Things had been quiet overall as we wait on the potential trades for some Pittsburgh Penguins veteran players. The quiet spell has been broken, but for a veteran player from another team. On Thursday, the Pens acquired (soon to be) 31-year-old defenseman Matt Dumba from the Dallas Stars.
Is he going to help Pittsburgh? Well that depends on what you consider help these days. Is he going to help them win hockey games? Absolutely not. Can he help the team with the ambitions towards Gavin McKenna, very much so.
Dallas is up against it with the cap and is trying to navigate a delicate contract situation with star winger Jason Robertson. Dumba has one year left on his deal at $3.75 million. Removing Dumba provides much-needed cap space for Dallas. The Pens weren’t doing any kind favors for the service, though. They pulled off a nicer version of the Kevin Hayes trade.
Dumba has an expiring deal and Dubas was able to land a second round pick for Pittsburgh to take on the contract, albeit in 2028. This is another very good trade for the Penguins, who are not actually trying to win right now. The cap is meaningless. They just need to keep collecting futures like they’ve been eating up other people’s cap problems. While I can squabble about some of the things general manager Kyle Dubas has or hasn’t done, these style of trades have been a strength for him. Something that doesn’t impact the short or long term ability of the Penguins to build their roster while they collect the type of assets they very much need.
Dumba is a right defenseman and given the rumors swirling around about the Penguins they may have a right defenseman slot available in the not-so-distant future. Dumba is here predominately for the second round pick and secondly for the minutes to fill after the likely Erik Karlsson trade happens.
Not a “Dumba” way to go about things if you are Kyle Dubas.
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From Haase… The Penguins have now accumulated 29 draft picks over the next three years — 17 of which are within the first three rounds.
I enjoy that all these future picks will be a lot of ammo for “hey, we are at the beginning of a win window. We are in a position to throw in an extra pick in the deal in exchange for getting some cap eaten by the OTHER team”
This is paying cap space now to save cap space later.
The final thing i’d really like to see this offseason is “taking a shot on a young pre-breakout player who has been in a bad situation, whether it be misuse, bad relationship, etc”. Although, fine, another Dumba dump would be fine too.
Give the Fenway group some credit. They said theyre committed to spending to the cap no matter what and it seems like they really mean it. It’s helpful.