Analyzing The Penguins’ Rebuild: Are The Penguins Close To Sustainable Contention?

Recently, Adam Gretz of Pensburgh posted a spreadsheet detailing each second-round team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and how they acquired their talent. For five of the teams, at least one top-five pick (of their own) was in the fold. Only two of those teams – Colorado and the Anaheim Ducks – had three players drafted in the top-five, with all of Colorado’s being a core of players aged 27-plus in Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon (30), and Gabriel Landeskog (33).  The other three teams in Montreal, Carolina, and Buffalo had two or less.

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Beyond that? There were only 18 other homegrown first-round picks out of 175 players, for a grand total of 29 homegrown first-rounders. There were a nice handful of other picks, too, plenty of which Dubas and the Penguins have had.

But the vast majority of players on these teams were acquired via the trade market.

In fact, according to Gretz’s numbers, 83 players were acquired via trade, which accounts for 47.4 percent of all players in the second round. In addition, 33 players were either signed in free agency, claimed on waivers, or signed undrafted, so that means outside sourcing accounted for 66.3 percent of players in the 2026 playoffs.

So, for the Penguins, Dubas can and absolutely will build from the draft. First-rounders in Kindel, Zonnon, and Horcoff are a good starting point, and he will need more of those. But teams like the Vegas Golden Knights (to an extent) and Minnesota Wild are proof that drafting top-five isn’t entirely necessary for building a sustainable window of contention, as the Wild have only missed the playoffs twice since 2015 and Vegas has only missed once in their nine-year history.

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But the lesson here is that teams cannot solely rely on the draft and do, in fact, have to leverage some of their higher-value assets to land the pieces that will help them sustainably contend. After all, many of these trades involve former first-rounders from other organizations, too.

And the more draft capital and prospect talent a team has to leverage, the better-positioned they are to be able to land that talent.

With 15 picks in the first three rounds of the next three drafts – including 10 in the first two rounds – Dubas and the Penguins are in a great spot. Acquiring gamebreaking talent will require leveraging at least a first-round pick, but because of the peripheral talent that the team has already built out – and their selection in the 20s in 2026 – they’re in a position to do that.

On the surface, it may seem like the Penguins, lacking any true blue-chip prospects at this juncture (Kindel would have been one, and Zonnon/Horcoff could be), wouldn’t have what’s necessary to acquire players like Dallas Stars superstar forward Jason Robertson, Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews, or a true first-line center in St. Louis Blues forward Robert Thomas. A team like the Stars is win-now mode, and the other two teams are likely on a downward trajectory but still holding onto hopes of playoff contention with their respective cores.

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Even good players either with star potential or in need of a change of scenery, such as Stars’ defenseman Thomas Harley, Los Angeles Kings‘ defenseman Brandt Clarke, Seattle Kraken center Shane Wright, or Vancouver Canucks star Elias Pettersson, would cost a lot, especially with the rising cap and contract values.

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However, that’s where all those picks, all of that $42.7 million in cap space, and all that peripheral talent come into play. And Dubas is in an enviable position to be able to build out a package that could make teams bite.

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Sure, a first-round pick plus a veteran like Rickard Rakell alone isn’t going to land a star player. However, if Dubas would add on a few second- and third-round picks, a higher-end, near-NHL-ready prospect or two like McGroarty and Horcoff (depending on the coveted player), some salary retention, plus Rakell and that first? Well, then a player like Robertson, Harley, or Pettersson seems more attainable. And his draft capital and wide pool of prospects with upside allows him to keep adding on if necessary, as the Penguins have enough of both to be able to expend some of their valuable capital.

It’s tricky business, but acquiring a sure star player who can be around for the short- and the long-term – and who will, overwhelmingly likely, be a better player than any singular player out of the capital they leverage, including that 22nd overall pick – is a key aspect of building for the future.

If they can acquire that game-changing player as early as this summer, they may just be able to contend sustainably – even if there might be two windows with a small gap in between.

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“Gap control” is key

Of course, Penguins’ defensemen could certainly benefit from improving their gap control.

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But the gap we’re discussing here is a different kind.

