Athletic: Dubas Job on the Line this Season (contract expiring after this season)

[Martin Skoula]

I meant with the consistent trend of drafting equal amount of slots but lower

I agree 100% though if you keep pumping out a mid tier forward then you are gold but you need to ensure you are keeping wnough higher picks to do that.. thats all i meant

But overall a forward every year and a dman every 18 months roughly for graduation once the machine gets rolling and you are good

Yeah if Niemela/Hirvonen/Holmberg can come in and replace Brodie and Kerfoot on ELCs without much of a loss in quality that's 7 mil that opens up for a high end add somewhere. Replace Murray with a Peksa/Hidelby that hits and you have 10+ mil to play with.

 

[andora]

Yeah if Niemela/Hirvonen/Holmberg can come in and replace Brodie and Kerfoot on ELCs without much of a loss in quality that's 7 mil that opens up for a high end add somewhere. Replace Murray with a Peksa/Hidelby that hits and you have 10+ mil to play with.

yep 100%.. i have already felt that:

holmberg -> kerfoot
steeves -> engvall
mcmann -> ZAR

any of the other ones are just gravy. i see hirvonen becoming what jarnkrok will be (swiss army like kerfoot)

not sure if niemela is one or two years away but i like the idea of him and sandin playing smart effective IQ defence together. personally i could see villenueve challenging for brodie's spot (or type i guess)

 

[Dekes For Days]

That post specifically said how many players we had left after spending all those picks.

That post specifically misrepresented what all those picks actually bought.

There's nothing unusual about a team in our position utilizing draft picks, and there's nothing abnormal about the amount we've spent, especially considering that we've held onto all of our top prospects. We've drafted well and our prospect pool is healthy and drastically better than the state it was in when Dubas took over.

You'd have to now mention all the players we lost to aquire the picks you mentioned.

According to your logic, we'd only mention the players whose contracts haven't already ended. Everything is completely worthless if it wouldn't have been on the team at this exact moment in time, right?

The jackets literally sat foligno days before we traded for him due to an injury. So either the jackets lied and sat him even though he wasn't injured but then somehow he became injured soon after, or, he was injured and dubas traded a 1st for him.

The Jackets sat Foligno for one game prior to the deadline, like most teams do with their valuable pending rentals. If he had anything, it was minor and healed by the time he joined us and went through quarantine. Fact is, a healthy Foligno was traded for, for a price multiple teams (including the most recent cup winner) offered, and Foligno was healthy when he started with us. The injury that took him out of action with us was new and experienced while playing for us. He confirmed as such in the All or Nothing series.

 

[TheGoldenJet]

The way Dubas and Keefe seem to be responding to bad games and adversity with a high degree of emotion would suggest things in the board room have been as spicy as they have been on the message boards.

Lol yup.

 

[Menzinger]

A GM privately showed emotion for a second when a horrific goal review went against his team at a critical moment for the second time in a week??

WHAT A SCANDAL!

Folks will still bring up one of media quotes from like 4-5 years ago as if they meant anything the next day they were said, let alone years down the line.

Im not sure a GM adjusting his glasses or growing a beard gives us any actual insight....

 

[Larcos_Unal]

Imagine being Dubas, paying your players before they accomplish a single thing. Coddling them and wiping their little tushies so they don't ever have to become accountable for anything.

They repay you by starting the year playing like absolute trash. Their goal is to win a cup and he must know that this year there's no chance, they are worse than they were last year and Matthews & Mitch are due for a slight regression.

He'll probably still get extended cause Shanny does not like to admit he's ever wrong about anything lol.

 

[sparxx87]

One thing about the “Dubas inherited his core” narrative is that he had a pretty big role in the organization during the acquisition of half of them if the core as we describe it is Rielly, Nylander, Marner, and Matthews. He also had a hand in player development since he was in charge of the Marlies, which under his stewardship saw the development of now full time Leafs with Liljegren, Engvall, and Holl. And a few others that are now on other NHL teams with Hyman, Kapanen, and Dermott.

What role did he play as someone who had no authority on personnel decisions? Did the organization want Laine but Dubas convinced them of Matthews?

I'd also love to hear what role a guy whose never played or coached a competitive sport in his life had in development of elite athletes? Engvall is a plug and Holl doesn't belong in the league. Liljegren was a first round pick who needed to play. What exactly did Dubas do? Honest question.

At this point I expected virtually everyone to have realized Dubas is a fraud. Fascinating to hear from someone who still can't see it.

