Rebooting System: 13 Months into the job, Kyle Dubas plan/execution with the NHL roster deserves to be criticized. Where Dubas, though, continues to hit a home run is with rebooting the Penguins system. Pittsburgh is investing a ton of money into development and early the returns have been excellent in the style of players their targeting.

A view outside of Pittsburgh on their prospect system is the organization now has 3-to-4 ‘higher ceiling’ type talents in the system and another group of four to five players after that project for now as useful NHL players in due time who should have somewhat long careers.

Rival scouts regard forwards Brayden Yager, Tanner Howe and goaltender Joel Blomqvist in the ‘higher ceiling category as the clear top-3, while Ville Koivunen, Vasily Ponomarev and Owen Pickering round out the safe group that evaluators believe project to have meaningful NHL careers. The Penguins, though, internally are higher on Koivunen whom them project as an impact top-9 forward at the NHL level and view him in upside just below Yager, sources say. Dubas & his staff are also earning praise around the league for targeting higher end skill that fell through the cracks, namely Mac Swanson in the 7th round of the 2024 draft. A lot of model’s project Swanson to having the third highest forward ceiling behind Yager, Howe. Time will tell on that……….

What’s important is Pittsburgh’s Top-10 Prospect Group is quickly becoming formidable where it’s no longer bottom-5 in the league and beginning to be thought of in a positive way on the potential trade front over the next year or so.

Latest Penguins Rumblings & More:

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Is FSG in it for the long-haul with Penguins? The next big plan for FSG has been to add an NBA team to their portfolio. Once LeBron James retires all eyes are going to be on bringing a team to Vegas whether he does it with FSG or through other avenues. However, does the Celtics surprisingly going up for sale in recent weeks change things?

Anticipation of an aggressive summer changed in early June of it being decided of this being a conservative year which was not the messaging near the end of the regular season, multiple sources said.

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Crosby Latest: Sidney Crosby officially became eligible to ‘SIGN’ an extension on July 1. Crosby, Penguins were permitted under the rules to negotiate a new extension any time before then and they did put parameters in place. A 3-year extension in the $32 Million range has been conceptually on the table since late April, multiple sources say. What led to this not being an instant signing like so many expected months ago To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!