Analyzing Dubas's Performance - III

[Gallagbi]

You lost me. Why would saving some cap space for Marleau mean any of those things ?

Because Dubas unloaded Brown for cap reasons. Martin didn't fit the way Dubas/Babs wanted them to play and was overpaid

 

[Menzinger]

You lost me. Why would saving some cap space for Marleau mean any of those things ?

Because assuming they avoided signing Tavares to ride out the Marleau contract, one would presume if Lou was still GM he would have kept guys like Brown

 

[ACC1224]

Because assuming they avoided signing Tavares to ride out the Marleau contract, one would presume if Lou was still GM he would have kept guys like Brown

Maybe you quotes me by accident but I wasn’t assuming any of those things.

 

[Stamkos4life]

Have people said they want him to stay and lose? I haven't even heard people say they want him here long term

From the poster I quoted above;

"Is Dubas perfect? no, not a single GM is but anyone who thinks he is going anywhere in the next couple years barring a major set back like <80pts is going to be disappointed and mind as well not watch"

It won't require a season of less than 80 points for Dubas to be gone.

If we miss the playoffs again, he's done.

 

[Gallagbi]

From the poster I quoted above;

"Is Dubas perfect? no, not a single GM is but anyone who thinks he is going anywhere in the next couple years barring a major set back like <80pts is going to be disappointed and mind as well not watch"

It won't require a season of less than 80 points for Dubas to be gone.

If we miss the playoffs again, he's done.

I agree with you, he'll be gone if they don't win a round barring some kind of crazy reason

 

[Wafflewhipper]

Matthews is very clearly a notch or two above the other members of the Big 4. Moving forward it’s going to be Matthews and the Medium 3.

Tavares should never have been named captain. He checks off all the boxes of the prodigal son coming home but unfortunately it’s just not his team and he doesn’t seem to be able to lift his team like even Spezza was able to. It feels like Matthews team. Tavares would be alright as an assistant.

Matthews dropped the ball and his pants on getting the Captaincy
Thats it, if he hadn’t have gotten himself in that sh!t in Arizona he would be Captain. He blindsided the team too. That screwed him of it i believe fully. Tavares is fine. Matthews deserves it as he has just improved so much this year.

 

[capfit9]

They filled two spots. Not sure you're getting much better value keeping Kadri and trying to fill the RHD slot elsewhere from a cap hit perspective

That's the failure, trying to "fill spots" in important areas of the roster. Is it about trying to win a championship or not ?

 

[Gallagbi]

That's the failure, trying to "fill spots" in important areas of the roster. Is it about trying to win a championship or not ?

You get that by filling the roster out well...

 

[Menzinger]

Maybe you quotes me by accident but I wasn’t assuming any of those things.

I think it was more I may have misinterpreted what you meant earlier

 

[Antropovsky]

Shanny has always wanted JT as captain and da extended families are very tight off da ice and have been for over 30+ years when everyone was still dreamin of going to da show ... where this rumour about Matty as captain comes from must be from Dubie ... it has never ever been from Shanny

Mirtle: 2019-20 starts with a new captain, new faces, a new style of play – and more soup – for the Maple Leafs

According to Mirtle...Dubas and Babs wanted Tavares, Shanahan wanted Matthews.

Again not sure how accurate his sources are.

 

[Stephen]

One of big issues that has always been around Matty is he has never been a captain for any team he has ever played on from day 1 he started playing organized hockey ... To me I don't fully get it ... but it says something when you stop and think about it ... JT has been captain of almost every team he has ever played on since he started playing ... again that says a lot too ... some guys are just not cut out for captain

I don’t say this as a reactionary Leafs fan, but dating back to his early career with the Islanders, it always felt like the hockey world has always wanted to hand over the keys to Tavares as the next great player.

I still remember how heated the Tavares vs Toews debates were. Basically a guy who kept winning everything vs a guy who had slightly better numbers but no help. Or Tavares vs Stamkos, and Stamkos always surprisingly outproduced Tavares.

I just always think Tavares has never quite gotten to the level as where his reputation is. If that makes sense. And the Leaf captaincy is just the latest example.

