Kyle Dubas Media Availability (06.30.25) | Pittsburgh Penguins

Kyle Dubas Media Availability (06.30.25) | Pittsburgh Penguins

decisions yet regarding your pending RFAS
uh yep um we um we have um so we’re you know we have number of guys that and we have a few guys that we’re still in conversation with so um you know we we are still having conversations with uh Thomasino and Derer um and uh and the rest I think we will non-qualify qualify Ponamarov as well
just to maintain his rights i know he’s signed in Russia but they’ll they’ll have the three years or however long to develop there and we’ll we’ll just keep a close watch on them and regarding your pending UFAS you’ll just allow them to go to tomorrow
yeah we just think there’s a you know we we’re with where with like with our current strategy we’re going to see what’s out there and see where we’re where we’re at yeah
how active do you expect to be tomorrow as far as signings what kind of signings are you looking to add
i think it’s like we’ve discussed it’s not they’re not going to be um they’re not going to be the long range big money guys in their 30s it just doesn’t fit at all what we’re going to do and even if we could transition by the time those the this group here and the sorry the previous uh and the previous you know groups of draft picks and younger players are coming through we don’t we don’t want to have those types of deals at the back end so we’ll we’ll we’ll stay away from those we’ve got lots of trade conversations on the go for all different types of players we’ll see the RFAS you can start to talk to RFAS tonight at 7:00 um from other teams so we’ll get a sense for what the market is for them and what their expectations are because those are generally younger players that fit more with with where we’re at so we’ll get to that point we’ll start to have those conversations tonight here between Vuki myself and Spez uh start to touch base with them um but you know the types of players I think you could expect are not dissimilar from last summer i would be surprised if you know unless they were RFAS or trade that we would do long range deals with players but we’ve got a you know number of players in mind that we think we can give good opportunity to and they won’t be the one-year contracts maybe two or three where we can see if they can be a long-term part of of what we’re trying to do here and be a part of it for when the team uh is is back in contention k sort of a similar question I would ask those three first rounders but from your standpoint how important is it to the
greater construct of the team to see those guys develop at relatively the same rate
or or is it like is each guy their own guy they have to come up at the same time
i would we would I would love it if we could get them all to October 7th or whatever it was going to be and they were all ready to roll i think in development it’s it’s so different for each one of them and each of them has a different path i mean Will’s already in college at Michigan bill’s a late birthday and he’s got the ability to go you know he can go back to major junior i we’ve got to go through the CBA and whether those changes are now or later for the you know the rumored stuff with the CHL uh NHL agreement and how that may impact things and and and things of those nature that nature and then Ben um obviously hugely talented guy it’s going to be depending on how you know what he learns in the next week how he takes to strength and conditioning power and then how he’s able to manifest that come training camp so they’re all very different types of players and and people it would be fantastic if they all debuted on the same day and then played for 20 years with the with the Penguins i think Penguins have been pretty fortunate in having something like that in the past but um you know we we we have to do what’s best for each of them individually and make sure that they’re on the on the right path but it’s obviously on from a very broad perspective their development is you know the most important uh thing you know in the short run for us for these young guys
did you find that all the picks that you gathered at the deadline in the spring
carried the cache and the currency that you wanted by the time it got to draft day or did it did those picks not have enough pop and the maneuverability that you were trying to use them for uh well I think um like to to move up in the first round um there was just no you know there was no appetite for any team to to move you really to get up in there you have would have been 11 and 12 and then throughout but then but to answer your question deep but more deeply we were able to use a lot of those picks to move up we moved up using the pick from the Bilier trade to go up and get uh Will Horov uh uh which be part of what we paired with the of the pick that we got to trade down so you know throughout the throughout the day I I think that um that was present i think in terms of actually trading for players I don’t think we ever expected that the picks in the 25 draft would see us trade for for players it’s going to be the it’ll be the future draft picks that teams are going to more want as we get into this next few days and throughout the summer so I think they they did enable us to move up to get Will uh from the Boilier trade and and um you know which which was hugely important for us and valuable for us
for so many years you’ve heard people say well he needs to work on his skating or he needs to work on this or that what have you found just in your experience with the emphasis so much on development where you’ve actually seen really good examples of players who started here and ended up here by virtue of all the things that you’re doing i think the the greatest example I’ve ever seen on the skating side is Mason Marchment we signed him to an American League deal as as an overage in Toronto and I think he had the quote that you can look up which is that he needed to learn to skate at 21 years old coming into pro hockey and we didn’t play him for a long stretch of the first year because he needed to build up the foundation and you know you see the type of player he’s turned into it’s a you know in terms of we traded him in Toronto it was I think about it every day in terms of being a mistake uh big one probably one of the biggest for me uh but he would be the the player that I think of in terms of that’s grown the most and and developed the most in a in a one specific area that that comes up and then there’s any number of examples here like to use it to just to kind of focus on in the recent past a player that’s a little bit older and how development you know you got these some of these guys here are 17 but if you go to like guys that are 26 27 Yona Copen last year he came in from Boston the first year was okay last year he really deeply bought into the developmental program and the skating program combined with the performance program in Wilks and and objectively speaking his skating improved 10 to 12% 12% % in terms of his speed and overall power and now we we’ve brought him back for another year because he’s made those major gains in that area so you know there there’s there’s that there’s the the defensive piece which is be you know at the beginning when we started we focused so much on skill and offense and playm you know we that’s been I’ve had to adapt my view of that because you know and and how are we going to improve these guys as defensive players and so that’s been a major focus and and you’ll see it here this week and then it’s you know you you look every year and watch the playoffs every year and the ability to go back and retrieve a puck under immense pressure is is hugely important so we start to build that in as a key centerpiece of everything we want in part of our program and you’ll see that throughout the development camp it’s not the most exciting stuff probably to come and watch as a fan or media member but you know the guys are going to have to develop quickly a way to go back collect rim pucks under immense pressure if we’re going to win so we’re trying to build those key tenants into it so I could talk about the development stuff for a long time as you see but yeah
the possibility trades i know we’ve asked you about Brian Rust Carter Hill Eric Carlson going back to the deadline exit interview days is anything changed on the front in terms of anyone if anyone ever expresses interest in that
yeah I I know more about the free agent market because of the calls we get on our veteran guys of teams saying you know the market is nuts you know we we we might have more interest in doing a deal or a trade so we we’re we’re going to evaluate everything we’re going to do what’s best for the Penguins and but I mean you know in one of those players cases specifically I mean there’s it means a lot to the team he’s been a part of the team for the 15 years since he was drafted so unless it’s something that it you know blows us away in terms of in terms of what it what it returns that it can very easily be looked at to help us return to contention that would be a that’d be a tough one but um you know we’ll we’ve got lots of calls on him he’s a great player signed U but he’s also a massive member of the Penguins so we’ll we’ll uh we’ll continue to be open for business but some you know the price will be very

Penguins President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas addresses the media on Monday, June 30.

SUBSCRIBE to be among the first to see new Penguins content by clicking here: https://pens.pe/subscribe