With the Penguins on a challenging Canadian road trip, Kyle Dubas knows he’ll have a lot to go on when it comes to evaluating and assessing the group.
“It's a hard week, and you learn so much more about your teams when you go through hard weeks like this. So, we'll go through that, then we'll come home next week, and then we'll analyze it from there,” he told SportsNet Pittsburgh play-by-play broadcaster Josh Getzoff during the latest edition of the GM Show, recorded before the Penguins’ 4-3 overtime loss to Calgary.
“But so much more of it is in the long range. I think everyone wants to know, did you win or you lose? For me, it's more, how are we playing? How are we responding when things go poorly? Have we improved ourselves defensively? Are we still getting contributions from lower in the lineup? Have some of the goaltenders stepped up? Those are the things that I'll be looking for before the calendar turns to November.”
Pittsburgh’s President of Hockey Operations and GM discussed some of those topics in more depth—read more below.
Three-goalie situation
With Alex Nedeljkovic healthy and available to play on Sunday in Winnipeg for the first time this season, he got the start against the Jets. The 22-year-old rookie Joel Blomqvist backed up. Mike Sullivan said that Tristan Jarry did not dress as part of a comprehensive game plan to help the two-time All-Star re-discover his best game.
The Penguins went with the same goaltending plan on Tuesday in Calgary.
Regarding how long the Penguins might carry three goalies, Dubas said some of it is health-related and roster-related. If they start to experience additional injuries or illnesses, he won’t leave the group shorthanded.
As of now, Blake Lizotte (concussion) and Matt Nieto (reconstructive MCL surgery on his left knee) are on injured reserve. Nieto underwent his procedure on May 2 and was given an expected recovery time of 6-7 months. He has been skating, but considering that the forward hasn’t played since last November, Dubas anticipates Nieto needing a fairly extensive conditioning stint in Wilkes-Barre.
Lizotte also continues to skate and make progress, so once those players are ready to return, Dubas said decisions will be made. In the meantime, Dubas said before Tuesday’s game that he is looking for one of the goaltenders to seize what he called an “immense” opportunity.
“These guys, their whole lives as goalies, look for this chance,” Dubas said. “No one has really grabbed the ball to start to run with it, and we need two of them to do so. I think everyone's been aware of the struggles that Tristan's had. He's owned them publicly as well. We need to do right by him with getting him on the right track for better or worse. This does happen with goalies in the league that go on to find their way back and have very successful, long careers. It's how they handle this stretch that will define it, and that's what we're looking forward to from Tristan. Joel, I think, as a younger guy has come in and he's had some very good nights that have given us a chance to win, and now Alex is back as well. So, it's a competition, and it's a massive opportunity.”
The challenge ahead for Tristan in particular
Sullivan has talked at length about trying to help Jarry through his struggles, with Dubas providing his perspective in the interview with Getzoff.
For background, when Jarry was sidelined with an illness and unable to make an expected start on April 1 against the Rangers, Nedeljkovic stepped in. He ended up starting the last eight games of the season. It was a tough ending to a season filled with ups and downs for Jarry, who went home, regrouped and came back in excellent shape.
With Nedeljkovic injured to start the year, Jarry got the nod for the season opener, a 6-0 loss to Toronto. Blomqvist debuted the next night in Detroit and played extremely well, getting the net for the next two games. After Jarry put together a decent outing in Montreal, he started the next game in Buffalo, and was pulled upon surrendering three goals on five shots.
Here’s Dubas’ full quote on the Jarry situation:
“I go back to my time as an assistant general manager and then general manager now, we've had stretches… we've had Jonathan Bernier, Fred Anderson, Jack Campbell, guys that find their way into these types of funks. Very good goalies. You know they're very talented. So, if they're very talented and they're not performing to the level that you expect, I think it's incumbent on the organization and the coaching staff and management to figure out the why and begin to work on a plan to get them out of it. I think everyone knows Tristan is a very talented goaltender. He's been an All-Star for the organization twice in the past. He was tied for the league lead in shutouts last season. So we can do what I think most want you to do at this time, which is to turn your back and throw the baby out with the bath water. People will argue that he's been with the organization a long time, it hasn't clicked. I would say that you can look around the league to the goalie that won the Stanley Cup last year, and I recall 14 months prior, 15 months prior to winning the Stanley Cup, he was scratched or backing up for the Florida Panthers on a long-term deal that people at that time were criticizing as well. So, in the end, it's going to be on Tristan to put the work in and find his way through it. I believe that he will do that, and I believe he's too talented to just completely give up on. I'm excited about the challenge of helping him get back to his form, and excited to see our coaching staff and Tristan work together to push and get him there.”
Defensive help for the goalies
A big storyline surrounding the group is their defensive play, as the Penguins have now surrendered at least three goals in each of their first eight games. “Obviously, it’s an area of great concern,” Dubas said.
He added that it’s a key theme for the coaching staff, because “we know the outcome if we don't clean that up, because the team has lived it the last two seasons,” Dubas said.
If they want to avoid being disappointed for a third straight year, Dubas would like to see a lot more tenacity within their structure: “That will have us playing on defense less, making more stops up the ice. Not just in the defensive zone, but tracking back through the neutral zone, and allowing us to play on offense more. But it's a deep commitment to do that, and it takes tremendous will, focus and intensity, and that's what we expect.”
Depth scoring
In his season-opening media availability, Dubas spoke about how they didn’t want the identity of the bottom-six forwards to be purely defensive-focused, saying they needed that group to score as well.
So far, so good in that regard. Veterans like Lars Eller (four goals) and Kevin Hayes (three goals) have stepped up, while other players should hopefully be coming around soon.
“Michael Bunting hasn't produced yet; I think Cody Glass has played very good hockey, and I think the contributions will start to come for him,” Dubas said. “He's been very cognizant defensively, good speed. He's had a bunch of changes. They just haven't fallen. If he keeps playing that way, I think they'll start to go in for him. He's just too talented of a player. Puusty has only played in one game, and Rutger McGroarty, very smart, very talented player. We just made the decision last week that it's best for him to go to Wilkes and play a ton rather than play 10 to 12 minutes here in Pittsburgh. The guys down in Wilkes have also produced pretty well coming out of the chute here. So, we're excited by that. But we need that to really continue to be a theme every time we sit down here, that we're getting contributions from those players.”
More on Rutger McGroarty
Regarding the 20-year-old forward’s situation, Dubas wanted to highlight the fact that McGroarty had quite a strange summer.
“I don't know the ins and outs of the situation he was in other than it wasn't going to work out in Winnipeg. So, you're not turning pro when a lot of your peers are. You're going to go back to Michigan, and then late August you get traded, and then you have to go through, okay, am I going to sign or not?” Dubas said.
“So, it's a summer that's very much in flux. No matter how focused and stringent you are with your details and your habits like he is, you're not going to be at your very peak physically. I think for us, we certainly saw that in his testing. Despite the fact that he's in great condition, there's still so much more room for growth for him on all those fronts.”
Dubas lauded McGroarty’s ability to start off strong in the Prospects Challenge and continue improving from there, saying it spoke volumes about his intelligence, instincts and ability to adapt and develop quickly.
“His ability to just make the right play every time, his ability on the walls at both ends of the rink, are very, very good,” Dubas said. “It's not the flashy, sexy part of prospect stuff that you see on Instagram and Twitter all the time where teams post all this fancy crap that their prospects do, but it helps you to win. That's why he's won at most levels he's been at, is because he's been a leader of those teams and plays that way. So that, to me, is exciting about Rutger.”
