Are you feeling more or less optimistic about the leafs future since Dubas took over?

[Dekes For Days]

Curtis posted 11-5-1 record (.676 points % earned ) in 17 games

Because he had fluked into posting the best SV% and GSAA in the league over a small sample. It was not representative of him as a player, and that was always going to come crashing down.

a team that finished 5th overall in the NHL standings.

They were 7th; the same as they would place the next year without fluke vezina-quality backup goaltending, an unsustainable shootout record, and crazy health.

Who would look at those stats and think this is an area of the team I think needs fixing?

You should definitely look at those stats and understand that a significant drop in backup goaltending was inevitable, regardless of what moves were made.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

In September 2018, we had 3 backup goalies. One was a backup coming off of a vezina quality season. One was a young, calder cup winning, AHL goalie of the year. As I showed, we did not have backup problems for a while that season.

You think all prospects and draft picks are worthless?

This is not true at all. I'd just rather evaluate him based on reality, not stuff you've made up.

1. It wasn't 18 months, as I showed.
2. Goaltending can be one of the most difficult spots to fill, and tons of good GMs have spent years looking. It says nothing about his ability to evaluate.

So how about we wait to see what happens until we start complaining?

That AHL Calder cup winning goalie is why I have my stance on prospects, if the AHL or other leagues meant anything that Calder cup winning goalie wouldn't have failed miserably but he did, so badly that they basically told him to f*** off

 

[The Podium]

I find it strange that those who disagree with Dubas tend to call him names "Dumbass, Dufass". Also wild that they cant compliment the obviously positive things he brings to this team. They also tend to ignore context and use revisionist history to make up criticisms.

On the same side of dumb, its wild how some individuals cant criticize anything he does especially when sometimes its warranted.

I guess there is way too much emotion around here, very little objectivity. Makes these boards a cesspool of idiocy.

 

[Dekes For Days]

That AHL Calder cup winning goalie is why I have my stance on prospects, if the AHL or other leagues meant anything that Calder cup winning goalie wouldn't have failed miserably but he did, so badly that they basically told him to f*** off

Goalies, in all leagues, are by far the hardest to predict and project and get consistent play from. Sparks has absolutely no relation to Robertson, who is much more likely to be a quality NHL player based on what he's done.

 

[The Podium]

The most astonishing part of all, as one of his top priorities when taking over was that he thought he needed to change his backup goalie in McElhinney, that was part of a record setting Leafs team that finished with 105 points, while Curtis posted 11-5-1 record (.676 points % earned ) in 17 games with a sparkling 2.14 GAA and .934 sv% (among the NHL's best marks) all while making $850k AAV.

The Andersen/McBackup tandem was among the best in the league, working together like clockwork, which was gifted to him with a team that finished 5th overall in the NHL standings.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it".

Who would look at those stats and think this is an area of the team I think needs fixing?

I dont think he saw it as a priority but rather he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. You pick your backup and lose the others to waivers. You can use revisionist history all you want, but at the time you had to pick between a 35+ career journeyman coming off an anomalous career year and a young Calder Cup winning AHL goalie of the year. What happens if he picks McElhinney and Sparks goes on to be a starting goaltender or a solid backup that is cost controlled? What happens if McElhinney regresses to his career average?

Its easy to make that call in hindsight, but at the time it was a difficult decision. Unfortunately for Dubas he made the wrong call, but I cant say I wouldnt have made the same one at the time.

 

[rent free]

Bingo.

Worth noting though that it took him almost no time at all to give his BFF Keefe a competent backup, spending draft picks to do so as well.

Not hard to figure out why either.

Better than spending draft picks on rental fourth line centers. Campbell will have more games played às a leaf than plekanec and Boyle will combined.

 

[Dekes For Days]

It's one thing to say you wanted a backup goalie solution found sooner, while acknowledging that we don't know how possible that was and that we have one now. It's another to make wildly false claims about the amount of time it was necessary, or the impact it had, or to use hindsight to suggest that clearly worse moves at the time should have been made.

 

[ACC1224]

I dont think he saw it as a priority but rather he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. You pick your backup and lose the others to waivers. You can use revisionist history all you want, but at the time you had to pick between a 35+ career journeyman coming off an anomalous career year and a young Calder Cup winning AHL goalie of the year. What happens if he picks McElhinney and Sparks goes on to be a starting goaltender or a solid backup that is cost controlled? What happens if McElhinney regresses to his career average?

