Happy Dubas Day
For a fanbase that is really only used to big splashes, this was pulling Jarome Iginla-out-from-underneath-the Bruins splashy.
Let's hope it works out better.
The Pittsburgh Penguins introduced Former Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Kyle Dubas as their new President of Hockey Operations on Thursday, and other than winning just a single playoff series during his nine-year tenure there – albeit it one hamstrung by the bureaucratic backroom influence of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment and Brendan Shanahan – there is little to dislike about the Dubas hiring.
He's young, he has a sterling reputation around the league, he embraces rather than eschews the analytics that so many organizations build their personnel decisions around now, and he's already shown an intense commitment to Mike Sullivan – "Sully could coach forever," Dubas said. "I mean, he's a great coach, so there's no real expiration date on Mike." – as well as The Big Three – "The way I view it is that if people want to bet against Mike Sullivan, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and others, they can go ahead and do so, but I'm going to bet on them and go with them here."
Now that the courtship between Fenway Sports Group and Dubas is over – with assists to Dubas's wife Shannon, who encouraged him to return the Penguins' call, and Jennifer Ridgley and Jason Seidling in the Penguins' PR Department, who did much of the showing-around-town of Pittsburgh to Dubas and his family – the hard work begins. While Dubas acknowledged they have the salary cap space to consider a possible "supplement" to the top six forward group, acknowledged the need to improve their forward depth, and acknowledged the need to evaluate their young defensemen, he clearly mentioned goaltending as the lynchpin to their offseason.
"I'll rely on Andy Chiodo, who's the goaltending coach, and Mike (Sullivan) in terms of what (Tristan Jarry)'s all about as a person. I'll probably try to take the chance to meet him myself and get to know him," Dubas said. "It's a big decision for the club, and then doing a very thorough evaluation of Tristan, and where he stands in the marketplace."
Dubas made it clear that an evaluation of Jarry would be stacked up against the rest of what's available should they decide that the goaltending market needs to be explored.
"(We'll) get a real scope of who will be available, whether that's in free agency or trade," said Dubas. "And then if Tristan is at the top of that mix or in that mix, because he's familiar and you know him, it'll be to try to establish a concept that can get done with him and his agent."
As Dan Kingerski of PGHHockeyNow.com pointed out to me on yesterday's episode of 'Fifth Avenue Faceoff,' the idea of a true goaltending tandem may be what Dubas prefers. It's becoming more and more popular around the league, and Dubas has experience in trying to build that already in Toronto.
With possible General Manager candidates now off limits for interviews until after the NHL Draft at the end of the month, and with free agency starting July 1st, Dubas will handle GM duties until he gets a true search underway later this summer.
And that's when Dubas and the Penguins will have to show that his hire was more than just a big splash.
Huge Homestand
It's not hyperbole to insinuate the Pirates' forthcoming nine-game/10-day homestand against the St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland A's, and New York Mets will be looked back on as their biggest of the first half.
Just a game over .500 but also just a half game behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the NL Central lead, it's hard to discern which series of the three could be the biggest.
It very well could be the Mets series, as the Bucs sit in the final Wild Card spot, just a game behind New York for the second NL Wild Card. These three games could loom very large, especially considering the two teams don't meet again until mid-August at CitiField.
Perhaps the A's series actually has the most impact, because anything less than a sweep will be disappointing and anything less than two-out-of-three will be an abject failure.
Or, it very well could be the Cardinals series. Since the creation of the NL Central in 1994, St. Louis has dominated the Pirates, beating the Bucs at a .597 clip, with a record of 277-187, including an unbelievable 133-98 record in Pittsburgh. Snapping out of a month-long funk only to come home to find the Cardinals waiting for you is like killing the murderous clown living in your neighborhood sewer only to come home and find out the boogeyman is still under your bed.
Add the drama of Andrew McCutchen needing just five more hits to reach the 2,000 mark, and it's not a stretch to call this one of the most anticipated series at PNC Park since the Wild Card years of 2013-15.
Championship Season
The next two-plus weeks will be filled with the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final on nearly perfect alternating nights, with the two never overlapping each other on the same date. Game One of the Stanley Cup Final is Saturday night in Las Vegas, and if Panthers' goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky can continue to stand on his head the way he has through the first three rounds, I think it's enough, when coupled with Matthew Tkachuk's otherworldly levels of grit, tenacity, and ability to come through in the clutch, for Florida to pull off an upset.
But I've never seen Playoff Bob fail to show up in the playoffs, and Playoff Bob is the equivalent of an old Looney Tunes cartoon where someone's been turned into swiss cheese by being filled with holes. So I'll take Vegas in six.
In Denver Thursday night, the Nuggets showed you exactly what they'll do to the Miami Heat at least three more times in the next six games, as they are built to dominate many a team, not the least of whom is an emotionally and physically drained Heat squad after they had to empty their tank to hold off the Celtics. It doesn't hurt that the Nuggets are now riding an 11-game winning streak at home, nine of which have come in the postseason. Nuggets in five.
Denial Isn't Just a River In Egypt
You can tell me all you want that Tom Brady's minority ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders, which could be approved by the league and owners very soon, would actually make it more difficult for him to become a player-owner due to the league's rules about rosterable players, what counts against the salary cap, and a million other logical reasons.
I'm not here for logic.
I'm here to question Brady's desire to stay retired at every turn.
Especially when he emphatically denies any further interest in playing, as he did on Thursday when speaking with SINow's Robin Lundberg.
As of Tuesday, off shore odds on Brady being the Raiders next starting QB sat at 20-1. A longshot, for sure. But with Brady, never say never.