The only reservation I have about the idea of giving Matthews the captaincy is he seems to have the young superstar chip on his shoulder at times and not necessarily that political correctness that Tavares has. His comments about not caring about what outsiders think wouldn’t have been the best message as captain.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Antropovsky, the other comment I was going to make about Dubas’ conduct in front of the media is I think he really miscalculated by taking that defensive stance, throwing the word idiotic around and being catty with Simmons. From a pragmatic point of view it’s going to put him under the microscope and constant second guessing had he just towed more of a generic “process” response and kept an emotional distance from his own project.

Without having the precious foundation of success, he has chosen a very bumpy road to go down.

what if Dubas wants the focus to be on him instead of his players/Keefe?

 

[DarkKnight]

People happy about losing so they can claim they were right is completely contradicting the point he thought he was making.

No I made the point. The last emotion I felt game 5 was happiness I assure you. You’re attaching nonsensical motivations that don’t exist.

 

[Scruffers]

Pre-Dubas, the only Lou decisions I really disagreed with were the Marleau and Zaitsev contracts, and trading assets for some center depth in Tomas Plekanec for the 2018 Playoffs. Since Dubas was hired as the Leafs GM, however, I have disagreed with far more of his decisions compared to Lou's aside from the Zaitsev-Ceci and Muzzin trades. This team has been on a steady decline since he was hired in Summer 2018, and our current cap problems are entirely self-inflicted by Kyle Dubas.


Contract Extensions
I think Dubas has done a decent job with some of his contracts, but he’s made some pretty questionable moves and I believe he has done a fairly poor job of managing the cap situation.

1. John Tavares: At the time, I was ecstatic that we acquired a player of his caliber. However, I look back at this acquisition as a deeply regrettable one because his $11M cap hit has contributed significantly to our current cap problems. We already had a solid 2C on an excellent contract in Kadri, and while Tavares is clearly the better player, the cap difference of $6.5M between the two is simply too steep of a cap price. This contract directly resulted in Kadri’s value contract getting shipped out, and costed us our 2020 1st Round Pick to move Marleau.
2. Tyler Bozak: Letting Bozak walk as a UFA was another massive mistake. His current contract is an overpay, but he would also have deserved it for his long tenure as a Leaf. Maybe he takes a discount to come back to Toronto. Either way, I think he would have been much better than Kerfoot as a 3C and we could have afforded his pay raise if necessary.
3. William Nylander: The contract was fair, but the negotiations damaged Dubas’ reputation among agents and directly resulted in Nylander’s declining performance in 2018-19. Passable deal, bad negotiation.
4. Auston Matthews: In this situation with a young star player, you can choose to lose in one of two ways: paying an enormous cap hit but locking up the player for maximum term, or paying a reduced cap hit for minimum term. Instead, Dubas chose a huge cap hit with moderate term, meaning he lost on both. He made a huge mistake not locking up Matthews for 8 years, and I hope we don’t pay the price for it.
5. Mitch Marner: This contract is a little trickier to contextualize, because all reports indicated that Marner’s camp had outrageous demands ranging from $9-10M on 3-year bridge deals. However, if Dubas hadn’t signed Tavares, we could have afforded to play hardball with Marner and make him sit out the entire season because we would have had a more flexible cap situation. You can still concede the $10.893M x 6 deal, or you can pressure Marner into getting a more reasonable contract with your cap flexibility, or you can wait until the right trade opportunity pops up. Either way, this contract negotiation disaster was borne of Dubas’ cap mismanagement stemming from the Tavares signing.
6. Kasperi Kapanen: Good term, debatable cap hit. I don’t exactly mind this contract extension, and I like what he brings to the team. However, one of Johnsson or Kapanen should have been traded after the 2018-19 season when their value peaked.
7. Andreas Johnsson: This contract looks like a disaster after his injury. He doesn’t bring nearly as much value to the team as Kapanen does, and his term is far too long. Should have been traded.
8. Jake Muzzin: Good extension. Term is one year longer than I’d like.
9. Pierre Engvall: Good extension. Reasonable cap hit, great term, and a player that fulfills a 4C / depth C role. Dubas’s best contract.
10. Justin Holl: Still not sure about this contract. However, his numbers are pretty good and Muzzin-Holl seems like an effective pairing so far. A deal similar to Engvall’s with 1 fewer year, but a lower cap hit would have been ideal.
11. Alexander Kerfoot: This contract is okay. Kerfoot clearly had a down year, but his term and cap hit are reasonable.

