During Pittsburgh’s day off on Tuesday, Kyle Dubas sat down with Penguins broadcaster Josh Getzoff to discuss the state of the team for the biweekly GM Show. It was broadcast tonight on 105.9 the X, and will also air Wednesday at 6:30 PM on SportsNet Pittsburgh.
The Penguins President of Hockey Operations and GM felt that his team didn’t play very well in either game of their home-and-home set with Philadelphia, losing first in a shootout and then in overtime.
“They're in better form right now than us,” Dubas said of the Flyers, who remain ahead of the Penguins in the tight Metro Division standings. After the first-place Rangers, who have a comfortable lead, the rest of the group is battling for position.
Entering Tuesday night’s games, Carolina is second (29 points); Philadelphia is third (28 points); Washington is fourth (26 points); the Islanders are fifth (26 points); Pittsburgh is sixth (25 points); New Jersey is seventh (23 points); and Columbus is eighth (20 points).
When Dubas evaluates his group, he sees a team that has shown an ability to go toe-to-toe with some of the NHL’s best. But of course, there are also times when the Penguins don’t have their best for long stretches.
“I think part of that is just professional sports, and the ebbs and flows of a season. When you're immersed deeply in it day in and day out, you can forget that pretty quickly, and the fans and media can forget that very quickly, because it's emotional,” Dubas said. "You want the team to be at their best every single night.
"When the team isn't at their best, especially a team like this that has won championships here and had great success here, the angst starts to come. It's at that point where I think my job and (Head Coach Mike Sullivan)’s job is most important – to fight that off and help to get the team moving in the right direction.”
Particularly when it comes to the power play, which is currently mired in a 0-for-29 slump and ranks 30th in the league despite boasting plenty of talent. Dubas said from his perspective, this area of the game must be rectified, there’s no doubt about it. But if the Penguins are stuck dealing with these struggles, he’d rather go through them now as opposed to April or May.
“Because of our goaltending, because of our penalty kill, and because of our ability at even strength, we've been able to stay in the race despite the power play going into week three or four of not being able to find a way,” Dubas said. “So, if we can get the power play sorted out, and we continue to build on those other areas of our game, I think we're going to be in a good spot.”
Dubas reiterated what Sullivan and his players have been saying, that getting the power play to contribute is top of mind for everyone.
“Everybody wants to make it a strength of ours, because it should be a strength. But that takes work. It's especially difficult when it's not going well, because of the confidence factor that's involved in that special team in particular,” Dubas said. “So, for us, we have to collect ourselves and start to climb our way out of the hole that we've created there and start to move forward in a positive way. We’re all looking at it as a vital part to us whether we're going to be a true contender or not. So, we know how important is, most definitely.”
While Sidney Crosby’s line has been dominant, right now the Penguins could use more contributions from the rest of the group, whose depth has been tested with injuries to top-six winger Rickard Rakell, and more recently, fourth-line forwards Noel Acciari and Matt Nieto.
The Penguins have been making adjustments to their bottom-six, as they try to get consistency out of players like Radim Zohorna, who’s fallen off a bit after showing chemistry alongside Lars Eller and Drew O’Connor.
“I thought Radim was really good in training camp, and then was really good when he came back through the first stretch. The challenges that often present themselves with these types of players are starting to show now,” Dubas said. “Can you sustain it, and then when it doesn't go as well, can you claw your way back and find that? I think in Radim’s case, that's the point where we're at.”
After claiming Jansen Harkins off of waivers and giving him an opportunity in Pittsburgh, where Dubas said he was “okay,” he got re-assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton so that Zohorna could come back up.
“Now, Jansen’s played the way that he really needs to play, I think, to be effective and earn a full-time NHL spot,” Dubas said. “He's forechecking, he’s playing with speed, he’s been physical, he's caused turnovers, he's drawn penalties. That's been really encouraging.”
Alex Nylander slotted into the lineup last game for Vinnie Hinostroza, a veteran player who’s been up and down the last couple of seasons. “We’re trying to build and coach him to have that level of consistency, which I know that Sully and I have discussed that at length about Vinnie,” Dubas said.
Finally, Dubas said they didn’t do a good enough job of giving Joona Koppanen a better opportunity in training camp, and he’s liked what the Finnish forward has brought since getting called up.
“It's just the games have been so tight in the two games he played against Philadelphia, he hasn't got a ton of time,” Dubas said. “But we need to be patient, but I also think he's shown enough and improved enough thanks to the job they did in Wilkes-Barre with him to be better suited to come up here and get rolling.”
Looking ahead to Thursday’s game in Tampa, Dubas called it “a massive game for us in how we approach it.” He feels the two games in Florida, starting with the Lightning before continuing on to play the Panthers on Friday, will be indicative of where the Penguins are at.
“Can we clean up a lot of the stuff that we've let slip against Philadelphia, and find our way against a very difficult opponent on the road in two of them?” Dubas said. “That’s for me, as I continue to get to know and learn this group, the different things that I'm looking for that will be instructive to how we dictate the course of where we go in the second half of the year.”