The best D core the team has had in almost two decades?

Bless your heart.

 

[Havoc]

One thing about the “Dubas inherited his core” narrative is that he had a pretty big role in the organization during the acquisition of half of them if the core as we describe it is Rielly, Nylander, Marner, and Matthews. He also had a hand in player development since he was in charge of the Marlies, which under his stewardship saw the development of now full time Leafs with Liljegren, Engvall, and Holl. And a few others that are now on other NHL teams with Hyman, Kapanen, and Dermott.

You can credit Carlton the Bear for everything then. As in, who cares when he started. It takes zero effort to show how we still have this core without Dubas. You're arbitrarily giving him credit just because he was on the payroll.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

Maple Leafs' general manager Kyle Dubas was not happy with the result and was caught drop some F-bombs which were caught on camera.

Hopefully Tanenbaum and some of the BOD were watching their fortune 500 company GM in action.

I don't see much wrong with this. I prefer someone that shows emotion when warranted.

 

[rocketman588]

Should we include incoming as well?

2018 1st round pick
2020 1st round pick
2020 2nd round pick
2022 2nd round pick
2018 3rd round pick
2020 3rd round pick
2020 3rd round pick
2022 3rd round pick
2022 3rd round pick
2023 3rd round pick
2020 4th round pick
2022 4th round pick
2020 5th round pick
2020 5th round pick
2018 6th round pick
2020 6th round pick
2020 6th round pick
2019 7th round pick
2020 7th round pick
2020 7th round pick
2020 7th round pick
2024 7th round pick

Or should we just focus exclusively on the outgoing and completely ignore the incoming and reasons for these trades, to misrepresent what are pretty normal expenditures for a competitive team over a 4-5 year period?

Not to mention the number of players we've acquired for free to replace those players.

You'd have to imagine, since that never happened. We, like multiple other teams including the most recent cup winner, did offer a 1st for a healthy Foligno, who unfortunately ended up getting injured while with us.

Funny that you're acting like people are misrepresenting the incoming draft picks when you're adding picks like the 2018 first to the list where we traded down from the original pick.

Add the third sure, but we didn't add a 2018 first we received a worse first round pick in exchange for a third.

That's not adding a first that we didn't already have.

Once again just making shit up

 

[Dekes For Days]

Funny that you're acting like people are misrepresenting the incoming draft picks when you're adding picks like the 2018 first to the list where we traded down from the original pick.

People were misrepresenting the exchange of draft picks during Dubas' tenure by only posting half the story. I posted the other half. I'm not sure why you're upset about the incoming picks being posted as well, and it's weird that you're upset about the 2018 1st but seemingly had no issue when, for example, the 2022 1st was included as outgoing, despite the fact that we exchanged it for a pick 13 spots later.

 

[rocketman588]

People were misrepresenting the exchange of draft picks during Dubas' tenure by only posting half the story. I posted the other half. I'm not sure why you're upset about the incoming picks being posted as well, and it's weird that you're upset about the 2018 1st but seemingly had no issue when, for example, the 2022 1st was included as outgoing, despite the fact that we exchanged it for a pick 13 spots later.

Pretty simple we had a first round pick then we no longer had it without getting any value besides cap room. 2018 we downgraded but added a 3rd ( which is the add). Maybe if he hadn't also already given up his second people wouldn't be ripping on him for it

If you want I can make a list with all the picks dubas has given away due to trade Dubas.

Guess he also gave away a 2018 first if we go by your definition of adding picks.

Only in Dubas land is downgrading a pick celebrated.

 

[Punch Drunk Loov]

Dubas did a great job acquiring Samsonov this offseason.

The other adds were important ones, and we haven't seen any as notable hits so far. Will keep monitoring.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Pretty simple we had a first round pick then we no longer had it without getting any value besides cap room. 2018 we downgraded but added a 3rd

In both instances, we had a pick and traded it for a similar pick, for something of value. It's the exact same thing.

You can't be upset that an incoming pick was included in the incoming picks list without the outgoing, when you had no issue with the outgoing pick being included in the outgoing picks list without the incoming.

 

[rocketman588]

In both instances, we had a pick and traded it for a similar pick, for something of value. It's the exact same thing.

You can't be upset that an incoming pick was included in the incoming picks list without the outgoing, when you had no issue with the outgoing pick being included in the outgoing picks list without the incoming.

Giving up a pick to cover up your screw up is hardly value.

