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

[Ianturnedbull]

I think his points have some merit.

It's my belief they(Corporate) hire on name recognition. They pay big dollars to get the biggest names where they can and this includes over the hill players like Marleau. I highly doubt that Shanahan is a nuHockey type of guy, or that Dubas was his first choice. Do you really think Shanahan wanted to fire Babcock? Shanny knows it's a great well paying gig though, why rock the boat when you could just agree with Larry T and Bell/Rogers.

If I were a betting man, I would flat out say the Board wanted the family friendly vision that Dubas was pitching. No doubt in my mind they drank it up in the marketing dept etc.

Ultimately we don't know.

I suppose Bobby Orr and Gretzky will be up next for GM/President/Player Coach. Kanye is looking for sponsorship too. Can Kim Kardashian work with Matthews on branding / reality series?

 

[Ianturnedbull]

I think his points have some merit.

It's my belief they(Corporate) hire on name recognition. They pay big dollars to get the biggest names where they can and this includes over the hill players like Marleau. I highly doubt that Shanahan is a nuHockey type of guy, or that Dubas was his first choice. Do you really think Shanahan wanted to fire Babcock? Shanny knows it's a great well paying gig though, why rock the boat when you could just agree with Larry T and Bell/Rogers.

If I were a betting man, I would flat out say the Board wanted the family friendly vision that Dubas was pitching. No doubt in my mind they drank it up in the marketing dept etc.

Ultimately we don't know.

To be honest I just don't think it's all that complex or conspiring. Dubas made a splash with the Tavares signing and it all fell apart from there.

In no way am I saying that Tavares is a bad player.

Dubas had a string of bad luck and mostly self-made.

 

[thewave]

I suppose Bobby Orr and Gretzky will be up next for GM/President/Player Coach. Kanye is looking for sponsorship too. Can Kim Kardashian work with Matthews on branding / reality series?

I think it was JFJ in his book where he essentially said the board was meddling along the way. To be honest, the only years we were successful were when Stavros had full control. Larry T was angry that he didn't get the team from Ballard and Stavros was a super fan. How many conference finals in the decade he had it? TPP essentially let Larry T run the show. Now, Bell and Rogers have Larry T as the top guy, and we're going nowhere again.

Rather interesting don't you think?

 

[thewave]

To be honest I just don't think it's all that complex or conspiring. Dubas made a splash with the Tavares signing and it all fell apart from there.

In no way am I saying that Tavares is a bad player.

Dubas had a strong of bad luck and mostly self-made.

I don't think it's conspiratorial either. I think it's directive driven. Stakeholders want X Y Z because it works with the overall image that Bell and Rogers want out there.

Bell Media and Rogers presents... The roughest, the toughest, most violent team in sport, YOUR TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS!

 

[Pebble live]

These are shallow points.

If this were true then they would never hire Burke or even Shanahan to be president. Weirdly Shanny has gone against his own experience and principals to let Dubas sculpt this team. This is a hockey team. Fighting is in the rule books. Body checking is within the rules. Fighting is a penalty, and if there's no true instigator both players remain in the game.

If you don't like what you're seeing in the team it all leads back to Dubas and not a corporate mandate for family friendly 'figure skating'.

The irony of you calling these points shallow. You clearly did no research.

Brian Burke was fired in 2013. Brian Burke at eliteprospects.com

Not even a full year after Rogers and Bell purchased MLSE from the Ontario teachers pension Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment - Wikipedia

Burke wasn't the type to take shit from ownership. He had a vision for his teams and the new owners didn't like it. At the same time anytime there's new management there's usually a process of review.

 

[Gilmour1996]

These are shallow points.

If this were true then they would never hire Burke or even Shanahan to be president. Weirdly Shanny has gone against his own experience and principals to let Dubas sculpt this team. This is a hockey team. Fighting is in the rule books. Body checking is within the rules. Fighting is a penalty, and if there's no true instigator both players remain in the game.

If you don't like what you're seeing in the team it all leads back to Dubas and not a corporate mandate for family friendly 'figure skating'.

The hiring dates of Burke and Shanahan are part of the team's ancient history. This new mandate is far newer and includes fighting and hitting, but far more than that, including off-ice policies not just applicable to the players. You can see many signs of it if you pay attention to the broadcasts or if you could be a fly on the boardroom wall.

