Penguins Navigating Changing Landscape

It has been a doozy of an offseason around the NHL so far, with some of the trades that have happened since the middle of this month.

Like Brady Tkachuk joining his brother Matthew in Florida for three first-round picks and a second; the Sabres sending a package highlighted by Bowen Byram to Chicago for a haul that included the fourth overall pick in this year’s NHL Draft; and Ottawa acquiring William Eklund, Kasper Halttunen and Brandon Svoboda from San Jose for the ninth overall selection.

And while the Penguins haven’t been very active in that regard, it’s not for lack of trying.

“In some of them, we just really haven’t had the assets to get there,” Pittsburgh’s President of Hockey Operations and GM Kyle Dubas said, adding that the group “worked our butt off” prior to the draft trying to move up from 22^nd overall, but couldn’t make it happen.

Dubas noted that the landscape has shifted in the NHL for the types of players Pittsburgh is targeting. That is true difference-makers in their early to mid-20s, who can bridge the gap between their legendary veterans and very young players.

“In past years, they haven’t gone for that level of asset. There were multiple top-10 picks moved, which isn’t overly common,” Dubas said. “We would have aspired to be involved in every one of those conversations. It’s just that we didn’t have a top-10 pick because of the season that the team had.

“I don’t think we would change that whatsoever because of the way that it was really fueled by the development of guys that are going to be part of it for a long time with us, whether it was (Ben) Kindel or (Blake) Lizotte or (Connor) Dewar... (Parker) Wotherspoon... we’ve got Arty (Silovs) in net and Sergei (Murashov) and Joel (Blomqvist) pushing.”

So, the Penguins will keep pursuing players who are on that bridge, whether it happens later this summer, during the season, or next year. Their execution on that just might not be the same as other teams.

“We’ll stay after it, for sure,” Dubas said. “But it might not be the one gigantic-type transaction. We’ll try to stay active on those, but it might be more of a brick-by-boring-brick style.”

That applies to July 1, as Dubas doesn’t want to make the mistake of being too aggressive.

“I try to learn from the past, and we’ll try to steer clear of that,” Dubas said. “Rather than just doing something for the sake of doing it, I’d rather come here and say, ‘Yeah, we aspire to do it and the options weren’t there.’ So, we’ve had to check down and continue to build it up the way that we have."

One brick the Penguins did pick up was Hendrix Lapierre. They plucked a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick from their stockpile of assets and sent them to Washington in exchange for the 24-year-old forward. He has appeared in 158 career NHL games with the Capitals, while accumulating great success at the American Hockey League level.

Lapierre won two Calder Cup championships in 2023 and ’24, with Penguins assistant coach Todd Nelson serving as head coach of those Hershey Bears teams.

“Obviously, he’s got a long relationship with Todd Nelson, and that helps, and Nelly’s done a great job coaching (him) in the past,” Dubas said. “I think as the year went on for us, and as we look at our prospect pool, speed is a major area that we want to continue to add to. It’s just a physical trait that we have got a lot of really talented people, but we don’t have a lot of guys that maybe possess the elite level of speed — he has that. He can play wing, can play center.”

The Penguins have made one other trade this offseason, acquiring forward Oliver Okuliar from the Florida Panthers in exchange for defenseman Emil Pieniniemi. A couple days later, Pittsburgh signed Okuliar to a one-year, two-way contract.

Dubas said the Penguins felt like he was closer in terms of NHL utility coming off the year Okuliar had in the Swedish Hockey League. He appeared in 46 games for Skellefteå AIK, recording 15 goals and helping them to the league’s best regular-season record. In the playoffs, Okuliar finished tied for first in the SHL in goals (6) and was second overall in points (13) in 15 postseason games en route to a SHL Championship.

The Penguins were also impressed with Okuliar’s showings at the Olympics and World Championship.

“We just think that with the competitiveness, the ability to play wing and center, it was an area that we kind of lacked in depth last year,” Dubas said. “We felt that he could come in and (we could) work with him as long as he understood what the situation was going to be. (Penguins assistant GM and WBS GM Jason Spezza) had a lot of deep conversations with him and his representative. We just thought that it would be a great fit with something that we lacked and could provide more versatility. We’re excited about him coming up.”

Okuliar was set to be a restricted free agent. So are Arturs Silovs, Egor Chinakhov, Ville Koivunen, and Alex Alexeyev. Dubas said they have qualified all of those players.

Between looking for and executing on trades, the draft, development camp, and free agency on July 1, it’s a busy time for Dubas. But he made the time to be at the Hoffman family’s introduction to Pittsburgh on Thursday.

“I think as everyone saw yesterday here when they came into Pittsburgh, they’re deeply passionate people,” Dubas said of new ownership. “Last fall was the first time I had met Geoff and Greg Hoffman. Since then, there’s been lots of conversation for me. It’s been mostly with Geoff and so far, it’s been outstanding. He deeply cares about hockey; great business background and it’s been really positive for me with them coming in.

“Everything that he said yesterday has not only been backed up by what he’s said, but by what he’s done with us in the first stretch here. It’s an exciting time for us, for the city and excited to get to work for him.”