I can not tell a lie.
Well, actually, that’s not true. I can tell a lie. It just never works out very well when I do.
All silliness aside, I more or less pirated the idea for this article from Hooks Orpik over on Pensburgh, who does an excellent job of summing up our current collection of draft picks in his article, “Cody Glass trade highlights Penguins’ summer of “something for nothing.”
Hooks correctly identifies Kyle Dubas’ focus on acquiring draft capital, with all other concerns (such as genuinely improving the team) secondary or even tertiary. If a player such as Kevin Hayes or Cody Glass happen to come along as part the package…bonus.
Dubas has, indeed, added impressively to our heretofore meager stockpile of draft choices. He added a third-round pick from the Blues (through Ottawa) in the 2025 Entry Draft and the Blues’ second-round pick in the ’26 draft for Hayes. The Wild’s third-round pick in ’25 and the Preds’ sixth-rounder in ’26 came in the Glass deal.
Earlier in the summer, he acquired a pair of picks from the Rangers (5th in ’25, 2nd in ’27) for Reilly Smith. The Rangers’ fourth-rounder in ’27 came in last spring’s deadline deal for Chad Ruhwedel. The Sharks’ third-round pick in ’26 was part of the Erik Karlsson blockbuster.
To digress, here’s what our bingo card looked like for the ’21 through ’24 drafts.
| Round | ’21 | ’22 | ’23 | ’24 |
| 1 | None | 1 | 1 | None |
| 2 | 1 | None | None | 2 |
| 3 | None | None | 1 | None |
| 4 | None | 1 | None | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | None |
| 6 | None | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 7 | 3 | None | 2 | 2 |
Needless to say, there were more holes than a hunk of Swiss cheese.
Again, borrowing heavily (okay, stealing) from Pensburgh, compare that with our stockpile of picks for the ’25, ’26 and ’27 drafts.
| Round | ’25 | ’26 | ’27 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | None | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 | 2 | None | 1 |
| 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 7 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
A pretty impressive turnaround, eh?
Of course, possessing a slew of draft picks doesn’t guarantee a cache of future NHL talent. According to a study conducted by John Barr on Soundofhockey.com for players drafted between 2000 and 2012, here’s the probability of draftees playing at least 50 NHL games by round.
| Round | Percent (%) |
| 1 | 82 |
| 2 | 44 |
| 3 | 32 |
| 4 | 24 |
| 5 | 23 |
| 6 | 20 |
| 7 | 14 |
Still, it’s a lot better to have the picks than not. To borrow from an old Bill Withers’ tune, “nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’.”
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, then-Pens GM Craig Patrick and chief scout, Greg Malone, turned a sinking franchise around by drafting brilliantly, unearthing the likes of Colby Armstrong, Paul Bissonnette, Daniel Carcillo, Erik Christensen, Alex Goligoski, Tyler Kennedy, Ryan Malone, Matt Moulson, Brooks Orpik, Michel Ouellet, Max Talbot, Rob Scuderi, Joe Vitale and Ryan Whitney, mostly in the later rounds. To say nothing of franchise pillars Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury.
An extraordinary amount of talent gleaned over a relatively brief period of time.
While it may be too much to hope for, perhaps Dubas and his staff will enjoy similar success.
Hey Rick,
I have been debating on how exactly to respond to the ado about nothing so without further fanfare – yawn!
Dubas is going to need all the picks he can get. Look at his track record here and in Toronto. Since 2016 Toronto has only had Auston Matthes (2016) and Rasmus Sundin (2018) make the NHL. Matthews was a no-brainer number 1 overall pick while Dubas was only an AGM not GM and Sundin pretty much a less than illustrious but still young (23) maybe with 227 GP under his belt in 5 seasons. Granted, Toronto like Pgh has had few 1st round picks but excluding their last 2 drafts (Dubas wasn’t there) Dubas was only 50% (2 of 4) in Toronto, below the league avg.
He did better in the 2nd round 4 of Toronto’s 9-2nd round picks that he is associated with made it to the NHL (Matthew Knies, Nick Robertson, Sean Durzi, Carl Gundstrom), but he traded 3 of them away (Robertson, Durzi, and Gundstrom).
In the 3rd round he went of for 7 in Toronto.
It is too early to judge Dubas’ first 2 Penguins drafts, however, the above Toronto history and the large number of serious misses in the FA market, the ridiculous contract he gave Jarry, and his apparent drinking of the Sullivan Kool-aid, I fear that this will be a long, long rebuild if Gavin Mckenna ends up not being the next generational player and/or Dubas doesn’t win the lottery to draft him.
They say even a blind squirrel finds a nut at sometime, hopefully silent m Dubas collects enough draft picks that even he can find a nut, a golden-blue chip nut, and then hold on to it.
Also worth noting, most of the players picked up lately are on short term contracts and coming off underperforming seasons. I’m sure there’s a bit of buy low, sell high in these acquisitions. The Pens simply don’t have the assets to make a great trade, nor the recent success and cap space to sign top tier free agents. I expect the Pens to be deadline sellers. Here’s to hoping for a quick rebuild and some good depth drafting!
Hello Nick and thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Regarding the short-term contracts and being sellers at the deadline, I wholeheartedly agree. I think Dubas is privately banking on the bottom falling out on this team (and subtly steering us in that direction) with an eye toward tanking the next couple of seasons and getting some lottery picks. Perhaps even a shot at Gavin McKenna, who reminds me more than a little of Mario Lemieux, in 2026.
It would certainly be worth a couple years of misery to potentially land this kid.
Rick