 

[Dekes For Days]

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.

I don't know how anybody could argue anything other than a resounding yes. Our team has improved in every possible way except for goaltending.

If we compare 2017-2018 to our results last year...

105 points -> 115 points
42 ROW -> 51 ROW
51.20 xGF% -> 55.92 xGF%
54.00 GF% -> 55.32 GF%

3.25 GF/60 -> 3.77 GF/60
3.09 xGF/60 -> 3.34 xGF/60

33.39 SA/60 -> 30.34 SA/60
2.95 xGA/60 -> 2.64 xGA/60

+16.1 GSAx -> -21.0 GSAx

And this despite an unexpected flat cap that has massively complicated competitive team building, and that has likely screwed us over more than any other team.
And despite no longer having multiple elite players still on their ELCs.

And you cannot just attribute this to Matthews/Marner/Nylander improvements either.
The 2021-2022 group of forwards beyond Matthews/Marner/Nylander produced 40 more points than the 2017-2018 group of forwards in the same number of games. The 2021-2022 group was also better defensively and cost 7.25m less. Our defense is also massively improved.

Many of the things that propped us up in 2017-2018 were not sustainable or things that Dubas would get help from moving forward either, at least for very long.
We had abnormal success in the shootout.
We had depth that was departing in UFA and getting signed to big contracts (JVR, Bozak, etc.).
We had Andersen putting up a solid performance. The same goalie that would fall off a cliff a year later.
We had a 35+ year old journeyman backup putting up a vezina-quality career performance.
We had a 39 year old Marleau, who would soon become a significant liability.
We had a declining 37 year old Hainsey.
We had Gardiner, who would soon run into massive back problems and become a shell of his former self.

Our prospect pool had also been sucked dry to fill the NHL's team's depth, and it was left unreplenished. Our prospect pool now is in a much better state.

Even in the playoffs, while the outcome may have unfortunately been the same, our performance was much better.

In the 2017-2018 playoffs, we played Boston and put up a 44.79 xGF% and 41.67 GF%.
In the 2021-2022 playoffs, we played Tampa and put up a 50.75 xGF% and 51.06 GF%%

Is the goaltending concerning? Sure. But with how volatile goaltending is, I'm not ready to fire a GM just because of that, especially when they're making moves to try and fix it.
People seem to think fixing goaltending is easier than it is. Andersen fell off a cliff, we didn't have any significant goaltending prospects, and it's not like surefire goalies have been available through UFA or trade.

It's early, but we currently have the 4th best goalie in the league this year so far, which should make people feel a little better.

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.

Center was not remotely close to our biggest strength. Our entire organizational depth at center was essentially Matthews-Kadri-Gauthier, and that's it. That's not strong. There was an opportunity to add an elite player for just money at a reasonable UFA cost, and we took it, as any GM would have if they could - especially with significant cap increases upcoming.

I'm not sure what move you think would have instantly "shored up our D", but we still had 5 defensemen under contract for the next season, and Dubas did still address defense that year when he added Muzzin in-season. And he continued to address defense, and it improved from 25th in 2017-2018, to 23rd in 2018-2019, to 16th in 2019-2020, to 6th in 2020-2021, to 3rd last year.

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.

Our young stars got the contracts they did because they were among the best young players seen in the entire cap era, not because of Tavares. UFA contracts have nothing to do with post-ELC contracts.
Marleau did not have to be traded because of Tavares. Marleau had to be traded, just as Lou knew he would be when he signed him, because he was a massive drain and liability for our team through a competitive phase. If not Tavares, that space still had to be utilized.
Tavares did not devalue Kadri. Kadri devalued Kadri, when he had a bad season and then topped it off with a 2nd consecutive playoff suspension. Even without all that, fans here overvalue what a ~50-55 point forward with discipline issues is worth.

You opened your post talking about how the overall change in the team is more important than the individual moves along the way, so I'm not really sure how we veered off into a tirade against the Tavares signing based on a whole bunch of assumptions, hindsight, and what-if scenarios anyway.

