David Pagnotta confirms major update on Stuart Skinner
Stuart Skinner and Dan Muse may already be at the end of the line in Pittsburgh.
David Pagnotta’s read is blunt. He would be shocked if Skinner is back next season, and that pushes this story past normal goalie chatter into something that feels a lot more final.
That matters because Skinner did not arrive in Pittsburgh as a throw-in. The Penguins brought him over from Edmonton on Dec. 12 with a clear playoff push in mind, and for a while the fit at least looked workable.
Now the tone has changed. When a connected voice like Pagnotta puts it that strongly, it usually means the organization has already drifted far enough from the player that a return looks hard to picture.
It also fits the way Pittsburgh feels right now. Kyle Dubas is still running hockey decisions, and this looks like a team still sorting out which pieces actually belong in the next version of the room.
Skinner’s problem is not only performance. It is timing. A goalie with noise around him is much easier to move on from when the club already looks ready to make bigger decisions across the roster.
And that is where this gets uncomfortable for Pittsburgh. The Penguins do not just need another goalie answer. They need one they can actually trust while Sidney Crosby’s window is still open.
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David Pagnotta confirms significant Penguins development
The strongest clue is how fast the outside talk shifted. Not long ago, the question was whether Skinner could settle in. Now the question sounds more like whether he already played his last game there.
That is a big swing in a short time. It tells you Pittsburgh likely did not see enough stability to make Skinner part of the longer conversation.
Muse matters in this too. A newer coach usually wants clean roles and a crease that does not drag extra doubt into every hard week of the season.
From Skinner’s side, this is a rough spot. He came to Pittsburgh trying to help get the club back into the playoffs, and now the noise around him sounds more like an exit than a reset.
From Pittsburgh’s side, the message looks simple. If Dubas is serious about reshaping this team, the goalie lane may be one of the first places where the break from the recent past starts to show.
Nothing is official yet. But when the talk gets this direct, and this public, Stuart Skinner starts to look a lot less like a Penguin for next season and a lot more like a player already on the way out.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 4, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nikolaj Ehlers | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sean Couturier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jamie Drysdale | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| John Carlson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Carl Grundstrom | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jackson Lacombe | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jordan Staal | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sean Walker | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||