News Article: Agents Poll: Dubas voted the best GM to get client a good deal from

[Mess]

It's funny how posters think they know more than agents. You know, the people directly involved in contract negotiations?
.

The world is round, water is wet and NHL Player agents think Dubas hands out the largest most lucrative contracts for their clients.

To me these all seem like captain obvious type statements that most people that follow the Leafs should know to be true.

Dubas is like the Oprah Winfrey of NHL GMs .. " You get a $11 million contract, and you get a $11 mil contract and you get an $11 mil contract."

How can anyone that follows the Leafs not know that Dubas in less than his 2 years has handed out among the largest NHL contracts in a Cap World. Matthews, Tavares and Marner all appear in the top 7 overall in highest AAV.

When you factor in these huge contracts are mostly 93-95% front loaded in signing bonuses.. That makes them buyout proof, lockout proof and even Covid-19 proof but MOST important ESCROW proof because guaranteed money happens regardless if there is hockey or not, what the salary cap ceiling is set at. What that means and comes down to in actual $$$ being paid to the players is the Leafs have the 3 highest salaried players in the NHL. #1 Marner @ $16 mil this year with Tavares and Matthews both tied at #2 with $15.9 mil take home each.

These seasoned experienced player agents are taking newbie Dubas to the cleaners, and this survey only solidifies that they're even willing to admit it, and basically confirm what we already knew anyways.

Browse - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

 

[Menzinger]

All we have is hope, he should have learned from Nylander.
Here's to hoping he doesn't win the 'pushover' category in the future.

I think there was a bit of learning here.

Dubas/the front office decided it wasnt worth pushing things into the regular season where it becomes a media circus. Likely thinking its better to give up more aav than they likely would have liked for the certainty of locking in the player.

Too soon to say either way if it was the right strategy

 

[Menzinger]

Just two years ago Tavares literally had one of the best seasons for a centre in Leafs organizational history, and now some folks are acting like hes medicore. He had a less than stellar season thi year- depsite having a newborn and a hand injury - and he was still a hair under ppg, showing zero signs so far of decline...

I dont understand this place sometimes

 

[Dekes For Days]

so JT can't impact wins/losses ?

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Of course Tavares impacts wins. What he doesn't impact is the isolated play of the goaltender, which is the overwhelming majority reason those teams got the results they did.

 

[hotpaws]

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. Of course Tavares impacts wins. What he doesn't impact is the isolated play of the goaltender, which is the overwhelming majority reason those teams got the results they did.

so for 11 years in a row the goalie has let poor Johnny down ?

I feel so bad for this guy , everyone always lets him down , first it was in jr for 4 years and now for 11 years in the NHL . Poor guy is always being let down by his teammates , why do you think this keeps happening ?

 

[Maple Leaf]

Been trying to get him fired for years

 

[Dekes For Days]

so for 11 years in a row the goalie has let poor Johnny down ?

What are you talking about? You were discussing respective team results since Tavares changed teams.

 

[4thline]

you switch back and forth from points to ppg from post to post depending on what fits your argument better , it has nothing to do with trying to have a reasonable discussion

and considering we were discussing how many players still produce at a high level at 30 and over there's no f***ing reason to add it up by seasons unless of course your trying to make it look much more common than it is which is obviously what your trying to do

It's all been the same argument. Pretty much every single damn post in the conversation (including yours) that referenced both points and points per game, because they're both measures of the same damn thing- how productive a player is. You provided 5 examples that fell off heavily, I presented several times that many that did not. f*** right off with a red herring about measurables changing and "reasonable discussion".

A reasonably intelligent person could take a proxy of hundreds of successful seasons over 30 and infer that some of those are repeats from the same player but realize that hundreds divided by 2-3 even 4 seasons per player is still a lot more than the 4 examples you gave, and is a reasonably common occurrence. It's not an attempt to deceive, it's just a shortcut because the conclusion is pants on head obvious.

I apologize that not I did not keep this conversation patronizingly simple to ensure that you didn't feel that you were being hoodwinked.

All pacing 70 points or better through a full season.

JT has been about a ppg player... 60ish points...

Strike top 5, instead do it with career above .9 to 29 years old, 27,28,29 above point per game. I'll even open it up and include players that were top 20 in cumulative league scoring over their 27-28-29 seasons. ...
~45 ish points are bringing in 6-7 at current cap. ..that sets a ~45 point 2C in the 7.7 range, a 60+ point low end 1 a couple of mill higher.

Lol,
Barely qualifies at 20th in scoring, .89 ppg
Again barely qualifies at 20th, .95
No where near top 20 due to injury, .99. Remained a 60-70 point C until 33, fell off at 34
60th in scoring, .73 (no where near qualifying
13th, .88. Had down seasons from 29-31, then had 65 and 76 point seasons at 32 and 33
again barely qualifies at 18th and .88. Decline happened suddenly at 29, held 50+ point level from 29-32

Here's a list of 162 times that a player over 30 scored 65 points since the 05 lockout. 223 60 or more.
343 that played at a 60 point pace but missed some time to injury.

 

[hotpaws]

What are you talking about? You were discussing respective team results since Tavares changed teams.

yes we were and you blamed the goalies for Johnny's failures , well Johnny has been a failure for 11 years , 9 with NY and 2 with us so that makes 11 years the goalies let him down

 

[Menzinger]

yes we were and you blamed the goalies for Johnny's failures , well Johnny has been a failure for 11 years , 9 with NY and 2 with us so that makes 11 years the goalies let him down

So by this metric you consider McDavid a failure because his teams have gone nowhere?

Dont use team stats to evaluate individual players....

