On Wednesday, Pittsburgh Penguins GM and POHO Kyle Dubas made a pretty drastic move to try and reverse the fortunes of his team, which has fallen further down the Eastern Conference standings since the holiday break.
By waiving starting goaltender Tristan Jarry – the same goaltender he extended to a five-year, $26.88 million contract in the summer of 2023 – Dubas both showed a sense of urgency to right the ship this season and a desire to move toward the future of the franchise at the goaltending position. By extension, he also took responsibility for his mistake in signing Jarry to that term and dollar figure in the first place.
He even said as much when he met with the media on Wednesday following the decision:
Dubas was asked if today is more difficult given it was his decision to extend Jarry in summer 2023. He took ownership; said part of the job is to try and rectify these situations instead of prolonging/forcing them, and cautioned against writing the obituary too quick. Quote ⬇️ https://t.co/GKEc5sujpb pic.twitter.com/efQY5lT6ww
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) January 15, 2025
Dubas’s decision to, in a sense, move on from Jarry and look to the future in rookie Joel Blomqvist isn’t just indicative of a direction for goaltending. It’s also an overt reminder of the direction he’s taking the franchise – as well as the pace of that direction – in all facets.
Let’s get one thing straight off the bat: Dubas’s moves in his first summer need to be looked at from a different lens than those since then. When he arrived in Pittsburgh during the summer of 2023, the team had just missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006. At the time, the Penguins still weren’t a team that was ready to fully pivot toward rebuilding.
That’s why folks saw moves like the Erik Karlsson and Reilly Smith trades that summer. Even the Jarry extension and the Ryan Graves signing were made with that mindset, even though neither ended up working out.
At the time, Graves and Jarry were the best available options on the market. At the time, Dubas was trying to get back to the playoffs in 2023-24.
However, when it became apparent around the 2024 trade deadline that the playoffs were not likely to happen, it was a bit of a turning point. And that is the point where – presumably – the shift went from trying to eke out a final Cinderella run to rebuilding for the future.
That turning point materialized when Dubas decided to deal the organization’s most valuable trade asset, Jake…