Pittsburgh Penguins general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas was busy on the trade market again on Thursday, sending defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok to the Dallas Stars in exchange for fellow defenseman Matt Dumba and a 2028 second-round pick.
The Stars were over the salary cap at the time of the trade and had been looking for a team to take Dumba off their hands. He has one year left on his contract and will make $3.75 million this upcoming season. The Penguins easily absorbed that contract because they had over $15 million in cap space going into the trade.
If the Penguins were still trying to win, this move would be a headscratcher, but that's not where they are right now. They are in transparent rebuild mode and have been since they traded Jake Guentzel to the Carolina Hurricanes before the 2024 NHL trade deadline. They've been stockpiling assets over the last year and a half and now have 29 picks over the subsequent three drafts, including 17 in the first three rounds. They may not even use that 2028 second-rounder that they got with Dumba and could package it for a young player when the time is right.
All of their moves throughout this offseason so far indicate that they don't care that much about the 2025-26 season. They see how good the 2026 NHL Draft is and could be in line to get a high pick, especially if they trade at least two of Erik Karlsson, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell. They are asking for good returns on all three, and so far, no team has been willing to meet their price. Karlsson feels like the most likely to go right now since there's a bit of a logjam on the right side with him, Kris Letang, Connor Clifton, Dumba, and Harrison Brunicke waiting in the wings.
Speaking of Dumba, he played in 63 games for the Stars during the 2024-25 season, finishing with one goal and 10 points. He was healthy for the playoffs but got scratched in all of their playoff games. That's telling, considering the Stars had Cody Ceci, Ilya Lyubushkin, and even Alex Petrovic logging big minutes on their blue line.
Dumba is only 30, but the fall-off in his game has been drastic. Throughout his career, he has been a player who can drive offense and bring some snarl, but the offense has dried up over the last few seasons. The last time he finished with more than 25 points in a season was during the 2021-22 season when he compiled seven goals and 27 points in 57 games with the Minnesota Wild. Dumba has also been below 50% in shot attempts per 60 minutes in six of his last seven seasons and has an expected goal share below 50% in four consecutive seasons.
He spent 10 seasons with the Wild before bouncing to the Arizona Coyotes (now Utah Mammoth), Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars, and now the Penguins. The Penguins will attempt to get him back on track a little so that they can try to flip him at the 2026 trade deadline. That means likely starting him on the third pairing and potentially moving him up to the second pairing to "showcase" him to other teams.
It's somewhat similar to when they signed defenseman Matt Grzelcyk to a one-year deal in free agency last year, aiming to "rehab" his game. Yes, he didn't get dealt to a contender at the deadline, but they still wanted to showcase him as much as possible in a top-four role at 5v5 and on the top power-play unit. The Penguins will likely rely on one of Karlsson (if he's not traded) or Letang to quarterback the top unit since Dumba only has a little over 65 power-play minutes over the last three seasons. He used to compile well over 100 PP minutes with the Wild before his game started to fade. Dumba may get a little bit of time on the second PP unit this season, but that's about it.
The Penguins will "try" to get some of Dumba's 5v5 offense going a bit again to pair with the snarl and physicality that he has brought to the table throughout his career. They want to get a bit bigger, meaner, and tougher to play against after looking a little soft in front of their net last season.
The Dumba deal isn't a trade that will "wow" anyone, but it provides the Penguins with another body for the right side of their defense and a good future asset that they don't necessarily have to retain. They are also set up to gain more future assets at next year's deadline, as Dumba is one of several players who don't have a contract beyond this season, including Connor Clifton, Kevin Hayes, Anthony Mantha, Blake Lizotte, Noel Acciari, Connor Dewar, and Danton Heinen. In other words, the rebuild is proceeding as planned.
(Data via Natural Stat Trick).
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