Obviously, Dubas has kept his cards, generally, pretty close to the vest in terms of divulging the mechanics and timeline behind his short- and long-term plans. In fact, he has stressed on multiple occasions that he does not want to put a timeline on the Penguins’ rebuild and instead wants to, simply, do what’s best in order to get the team back to sustainable Stanley Cup contention as urgently as possible.

If you’ve been paying attention, though, woven within the commentary surrounding Dubas’s statement about the rebuild not being “binary” and his “hope in one hand, s— in the other” phrase from last spring, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Dubas is building toward the short- and long-term simultaneously, which will likely involve two windows of contention: One before Crosby retires and one after he retires.

“The way that we’re going will continue to be clear to everybody, which is: We’re trying to return the team to being a contender as soon as possible. How are we going to do that? We have to add younger NHL players, we have to add prospects, and we have to add future capital and draft picks to the mix.
“So, my view of it is that we should be able to accomplish that and still be able to maintain our spot in the playoff race and push for it. I know that isn’t met with the most open understanding at times, and I understand why. People want it to be binary. They want it to be, ‘Are you in contention now, or are you rebuilding now?’ And the in-between is where it tends to get a little bit ambiguous. I think we kind of like it that way as well because it keeps our cards closer to our chest.”

– – Kyle Dubas on the ‘GM Show with Josh Getzoff’ on Jan. 22, 2025

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And the key? Minimizing the gap between as much as possible.

Yes, the Penguins will, likely, still have to draft in or near the lottery zone in order to contend sustainably in the future. But that doesn’t necessarily need to happen until after Crosby decides to call it a career, especially with the earlier-than-anticipated emergence of Kindel as an option at top-six center as soon as next season.

And when you add in those other potential “core” pieces – Murashov and Brunicke should compete for a full-time roster spot next season, and Chinakhov, an RFA, will likely return – populating the NHL roster already, it stands to reason that, with a few key additions, the Penguins can be Stanley Cup contenders for a few years in the short-term.

“I just think there are a number of teams in the league that… you know, there are two paths to go down: You can go into the mass teardown rebuild and hope you get lucky with the lottery and hope that all this happens. But you can hope in one hand and s— in the other and see which one fills up first.”

– – Kyle Dubas in his 2024-25 season-ending press conference on Apr. 21, 2025

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In addition, the Penguins can – and should – get younger while doing so. Going for some bigger names means phasing out some older veterans along the way, including players like Rakell and, possibly, Malkin and Karlsson, the former having yet to re-sign for next season and the latter entering the final year of his contract. But phasing out a few doesn’t mean they need to phase out all, especially since their draft cupboard is already in a good place – and it doesn’t mean they’d be committing to any kind of “tank” in the near-term, as the aim in dealing those players would likely be to receive younger talent in return.

So, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising to see a player like Karlsson – who helps them win in the now and makes the team better – stick around until the Crosby window concludes. Same, too, with Rust, although it would also make sense to deal a player like him as part of one of those larger packages for younger talent.

But once Crosby retires? Yes, it’s realistic to assume that the Penguins might struggle for a few years, especially if a player like Karlsson is out, too. But the purpose of building all of this peripheral talent – the Zonnons, the Horcoffs, the Howes, the Hayeses, the Ilyins, the Hardings, etc. – plus having part of a “core” in place with Kindel Murashov, Brunicke, and Chinakhov would be to help minimize the gap between windows, whether that’s using that talent for the team or leveraging some of it in the trade market.

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And if a player such as Chinakhov or Brunicke doesn’t want to stick around for those few down years? They can, hopefully, flip them for valuable draft capital and assets, which would also help build toward that longer-term, post-Crosby window of contention.

It’s worth emphasizng that none of this is a given, and there is inherent risk in every rebuild ever attempted. Long, tear-it-to-the-studs rebuilds risk fostering a culture of perpetual losing, while shortcut retools and rebuilds risk being unsustainable in the long-term.

It appears that Dubas and the Penguins find themselves in a sort of sweet spot in between. If executed correctly, Pittsburgh won’t find themselves on the outside looking in for too long at all – and they will be primed to carry on their legacy as a franchise that accepts nothing less than a championship-oriented culture.

Not only that, they would also become the gold standard for a different yet scouting-focused, streamlined approach to rebuilding in the modern-day NHL.

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