 

[Larcos_Unal]

Every year Dubas believes they can round out the bottom of the Leafs roster to supply secondary scoring to offset spending 1/2 the cap on the top 4 forwards.

Theses are the current results he is getting this year. Bottom 6 forwards and bottom 5 defensemen after 7 games.

View attachment 599427

9 X bottom 6 forwards combined for 5 goals 4 assists = 9 points
&
5 X Dman combined for 1 goal 3 assists = 4 points

This might be the weakest supporting cast in his 5 year tenure and that doesn't even include the goaltending situation.

This right here is the kryptonite in Dubas's plan. Well, this and the fact that the D suck and it cannot be fixed due to the cap issues. I'm not saying you can't spend 50% of the cap on 4 star players, you just need to make damn sure they are the RIGHT PLAYERS.

I don't think the core composition works, where's THE PASSION?

 

[therealkoho]

To be honest I just don't think it's all that complex or conspiring. Dubas made a splash with the Tavares signing and it all fell apart from there.

In no way am I saying that Tavares is a bad player.

Dubas had a strong of bad luck and mostly self-made.

It was the draft strategy that has killed the Leafs for the next 10 years.

there is no doubt that he's drafted some very skilled players, but 5'7" 160lb Dmen or RW'ers have to be so exceptional to play in the NHL that their skill level would have been recognized as a first round selection by the time they're 16. The other problem of course is the 6'1 210lb 3rd line types that look for opportunities to run any opponent out of the game by intimidation and physical dominance eats those small guys for breakfast..

The league is not a touchy feely proposition, and no matter how much one GM thinks he can push the league into becoming part of his vision, he can't. No matter what some fans think or want there is a palpable sameness to SC champions, they are big, and fast, they can as Conn used to say "beat you in the alley," and they have some really highly skilled players. It doesn't matter if the skilled guys aren't the biggest because the supporting cast can take care of them, and the Leafs just don't have them. Those snarling types are normally found in the lower rounds and that's precisely where you draft for size but for some reason Kyle keeps thinking he's going to find a 5'6" who plays like Datsyuk, but he keeps coming up up with guys closer to Malgin. (II know he didn't draft him, he was lucky to get him when he traded, (a 6'4" 235 guy who through a lot of hard work developed him into an NHL player), instead of stapling him to Matthews LW side giving the Leafs the best 1line in hockey, but no we have Dennis "healthy scratch" Malgin the half a shot game hero instead..

 

[mapleleaf979]

Dubas was gifted this roster 4-5 years ago, I was convinced with the young guys we could win a cup in the near future. Dubas has not done 1 thing to improve that roster. Its quite the opposite, over paying Tavares was a massive mistake. Goaltending is a revolving door, the defense has not improved since 4-5 years ago, no prospects left in the system, deals 1st rounders, no first round wins. Its shocking he has a job.

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

Dubas was gifted this roster 4-5 years ago, I was convinced with the young guys we could win a cup in the near future. Dubas has not done 1 thing to improve that roster. Its quite the opposite, over paying Tavares was a massive mistake. Goaltending is a revolving door, the defense has not improved since 4-5 years ago, no prospects left in the system, deals 1st rounders, no first round wins. Its shocking he has a job.

This might be one of the worst posts I've seen. The only thing you had right was that the goaltending has been a revolving door. There's been some bad signings like Ritchie, Jumbo, Mrazek for example but the overall play has been much better than it was 6 yrs ago. We used to be a one dimensional, run and gun team that used to give up 36+ shots a night and couldn't hold a lead. We've lost some depth scoring but the overall two way play has improved immensely since previous regimes. Every stat pretty much shows that. I realize we haven't progressed in the playoffs since Dubas took over but saying this team hasn't improved at all seems out of touch.

Muzzin's body is deteriorating but you don't think the D core of

Rielly Brodie
Muzzin Liljegren
Giordano Sandin

Is a hell of a lot better than

Rielly Hainsey
Gardiner Zaitsev
Dermott Polak
?

The fact that you said we have no prospects left tells me you don't know what you're talking about. Visit the prospects thread and educate yourself please.

 

[All Mod Cons]

This has got to be it right? He's done so much damage in only a handful of years.

 

[IPS]

Trust. The. Process.

