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

[Throw More Waffles]

Nothing about the Leafs is reinventing hockey, it is simply that we have no depth because we bet it all on $40m for four forwards.

Lol. Dubas literally reinvents hockey by paying half our cap to four forwards. An unprecedented approach. And then you deny that he reinvented hockey. Can't make this stuff up.

 

[Menzinger]

Aren't Colorado, Tampa, and Carolina huge analytics teams too?

They are. Tampa in particular was one of the first teams to start focusing on them too - believe their main analytics guy, Michael Peterson was hired all the way back in 2009 too

 

[Throw More Waffles]

The timing of major signings and the cap not rising is the issue

I'd wager that all of the other teams that put in genuine offers for Tavares didn't have THREE expensive players like Nylander, Marner, and Matthews as upcoming rfa's.

So, like I said, only one team pushed in all of their chips based on the belief that the cap would rise like crazy.

 

[3blizzard4]

Dubas is using Google Sheets. Time to upgrade to Excel pal.

 

[Gabriel426]

Dubas betted on the wrong players collectively.
This is Dubas team, he either drafted, traded, signed or extended every single players on the team.
If the players are not performing as expected, that’s on Dubas for getting the players.

 

[LeafGrief]

Lol. Dubas literally reinvents hockey by paying half our cap to four forwards. An unprecedented approach. And then you deny that he reinvented hockey. Can't make this stuff up.

Paying a bunch of guys too much money and having them underperform is reinventing hockey? lmao okay sure dude, whatever you say.

I've had enough of this thread for one day and am going out with my wife and some friends. Thanks everyone for the conversations.

 

[Tak7]

Yeah Sandin sure looked stellar last night



And Durzi as well playing for the other team...

Irrelevant - they were drafted by Dubas, and 2 of them are full time NHLers. That's the entire point of the draft.

 

[Bomber0104]

Irrelevant - they were drafted by Dubas, and 2 of them are full time NHLers. That's the entire point of the draft.

How the players are playing and whether or not they're even with the organization still is irrelevant to you?

I get there's very little of anything to celebrate these days as a Dubas fan, but bragging about players he traded away to other teams kind of shows you've lost the plot a bit...

 

[Tak7]

How the players are playing and whether or not they're even with the organization still is irrelevant to you?

You Dubie boys have really lost the plot haven't you?

I'm not a Dubie boy, so f*** off with that shit.

GMs / front office drafting is judged on players ending up in the NHL. Think we all accept that Sandin can, and will, play better.

You people are incapable of having any nuanced discussions - it's hilarious

 

[Bomber0104]

I'm not a Dubie boy, so f*** off with that shit.

GMs / front office drafting is judged on players ending up in the NHL. Think we all accept that Sandin can, and will, play better.

You people are incapable of having any nuanced discussions - it's hilarious

Bragging about a former prospect that was traded away and developed by another team is nuanced conversation to you?

What?!

 

[TheTotalPackage]

My biggest beef with Dubas -- and in hindsight, not really fault of his own -- was he was touted as this next big thing who was going to revolutionize the GM'ing position with all these new fancy analytics and stats. Him and Chayka were going to pave the way that dismantles the "old boys club" which has supposedly littered the league for decades.

So with big talk came big expectations. And he hasn't succeeded in that. The big four is awesome and nice to have, but chewing up half the cap has been problematic. His drafting was highly touted, and while it does take years for it to be realized, only Robertson is showing fruits of that labour, and that's if he is given a chance. The depth has been subpar. And surprisingly, he's hitched his wagon to average, injury-prone goalies.

I've said it before, Dubas is a top notch person. He cares about his players on a human level. And despite the fact that I'd have no problem if he were replaced, I'm actually okay if he continues on also since there's no guarantee the new GM would make things better short term, considering the team's time is now and not five years from now.

I've just never liked the "I'm the smartest person in the room" aura he lets off, and I've certainly tempered my expectations when fans have talked about his like he is this great GM.

As I suggested in this thread a week or two ago, he has seriously boxed himself into a corner here, and the margin for error and wiggle room to get out of it is minimal at best.

 

[34]

If things keep going the way they are right now, Dubas will not be the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs come December. he is definitely running out of runway.

You can start to see that Matthews is very unhappy in Toronto now. The guy looks like he is officially checked out. Not good. Dubas has failed miserably.

