I was in favor of a massive, tear-it-to-the-studs rebuild, and when we look back on all this in a year or two, I might still be proven right.
Maybe that is what the Penguins should have done.
But president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas chose a different path, and he is now so far down it that there will be no going back. There will be no tear down.
Dubas chose to walk the line between contending for the playoffs and quasi-rebuilding, and he did a pretty incredible job of it this season.
But remember: In his own words, a playoff spot alone is not enough. Dubas made that clear at his season-ending news conference last year.
“I don’t equate just getting into the playoffs with being a contender,” he said. “Those two things are not the same. I think if you ask the fan base … if it was the decision between just get back to the playoffs once next year or make the moves that are going to set us up to contend in the long run, they would probably choose the latter, and that is my focus every day.”
OK, that’s clear. So where are we now?
That’s an honest question.
The inconvenient truth, after a surprising season, is that the Penguins are not a young team on the rise but rather an aging one that will be another year older next season.
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But does that necessarily mean you need to start discarding older players?
First, I’m sure we can agree on this: This was not a legitimate championship contender this season.
It was, however, a team that should still be playing. If it hadn’t forgotten to set the alarm on the Flyers series, it’d be headed to Carolina for Round 2. The Penguins were the better team by Game 6, but by that point there was no margin for error. You can’t allow six breakaways in Game 1 and take three-plus games to figure out your opponent.
That happened, though, and the hard truth is that the Penguins have not won a playoff round since 2018. The reflexive reaction among many is look at two of the Big Three first when you look toward next season — Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
Gotta get rid of them now, right?
Well, no. Not necessarily.
I might still have a spot for the two guys who led the team in goals this series (two apiece, tied with Connor Dewar) and seem willing to play lesser roles.
It’d be one thing if the Penguins had some massive wave of high-end prospects ready to crack the roster. They don’t.
The idea for me would be to supplement Malkin, Letang and the other vets with more talent this offseason — and with more output from their younger counterparts when the games get big. Ben Kindel, 19, and Egor Chinakhov, 25, combined for zero points and a minus-8 rating in this series. Hopefully, they learn from the experience.
If you’re going to show somebody the door, I’d start with 31-year-old Anthony Mantha, who led the team in goals during the regular season but now has played 21 career playoff games without one. He made two egregious errors in Game 6 that almost led to the losing goal. He’s at the end of his contract. Replace him.
Find an impactful free agent or two. Dubas should have the money. Promote some younger guys — although the Penguins’ farm system, while improved, is middle-of-the-pack.
Malkin, who turns 40 in July, is still a point-per-game player and then some. He willingly moved to the wing. He had his moments against the Flyers, and even if he wasn’t at his best in Game 6, he easily could have had a multi-point game. He still had chances and made plays that were not converted.
Unless you show me somebody better, I think there’s still a place for him here.
I’m less enthusiastic about Letang, who just turned 39. He had a mostly rough season but was still a 34-point defenseman. He settled down late in the year, got off to a terrible start in the series and rebounded to become a beast in the final two games. He looked like his old self.
I would not be averse to trading Letang and his $6.1 million cap hit, if the Penguins find a taker and if Letang agrees to it, but I’d be fine with him here, too. You can integrate a younger defenseman or two and still keep Letang. It would be foolish to buy him out.
Those two guys need more help, as do Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rakell. The supporting cast that carried the team at times during the regular season mostly failed in the playoffs.
Dubas needs to fix that. The path is clear now.