TORONTO — Kyle Dubas was warmly greeted by a longtime MLSE arena staffer Monday, a reminder of the fixture that he was in these parts for nine years from 2014 to 2023, the last five of which as general manager. He certainly knows his way around Scotiabank Arena.

The native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, who turns 40 later this month, has about as busy a calendar as one can have these days. As part of Team Canada’s Olympic staff, he’s bouncing around from NHL arena to NHL arena. And in his day job as Penguins general manager, he’s overseeing one of the league’s most surprising teams.

Meanwhile, a return to Toronto this week, where he’ll be back again next week for a GMs meeting as well as a Team Canada Olympic meeting, always brings back memories and a chance to reflect on his time here.

Dubas sat down with The Athletic on Monday morning to chat about it all: the Penguins, Team Canada and looking back with a little more openness about his time in Toronto.

The surprising Pens

The Penguins have missed the playoffs three straight seasons. The last time they missed four straight times was 2001-02 through 2005-06, the last of which was Sidney Crosby’s rookie season. And we know how it went from there on.

A fourth straight year out of the postseason was pretty much a slam dunk from the pundits before this season, but one month in, the Penguins are stuffing those predictions right down everyone’s throats.

We’ll see if Monday night’s third-period collapse against the Maple Leafs has any effect on the team, but for now, there is probably no bigger surprise in the NHL.

“I don’t know that we’ve stuffed it in anyone’s face,” Dubas said. “It’s still really early. I still think we’ve got a long way to go with our overall game, and I don’t say (that) from a negative standpoint; I say that from the standpoint of having the potential to play a lot better, and (coach Dan Muse) echoes a lot of that when he talks publicly.

“Throughout the summer, I just didn’t think it was any benefit to confront or go back to what people’s expectations were. We have our own expectations internally, and for me, in this job, it’s always been about taking a longer-range viewpoint. But more so for the players that have been here for a long time, but also the guys that have come in here and taken advantage of the opportunity, you’re always really happy when you see it result in them having success as individuals and that individual success helping the team win.”

Balancing the long-term need to retool and restock with a real-time desire to remain competitive is as challenging a task as there is. In finishing 13th in the East last season, the Penguins weren’t very competitive. But now comes some hope.

Dubas went out of his way to credit past regimes for leaving more than people give them credit for: the likes of Owen Pickering, Sergei Murashov and Zam Plante.

“They had started to go down that path and done really good work there,” said Dubas, who arrived in May 2023.

Still, Dubas had a lot to do over the past few years in overhauling the roster. And as our Penguins writer Josh Yohe recently wrote, some of his offseason moves have hit, such as Anthony Mantha, Justin Brazeau, Parker Wotherspoon and Artūrs Šilovs. Harrison Brunicke, Ben Kindel, Ville Koivunen and Filip Hallander are also all youngsters Dubas has brought in.

“Overall, we’re trying to get the team back to being a contender and to have that be on a perennial basis,” Dubas said. “In the short run, it’s three things: 1) To sustain and maximize the level of the guys that have been great players in the league for a long time. Everyone knows who they are. 2) We’re trying to bring in players that either need a second chance or haven’t got a great opportunity elsewhere. … And 3) Really developing that next wave that’s going to lead the team in the (next) five, 10, 15 years. And do those collectively and bring it together collectively and help create a good situation and a good environment.”

He credited Muse, his new head coach, for bringing all of that together so far.

Crosby’s future

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the early success stretches to the rest of the season, which brings us to the most talked-about part: Where does that leave No. 87?

It’s a delicate balance, focusing on longer-view planning while trying to keep the roster competitive and communicating those things to Crosby and his agent, Pat Brisson.

“Our goal is not so different,” Dubas said of the 38-year-old Crosby. “Every day, we’re trying to get better. We’re trying to put ourselves in a position to win every single day. And I think that’s been what we really set out to do from the spring to the summer through the fall. I understand that it doesn’t appear on the outside at times that it’s glaringly obvious, but internally, we have very different viewpoints on it, and the results of the team will dictate who’s right and who’s wrong.

“I communicate that with Sid and with Pat, and I just don’t think we can veer from it if we’re going to deliver for him a team that can contend while he’s still at this level, while he’s still playing. … We’re very fortunate to have a person of that character, capability, of that winning pedigree, all in one. That in itself is probably the most important part of bringing the team back to that point (contention), is that you have that example.

“And the one thing I would say from being there is that it’s not just Sid having that burning desire and that history. You’ve got Geno Malkin and Kris Letang, and Bryan Rust has been part of winning twice here; we have others like Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rakell, they’re trying to win for the first time.”

At the end of the day, it’s not really Dubas’ call anyway on Crosby’s future. It’s Crosby’s.

It’s not like Dubas would go to Crosby and say he wants him out.

“No, I would never,” Dubas said. “He’s got two years, this year and next year, on his contract. And I just think that if we continue to take the right steps and we continue to win, that’s the great solution to everything in sports. Just have to win.”

Sidney Crosby’s future isn’t as complicated if the Penguins keep winning. (Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)

Team Canada

Crosby and Dubas are connected on another mission this season: helping lead Team Canada to gold in Milan.