Its easy to make that call in hindsight, but at the time it was a difficult decision. Unfortunately for Dubas he made the wrong call, but I cant say I wouldnt have made the same one at the time.

Yes he made the wrong call, his job is to make the right call.
No one is perfect but that shouldn’t exempt him from any criticism.

 

[Bomber0104]

Andersen was fine last year, but so was our backup goaltending for much of the year.

This is a lie. As has already been shown to you, last season Andersen performed at an elite 108 point pace and the backups combined for a dreadful 69 point pace

69 points would get you a last place finish. 108 points is a contender pace.

Hutchinson and 1st half Sparks were fine. Only 2nd half Sparks was bad, and it had no impact on our placement as a team.

This is a lie. As has already been shown to you, the backups combined for a 69 point pace in 2018/19. Not only did they hurt us in the standings, but that also forced us to overplay and burn out Andersen who could have been much fresher for the playoffs.

While our backup was bad for half of this year, Andersen was horrible this year. He was one of the worst starting goalies in the league. He was carried to a good record because we scored so much.

This is also a lie. In case it isn't obvious, the same team plays in front of Andersen that plays in front of the backups.

Andersen played at a still-elite 103 point pace, whereas the backups performed even worse than the year before, combining for a 60 point pace - even with that same high scoring team playing in front of them.

I have no idea what you're not understanding about these numbers.

We didn't have league worst backup goaltending for 1+ seasons.

This is a lie. The Leafs combination of Hutchinson and Sparks played for 1+ seasons between the two of them. And they combined for some of the absolute worst backup goaltending numbers in the league.

It's not about holding out for one specific trade. There weren't many available options.

This is also a lie. You don't know what was and what wasn't available. You are an anonymous HFboards user in no way connected to anything to do with the NHL, the Leafs, or hockey.

What we do know is that there were many backup goalies changing hands over the off-season during free agency. Dubas ignored this avenue completely.

However, stop-gap measures usually don't work. We saw that with Hutchinson. If Dubas had spent assets on another Hutchinson, you would just be in here complaining about that.

It seems more like you want Vezina quality backup goaltending every year for peanuts.

No I just want better than the 69 point and 60 point pace backup goaltending that Dubas got us over the past 2 seasons.

Almost every team in the league gets better than this and it is not much to ask for at all really.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Yes he made the wrong call, his job is to make the right call.

There is a difference between making the wrong call, and making the right call and not having it work out in comparison to the assumptions of the alternative.

You can't have 100% predictability in any sport no matter what you do, but especially not in hockey, and especially not with goalies. Some only see the end result without context, and that's how you destroy a team. Making good, rational, informed decisions in the moment is all you can really ask of a GM.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

Yes he made the wrong call, his job is to make the right call.
No one is perfect but that shouldn’t exempt him from any criticism.

He could have kept both too. He made a choice. It was a tough call. To me I can understand why he did. Goalies are hard to figure out in best of situations. But clearly keeping a vet who got us in playoffs by making da Crosby stop was da right choice. But he still got us to playoffs and it appears he has corrected himself with Soup. To me the real issue is can he FIX our defense. It has been our problem for 60 years. If he fixes that issue then he has my support.

 

[Papi 4 Hart]

Yes, they weren't very good and got a bunch of high picks which led to where they are today.
I guess you could credit Dubas for not trading those players away once he came on board.

Did you watch the leafs before 2014 when we drafted William Nylander? We traded picks and top prospects and tried to win for 10 years. This is not true at all that the previous regimes were responsible for the team we had. They tried to win and failed and it wasn't until rogers cleaned house that we actually did a proper rebuild.

 

[ACC1224]

He could have kept both too. He made a choice. It was a tough call. To me I can understand why he did. Goalies are hard to figure out in best of situations. But clearly keeping a vet who got us in playoffs by making da Crosby stop was da right choice. But he still got us to playoffs and it appears he has corrected himself with Soup. To me the real issue is can he FIX our defense. It has been our problem for 60 years. If he fixes that issue then he has my support.

That’s going to be tough with the way he’s maxed out the cap. He may have to move a big name and the thought of that happening is a little unsettling.

 

[Bomber0104]

Did you watch the leafs before 2014 when we drafted William Nylander? We traded picks and top prospects and tried to win for 10 years. This is not true at all that the previous regimes were responsible for the team we had. They tried to win and failed and it wasn't until rogers cleaned house that we actually did a proper rebuild.

