Dubas Outlines State of the Team Heading into 2026.27

After the Penguins named their opening-night roster, Kyle Dubas outlined where he feels the team is at going into the 2026-27 season.

In doing so, Pittsburgh’s management focuses mainly on the competitive Metro Division, which includes Carolina, the defending Stanley Cup Champion. The Hurricanes separated themselves from the pack by a wide margin, playing particularly dominant hockey down the stretch.

“That's our sole focus, is how can we, as an organization, bridge that gap to start to climb that wall, or build our own, and begin to reel them in,” Dubas said. “It's a tremendous challenge for us, and it's one that's both motivational and keeps us pushing each day.”

The Penguins also want to create separation between themselves and the other teams they’re competing against.

Right now, Dubas said Pittsburgh is in the middle of the pack, which won’t put them back in real contention. And while they made strides last year, making the playoffs after being counted out externally, their postseason performance – falling into a 3-0 deficit against Philadelphia before losing in six games – showed that the Penguins have a long way to go.

So, how do the Penguins get to where they want to go?

“I think that's the most important part, and everyone would look to me to answer, especially as we go through this year and this fall,” Dubas said. “I think this year, it's a very pivotal season for the group in that regard. That'll take bold decisions and hard decisions.”

Entering his fourth season as Pittsburgh’s President of Hockey Operations and GM, Dubas said his approach has changed. Initially, Dubas felt that if they could just get the Penguins into the mix, Pittsburgh’s franchise legends could pull the team along.

“And I think what I've felt, especially over the last couple years, is that it's probably an unfair ask of those players,” Dubas said. “It places a huge burden on them. They've done so much for the organization already, and I think the burden has to fall on us as the organization to surround them with more and better younger players that can help to push them and where they can not have to carry the mail every single day here, especially as they get into their mid-30s, later-30s or 40s in some cases.”

So, Dubas said the Penguins will keep investigating every impact player in their 20s who could become available.

They will keep helping acquisitions like Egor Chinakhov and Tommy Novak reach their full potential.

And perhaps most importantly, they will continue pushing the younger players, to not only preserve where the Penguins are at, but move them forward.

Of course, the Penguins want to build on what they accomplished last season. As Erik Karlsson said the other day, the group feels like it has more to give. And if the younger guys can continue to progress, it would be tough for Dubas to characterize the season as a step back, if they don’t finish at or better than they did last season.

“I don't think we ever go into the year thinking that we're going to regress. We have to take steps toward getting back to, in the end, saying, 'Geez, this team is awfully close to knocking down the door again to being a team that can contend,’” Dubas said.

The Penguins have a coaching staff in place who should keep getting the most out of every single player, regardless of their age or status. Dan Muse, named one of three finalists for the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year in his first season as an NHL head coach, is looking to build on the excellent foundation laid down last year.

“I think you reflect back on the year, there's so much positive. But with Dan, there's never anything taken for granted,” Dubas said. “It's all, 'How are we going to get better? What are the steps that we're going to take? How are we going to go about improving the team? How are we going to improve? How are we going to improve upon our systems and processes? And where were we not very good? Where did we falter? And it's such a deep look at that. He's never content, is always pushing to improve and pushes his staff to improve and add new elements to the staff in terms of getting his own people to develop and take bigger steps and it's, you know, it's a lot of fun to work with him on that.”

Their main goal is to maintain their strong offensive play, as the Penguins finished third in the NHL with 3.54 goals per game, while becoming an average-or-above team defensively. They were in the bottom-10 in goals-against per game.

“That's a whole five-man unit I think we have to improve upon,” Dubas said. “I think that's been a lot of the focus of the sessions you've seen here (in training camp) and the focus of Dan. We give up a lot off of offensive zone play, it's just too many guys, too many forwards, that are caught deep in their zone. And transition against and transition off the rush. The defense are the ones left back there, so if they get beat, it leaves them a little bit exposed, but it's much more the group as a whole.”

Finally, when it comes to goaltending, Dubas admitted there wasn’t much of a battle at the shortened training camp between Sergei Murashov and Joel Blomqvist over who would start the season with Arturs Silovs.

“I think the battle ended in the American (Hockey) League playoffs,” Dubas said. “Sergei did a great job against Hershey, Sergei did a great job against Springfield, Sergei – when the team had basically no defenseman in the Toronto series – gave the team a chance to win.”

Dubas felt the new shortened format, which is part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, was a disservice to someone like Blomqvist in terms of opportunity.

“I told Joel that directly,” Dubas said. “Joel has had an excellent young start to his career here. It’s been a great battle to see them and see all three young goalies. I wish we could give them all more but we only had the four games and we had to decide how we wanted to go through it. It sucks for Joel. There’s no other way to put it, but that’s the format that was chosen and we live with it.”

Now, a few housekeeping items...

*As Sidney Crosby is eligible to sign a contract extension, Dubas was asked where that stood. Here is his full response:

“For me, the way that I view these things – and I think there’s a long history, not just in Pittsburgh but elsewhere – where players of this nature get to this stage of their career – where they’re in their middle-late-30s or sometimes they get to their 40s - and the process becomes far less about deadlines. When the player can extend, when the contract is expiring to, going through the season, making sure they’re comfortable where the team is at, where the team is going and that they’re happy with that. And then also, how they feel. I don’t think there’s any indication that Sid is going to be in a poor place physically because of the preparation that he puts into it. Pat and I talk a lot about not only Sid but his other players on the team. So, it’s always an open back-and-forth. I don’t feel from our end that there’s any real pressure to have it done by a certain date or anything like that. We just continued to talk and go through as you kind of outlined as important. We also have others in the group that are a part of that. We went through that last year with (Malkin). That was very clear (with) getting through the year and (seeing) how it went. Then, at the end of the year, we made the decision to have (Malkin) come back for a season. We also have Erik Karlsson. And those conversations with Erik have been very direct with Erik and very open and great. For us, when you’re a player of that caliber and you’ve achieved so much, everyone wants to handle it a different way. For us, it’s about being respectful plus being open with them about where we see things going here so that they are comfortable with that. The best way to go through that is to get them through the year and if there’s a time where both people want to jump, then you jump and get it done.”

*The funeral for Andrei Kuzmenko’s father, Alexander, was today.

“Obviously, horrific and tragic situation,” Dubas said. “All of our thoughts and support with Andrei and his family. We will have an update on his status once he and his family get through that initial shock, and we'll support them, and he will be back when he's ready and his family is in a good spot in Russia.”

*Injury-wise, the team had already announced that forwards Ben Kindel and Justin Brazeau (both lower body) had been placed on injured reserve and were week-to-week. Dubas provided more detail on some of the other injuries:

-Bryan Rust is week-to-week with an upper-body injury. He had left Pittsburgh’s preseason finale on Saturday in Buffalo.

-Tristan Broz was also injured in that game, and he is projected to be 1-2 weeks away from a return.

-Blake Lizotte was placed on injured reserve retroactive to September 19, which means he could be available for the opener on Wednesday in Philadelphia.

-At the end of last season, Ryan Graves had surgery to clean out one of his knees. That knee is still causing him issues, and “his other knee is also having issues. So, once we get the first part addressed, then we'll move on to the other knee and get him back up 100%. But because of the nature of those, it's more of an indefinite time frame."