Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas is no stranger to making a trade. And as we enter the dog days of summer, with the NHL’s 2026 free agent frenzy having died down, Dubas likely remains open to strengthening his roster—in the short and long term—via trade.
While we wait to see if Dubas takes another home-run swing, let us reexamine the larger trades he’s made during his tenure and see how those transactions have shaped the franchise as of July 2026.
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The Erik Karlsson trade: One more time…
The Erik Karlsson trade will be remembered by Penguins fans not only for what it brought to Pittsburgh, but also for what it allowed the Penguins to shed thanks to the ill-fated Ron Hextall regime.
In August 2023, two months after he was hired, Dubas would make the defining acquisition of his Penguins tenure (thus far) by trading for the reigning Norris Trophy winner, Erik Karlsson, in a massive three-team trade with the San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens.
Dubas swung for the fences by bringing in Karlsson, giving Sidney Crosby and company one last legitimate chance at trying to compete for a championship.
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The Penguins acquired Erik Karlsson, forwards Rem Pitlick and Dillon Hamaliuk, plus the San Jose Sharks’ 2026 third-round draft pick. The Penguins just used that 2026 third-round pick (86th overall) to draft forward Pierce Mbuyi.
Pittsburgh also used the trade to unload Jeff Petry, Casey DeSmith, Jan Rutta and Mikael Granlund while San Jose retained $1.5 million annually on Karlsson’s contract.
Was the trade worth it?
For the most part, I say yes.
It allowed Pittsburgh to shed the contracts Hextall had handed out while giving the Penguins one of the NHL’s premier offensive defensemen.
As a member of the black and gold, Karlsson has largely been as advertised. In 239 career games, the future Hockey Hall of Famer has notched 37 goals and 138 assists for 175 points. He was also one of the heroes of Pittsburgh’s playoff push last season.
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The trade didn’t produce a Stanley Cup, and I think most can agree that the “championship window” is shut. Still, it also didn’t prevent Dubas from pivoting toward a younger roster once it became clear the Penguins weren’t true contenders any longer.
The Jake Guentzel trade: A new era begins
The Karlsson trade did not yield a Stanley Cup for the Penguins, and Dubas was now going to flex his muscles to begin what he was surely hired to do in the first place: prepare for life after Sidney Crosby.
It wasn’t all that popular at the time, but in March 2024, this current hybrid rebuild was kick-started when star winger Jake Guentzel was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes along with AHL defenseman Ty Smith in exchange for NHL forward Michael Bunting, three prospects (Vasiliy Ponomarev, Ville Koivunen, and Cruz Lucius), and two draft picks, which ultimately turned into promising defensive prospect Harrison Brunicke.
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As for the three prospects received in the trade, this was more of a quantity-over-quality approach, as Dubas began to rebuild Pittsburgh’s thin prospect pool.
As of July 2026, Ponomarev is out of the NHL picture, currently in the middle of a three-year contract with Avangard Omsk of the KHL.
Lucius wrapped up the 2025-26 season with the Arizona State Sun Devils, playing in 36 games and registering an impressive 15 goals and 46 points. In April 2026, it was announced that Lucius would not sign a professional contract with the Penguins. He stands to become a free agent on Aug. 15, 2026.
During glimpses at the NHL level, Koivunen has looked like a fringe player with decent-to-impressive underlying statistics. He is rather dominant in the American Hockey League, however. Will he ever be able to put it all together to earn a permanent spot in an NHL lineup? The clock is ticking.
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Brunicke, meanwhile, looks primed to earn an NHL roster spot, perhaps as soon as this season, after getting some more seasoning between the WHL and AHL.
This trade still feels somewhat incomplete, depending on what the future holds for Koivunen and Brunicke, with the 20-year-old blue liner indirectly becoming the crown jewel of the Guentzel trade.
The Marcus Pettersson trade: One last gift from Jim Rutherford
Defenseman Marcus Pettersson had become a dependable player on Pittsburgh’s back end, but with him eligible for an extension and Pittsburgh ultimately not clinching a playoff spot by the end of the 2024-25 season, he was shipped out west to the executive who originally brought him to Pittsburgh: Jim Rutherford and the Vancouver Canucks.
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On Jan. 31, 2025, Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor were traded to the Canucks for forward Danton Heinen and defenseman Vincent Desharnais.
Pittsburgh also received forward prospect Melvin Fernstrom and a conditional first-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, which Vancouver had acquired earlier in the day in the trade that sent forward J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers.