Dubas is among the group of NHL managers helping Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong determine the Olympic roster before the Dec. 31 deadline. It’s meant countless trips to NHL arenas and not much sleep, but Dubas relishes the opportunity.

“You’re around Doug Armstrong, Jim Nill, Julien BriseBois, Don Sweeney, (Hockey Canada’s) Scott Salmond, Ryan Getzlaf — for me, it’s just been a great opportunity to learn so much,” said Dubas, who was GM of Canada’s team at the IIHF World Championship that got stunned by Denmark in the quarterfinals and also part of the Canada’s staff for 4 Nations. “And you’re around the coaching staff, which are some of the best coaches ever.

“It’s been an awesome opportunity, and my role there is to do anything I can to provide information and go anywhere I can to try to help.”

This week, for example, Dubas was in Toronto for Penguins-Maple Leafs on Monday, then in New York for Hurricanes-Rangers on Tuesday and then will be home for Capitals-Penguins on Thursday, on Long Island for Wild-Islanders on Friday, in New Jersey for Penguins-Devils on Saturday afternoon, back in New York for Islanders-Rangers Saturday night and then back in Toronto for Hurricanes-Leafs on Sunday ahead of Monday’s Team Canada meeting and the GMs meeting Tuesday.

“The end of this month is even busier,” Dubas said. “But it’s been great for a number of facets that also benefit the Penguins. You see lots of teams. You see guys up and down. Your level of information (from) just being out there is an awesome opportunity.”

The goal for the Team Canada meeting is to cut down the list of players heading into the final six weeks of decision-making.

What’s it like to be in on those conversations?

“It’s really just trying to get Army the information and provide him the opinions that he asks,” Dubas said. “He’s been outstanding and very clear in everything he wants and what the objectives are for each meeting. You can see why he’s had the success that he’s had.”

Back in Toronto

Being back in Toronto always brings back memories for Dubas, who was fired as Leafs GM in May 2023 after a second-round loss to Florida.

Dubas hasn’t spoken a whole lot about his exit. He’s never seen much currency in it. When we sat down for an interview at the March 2024 GMs meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, less than a year from his firing, he said he still didn’t really want to open up about it because there were people he worked with who were still with the Leafs. He said perhaps “deep in the future” he would go more into his feelings about how everything went down.

Now two and a half years removed, and with his old boss, Brendan Shanahan, also gone, I asked Dubas again for his thoughts on his time with the Leafs and his exit.

“When I think of the time here, I think it was a great opportunity but that we didn’t reach the potential the team had,” Dubas said. “I think that in my role that falls on me — that I wasn’t able to provide the coaching staff or the roster with the right things that it needed to push it over the edge and bring a championship to Toronto.

“There’s a number of people here still, seeing some of the development staff on the ice, you’re proud of those different things that were built up over the nine years. I think if you look at 2014 (when he arrived as AGM) and look at it now, it’s a contending team. The ups and downs are a little bit pronounced here (he smiled), and I see that now from afar. But I just think it was on me that we didn’t do everything that we could to push it to the right spots. I think about that often.”

The part that won’t soon be forgotten is Dubas’ emotional news conference a few days after the exit to Florida, which as it turns out, would be his last as Leafs GM, fired four days later by Shanahan. The events of that week were as drama-filled as the Leafs have had in the modern era.

For one, it’s been well-established that Shanahan didn’t want Dubas to do that media availability, because Dubas’ status on an expiring deal was still unresolved. There were ongoing contract talks to re-sign Dubas.

“We had gone through the whole day in exit meetings with players and the coaching staff, and I didn’t feel — given that we had not reached our objective of winning; we lost to Florida in five games — I didn’t feel that I could run from doing the press and leave Sheldon Keefe and the players just to do it without me going up there and standing in there and taking difficult questions and being accountable,” Dubas said. “Because in the end, I felt it was on me.

“I understand, from their perspective (Shanahan’s and ownership’s), that my status was up in the air and unclear. What I said that day is how I felt at that exact time. I didn’t expect four days later that it would be over. But what I said that day is how I felt and how we felt as a family at the time, having gone through the year.

“I wanted to face the music. I wasn’t going to run from the fact we hadn’t reached our goal again.”

Yne could see the weight of that last season — the subject of his expiring contract being a story all year, and the Leafs’ playoff failure again front and center — pouring out of Dubas that day.

But in no way does he regret talking.

“I wouldn’t change that part of it at all,” Dubas said. “Other people can say or feel what they want about it. To me, in this job and especially when doing it here, I think that level of accountability is important, very important. … I don’t regret that, and if that’s the reason they made their decision (to fire me), that’s fine.”

In the end, with two and a half years now to decompress, Dubas doesn’t carry any bitterness from the experience. He’s grateful, he said, for the opportunity Shanahan gave him as a first-time NHL GM. Dubas reiterated that in the end, he owns it as GM for not being able to pull the right levers to get the Leafs to the promised land.

“The goal was to win, and we didn’t get it done,” he said. “That’s on me.”