Kyle Dubas - President of Hockey Operations - June 23rd, 2023

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Oh, thanks for coming everybody.UM, just had to update everyone on
the three weeks on the job andthen getting set for the draft and free
agency. It's been a very busystretch. Um. You know though,
the major focus has been getting upto speed with the amateur scouting and pro

(00:26):
scouting staff in advance of the draftand free agency, in addition to beginning
to do some work on our staffingsituation as we as we move ahead.
UM. So that's what's that's what'sfrankly taken up at the time. We
obviously have our own situations with ourour own pending free agents, both unrestricted
and restricted, so we spent sometime there um and then starting to get

(00:48):
familiar personally with the with the cityin the area, which has been great.
UM. So that is that isthe very brief overview, and I
will turn it over to everyone forfor questions. UM, you resigned VALTERI
earlier this week, if you havemade any other decisions on your other pending

(01:08):
free agents that restrict or unrestricted,and by that I mean we made decisions
that you want to try to resign, you up to allow and go pass
July one. UM. Certainly,I think anybody that on the understricted side.
If we if we're going to havethose conversations, I think once you
get to July one, it opensup the field to the other thirty one
club. So, UM, anybodyon that front that we're looking to bring

(01:30):
back, I think we're and we'rehaving conversations with all of our people with
varying, varying depths, just toget an understanding for where they're at.
I think it would be remiss andon my on my end not to have
those types of conversations with them justto get a sense of where they're at
in the marketplace. Having been thismy first month here. Um, with
the restricted free agents, we havea deadline of the thirtieth, so I

(01:51):
believe that puts us out next Thursdayat five o'clock to whether we want to
qualify them or not. Val Terri, they had been having conversations with his
people prior to me coming here,and I was familiar with him from his
time in the American League and playingagainst the Marley's and and going through the
evaluation of him, so that onewas good to get done. With ce
Leonorin and his agent and Eric Heasleyhere on our staff. We've had a

(02:16):
few weeks to analyze this roster.Now, Um didn't make the playoffs last
season, still a lot of talent. How far away realistically do you think
this team is from being a legitimateCOP contender. Do you think in the
next couple of months you will havethe ability of the resources to make them
all? Um? I think themajor resource that we have we haven't gotten

(02:38):
the unless I missed it on thewalk over here, we haven't gotten the
final salary cap, the upper limitnumbers and lower limit numbers. The asset
that we do have right now iswe have we have cap space, and
you know, nearly twenty million dollarsin cap space or slightly more obviously something.
We have some some big needs thatwe need to fill using that.

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But I've seen in the marketplaces thatalso puts us in position to acquire players
from other teams that are looking toshed salaries, either to become cap compliant
outright, or different players they wantto resign of their owner. They have
different needs that they've identified, andso this the market has been that way
really, I think since since thepandemic began and the cap went flat,

(03:20):
where each summer teams need to paya premium to offload people, or they
can try to find a fit wheremaybe there's a team that believes it's close
to contending or wants to contend,can take on players that can still bring
in good value without giving up alot of them giving up their cap space.
So that's really the focus on itnow. I don't I don't believe
unless we're adding a very impactful youngerplayer that we're going to part with our

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younger assets, meaning you know,like the own pickerings of the world or
our first round picks. As aswe move ahead here, I think we
have to build up the system,but that set, I think we're in
a good spot. Unfortunate that thecap has remained flat because it allows us
to take on people from other clubsthat can bring us good value and have
us push to contend. Is abuyout of possibility with any of your players

(04:12):
summer. I'm not a big buyoutfan. We never We did in Toronto
once, and I think it wasone of the buyouts where because the player
was under twenty six, it actuallygave us a cap benefit for the year
and added to our salary cap bysix hundred so thousand dollars and we kind
of knew that when we acquired thatplayer was right during the kind of height
of our rebuild. I just thinkthat there are more creative ways and better

(04:32):
ways, especially in this environment whereif you have contracts that you view as
as problematic or you're not getting greatvalue from that, you can move them
on, or you can try toget the you can. I think the
one thing I don't want to dois get into you know four. You
see some of the buyouts, theyyou know, whether they go two or
four eight years down the road.And we had that situation Toronto on the

