping Crosby top task for Dubas
Extending star might be easiest part of off-season
The Pittsburgh Penguins eventually became the team Kyle Dubas envisioned in his first season as the club’s general manager/director of hockey operations.
That evolution, however, came a touch too late for Sidney Crosby and company to make the playoffs. Pittsburgh’s spirited 8-2-3 closing kick left it outside of the post-season looking in for a second straight year.
That’s simply not good enough, and Dubas knows it.
“When things don’t turn out well, that falls on the person in my spot,” Dubas said Friday. “I take responsibility. It’s my job to make sure we have the right people on staff to get us where we want to go.”
The Penguins were undone by the NHL’s 31st-ranked power play and five months of inconsistency. With the team languishing in the standings in early March, Dubas opted to trade Stanley Cup-winning forward Jake Guentzel. Pittsburgh fell flat in the immediate aftermath, putting the Penguins in a hole they couldn’t climb out of in time.
“If we had shaken the doldrums a little bit earlier, we may have been in a different position,” Dubas said.
Instead, the playoffs will begin on Saturday without the Penguins, a post-season fixture from 2007 to 2022. Dubas now faces a long summer trying to figure out how to surround the core of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson with enough talent to close the gap.
One of the first items on Dubas’s to-do list is locking up Crosby. The future Hall of Famer is eligible for an extension starting July 1. Dubas has made it clear there are no plans to move on from Crosby, though he declined to get into specifics about what a new deal might look like.
“I think he should finish his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins,” Dubas said Friday.
“How long that is? I’m not going to put any limits on Sidney Crosby. He’s capable of great things and is still performing at an extraordinarily high level.”
It certainly looks that way. Crosby scored 42 goals — his highest since 2016 — and added 52 assists to average at least a point a game for the 19th straight season.
The franchise icon turns 37 in August. While Crosby says he still takes things “year to year,” he showed no significant signs of slowing down but was vague when asked how much longer he might play.
“Obviously, at my age, and things like that, there will be a lot of factors,” Crosby said. “But as far as my game, I don’t look any differently at how much longer I can play based off that. It’s always just evaluating my game for what it is, not my age.”
Crosby is set to enter the final season of the 12-year, $104.4-million (U.S.) contract he signed in the summer of 2012, a bargain for one of the greatest all-around players in league history. Crosby isn’t so concerned about money as he is about making a run at a fourth Stanley Cup.
The Penguins haven’t advanced past the first round since 2018.
While veteran centre Jeff Carter is retiring after 20 seasons, there’s a strong chance most of the pieces around Crosby will remain the same. Letang, who spent all season dealing with an undisclosed injury, figures to return. Malkin and Karlsson are expected back, too.
Regardless of who is on the roster when Pittsburgh reports for training camp in September, the Penguins know watching the playoffs go on without them can’t become the norm.
“Hopefully, this is something that having gone through this year will make us better,” Crosby said.