The Pittsburgh Penguins, in the midst of a transition phase of the franchise and remember this is a hot take, appear to be in a standoff at high noon between ownership, management, coaching staff and the players (on-ice product).
In the midst of a six game losing streak and being 3-3-4 in their last ten games played speaks volumes as to the direction of where this team is headed. The Penguins the past three years we all know very well, have finally reared it's ugly face and the team is playing some very uninspiring hockey.
Could the Gavin McKenna talks be back on and the question is, can the penguins tank enough to get back close to striking distance of him?
Now to the HOT TAKE
Ownership:
When it comes to Penguins ownership, the Hoffman family group in the off-season was so close to buying the entire stake of the Penguins, we heard very little up until weeks ago where insider Eliotte Friedman stated the sale fell through and the interest is there but not as much as before, due to some hurdles. FSG is holding the Penguins hostage and hindering a sale of the team, which is leading to more crippling of this franchise from actually being successful and focusing on their other owned sport clubs that have more potential for success like Liverpool F.C. in England and the Boston Red Sox.
Management:
Kyle Dubas on day one of his tenure as President of Hockey Operations, then later named general manager. Spoke on how he is going to be doing this rebuild/retool as a two pronged effort to bring this team back to a full blown contender while Sidney Crosby is still playing at his full potential at 38 years of age. It's simple to read however, he is far away in his mind from getting this team anywhere near contention.
This year Dubas seems content with getting a high draft pick and wants to be on the full team tank train. There is a possibility he is holding players out of the lineup with "phantom injuries" like Evgeni Malkin where he went from being a maintenance day to suddenly being placed on Injured Reserve, along with being wrong about injury timelines like the Justin Brazeau timeline and botching the Rickard Rakell timeline where he returned weeks after he was projected to return, then suddenly had a "setback" in his recovery process. Kyle Dubas seems like he wants this team to lose and bottom out but behind the scenes we truly don't know what's to come next.
Yes. You will more than likely see him sell a lot of pieces at the deadline to get "younger" and not take in as many draft picks. The only problem is that the pieces he has, no one wants because all the players are either 30 years of age or older and some have trade protection. Let's not also forget however, this team is too good to suck.
Players (On Ice Product)
The players want to WIN. The GM does not. Like said above, the Penguins team when fully healthy is a good projected hockey team, they have shown they can string together wins and good hockey. They are too good to be bad. The question everyone is asking, was that just luck and will we see that again this season? Time will truly tell.
You can see just how much the team wants to win, especially guys like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and Erik Karlsson. Those guys want to win and piling up losses isn't helping there goals of chasing another Stanley Cup or even just getting to the playoffs. From the players perspective, like Crosby, he must be upset that Kyle Dubas has not picked a lane in the direction this team is supposed to go this season.
Coaching
When it comes to Head Coach Dan Muse, he isn't supposed to be the coach that leads this team into contention. Kyle Dubas hired Dan Muse as a bridge coach and development coach to teach the future stars of this organization while they are still in a rebuild stage. He has young talent to coach right now but he is also getting strapped with too many 30+ year old players while trying to develop the young guns.
Dan Muse is being caught in the cross fire from fans, media and too high expectations but has been thrown into a situation where he got this team to believe in themselves and looked good for a little bit there where fans believed this team was good before this losing streak began.
The question as we progress to past Christmas and past the 40 game mark, will we see and understand what TRUE direction Kyle Dubas wants to put this hockey team in for the rest of the season. Is it contention or is it rebuild and strip it down?