(04:54):
retention trade to Pittsburgh with Phil Kessele, where you're you're looking at it seven
years on down the road and you'restill have that space in a salary tight,
hard salary cap environment as limiting you. So I think with regards to
biots, I've always believed that youtry to find a more creative solution and
it's a last resort, and Idon't feel that we're at that point right

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now. Probable thank you for doingthis. Probably think of you run restricted
guys in particular Zooker, Jarring andDoom and yeah, are you optimistic to
pop getting any of those done byJuly. First, We've had varying degrees
of conversation with them, and soit's I think it's I've never kind of

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viewed that David's being optimistic and pestimisticgun and I think it's trying to figure
out what the market's going to befor them, and then whether our view
of it aligns with with the playersand their agents and they we're still working
through that process right now. Obviouslyin Nashville, will have deeper conversations with
each of their respective representatives and probablyhave a decision about whether it's going to
work or not here on all frontsby the time we get to next Wednesday

(06:03):
Thursday. So that allow us toplan going into Friday Saturday free agency and
allow them to kind of set theircourse. If it's going to be here,
that's great. If it's going tobe moving on home, we know
we're gonna have the cap space andbe able to roll on. But it's
still in the I would say thatthe dance is ongoing right now with all
of them. Yeah, what didyou see from Jason's still working with him

(06:27):
in Toronto that led here to frownhere too? I just saw somebody that
in the three years when he playedfor US was you know, had gone
from being an all star player transforminginto being a fourth line winger or center
penalty killer and had taken on thatrole and taken on a tremendous leadership role

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with the group, and obviously impressivewith his intelligence and the way that he
handled every single thing that came hisway during his three years as a player
in Toronto, and how he handledthe upons of a massive change and role
in his late thirties. And then, you know, when we talked to
him after the twenty twenty two playoffs, and it was in our mind it

(07:09):
was it was time for him tokind of move on, and he had
expressed the ambition to get into management, and then so we built out a
plan for him for the year,and to say he jumped all the way
in would be an understatement. Imean, the amount of work that he
put it on all fronts to tryto learn as much as he couldn't advance
himself as quickly as he could throughthe year was very impressive. And he
has a certain way about him thathe's close enough in terms of his playing

(07:30):
experience that he can help and relateto the players, but provide sort of
that conduit between management and the playerswhere he can hold him accountable, push
them, but then also provide ussome feedback of where we can help them
without crossing any lines of confidentiality orconflict of interest. And he's able to
sort of thread the needle perfectly.And I think with our group here,
with where we're at now, butalso where we want to go. His

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affinity for the development side, theminor league system, I just think he
had so much and so to beable to have him in here I think
is a massive benefit for me personallycoming into this role M. Taylor,
but also just for the whole group, for the coaching staff, the players,
for everybody in the building. Justhis demeanor and the way he goes
about every day, his intelligence,his work ethnic and how much he's willing

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to learn from everybody involved. It'sit'll be a great, great boost for
us as we start to build outour staff through the summer. Kyleson's taking
over. Have you found anything thatyou believe might be a greater challenge than
you initially thought were Adversely, isthere anything that you thought initially it might
be a challenge that might not beas big, I think for sure.

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I think everyone when until you're actuallyin and doing something every day, you
have your vision or view of itfrom the outside. But then when you
immerse yourself in, you certainly seethe you certainly, once you live it,
you'd be having much deeper familiarity.And I don't think it's ever the
way that you envisioned from the outside. I think the thing that's really impressed

(08:58):
me have just been the quality ofthe people here and frankly, the the
how comfortable it's been in the cityalready, not just for me, but
for my family and m you know, just I think for us. I
mean, I'm from Sue Saint Marie. The time in Toronto, I think
the city's is much larger, thepeople are, it's it's a great city,
but here it just feels a littlebit more like home and what it

(09:22):
was like growing up. So thatpart has been you know, you never
know what you're gonna get into whenyou make that type of move, and
it's been, you know, forthe first three weeks anyway, we haven't
lost any games yet, so thepeople have been very very kind, but
it's been um, it's been greatthat way in terms of the challenges I
think, you know, it's thestuff that we're talking about. You know,
it's the the roster continuing to ithas a lot of experience and you

