June 26, 2024, 06:17 pm ET
The life that Pierre-Luc Dubois imagined a year ago no longer exists.
At the time, he had requested and been granted a trade from Winnipeg to Los Angeles, signed a contract worth $68 million over the next eight seasons and figured he would be a big part of the Kings’ future.
Instead, Dubois endured a disappointing and unproductive season and was traded again last week to the Washington Capitals for goalie Darcy Kuemper.
Dubois turned 26 on Monday and has already been traded three times since 2021. After he wanted the first and the second, the latter forced him to quickly change his outlook on joining his fourth NHL organization.
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“I don’t think there’s time for anyone to feel bad for themselves,” Dubois said in a video call with reporters Wednesday, a year before the anniversary of the signing of his current contract. “In the hockey world you learn that teams will do what they think is best for their team and there are no hard feelings. For me, I could take it a number of ways, but I choose to take it as additional motivation and just get ready for the next season”.
Dubois acknowledged he probably didn’t need any more motivation after scoring just 40 points, the lowest of his career in a full 82-game season. Kings general manager Rob Blake took responsibility for Dubois not being assigned the correct roles and for the situation not being a good fit.
The trade gives Dubois, picked third by Columbus in the 2016 Draft and traded to Winnipeg five years later for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic, another fresh start. Dubois is the Capitals’ latest turnaround project, two summers after signing another center who was a No. 3 pick and is already on their second team.
This worked like a charm, with Dylan Strome establishing himself as an important part of Washington’s evolving core in the final years of the Alex Ovechkin era. Strome and Dubois were actually roommates when they played together on Canada’s world junior team in 2017.
“I’m sure we’ll push each other and he’ll teach me what he’s already learned,” Dubois said. “Being able to play with him again will be a lot of fun and getting to know him again. Obviously, we’re at different stages of life, but it’ll be exciting.”
Dubois is in the stage of trying to get back on track. On three previous occasions he scored 27 or more goals in a season, and general manager Brian MacLellan, when acquiring him, said Dubois had immense potential to be a top-tier player because of his size, skating and hockey IQ. partly because he was expected to have a larger role than in Los Angeles
“It was exactly what you want to hear as a player: how excited they are, how I can help this team in so many ways,” Dubois said of his first conversation with MacLellan. “You want to feel welcome. You want to feel a part of it.”
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