I think we should hold Dubas to a higher standard than just being a little better than failures like Nonis/Burke/JFJ/etc.

All of whom had a huge fan-club on these boards (especially Burke).

 

[ACC1224]

Did you watch the leafs before 2014 when we drafted William Nylander? We traded picks and top prospects and tried to win for 10 years. This is not true at all that the previous regimes were responsible for the team we had. They tried to win and failed and it wasn't until rogers cleaned house that we actually did a proper rebuild.

Yes their failure resulted in the top picks that Dubas is enjoying. That’s what I was alluding to. Apologies if I wasn’t clear.

 

[deletethis]

Mistakes will be made by any GM. The Sparks error wasn't far reaching. The information was there in plain sight to see through the dressing of showy AHL numbers: flaky personality especially emotional, some outburst incidents on social media, frantic style in pressure moments on the ice, continuing issues with staying square to shooters, etc.

I get it, the GM was a bit invested into Sparks graduating to the NHL, Dubas had been involved with the team for several seasons. In hindsight, it was demonstrably the wrong decision. Sparks still might have survived the season on the roster if he hadn't foolishly thought it was his place to speak collectively about his teammates in the media. If there's one thing dressing rooms hate, it's when a pleb acts like they're a leader especially when they're on shaky ground to begin with.

I'm sure Dubas learned something from this. He did take a sterner tone with Matthews and his lack of communication about Pantsgate.

 

[Dekes For Days]

This is a lie. As has already been shown to you, last season Andersen performed at an elite 108 point pace and the backups combined for a dreadful 69 point pace

1. I did not lie. Stop making false accusations or I will start reporting your posts.
2. Judging goalies by their record is really flawed, especially on a team that threw their backups to the wolves by giving them every back end of a back to back.
3. You are actually the one making incorrect statements. Our backups went 10-12-1, which is a 75 point pace. Our backups also put up a combined 0.905 SV%, which while not great, is certainly not the worst in the league, especially behind the defense we had.
4. Breaking it down a bit..
Sparks until a day before they acquired Hutchinson had a 6-1-1 record, and a 0.910 SV%.
Hutchinson in 2018-2019 for us had a 2-3 record, and a 0.914 SV%.
Neither of these are bad or cause for alarm, which means that through all of 2018-2019, we had a backup goalie available that was playing well for us.
Did Sparks fall off considerably in the 2nd half? Yeah. Should Babcock have played him less, or in not the most difficult possible situations? Yeah, probably. Is that on Dubas? No.

Last year only felt so bad because of decisions by Babcock, and because we were all comparing it to a journeyman backup fluking into a vezina-quality season and hiding all of our weaknesses.

As has already been shown to you, the backups combined for a 69 point pace in 2018/19.

They did not.

Not only did they hurt us in the standings

It did not. For it to have hurt us in the standings, we would have needed an 8 point swing from our backups. This is asking our backups to go 14-8-1, or a 103 point pace, playing back end of back to backs. That's unreasonable.

that also forced us to overplay and burn out Andersen who could have been much fresher for the playoffs.

Andersen was not overplayed or burnt out or not fresh for the playoffs.

In case it isn't obvious, the same team plays in front of Andersen that plays in front of the backups.

Aside from not really being true (Andersen faced the easiest expected goals against of any of our goalies this season), starting goalies have different expectations than backup goalies.

You don't know what was and what wasn't available.

Neither do you, yet you blame him for it.

What we do know is that there were many backup goalies changing hands over the off-season during free agency. Dubas ignored this avenue completely.

He did not ignore it, and Hutchinson had played well for us in 2018-2019. There were more pressing concerns, and none of the ones being tossed around were of much quality.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Robertson hasn't done anything yet but Spezza is based on your logic the Muzzin deal shouldn't have been made.

How do you figure the Muzzin deal shouldn't be made? It filled a hole in our defense long-term, how is that comparable to renting a guy not good enough to be 4C for 2 months?

 

[Mess]

But he still got us to playoffs and it appears he has corrected himself with Soup. To me the real issue is can he FIX our defense. It has been our problem for 60 years. If he fixes that issue then he has my support.

Problem with addressing the D, which I agree is the right choice, however Dubas attempted that last year when he traded Kadri for Kerfoot and renting Barrie, and then acquired Ceci and both those attempts failed to address the poor defense and in fact made it worse as Leaf goals against went up not down.

Both Barrie and Ceci will now walk away as UFAs and we're right back to square #1 of needing a pair of RHD, with only journeyman Holl as the only one the roster on the right side.