Trades

1. Zaitsev-Ceci Trade: Dubas’s best trade was getting out from the Zaitsev trade at the expense of one year of Cody Ceci. Although it cost us Connor Brown and a year of watching Ceci in a Leafs jersey, this trade was a huge win.
2. Muzzin Trade: This is another good trade Dubas made because he managed to address a clear need (physical, defensively responsible defenseman) without losing any roster players. I’m still uncomfortable about giving up a 1st Round Pick and Durzi to make this trade work, but that’s the price you have to pay to get Muzz. Fair trade.
3. Campbell Trade: I don’t mind this trade, but Dubas clearly made a mistake with the timing of this deal. Hutchinson cost us some important points this season, and I think Dubas gave him far too many chances to prove himself. Still, the trade itself was good.
4. Kadri Trade: This trade only happens because we signed Tavares, thereby making Kadri expendable. As we have now learned, this trade was a gargantuan blunder. Kerfoot is the only saving grace of this deal, and it’s nowhere near close enough to make this trade look respectable. This trade is quickly approaching ROR -> Blues level of bad. Awful return.
5. Marleau Trade: This trade only happens because we signed Tavares. Because Tavares squeezed us up against the cap, we needed to shed salary to make room for Marner, which ended up costing us a 1st Round Pick. Losing the pick sucks, but we could have afforded to sit with Marleau’s last year if Dubas managed the cap more effectively.
6. (Lack of) Kapanen / Johnsson Trade: This is a trade that Dubas should have made during – or after – the 2018-19 season. It is clear to me that Dubas has far too much loyalty to these players; their value had peaked at this time, and it would have been a prime opportunity to ship one of them to another team to address an important team need. Maybe Johnsson moves laterally for a LW similar to Hyman, or we package him with other assets for a top-4 D. Either way, this was a trade that should have happened and didn’t.

Summary
In terms of contract extensions, I’d say that Dubas made some pretty substantial blunders. Signing Tavares set us on a course for cap hell that prompted us to bleed assets (Bozak, 2020 1st, Marleau), handcuffed our ability to negotiate with Marner, and made us consider Kadri an expendable asset that was subsequently wasted on a bust trade for Barrie. While some of his extensions (Engvall, Muzzin) are good, and some (Nylander, Kerfoot) are fair, he failed to lock up our star player (Matthews) to maximum term, hurt Nylander’s season by not giving him a deal immediately, and caving to Marner’s negotiations because he put himself in a bad cap situation. I’m extremely disappointed with how he’s managed the cap.

As far as Dubas trades go, he’s made some effective ones. The Muzzin, Ceci, and Campbell trades are all pretty good, even if the timing on the Campbell trade was poor and ultimately costly. The two worst trades he made (Kadri, Marleau) stem from self-inflicted cap constraints and a situation he created for the Leafs where Kadri became expendable. Although his other trades have been moderately effective, losing Kadri and the 13th OA pick are painful.

All in all, I’m not a huge fan of how Dubas has handled this team. After signing Tavares, it felt like he was rushing the rebuild and thrusting us into cap hell far sooner than we were prepared for. Every subsequent move has been an attempt to address immediate cap problems when we were already in a position to deal with any cap constraints for years to come. At times, Dubas has demonstrated too much loyalty to certain players (Kapanen, Johnsson) through an unwillingness to make a trade when their value is maximized, and not enough loyalty to other players (Kadri, Bozak) who fulfilled important roles and needs for our team. He’s also been extremely indecisive on key contract negotiations (Nylander) and important trades (Hutchinson), and he has also failed to lock up our franchise player for maximum term. Dubas has not signed a single contract that I consider a steal, and the good will he earned from his Zaitsev + Muzzin trades has been undone by the Kadri trade.

2 years later, I have very little faith in Kyle Dubas.

 

[capfit9]

You get that by filling the roster out well...

that is a loser's mentality

 

[Gallagbi]

that is a loser's mentality

I guess we could play without players, but it probably doesn't lead to many wins

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

IMO:

It's hard to give him credit for signing the RFA's when he paid them as much as he did. It's not like when Kadri and Rielly were signed and everyone was happy because the price was more than fair, he threw so much money at them that it would have been shocking if they didn't sign.

