Former Toronto Maple Leafs and current Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas is taking a lot of heat this week for placing Tristan Jarry on waivers.
Tristan Jarry signed a five-year deal worth $5.375M AAV and isn't living up to that salary in Year 2 of his contract. With a 3.26 GAA and .886 SV%, Jarry is near the bottom of the league in all goaltending statistics halfway through the campaign.
With Jarry now spending his time in the AHL, it puts a ton of pressure on Alex Nedeljkovic to perform, as the Penguins are still in the hunt for a playoff spot. Although it's unlikely that they'll be the team that gets in, they're only four points out, with a ton of games left in the season.
Speaking of Crosby, Dubas joined the Penguins at a terrible time. Dubas best attribute is building up a farm system and developing those players, but he hasn't been afforded the luxury to start a rebuild in Pittsburgh yet, because of Crosby. When you have Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, who were three valuable parts of the Pittsburgh Penguins' three Stanley Cup championship's, it hard to trade them and start over, especially in that market.
It wasn't that long ago that Pittsburgh filed for bankruptcy and it looked like there was a 50/50 chance that the team would be relocated. Although the team was incredibly successful during the early 1990s winning two Stanley Cup's with Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, it became a true possibility that the team would move.
Fortunately for Pittsburgh, Lemieux stepped in from an ownership perspective to help keep the team in that city, then Crosby, Malkin, Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury showed up, ultimately turning them into a dyntasty.
Kyle Dubas Is an Excellent Executive
When a city goes through those struggles, it puts Dubas in a tough situation to move his (former) stars and acquire solid capital to rebuild the program. If they traded Crosby, Malkin and Letang, it's possible that they could turn the franchise around a lot faster.
All of those players are aging but they still provide a ton of value, especially to a Stanley Cup contender. Imagine if the Leafs had the opportunity to get Crosby right now? What would they actually give up for his services? Personally, I think the Leafs would offer at least two first-round picks, an A-plus prospect and current roster player for him, so imagine how quick the Penguins could turn things around with that type of package?
Although I can understand the criticism around Dubas right now, he's been dealt a terrible hand. He doesn't have the luxury of trading his best assets and he's trying to turn a bad situation into a potential playoff run. The Eric Karlsson trade may have seemed like an odd move, perhaps if you expected the Penguins to roll over, but since they can't rebuild, this was probably the smartest thing they could have done. Karlsson has been excellent, and is one of the main reasons they are even in the running for a playoff spot.
The Penguins are at the end of their dynasty and they need to accept that. It happened to the Chicago Blackhawks, but they ultimately moved on from all their stars and eventually drafted Connor Bedard. The same thing has happened in the NFL with the New England Patriots, but they now have a star QB in Drake Maye and one of the best coaches in Mike Vrabel.
If it was up to Dubas, I know he would have traded those stars long ago, because he's not afraid to make a deal, but unfortunately it feels like ownership hasn't allowed that. Until ownership gives him the green-light to run the team how he wants, I don't think it's fair to criticize his time in Pittsburgh, yet.
He's currently signed to a seven-year deal, so let's see what he does over that entire tenure instead of jumping to the conclusion that he should be fired, because I still think he's one of the smartest and best executive's in hockey.