However, I'll play your game

Picks Dubas has given up (going by Dekes Logic)

2018 1st
2018 second
2018 3rd
2018 6th
2019 1st
2019 6th
2019 7th
2020 1st
2020 2nd
2020 3rd
2020 7th
2021 1st
2021 3rd
2021 4th
2021 7th
2022 first
2022 second
2022 3rd
2022 4th
2022 5th
2022 6th

If you're counting trade downs as adds then this is what we have lost from trade downs or selling for players.

That's why people most often times count the trades as the ones that we have lost out of the round with no value in return (Why you don't see the 2018 one listed on those tweets for example). The Mrazek thing was an obvious loss in value to dump a contract that our GM signed. Splitting picks does nothing especially when you have drafted 3 NHL players in 5 years as GM (and shipped one out plus a first hurray)

Looks even worse for your boy unfortunately

 

[Dekes For Days]

That's why people most often times count the trades as the ones that we have lost out of the round with no value in return

There is always value in return, and no, people do not "most often" follow these weird, arbitrary criteria of yours. In both instances, we had a pick and traded it for a similar pick, for something of value. It's the exact same thing. There is no reason to include one transaction and not the other.

The tweet said they were posting outgoing picks, so I posted incoming picks.

If you want to fact-check the tweet's outgoing, go ahead, but fact remains that there's nothing unusual or wrong with the futures we've expended over a 4-5 year competitive period, and we've improved our prospect pool considerably through that time despite the expenditures.

 

[andora]

I think the outgoing list should instead say what arbitrary draft slots we gave up instead

 

[GoonieFace]

Dubas did a great job acquiring Samsonov this offseason.

The other adds were important ones, and we haven't seen any as notable hits so far. Will keep monitoring.

Nobody wanted Samsonov, so Dubas rolled the dice because he had no choice. If he really thought Samsonov was the answer, he would have not traded for Murray, but signed another cheap goalie and platooned.

 

[Menzinger]

Nobody wanted Samsonov, so Dubas rolled the dice because he had no choice. If he really thought Samsonov was the answer, he would have not traded for Murray, but signed another cheap goalie and platooned.

Though that's not quite fair is it, Samsonov would have received other interest in free agency.

Ilya Samsonov Says He Turned Down Other Multi-Year Offers To Join Leafs

After not receiving a qualifying offer from the Washington Capitals, goaltender Ilya Samsonov hit free agency for the first time in his still young career. And there, the 2015 first-round selection received a lot of attention before landing with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Samsonov told the Toronto...

washingtonhockeynow.com

I'd agree both Samsonov and Murray were gambles to different extents where one's paid off, the other so far a flop. Either way I'm glad Samsonov is a Leaf.

 

[CDN24]

There is always value in return, and no, people do not "most often" follow these weird, arbitrary criteria of yours. In both instances, we had a pick and traded it for a similar pick, for something of value. It's the exact same thing. There is no reason to include one transaction and not the other.

The tweet said they were posting outgoing picks, so I posted incoming picks.

If you want to fact-check the tweet's outgoing, go ahead, but fact remains that there's nothing unusual or wrong with the futures we've expended over a 4-5 year competitive period, and we've improved our prospect pool considerably through that time despite the expenditures.

I agree that we cannot look at each trade in isolation. You don't always want to win each trade, you want to address areas of weakness and sometimes you have to lose a trade or two (i.e. overpay) to address those needs.

Marc Bergevin is a perfect example of this, he won the vast majority of his trades- he won the battles but lost the war. His only big loss was Sergachev for Drouin. Pacioretty trade was a big win, turning Raphael Diaz into Danault and Romanov through a series of trades great- but he still got fired and rightly so because he never addressed his teams greatest need (LD and centre) He should have been willing to overpay to fix those but he never did.

So Back to Dubas, it doesn't matter if he won or lost a few trades- did he make the team significantly better than he found it? I think the answer is a resounding no. In May 2018 he took over a very young team with some great young assets. He had a 20 Year old no 1 centre in Matthews, he had a a 27 yr old no 2 centre in Kadri coming off consecutive 30 goal seasons. On the wing he had Marner (21) , and Nylander (22) He also had Connor Brown, Zach hyman, Kappanen, Johnnson -all in their early to mid 20's. He had a veteran centre in Marleau to teach the kifds. Forward group looks pretty good. In Net he had Freddy and Mcbackup - again no issues there.