 

[Tak7]

My biggest beef with Dubas -- and in hindsight, not really fault of his own -- was he was touted as this next big thing who was going to revolutionize the GM'ing position with all these new fancy analytics and stats. Him and Chayka were going to pave the way that dismantles the "old boys club" which has supposedly littered the league for decades.

So with big talk came big expectations. And he hasn't succeeded in that. The big four is awesome and nice to have, but chewing up half the cap has been problematic. His drafting was highly touted, and while it does take years for it to be realized, only Robertson is showing fruits of that labour, and that's if he is given a chance. The depth has been subpar. And surprisingly, he's hitched his wagon to average, injury-prone goalies.

I've said it before, Dubas is a top notch person. He cares about his players on a human level. And despite the fact that I'd have no problem if he were replaced, I'm actually okay if he continues on also since there's no guarantee the new GM would make things better short term, considering the team's time is now and not five years from now.

I've just never liked the "I'm the smartest person in the room" aura he lets off, and I've certainly tempered my expectations when fans have talked about his like he is this great GM.

As I suggested in this thread a week or two ago, he has seriously boxed himself into a corner here, and the margin for error and wiggle room to get out of it is minimal at best.

The philosophy of locking up your top end talent, is one I fundamentally agree with.

However, the deals for the big 4 were signed prior to the cap stagnating during the pandemic. Such scenarios & conditions, need a change of plan and the adjustments just haven't been made. The end result is that Dubas has restricted himself to not only having to sign cheap deals to fill out the roster, but also hope that all of those deals hit.

It's fine when the majority of those bets pay off, like they have the past few years with Kampf, Kase, Bunting, Mikheyev, etc., but when they don't work out the way they haven't this year, you suffer immensely. Jarnkrok, ZAR, NAK, and Malgin just haven't worked. They aren't getting anything from them, and this model just isn't sustainable for that very reason.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

The problem with the flat cap argument is that it completely ignores the fact that as the cap increases, so do all the other salaries. The salary cap increasing is inflationary in nature with respect to salaries across the league.

So the 5 million dollar UFA player one year becomes a 5.5 million dollar player the next year coinciding with the cap increase.

The Leafs problem is two fold;

—They committed too much money to too few of the same type of forwards

—They overpaid some of those same players and allowed other RFA players to leverage those contracts as comparables and get overly friendly player deals

The Leafs problem is more a salary cap allocation issue than it is a salary cap problem.

That has left them scrambling and trying to use prospects and draft picks as incentive capital to compensate teams for obtaining players on salary cap friendly contracts.

Eventually the cupboard will be bare at this rate.

I keep saying the same thing about cap inflation. Do you think you're getting Kampf for 1.5M if the cap is 88M? Not a chance...this thing was never going to work unless we had a stream of entry level producing players which never happened after the first wave (AM,MM etc) Now you can blame Hunter and Lou for screwing up the drafting...which is a fair point, but this idea that we got screwed out of a good idea with paying 4 players (all forwards) $40M is crazy. It's simply allocation. We have it all wrong and it won't fix itself when the cap goes up.

 

[Dreakmur]

Aren't Colorado, Tampa, and Carolina huge analytics teams too?

Those teams clearly know what the analytics tell you and how to use that to their advantage. Just because Dubas has an analytics department doesn’t mean he knows how to decipher the information and put it to good use.

 

[OVO16]

Unless the Leafs perform a miracle this season, Dubas is gone. And the leafs will be better for it.

Dubas is a great person with great morals but his hockey strategy just isn't working. His analytical/soft view aint it

 

[MagicalRazor]

Shanny adamitting they need to make changes and the roster isn’t working . Also saying he steered the leafs in the wrong directions . Big changes better be coming

Leafs President Brendan Shanahan admits to steering the Leafs down a more skilled road than a gritty one

The Leafs have had a tough go of it so far this season and most of what is preventing the

www.mapleleafsinsider.com

 

[DarkKnight]

Shanny adamitting they need to make changes and the roster isn’t working . Also saying he steered the leafs in the wrong directions . Big changes better be coming

Leafs President Brendan Shanahan admits to steering the Leafs down a more skilled road than a gritty one

The Leafs have had a tough go of it so far this season and most of what is preventing the

www.mapleleafsinsider.com

I don’t know why it’s a debate about hitting, to me it’s about grit, a totally different consideration.