 

[Machinae]

Dubas is my favourite GM that the Leafs have had so far, I honestly enjoyed his work for the most part, but I believe he bet on the wrong players, and unless he's willing to shake the core up he has to go.

It's gonna take someone with balls of steel to fix this team. I wanna see an on the fly retool like calgary just did. That Tkachuk deal was mind blowing. We need to do that but with Marner.

 

[Americanadian]

As a fan I would be willing to keep Dubas if he was willing to move on from 2/5 of the core (Matthews, Marner, Rielly, Tavares, Nylander). If he’s going to waste another full year with them together he doesn’t deserve renewal.

I hope someone can quote this in 8 months because they won the cup.

 

[killer1980]

Dubas is my favourite GM that the Leafs have had so far, I honestly enjoyed his work for the most part, but I believe he bet on the wrong players

Sorry, but I have a dumb question. How can you enjoy his work and then say he bet on the wrong players? Just wondering.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

This might be the worst season of the Matthews era since 2019-20. This keeps up and he can't remedy the situation it'll be hard to imagine him returning.

 

[deprw]

Sorry, but I have a dumb question. How can you enjoy his work and then say he bet on the wrong players? Just wondering.

To me it sometimes felt 25 years that I bet the wrong team and we had few players you really could follow and be proud of. I started following Leafs from early 90s. This organization has history of screwballs leading the charge and in that sense voice of Shanahan and Dubas is voice of reason. I like how they think and there are lots of positives, but in the end we need the results eventually.

This team was very likable from the start of the rebuild, but the magic has worn off. Still we have lots of assets, players and organization in place, that can hopefully lead up to cup win. That wasn't the case from 1995-2015.

It can be way worse than this. It has been and it very much can be.

 

[justashadowof]

Keep in mind that the key injuries to Matt Murray and Jake Muzzin are a surprise to no one.

 

[Racer88]

To me it sometimes felt 25 years that I bet the wrong team and we had few players you really could follow and be proud of. I started following Leafs from early 90s. This organization has history of screwballs leading the charge and in that sense voice of Shanahan and Dubas is voice of reason. I like how they think and there are lots of positives, but in the end we need the results eventually.

This team was very likable from the start of the rebuild, but the magic has worn off. Still we have lots of assets, players and organization in place, that can hopefully lead up to cup win. That wasn't the case from 1995-2015.

It can be way worse than this. It has been and it very much can be.

I get it that we have lots of assets, players and org in place but if it’s being wasted by running the same thing over year after year what is the point and how is anyone to have any sort of hope or faith in this entire group from Shanny on down.

 

[DarkKnight]

The entire league, the universal opinion, we are easy to play against, soft. When we hear that it isn’t a compliment, yet our own hubris allows us to ignore the obvious and just carry on as though we’re too smart to acknowledge it. We lack team character, we lack energy guys, we’re not even fast anymore and we exude pure vanilla outside of the core players.

 

[DarkKnight]

Noteworthy.

 

[deprw]

I get it that we have lots of assets, players and org in place but if it’s being wasted by running the same thing over year after year what is the point and how is anyone to have any sort of hope or faith in this entire group from Shanny on down.

Well I think Shanny has brought in lots of good things and this one incarnation of a team is just one product of it. I think building our respectability up, after those decades of chaos. I respect him a lot. Changing guard doesn't mean that we get better leadership. Though it's always a good question when your shell life is up and it's time for change.

We have had slow starts before and with young athletes it can take time to get up to winning something. Same people here preach about change and accuse Dubas of trading Kadri. Who is fine example of maturing pretty late.

In the NHL it is rare to see blockbusters where young players move around and where you can make immediate impact by just one trade. You can't undo those moves so it's better be bit safe than sorry with players like Nylander or Marner.

It's a fine day to being an idiot for not trading them rather than being idiot for decade for trading them. JFJ and Rask still stings.

In overall this are great times for being a Leaf fan. I never forget those years of misery mid 90s and from 2005-2015.

 

[Dekes For Days]

The entire league, the universal opinion, we are easy to play against, soft.

Your personal opinion =/= "the entire league's universal opinion"

 

[All Mod Cons]

Zero chance this guy is going to another team as a GM. He f***ed himself over with his attitude.