 

[hotpaws]

A reasonably intelligent person could take a proxy of hundreds of successful seasons over 30 and infer that some of those are repeats from the same player but realize that hundreds divided by 2-3 even 4 seasons per player is still a lot more than the 4 examples you gave, and is a reasonably common occurrence. It's not an attempt to deceive, it's just a shortcut because the conclusion is pants on head obvious.

I apologize that not I did not keep this conversation patronizingly simple to ensure that you didn't feel that you were being hoodwinked.

why should anyone going though this thread have to guess at the actual number when you could have just as easily posted those stats instead of shifting the goal posts to try to inflate the number to "hoodwink" people skimming through this thread ?

 

[hotpaws]

So by this metric you consider McDavid a failure because his teams have gone nowhere?

Dont use team stats to evaluate individual players....

that's not what's being discussed

 

[4thline]

why should anyone going though this thread have to guess at the actual number when you could have just as easily posted those stats instead of shifting the goal posts to try to inflate the number to "hoodwink" people skimming through this thread ?

Not just as easily. That list took about 7 seconds to make, and anyone hoodwinked by clear proxies presented in clear english really isnt worth my time.

 

[Gary Nylund]

So by this metric you consider McDavid a failure because his teams have gone nowhere?

Dont use team stats to evaluate individual players....

Seems so obvious. How some people don't get this is beyond me.

 

[majormajor]

The Dubas vote I get but how is Lou the toughest GM to negotiate with considering he was generous with the contracts he gave to these guys:

Marleau 3x6M
Zaitsev. 7x4.5 M
Nelson. 6x6
Lee. 7x7
Bailey. 6x5M
Pageau. 5x5M
Martin. 4x2.5M
Komorov. 4x3M

It's got to be how they treat RFAs. Lou grinds his RFAs and uses the money he saves to overpay his veterans. Regardless of the quality of players, Dubas made his RFA's agents very happy.

 

[CincoHolio]

It's pretty hard to take those results seriously. If I had a mediocre/bad player as my client I'd be over the moon to deal with Lou

To echo that, what was the last A caliber free agent Lou has signed? Traded for?

 

[Mickey Marner]

To echo that, what was the last A caliber free agent Lou has signed? Traded for?

Kovalchuk 10 years ago.

 

[CincoHolio]

Kovalchuk 10 years ago.

Exactly. And we all know how well that turned out for him.

Every GM has their warts. Dubas is fine all things considered.

 

[Dekes For Days]

yes we were and you blamed the goalies for Johnny's failures , well Johnny has been a failure for 11 years , 9 with NY and 2 with us so that makes 11 years the goalies let him down

Tavares has not been a failure for 11 years. I'm still not clear why you're completely shifting the discussion. You said Tavares moving from NYI to Toronto made the NYI better and Toronto worse. This is false. The actual team, where Tavares can impact, got better in Toronto and worse in NY. NYI rode wildly unsustainable goaltending last year, and the Leafs got really bad goaltending this year, especially in comparison to their unsustainable goaltending in 2017-2018.

 

[achtungbaby]

Oh I agree, 100%. But go around the league and look at guys like James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Hayes, Loui Eriksson, Bobby Ryan, Sergei Bobrovsky, Jeff Skinner, Jamie Benn, David Krejci, Milan Lucic and let's start naming some GM's.

This is like a political lens your speaking of. I don’t like this poll nor the results. Besides, sure it looks bad for my team, but look at these other bad deals...

I’m curious what agents these are myself but let’s accept a levity here.

 

[achtungbaby]

I've been on the record about Dubas' spending in the past, so I'm not saying this as a huge fanboy, but not getting a bargain on an RFA contract feels like less of a cardinal sin than knowingly overpaying a player entering their declining years.

Agreed. Well said.

 

[achtungbaby]

Agreed. Well said.

Your record of being honest speaks for itself. Wasn’t trying to be argumentative. Was trying to edit my last post, wasn’t trying to quote myself. A little hfboards rust is showing.

 

[deletethis]

There seems to be 2 world perspectives here:

1. An idea/approach is good regardless of results if it checks all of the correct boxes according to a certain collection of tenets and beliefs. You can't fail this way because you did it the "right way". This could apply across the spectrum from old time hockey to aspie spreadsheet hockey to PC hockey management.
2. The process doesn't matter, only the results matter. There is no righteous method. There's no single method. From this perspective, history matters more. What worked before? What didn't? What recent innovation has proven to work? What new innovation will you try then adopt or discard based on concrete results? With this perspective you can fail because the results matter not the process you chose.

I can deal readily with #2. I can read the rainbow of ideas and arguments under #2. Dubas' approach is clearly #2. Anyone who attempts to rationalize under the tent of #1 come across as insufferable ideologues and eventually receive the ignore hammer.

OT: I'd just like to add that this Chayka character in Arizona might be an example of a complete incompetent with good press.

 

[ACC1224]

Exactly. And we all know how well that turned out for him.

Every GM has their warts. Dubas is fine all things considered.

He's shouldn't be above criticism as some believe and lets hope going forward that he can be described as more than 'fine'.

As always, whatever job or feelings people have towards Lou Lam has no bearing on the job Dubas is currently doing.
He's a big boy, he can stand on his own.

 

[ottomaddox]

I respect a few people around here who are level-headed about Dubas. Many of them believe that KD has made mistakes, but should be allowed more time with this organization. When you think about what he's done (managing), it's not a big enough sample size to say he should be fired. I think the same argument could be said about Dubas handing out contracts to players and dealing with agents: too small a sample size. The reality is that when he was in charge and independant of Lou he had many ELC's to award new contracts. Those contracts were awarded to players with percieved "great potential". So does it surprise anyone that player agents see KD as a GM that can give you a good deal? If only his sample size were longer.