Drafting - not sure about this, doesn't he just do what the scouts suggest doing?

Muzzin - love that deal.

Respectable person - yes and no. I think it's possible he's too in love with his player and needs to be less friend and more boss.

Philosophy - too early to call if a complete failure. He's on thin ice though, we'll see. I'm definitely skeptical though.

Kadri trade - agreed.

Goaltending - agreed. With all the injuries I don't think a playin series was avoidable though anyway.

Conclusion - agree that giving him one more season seems logical, emphasis on one.

To be fair, while the Dubas RFA negotiations deserve some criticism, there is a difference between the Kadri/Rielly extensions and the Matthews/Nylander/Marner extensions.

The Kadri and Rielly ext were considered good for both sides at the time and look like steals now but their extensions were signed before they broke out and had their best seasons. They both signed in the spring of 2016 where Kadri had only hit the 50pt mark once then had his 30 goals seasons the following 2 seasons after signing and Rielly at the point of signing had a career best 36 points then didn't break out till 2 years later.
Similar to how the MacKinnon and Pasta contracts are steals now.

Matthews was signed after a 40 goal rookie campaign followed up by 2 ppg+ seasons and being one of the best 5on5 goal scorers the league has seen in a while and emerging top 5 center in the league. Marner was signed after 2 60+ pt seasons and a 94 pt season over his first 3 years. Nylander was signed after back to back 61 pt seasons and looked to have 70 pt potential in his prime.

The situations were different. Kadri and Rielly were signed with the assumption that they were going to break out while Matthews and Marner were already producing near the top of the league and Nylander was considered a slight overpayment to fair based on production at the time while looking great now.

 

[capfit9]

I guess we could play without players, but it probably doesn't lead to many wins

So i guess every gm is a winner just by filling out a roster every year, great standards

 

[m1ker]

Having ?Holl in that top 4 puts sad face on most Leafs fans.

Yeah it’s not going to win a cup but looks better than what we had this year. All we had to do was keep Kadri and hainsey

 

[Gallagbi]

So i guess every gm is a winner just by filling out a roster every year, great standards

You may want to go read that previous post again.

You win by filling out your roster well. The better your roster, the better your team, the more you win.

Get it? All GMs have the same cap and the same roster spots available

 

[m1ker]

I thought so too.

Last year it was bizarre that Babs insisted on using Hyman both so much and on all the draws given the injury. He may have just figured Bergeron would clean out any other option anyways

We’ll never know but it could of been stubborn babs sticking it to Dubas for not getting him a pk guy and trading away lindholm. Babs loved lindholm so much he played him on the wing just to have him on pk

 

[Gallagbi]

We’ll never know but it could of been stubborn babs sticking it to Dubas for not getting him a pk guy and trading away lindholm. Babs loved lindholm so much he played him on the wing just to have him on pk

That's certainly a.....theory...

 

[capfit9]

You may want to go read that previous post again.

You win by filling out your roster well. The better your roster, the better your team, the more you win.

Get it? All GMs have the same cap and the same roster spots available

Yeah and he didn't do that. consider the results. every gm might have the same cap but not budget and same roster spots available but not roster composition and that's on the gm, not me or you

 

[egd27]

Matthews dropped the ball and his pants on getting the Captaincy
Thats it, if he hadn’t have gotten himself in that sh!t in Arizona he would be Captain. He blindsided the team too. That screwed him of it i believe fully. Tavares is fine. Matthews deserves it as he has just improved so much this year.

Tavares will do the classy thing and hand the C to Matthews after the next season. Unless of course Matthews has another off ice incident.

 

[Gallagbi]

Yeah and he didn't do that. consider the results. every gm might have the same cap but not budget and same roster spots available but not roster composition and that's on the gm, not me or you

Nobody is saying otherwise, what I'm saying is that our D was a weak point and he tried to address it with the Kadri deal. It didn't work out as hoped, but you're not upgrading the team for the $2M you have to acquire a D if you keep Kadri.

Kerfoot is a downgrade on Kadri, but Barrie was a big part of the deal - especially at the 50% salary retained. So if you keep Kadri, you're left with a key open spot on the roster that needs to be filled with little money to do it