Tim Benz: Penguins' poor western trip allows Kyle Dubas to operate guilt-free at trade deadline

If there is one member of the Pittsburgh Penguins who is happy about the team’s rotten 1-3 western road trip, it’s general manager Kyle Dubas.

OK, maybe not happy, exactly. Anyone associated with the team had to be near embarrassment with the way the last game-and-a-half of that swing went against the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers over the weekend.

The Penguins had leads of 2-0 and 3-1 in Calgary and still managed to lose in regulation there Saturday. Then, on Sunday, they were humiliated 6-1 in Edmonton.

Now, the team is 10 points out of the final playoff spot, with four teams to climb over to get into eighth place. There are just 23 games remaining.

More important to Dubas, though, there are only five days remaining until Friday’s trade deadline. While everybody on the roster and the coaching staff has managed to make their own lives more difficult with poor performance, that’s actually made Dubas’ job easier.

It’s more obvious than ever that the Penguins need to be sellers at the deadline. The way Dubas was talking when he spoke to the media two weeks ago, that exact picture was coming into focus. Then it got fuzzy, thanks to a three-game win streak.

Now, losing three straight, especially in the manner that the team has, that fog should have completely lifted for Dubas. He should be able to see the horizon now, and the Penguins are still too far away from port to come in by the time the playoffs start.

So, sell off and start acquiring assets for the future. Because the franchise is bereft of young talent and draft picks.

But even as that vision should be clear now for Dubas, it doesn’t appear to be the case for the players.

“The deadline date hasn’t changed, and we still need to get points,” captain Sidney Crosby said after the defeat in Edmonton via video posted on the team’s website. “I don’t know what picture you’re talking about. It’s the same situation it was yesterday.”

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Well, the picture for Crosby could just be a screenshot of the standings next to another one of the calendar. That should be an ugly enough image for him or anyone else in that room to endorse whatever moves Dubas makes — even if that means trading former All-Star winger Jake Guentzel.

Hey, if Guentzel really wants to stay, he can come down off his asking price and resign here in the offseason as a free agent. But if he hasn’t been willing to do that enough so far this year, what’s to make Dubas think it’ll happen in the summer? The Penguins should at least get assets for him now if he is going to walk anyway.

Technically, however, Crosby is right. There are two more games to go between now and the deadline. Both are at home. The Columbus Blue Jackets are in town Tuesday. The Washington Capitals are here Thursday. So there are four more points to be gained.

But that feels like a drop in the bucket based on what the team needs to accomplish if it is to avoid missing the playoffs for a second straight year.

Even Crosby sounded a bit resigned to the organization’s inability to rally after a tough defeat in Calgary and how that might have lingered in the locker room as the group prepared to play in Edmonton.

“We had a tough loss (against the Flames), and I don’t know if we did a good enough job moving by it,” Crosby admitted. “You’ve got to find a way, even when it is one like that, to move by it. And we probably didn’t do a good enough job.”

Nor have they in multiple instances this year. The team is now 27-24-8. So without the overtime loss designation, that’s five more losses than wins.

As a playoff possibility becomes bleaker and bleaker with each additional defeat, if the Penguins are having a hard time shaking off bad losses now when there is something to play for, how much harder is it going to be when they are playing out the string?

It’s time for Dubas to sell whatever he can from this roster hindered by anchor contracts, limited trade and no movement clauses. He should do so without the guilt of feeling that he’s giving up on a veteran group too early.

Because for this franchise, unfortunately, it actually got too late very quickly in 2023-24.

On this week’s Gerger Construction “Breakfast With Benz” hockey podcast, Brian Metzer of the Penguins Radio Network joins me to discuss where Jake Guentzel may wind up and who else the Penguins may trade at the deadline.