On D he didn't inherit much. He has youg up and coming Offensive D man in Rielly coming off a 52 point season, He has Gardiner another offensive D-man coming off a 52 pt season after that its 37 year old Hainsey, ineffective Zaitsev and not much else proven. He also has lots of cap space from expiring contracts like Bozak and JVR.

What should he do? seems obvious - shore up that D. What does he do- make a big splash signing JT to an $11M contract addressing his greatest strength. He had Matthews and Kadri - Kadri was perfect as a no 2 on a great contract. This was his biggest mistake and lead directly to more mistakes.

It made it more expensive to sign his young stars which made it necessary to make future cap saving moves that cost assets (Marleau trade) Yes Lou signed him but signing JT is what made that contract a problem
It devalued Kadri's trade value, when he ultimately traded him he was no longer trading a no 2 centre with consecutive 30G seasons- he was trading a no 3 with 16G and a temper problem.

Then he has to make moves to free cap and shore up his D. Had he addressed his d with some serviceable D men instead of Tavares he would have been better off and kept his powder dry until a top end UFA D hit market.
Once he did acquire JT he could have moved Kadri right away at max value for the help on D. We all talk about moving Nylander for a D-man, once JT signed he should have moved Kadri for one at that time.

So back to the original question, is the team in a better place than the one he inherited? It's not, it still hasn't won a playoff series. It still has a great no 1 and 2 centre but a lot less depth on the wings. The D is still a problem, there is no cap space, a lot of assets have been spent but there are no results. Can any objective fan say this team is in a better place than when Dubas took over? I don't think so. When Dubas took over I thought this team had the potential to win multiple cups, I don't think it anymore.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

What role did he play as someone who had no authority on personnel decisions? Did the organization want Laine but Dubas convinced them of Matthews?

I'd also love to hear what role a guy whose never played or coached a competitive sport in his life had in development of elite athletes? Engvall is a plug and Holl doesn't belong in the league. Liljegren was a first round pick who needed to play. What exactly did Dubas do? Honest question.

At this point I expected virtually everyone to have realized Dubas is a fraud. Fascinating to hear from someone who still can't see it.

Bless your heart.

We know for a fact that when it came time to make a selection at 4th overall in 2015 that everyone's voice in management was considered at that time. Shanahan, Hunter, Babcock, and yes, Dubas, all weighed in. The most notable split was Babcock wanting Chychrun and Hunter leaning towards Marner. Also, Dubas shared GM duties with Hunter at the time, as both were interim GMs, which by definition means he had authority on personnel decisions. As for the Matthews pick, since it was such a no-brainer none of Lou, Hunter, or Dubas get any credit (or blame if he had busted) for the pick, since by this logic any idiot could've made that choice.

As for development, Dubas worked with young players in his time as GM of the Greyhounds, and he worked closely with the coach of those young players in the Soo and hired him to steward all that young talent in the AHL at the time. Him and Keefe oversaw the development of many current day NHLers. Just because he wasn't hands on like a coach is doesn't mean he didn't have a hand in or influence player development. If that's how we're going to judge then no GM anywhere gets any credit for how a draft pick turns out since they aren't constantly working with them.

Fraud is a strong word for a GM that saw the Leafs set a franchise record for wins and points in the regular season. Yeah, the playoff streak sucks! I disagree with plenty of his trades. But fraud is the last word I'd use to describe him. Too many keep acting like the series we lost were to awful teams when the reality is 3/4 teams that beat the Leafs while Dubas has been GM went to the Finals, and the lone exception to that lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions in the very next round. Fraud is a term that should be reserved for the likes of JFJ or Nonis. Now if and when this team flames out in Round 1 again and Dubas is relievd of his duties afterwards then "failure" would be an appropriate term for him, as this franchise had and still has higher expectations for itself.

You can credit Carlton the Bear for everything then. As in, who cares when he started. It takes zero effort to show how we still have this core without Dubas. You're arbitrarily giving him credit just because he was on the payroll.

Yeah, because giving the AGM some amount of credit is the exact same as crediting a mascot for team construction.

 

[killer1980]

Nobody wanted Samsonov, so Dubas rolled the dice because he had no choice. If he really thought Samsonov was the answer, he would have not traded for Murray, but signed another cheap goalie and platooned.