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know, but there's lots of capspace, and it's just trying to you
know, when you look at it, how are we going to go about
trying to do without depleting where we'regoing in the future. How are we
going to best utilize the opportunity wehave in terms of caps based with other
teams kind of crunch to best supportthis group and have it move ahead and
so um, you know, it'sstarting to kind of work its way towards
a conclusion here as we get towardsthe draft. But you know that you

(10:09):
until you actually execute on those moves, you're always you always have that doubt
and it's not going to go perfect. According to plant r I, I
wanted to follow up on a coupleof things. Sure we're talking about in
cap space is an asset? Yeah, how do you think that once you
get to the regular season in termsof being at the cap or having room

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And also you mentioned some needs,Uh what needs have you assessed that there
are in terms of just general forthe roster well, I think some of
the some of the needs are selfevident. I'll start in reverse and if
I don't get the law, justremind me. So I think some of
the needs are you know, startingin reverse. You know, to go

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back to Dave's question about the unrestrictedfree agents. So you have a situation
in net where you have Casey theSmith signed and you have Tristan that's unrestricted.
So um, and we don't havea you know, a In the
past year, whether it's been Tristanor Matt Murray or whomever, there's always
been guys coming on. They goback to Mark andre Fleur, they've always
been young guys sort of there.We don't we don't have that yet.

(11:18):
We have young goaltenders that we like, but nobody that's pushing. So there's
going to have to either be asolution with Tristan or we're gonna have to
through trade or free agency address that. On defense, you know, Brian
Dummelin has been a staple here fora long time and a part of championship
clubs. His contract is up.Do we have can po Joseph Ken,

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Tye Smith, can others jump intothat range that we're evaluating that and going
through that. Otherwise you have indeedthere as well that that needs to be
addressed up front. On the UFAfront, you have Zucker as a as
a UFA um played in the topsix, and in that case there you
have to either find a solution withhim or you have to address it.

(12:01):
And the benefit, to go backto the beginning of the question Rob on
the cap space, is that wehave the ability to do that. I
don't think they're going to be thebig, splashy type of UFAs if that's
where we go into. They'll probablybe more subtle bets and we'll need to
hit on them in order to bein order to have success. But I

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don't think you'll see us in themarket for the long term highly expensive forwards,
especially in free agency. As yougotta go over the next couple of
weeks between the draft and free agency. You mentioned the cap space, and
I guess draft picks and free agencyare two different things. But what kind
of characteristics do you look for asfar as feeling the organizational holes and the

(12:45):
death holes in a while, Well, I think in terms of the organized
I'll talk about them in two differentphase. I think in terms of the
draft it's going in and trying toI don't think anybody that we draft,
especially at fourteen, is going tomake an impact on the roster probably you
know speaking, you know, justimprobabilities, not for another couple of years,
two or three years at least.So the goal in the draft and

(13:07):
the needs of our team if youstart to projecting two or three years out,
are totally different. So I thinkespecially I know it's cliche to say
you take the best player available,but I think especially where the organization is
in terms of the prospect pool andwhere the rosters at, you absolutely can
can't start. You cannot worry abouthow a player may fit in two or
three years. We have to getthe best player we can at fourteen,

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or we have to if we canget multiple players we can we can move
up and acquire somebody that's really goingto make a difference. Then we can
do that, we can move backto collect more draft cap who can really
add to the quantity of our prospects. But it's they have to be the
best players, but we'd like itto be spread equally. When you come
through the draft with a you know, three forwards, two defens a goalie,
and then enroll. But for uswhere we're at right now, we

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have to absolutely focus on just addingthe best players possible in terms of the
NHL roster right now. I thinknumber one is we need to add talent.
I think to the forward group,and I think you know last year
that I know last year the grouphere got great performances out of its core
players and still missed. So weneed to have players at the bottom of

(14:13):
the lineup or in the third andfourth lines that can add certain utilities talent
being some, penalty killing being others, competitiveness, speed, youth would be
a wonderful thing for for us toadd with where we're at. That's a
little bit harder in free agency becausethe younger guys tend to draw more in
terms of termin dollars than we're probablywilling to do. But there'll be players

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that will kind of fit that need, that are that are maybe reclamation projects
to an extent, and if wecan make a number of more subtle small
bets, I think that's what wewant to in free agency. Unless there's
an absolutely perfect fit, I thinkthat's usually the best way to go.
So that's that's what we'll look todo. On defense, in terms of
our depth and when you get tothe Wilkes barre a portion of the depth

