The Penguins officially ushered in a new era yesterday even though they won’t admit it. Whether Kyle Dubas is unwilling or unable to use the rebuild word, his actions with the roster all point to exactly that, a rebuild.

For optics reasons they aren’t going to say it out loud because they are still an entertainment product and they still have Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson. So you have this balance of pretending to care about the current roster with the obvious shift to collecting whatever futures the Penguins can get their hands on.

It is going to take some acceptance that they are not trying to win the Stanley Cup, anymore. It has been quite some time. How long? Ziggy Palffy, John LeClair, and Mario Lemieux on the roster long. Ever since day one when Sidney Crosby showed up the team was trying to win it all. It wasn’t always successful. It was however the organization’s focus and motivation. Right now? They are a futures collection agency with some nice shiny objects in the window.

Those assets can come through the draft, younger free agents. via trade, or via waivers "that can come in and support the core group here," Dubas said. "What we're not going to do is get into the free agent quick fixes like some of the longer-range things we've seen today."

— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) July 1, 2024

Some of the moves make sense given this is the new path being forged. Kevin Hayes for a second-round pick is a prime example of this newfound strategy. A playable depth player with a mediocre cap hit who you receive a second round pick for. Reilly Smith is a really straight forward trade where you move on from a pending UFA who wasn’t working out for yet another second round pick, albeit in 2027.

Matt Grzelcyk and Anthony Beauvillier are veteran players who at one point played decent hockey, not so much lately. Here’s the thing, they are on one year deals and they were signed with the intent of trading them at the deadline. I understand where people are coming from when they claim Pierre-Olivier Joseph is currently a better player than Grzelcyk . I don’t think POJ has much of a trade market and in this league Grzelcyk will fetch more, thus moving in that direction.

On the surface the Blake Lizotte signing made the least sense to me because they already have a plethora of fourth line caliber players. The way this can make sense is if they are planning on moving Lars Eller, Noel Acciari, and Matt Nieto in some way shape or form. Which I think they will try to do, or should, based on the new way of doing things.

One huge missed opportunity from yesterday was missing out on Jeff Skinner. I very much understand that Skinner wants to go to the playoffs for the first time in his career and 3M wasn’t going to entice him in Pittsburgh. I would have offered up 5-6M on a one-year deal with the clear understanding he would be traded to a contender at the deadline. The Penguins have one more slot left to eat salary and you could retain 50% on Skinner and increase the return on investment. In Pittsburgh, Skinner would get to then juice his numbers playing next to Sid, Sid gets a goal scoring winger to work with, and the team would then receive some solid future assets. It had the makings of a mutually beneficial situation. I don’t know if Dubas tried to make this happen. I’m hoping he did because it is the perfect kind of transaction they should be looking for in this current roster building mode. If he didn't, then he needs to start thinking about these kinds of opportunities.

While the team missed out on Skinner the Penguins may have a similar situation in the form of another goal scoring winger.

Hearing Penguins made an offer to Vladimir Tarasenko. Only have around $4.3 million in cap space. Other teams have interest in him, obviously.

— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) July 2, 2024

This is the same concept even though the assets coming back in a deadline deal might not be what a Skinner one would be. You are signing players on very short term deals with the intention of trading them. The issue here is that Tarasenko likely wants to stay in Florida so any similar deal he isn’t going to come to Pittsburgh he will stay where he just literally won the Stanley Cup. You'll likely need to overpay and then retain at the deadline, which is fine. That's the team the Penguins are right now. Own it.

So all in all the moves are pretty uninspiring and the team isn’t going to be putting their best skate forward to make the playoffs, let alone win a Stanley Cup this upcoming season. This is going to be a take your medicine kind of year as the Penguins hit the reset button. Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter this is the direction they are going in. This is a rebuild with some aging stars on the roster. The Penguins are going to try and have their cake and eat it too. They will use these stars to sell tickets while sacrificing the current on-ice product in order to serve the future. Will it work at the box office? Probably not. Will it be successful on the ice? This is the tricky part. We are going to have to wait multiple years to have that answer. This isn’t an overnight process and we are at the very beginning. It is best to come to acceptance of this new reality.

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