Kyle Dubas The Pittsburgh Penguins had every intention of trading prospects and draft picks for more established but younger NHL players. Until the prices on the NHL trade market froze them out of the conversations.
The Penguins tried to acquire first-round picks in the 2026 NHL Draft, but rising prices kept general manager Kyle Dubas from completing his Odesseyan task. The Penguins have veterans to move, but, again, the NHL trade market has politely declined.
Certainly, as the Penguins’ rebuild awaits, the team’s transition to a new phase, or even era, has been denied by market forces. The costs for a premier player in their mid-to-late 20s rose to include four premium assets, including a top-10 overall pick, which the Penguins did not have.
The Penguins’ veterans were apparently not worth a first-rounder in June, as attempts were made, but the offerings declined. And Penguins fans have been quick to notice how little 35-year-old winger Chris Kreider was worth as Anaheim attempted to trade him this summer.
Kreider and Anaheim eventually agreed to a mutual parting and contract termination. Last season, Kreider had 50 points, including 22 goals in 78 games.
He was no tomato can just playing out the string, but Anaheim was unable to trade him. Undoubtedly, Dubas tried.
As he retorted following the first round of the NHL Draft, “we worked our asses off” trying to make the big trade. But, alas, the trades the Penguins made this summer were quiet, fortifying type deals, such as acquiring winger Nick Robertson for a fourth-round pick and third-pairing defenseman Kaedan Korczak for Parker Wotherspoon.
Neither figures to change the top of the Penguins’ lineup nor their rebuild trajectory, which is now merely in a holding pattern. Going back to the first round of the NHL draft, PHN asked Dubas whether the changing market meant he might need to adjust or alter his strategy.
“It might not be the same way that everybody else does it, but I don’t know that we’ll pivot,” said Dubas on June 26. “We’ll continue to stay involved in all those discussions and see where it lands
It’s trying to find that middle kind of bridge (between our young players and older veteran core). We’d love to have it done already, but it might be something that’s later in the summer, in the year, or next summer, but we’ll stay after for sure.” We can cross off doing it this summer.
The offseason is ending this week, and the Penguins appear no closer to that difference-maker. And it might seem even more difficult this season, as fewer teams are giving up their premier players, even those who have requested trades.
Dylan Larkin, Connor Hellebuyck, Shane Wright, and Alexander Nikishin headline the list of players who knocked on their GM’s door, ready for a new address, but who are otherwise stuck with the old. And the simple reason those players are still with their teams is that acquiring teams cannot afford the market price.
Perhaps nearer the March 6 NHL trade deadline, a team chasing the Stanley Cup will come to need a top-six winger and believe that Bryan Rust’s heart-on-his-sleeve approach and 30-goal ability are the ticket. Perhaps a similar team will come to appreciate Rickard Rakell’s slick offensive skills and unheralded 200-foot game.
But those fish just haven’t been biting, and the expected returns are obviously less than Dubas wants. Next week, the Penguins begin training camp, but have just three days of three-squad practices before preseason games begin and the team pares down to regular practices.
Translated, that means a lot of cuts will be made in the first week of camp, and most of the young players bounding into Penguins training camp hoping for a look will largely be bounced out because there just isn’t enough opportunity. Dubas’s plans and summer began with high hopes and the noblest of intentions, but the situation has changed.
Fans are justified in wondering if the Penguins should change tactics, and perhaps even Dubas has had to sit with the same contrary thoughts. There will indeed be plenty of young players in training camp, and it is Dubas who will have the opportunity to create space for them and push forward a rebuild (or retool, or rewhatever).
But just how the Penguins get to the next phase is a genuine question because the market and available options have indeed changed.