The first-round pick acquired from Vancouver eventually became two first-round selections after Dubas traded down with Philadelphia during the 2025 draft. Those choices wound up producing Bill Zonnon and Will Horcoff, significantly expanding Pittsburgh’s prospect pipeline.
Whether Zonnon or Horcoff become impactful NHL players remains to be seen, but the trade exemplified Dubas’ willingness to prioritize organizational depth—something he’s already developed a reputation for.
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The Michael Bunting trade: Twins and 2C Tommy Novak
Michael Bunting, we hardly knew ye.
The Penguins traded Bunting and a 2026 fourth-round draft pick to the Nashville Predators on March 6, 2025, for forward Tommy Novak and veteran defenseman Luke Schenn.
Schenn, wanting to play for a playoff team, was then flipped two days later to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for a second-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft (more on that below) and a fourth-round pick in the 2027 draft.
Novak has since become a top-nine fixture for the Penguins. Last season, he centered one of Pittsburgh’s more dynamic forward trios, using his playmaking to set up scoring threats Egor Chinakhov and Evgeni Malkin.
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Novak, Malkin, and Chinakhov figure to build on that chemistry heading into the 2026-27 campaign.
Back to that Schenn-Winnipeg trade. That 2026 second-rounder would end up completing the twin set for the Penguins, as they drafted forward Markus Ruck with the 39th overall pick after drafting twin brother Liam with the 22nd overall pick some 12 hours prior.
Incomplete and/or inconclusive trades
I have lumped a few players into this section for different reasons, mainly due to incomplete or inconclusive trade grades since these players were recently acquired.
Nick Robertson: Not that one — The Penguins acquired forward Nick Robertson, brother of Dallas Stars forward Jason, from the Toronto Maple Leafs for a 2028 fourth-round draft pick on July 1. The trade reunites Robertson with Dubas, who previously drafted him while in Toronto.
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Robertson represents another familiar reclamation project for Dubas, who surely believes there is still untapped offensive upside.
Hendrix Lapierre: An interesting logjam — The Penguins acquired forward Hendrix Lapierre from the Washington Capitals in exchange for a 2027 third-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick. Shortly after the trade, Pittsburgh signed Lapierre to a two-year contract worth $1.3 million annually.
The acquisition also fits Dubas’ recent trend of targeting former first-round picks (see Chinakhov, Egor) whose development has stalled elsewhere.
He figures to fight for a spot among the other young forwards at Pittsburgh’s disposal for a bottom-six role.
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Kaedan Korczak: One defenseman for another — The Penguins made an interesting move when they traded arguably their best left-handed defenseman last season, Parker Wotherspoon, to the Vegas Golden Knights for right-handed defenseman Kaedan Korczak. Pittsburgh will also retain half of Wotherspoon’s salary.
The left side of Pittsburgh’s defensive depth chart looks bare, while the right side figures to include Karlsson and Kris Letang at a minimum. Throw in Korczak, the budding Brunicke, and the recently signed Trevor van Riemsdyk, and you have another positional logjam.
It’s only July 8, so there is plenty of time for Dubas to sort out a proper roster before training camp.
David Gustafsson: Respectable AHL depth — The Penguins traded defenseman Jack St. Ivany to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for forward David Gustafsson. Gustafsson has spent his career as a tweener for the Jets and their AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. He figures to earn the bulk of his playing time for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins following an impressive 2025-26 season for the Baby Penguins.
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Rickard Rakell: Will he stay or will he go? — We end this long exercise by looking at top-line winger Rickard Rakell. His name has routinely come up in trade rumors over the last two seasons as Dubas has reshaped the Penguins in his vision, namely getting younger. At 33 years old and signed to a $5 million AAV through the 2027-28 season, Rakell remains one of the roster’s most valuable veterans, both on the ice and as a potential trade asset.
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Looking back, Dubas’ philosophy has become clear. He has consistently prioritized flexibility, younger talent, and the maximization of asset value.
Some bets, like the Karlsson trade, were immediate swings at maintaining contention. Others, including the Guentzel and Pettersson deals, were investments for the future.
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The verdict on many of those moves won’t be known for years. Yet, Dubas has fundamentally reshaped nearly every part of Pittsburgh’s roster in the three-plus years he’s been here, with no signs of slowing down as he works to build Pittsburgh into a perennial contender once again.