Never good when your GM is constantly fixing his own mistakes while attempt to upgrade the team. Bet he would love a do-over on that Kadri trade as dealing him now for 9 goal Kerfoot the residual part of that trade also downgraded the team and wasted a good asset that could have returned a top 4 RHD and preferred long-term solution perhaps.

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

How do you figure the Muzzin deal shouldn't be made? It filled a hole in our defense long-term, how is that comparable to renting a guy not good enough to be 4C for 2 months?

It should have been and I'm glad it was,but if you are going to tell hat keeping a 2nd round pick, not even a prospect yet, just a pick is better than getting an established player, then it stands to reason that you probably wouldn't have made the Muzzin deal because 1st round picks are even more valuable.

Having a good prospect pool is cool but ask Pittsburgh fans if they care that their prospect pool sucks.

I bet the majority don't

 

[All Mod Cons]

Problem with addressing the D, which I agree is the right choice, however Dubas attempted that last year when he traded Kadri for Kerfoot and renting Barrie, and then acquired Ceci and both those attempts failed to address the poor defense and in fact made it worse as Leaf goals against went up not down.

Both Barrie and Ceci will now walk away as UFAs and we're right back to square #1 of needing a pair of RHD, with only journeyman Holl as the only one the roster on the right side.

Never good when your GM is constantly fixing his own mistakes while attempt to upgrade the team. Bet he would love a do-over on that Kadri trade as dealing him now for 9 goal Kerfoot the residual part of that trade also downgraded the team and wasted a good asset that could have returned a top 4 RHD and preferred long-term solution perhaps.

That was an awful deal. Could set the team back a couple of years for sure. I don't understand the thinking behind the deal. It was just the complete opposite type of defenseman we needed. And why think, after Rielly was coming off a 70 point season, that we need more offence and a PP specialist from the back end. Completely misread the situation imo. We just gave Kadri away.

 

[All Mod Cons]

It should have been and I'm glad it was,but if you are going to tell hat keeping a 2nd round pick, not even a prospect yet, just a pick is better than getting an established player, then it stands to reason that you probably wouldn't have made the Muzzin deal because 1st round picks are even more valuable.

Having a good prospect pool is cool but ask Pittsburgh fans if they care that their prospect pool sucks.

I bet the majority don't

Because of our cap structure, we need a prospect pool more than the Penguins. I just hope the cap rises enough in a year for us to actually benefit from the Matthews and Marner deals, otherwise we'll have to pony up more than our competitors again.

 

[The Podium]

Problem with addressing the D, which I agree is the right choice, however Dubas attempted that last year when he traded Kadri for Kerfoot and renting Barrie, and then acquired Ceci and both those attempts failed to address the poor defense and in fact made it worse as Leaf goals against went up not down.

Both Barrie and Ceci will now walk away as UFAs and we're right back to square #1 of needing a pair of RHD, with only journeyman Holl as the only one the roster on the right side.

Never good when your GM is constantly fixing his own mistakes while attempt to upgrade the team. Bet he would love a do-over on that Kadri trade as dealing him now for 9 goal Kerfoot the residual part of that trade also downgraded the team and wasted a good asset that could have returned a top 4 RHD and preferred long-term solution perhaps.

The fact that you think Ceci was acquired to solve our D problem speaks volumes about your knowledge of the situation...

Criticize Dubas if you must, but dont make false accusations. Ceci was acquired purely as part of a long-term cap dump

 

[The Podium]

That was an awful deal. Could set the team back a couple of years for sure. I don't understand the thinking behind the deal. It was just the complete opposite type of defenseman we needed. And why think, after Rielly was coming off a 70 point season, that we need more offence and a PP specialist from the back end. Completely misread the situation imo. We just gave Kadri away.

Dealing Kadri hasnt put us back years, it just didnt put us forward. Moves that put you pack years are Forsberg for Erat type moves where youre dealing futures for complete flops.

Also Dubas' first target was Brodie, a smooth skating modern day shutdown D. Kadri unfortunately exercised his NTC right and nixed the deal. I would assume there isnt a ton of top 4 D available every offseason so im sure options were limited.

 

[Mess]

Criticize Dubas if you must, but dont make false accusations. Ceci was acquired purely as part of a long-term cap dump

Certainly better than dealing your 1st round pick for a short-term cap dump, to compensate for your overspending habits, I'll give you that !! .