 

[Mickey Marner]

I don’t know why it’s a debate about hitting, to me it’s about grit, a totally different consideration.

Exactly. Grit, tenacity, compete and a hatred of losing is what we need and it has to come from the top. Guys like Crosby and MacKinnon set the tone for their team, they don’t rely on Wayne Simmonds for that stuff.

 

[centipede2233]

Shanahan has the IQ of a sandwich

 

[DarkKnight]

Grit, tenacity, compete and a hatred of losing.

More important than anything

 

[Antropovsky]

Your two statements contradict each other. We're not easy to play against, and if you think my description sums it up, that only means that the label is irrelevant and does not represent anything of actual concern.

You could say that about any number of players across the league. In hindsight, it would have been a good get, but we had already placed our bets on that kind of player months prior to Perry realizing his actual worth, and I'm not sure what it accomplishes to look up all of the best free agent outcomes with hindsight and then get upset that your GM didn't do all of them.

No, I don't think that. That's why I said pretty much the exact opposite. Unfortunately, some people do think those type of displays are relevant, as is even seen in the responses to that post.

@DarkKnight was the poster you commented on. He said leafs were soft...

You responded by saying
Your personal opinion =/= "the entire league's universal opinion

Which most others agrees meant you disagree with dark night.

However when I asked if you disagrees with the poster and think we are not soft.

You responded

for the whole "soft" thing, some people just don't realize or refuse to accept that the game has changed in the last 30 years, and what they're expecting is not a reality for any team.

We are less physical than some teams, because we prioritize positioning and possession, and have the puck more than most teams. We don't try to injure people, and we don't lick people's faces. We don't go out looking to pick fights. But that doesn't make a team "soft". If we are in a rough and tumble type of games, like the Winnipeg game, we can handle things just fine and dish some out ourselves.

this is weird because the initial lost you responded to, didn't say anything about face licking and looking for fights.... That poster just said we were soft. Even more ironic is you said his opinion was = to universal... But in the above post you have spoken for the entire board and seemingly decided that everyone thinks soft means they don't lick face and looks for fights. Can you point us out to these posts where people have constantly said this is what not being soft is? Because judging by the responses you've gotten most disagree that your definition of what others feel soft means is way off.

What your doing is attacking a straw man.... where you took a posters comment turned it into an argument that it wasn't and then attacked that argument.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

just trying to help you out with your posts.

 

[notbias]

Those teams clearly know what the analytics tell you and how to use that to their advantage. Just because Dubas has an analytics department doesn’t mean he knows how to decipher the information and put it to good use.

Ah okay, so now analytics aren't bad, just the Leafs'.

So now the issues with the Leafs are a bad analytics department, a bad GM, a bad coach, and bad players.

It really is a miracle we have even won a game.

 

[DarkKnight]

@DarkKnight was the poster you commented on. He said leafs were soft...

You responded by saying
Your personal opinion =/= "the entire league's universal opinion

Which most others agrees meant you disagree with dark night.

However when I asked if you disagrees with the poster and think we are not soft.

You responded

for the whole "soft" thing, some people just don't realize or refuse to accept that the game has changed in the last 30 years, and what they're expecting is not a reality for any team.

We are less physical than some teams, because we prioritize positioning and possession, and have the puck more than most teams. We don't try to injure people, and we don't lick people's faces. We don't go out looking to pick fights. But that doesn't make a team "soft". If we are in a rough and tumble type of games, like the Winnipeg game, we can handle things just fine and dish some out ourselves.

this is weird because the initial lost you responded to, didn't say anything about face licking and looking for fights.... That poster just said we were soft. Even more ironic is you said his opinion was = to universal... But in the above post you have spoken for the entire board and seemingly decided that everyone thinks soft means they don't lick face and looks for fights. Can you point us out to these posts where people have constantly said this is what not being soft is? Because judging by the responses you've gotten most disagree that your definition of what others feel soft means is way off.

What your doing is attacking a straw man.... where you took a posters comment turned it into an argument that it wasn't and then attacked that argument.

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

just trying to help you out with your posts.

Wow, bang on!

 

[peconcan]

Fire Dubas and Keefe, take the Habs approach and hire a ex player. What’s Gilmour up to