Please, please everyone don’t get too excited about “Sammy”, he’s been giving up big fat rebounds on almost every shot. His play so far has been like flipping a coin, it can be heads 10 times in a row but the odds will ultimately even things out. There is a reason nobody wanted him. Never forget he was brought in to be a backup. Reality will set in just like it has with all the slugs that Dubas has brought in. I am still recovering from the abuse I suffered at the keystrokes of many of you when I predicted the “Boy Genius” would take this team to another level of ineptitude. It may take this team a decade or more to recover from what he has inflicted on the fans of our city.

 

[Stephen]

Yeah if Niemela/Hirvonen/Holmberg can come in and replace Brodie and Kerfoot on ELCs without much of a loss in quality that's 7 mil that opens up for a high end add somewhere. Replace Murray with a Peksa/Hidelby that hits and you have 10+ mil to play with.

A rookie Niemela replacing veteran Brodie, one of the steadiest defensive hands we've had in 15 years, would be unlikely. A more reasonable progression would be a Liljegren or Sandin making a bigger jump on the development curve and Niemela replacing them in the bottom pair.

 

[Stephen]

Please, please everyone don’t get too excited about “Sammy”, he’s been giving up big fat rebounds on almost every shot. His play so far has been like flipping a coin, it can be heads 10 times in a row but the odds will ultimately even things out. There is a reason nobody wanted him. Never forget he was brought in to be a backup. Reality will set in just like it has with all the slugs that Dubas has brought in. I am still recovering from the abuse I suffered at the keystrokes of many of you when I predicted the “Boy Genius” would take this team to another level of ineptitude. It may take this team a decade or more to recover from what he has inflicted on the fans of our city.

Loving Samsonov's game so far but he will need to tighten up some of his puckhandling adventures and not get hung out to dry by the Leafs to keep up his good start.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I agree that we cannot look at each trade in isolation. You don't always want to win each trade, you want to address areas of weakness and sometimes you have to lose a trade or two (i.e. overpay) to address those needs.

Marc Bergevin is a perfect example of this, he won the vast majority of his trades- he won the battles but lost the war. His only big loss was Sergachev for Drouin. Pacioretty trade was a big win, turning Raphael Diaz into Danault and Romanov through a series of trades great- but he still got fired and rightly so because he never addressed his teams greatest need (LD and centre) He should have been willing to overpay to fix those but he never did.

So Back to Dubas, it doesn't matter if he won or lost a few trades- did he make the team significantly better than he found it? I think the answer is a resounding no. In May 2018 he took over a very young team with some great young assets. He had a 20 Year old no 1 centre in Matthews, he had a a 27 yr old no 2 centre in Kadri coming off consecutive 30 goal seasons. On the wing he had Marner (21) , and Nylander (22) He also had Connor Brown, Zach hyman, Kappanen, Johnnson -all in their early to mid 20's. He had a veteran centre in Marleau to teach the kifds. Forward group looks pretty good. In Net he had Freddy and Mcbackup - again no issues there.

On D he didn't inherit much. He has youg up and coming Offensive D man in Rielly coming off a 52 point season, He has Gardiner another offensive D-man coming off a 52 pt season after that its 37 year old Hainsey, ineffective Zaitsev and not much else proven. He also has lots of cap space from expiring contracts like Bozak and JVR.

What should he do? seems obvious - shore up that D. What does he do- make a big splash signing JT to an $11M contract addressing his greatest strength. He had Matthews and Kadri - Kadri was perfect as a no 2 on a great contract. This was his biggest mistake and lead directly to more mistakes.

It made it more expensive to sign his young stars which made it necessary to make future cap saving moves that cost assets (Marleau trade) Yes Lou signed him but signing JT is what made that contract a problem
It devalued Kadri's trade value, when he ultimately traded him he was no longer trading a no 2 centre with consecutive 30G seasons- he was trading a no 3 with 16G and a temper problem.

Then he has to make moves to free cap and shore up his D. Had he addressed his d with some serviceable D men instead of Tavares he would have been better off and kept his powder dry until a top end UFA D hit market.
Once he did acquire JT he could have moved Kadri right away at max value for the help on D. We all talk about moving Nylander for a D-man, once JT signed he should have moved Kadri for one at that time.

So back to the original question, is the team in a better place than the one he inherited? It's not, it still hasn't won a playoff series. It still has a great no 1 and 2 centre but a lot less depth on the wings. The D is still a problem, there is no cap space, a lot of assets have been spent but there are no results. Can any objective fan say this team is in a better place than when Dubas took over? I don't think so. When Dubas took over I thought this team had the potential to win multiple cups, I don't think it anymore.

If JT wasn't a Leaf today, is Pietrangelo?