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to think, it's it's finding thedifferent elements, whether that's physicality, work,
ethic, defensive utility, talent thatare going to be able to provide
us with everything that we need aswe go through the eighty two games,
especially um with the age of theroster and the risk that that imparts on
the club. Bash Kyle, whenyou spoke with us a little bit ago,

(15:18):
you plushed on conversations you had hadwith Mike Sullivan before taking the job.
Now it's been a few weeks.Just how is that relationship and voting?
Is there pretty constant communication or youkind of hand off with one or
another. Just how has that beenvoting? There's no there's no short conversations.
They're all they're all rather likethy.But it's been great. He It's

(15:39):
it's always great to have a partlike when you're working in this in this
job and running the organization. Themore communication and feedback you can get from
the coach, the better you might. You're not always going to agree and
you're gonna have to make decisions thatthat the coach doesn't always love but I
think you, you know, ingetting his feedback and utilizing the coaching staff

(16:00):
to to break down especially at thistime, I think the coaching staff and
the coaching staff doing work on breakingdown players is really important because the last
thing you want to do is havea free agent come in here where the
coaching staff also isn't um at leastaware of what you see in the player
or have broken down the player themselves. I think that's the best way that

(16:21):
you can have success in free agencies, that there's that alignment as you move
forward. There's going to in theend, the decisions are going to come
down to me to make in termsof what's what's best West. But the
relationship and the communications with with Saleyhave been have been really really great and
enjoyable so far. And um,he likes to talk about hockey, which
is what I think everybody in theroom and all of us really like to

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do in the end, and umtalk about the team and how we're going
to move forward, and it's beenit's been great so far. Kyle.
Just to clarify one of your earlyanswers, you could foresee a scenario in
which you maybe take on an unwantedcontract another team the trade market to maybe
fill a spot like that. Sure, I mean yeah, that's I think

(17:07):
we have to look at everything.And the cap space that the that the
club has has built up certainly affordsus the chance to do that. So
yes, would be the answer onthat front. And in terms of looking
at players who may be available thatthat kind of fit that exact criteria,
or it could be taking on acontract another team has to move in rather
than accepting draft picks back or whatthe usual return would be on shorter term

(17:30):
deals, we could take back oneof their one of their players that they
might have in surplus at a positionof our own need. So of all
the places that we've listed, whichI mean as we sit here today,
are plenty, But when we getto mid July, we'll have it stocked
up and ready to roll. Sure, no problem. How more of a
off the ice away from the gamequestion. M the league decision yesterday teams

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aren't gonna were especially to jerseys andwarmups this coming season. How do you
foresee the impacting the teams work withdifferent organizations such as Pride, Sports Matter,
Hard Fights Cancer. Sure like that? Well, I think in terms
of one of the things. SoI don't know your name, Patrick.
So one of the things Patrick,that I think was appealing to us about

(18:19):
coming to Pittsburgh and working for thePenguins and Fenway at large was that was
not the work that the team hasdone in terms of what specialty night jerseys
did they wear, or what arethe performance performance side of different causes that

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you're supporting. It was actually oneof the things that really appealed to us
was what the organization actually does inthe community and does with the different types
of groups that you're talking about.So, whether that's LGBTQ, military,
hockey, fights cancer. I thinkwhenever we've come in here on various nights,
it's been amazing to me the jobthat the organization here does, And

(19:03):
in talking to the Fenway group,it's the it's the actual actions beyond the
nights that I think are most importantin this and I think you know,
I was back in Toronto on thefirst weekend, but the amount of support
that the organization had for the PrideParade here in Pittsburgh, the constant support
in terms of what we're doing andhiring and in the community and different initiatives

(19:26):
that the club has set up tobattle racial inequality has been was one thing
that really appealed to our family aboutcoming here. So I think in terms
of what the organization here will doin the community outside of the specialty Jersey
Nights being apparently put on hiatus orthat program ending, I think the organization

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Here's history speaks for itself, andthe organization will always do a lot and
continue to do a lot to supportall of the causes that are important in
the community of Pittsburgh and the stateof Pennsylvania. As far as our reachable
hate us. Thanks, thank you, Thanks everybody. See the National ur
somewhere along always