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

[klmdg]

Personally I don't blame Keefe for this. This make up of a roster is pretty bad to be honest. I don't understand what Dubas's vision is at all.

It probably involves transitioning the entire team into a different league

 

[34]

Shanahan is the one that needs to be axed here. All these threads and talks of Keefe and dubas, but the real architect that has overseen everything and signed off on it is Brendan Shanahan. At what point does MLSE step in and terminate him. Enough!

 

[Pebble live]

It probably involves transitioning the entire team into a different league

yeah the SHL

 

[Menzinger]

Shanahan is the one that needs to be axed here. All these threads and talks of Keefe and dubas, but the real architect that has overseen everything and signed off on it is Brendan Shanahan. At what point does MLSE step in and terminate him. Enough!

Imo you can't separate Shanahan and Dubas' at this point.

If it's decided that new management needs to come in, then the team will require a whole new slate in the front office. Shanahan bet on Dubas' vision - the two men's future with the team will unfold with how the season plays out.

 

[Gabriel426]

Where is Zeke? Have not seen him post here or did he put me on ignore?

Imo you can't separate Shanahan and Dubas' at this point.

If it's decided that new management needs to come in, then the team will require a whole new slate in the front office. Shanahan bet on Dubas' vision - the two men's future with the team will unfold with how the season plays out.

Agree.

I will just let Masai to be the president and have him hire the best people to be GM and then let the GM to hire the coach.
Masai actually knows a thing or two about building a winner.

 

[DarkKnight]

The supporting cast is awful, vanilla nothingness, putting even more pressure on the “core”. We don’t score even strength and the bottom six offers nothing, no character, no big shifts to turn the momentum, a bunch of robotic borderline players with zero grit or jam. That’s on Dubas all day long.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

Nothing is going to happen this season.

It's the final year of Dubas's contract. They probably wont' allow him to do any huge trade or anything. He's got his guys and he's loyal to a fault, so they'll give him the season. Keefe will stay. The core will stay.

If they win a round, Dubas will be extended and he'll likely keep Keefe and the core. If they miss the playoffs or lose in the first round, Dubas and Keefe will be fired, and the core will be broken up once and for all.

 

[Buds17]

Nothing is going to happen this season.

It's the final year of Dubas's contract. They probably wont' allow him to do any huge trade or anything. He's got his guys and he's loyal to a fault, so they'll give him the season. Keefe will stay. The core will stay.

If they win a round, Dubas will be extended and he'll likely keep Keefe and the core. If they miss the playoffs or lose in the first round, Dubas and Keefe will be fired, and the core will be broken up once and for all.

I can agree with a good bit of this. I think missing the playoffs altogether would be a far bigger concern than yet another first round loss though and hope that things aren't allowed to approach the former.

 

[Stephen]

Imo you can't separate Shanahan and Dubas' at this point.

If it's decided that new management needs to come in, then the team will require a whole new slate in the front office. Shanahan bet on Dubas' vision - the two men's future with the team will unfold with how the season plays out.

I think you're right but I could see them keeping Shanahan for the political transition, but this is their shared vision for sure.

 

[Stephen]

Lost in all of this Dubas talk is by sticking with the same group thick and thin, he's also really failed to deliver on an entertaining product on the ice. As high priced entertainment is concerned, you just don't want to fork over $115.00 CDN for standing room only.

 

[killer1980]

Shanahan is the one that needs to be axed here. All these threads and talks of Keefe and dubas, but the real architect that has overseen everything and signed off on it is Brendan Shanahan. At what point does MLSE step in and terminate him. Enough!

You really think MLSE cares. They got a big chunk of the $5;2 billion that Rogers paid to air this crap for 10 years. MLSE is no different than the players on their team. They are crying all the way to the bank. They care as much about you as Rogers and Bell do.

 

[CelticDruid]

The posted said everyone, which was obviously used figuratively. You chose to pretend he meant it literally, and since you can’t argue the actual point, you argued the semantics.

I'm pretty sure that poster loves the sound of his own voice as much as his long winded replies.

 

[Jimmy Firecracker]

It's pretty funny that the two guys he went out of his way to protect during the expansion draft in Holl and Kerfoot are now seen as the two most expendable assets on the team.

 

[centipede2233]

Where is Zeke? Have not seen him post here or did he put me on ignore?


Agree.

I will just let Masai to be the president and have him hire the best people to be GM and then let the GM to hire the coach.
Masai actually knows a thing or two about building a winner.

Masai is savage, he traded a star player who was best friends with the other star player for a yolo one year guaranteed of kawha, that takes balls. he Is capable of sending in the marner trade to NHL offices and go for a morning jog and not even break a sweat lol

 

[capfit9]

The poster said "the entire league's universal opinion", nothing there or since indicates it was merely used figuratively (in fact, they have only doubled down), and I have addressed both the point and the attempt to apply one's own personal feelings to thousands of people.

Grasping for anything again i see so here’s a little present:

 

[GQS]

Where is Zeke? Have not seen him post here or did he put me on ignore?


Agree.

I will just let Masai to be the president and have him hire the best people to be GM and then let the GM to hire the coach.
Masai actually knows a thing or two about building a winner.

To be fair Masai took a huge gamble on the Derozan for Leonard trade and he was lucky that it panned out. It could've just as easily not worked or at least not gotten the Raps over the hump and won them a championship and then they lose Leonard for nothing with no championship to show for. And this doesn't include the fact that Durant wasn't even playing much in the finals because of injury otherwise things could've turned out quite differently.

The point is sometimes gambles work out and sometimes they don't. They worked out well for Masai that one year and now the Raps are back to being non-championship contenders for probably the forseeable future unless our young guys become stars and our team plays out of their minds. Dubas also took a gamble and so far it hasn't worked out for him, but that's the risk you take in building a team.

 

[GQS]

The supporting cast is awful, vanilla nothingness, putting even more pressure on the “core”. We don’t score even strength and the bottom six offers nothing, no character, no big shifts to turn the momentum, a bunch of robotic borderline players with zero grit or jam. That’s on Dubas all day long.

The bottom 6 can be better and so can the defense, but why should it be the supporting cast that's pulling the team forward rather than our stars? Look at the Oilers where for the past several years its McDavid and Drai leading the way and on many if not most nights were the reason they were winning games and were keeping their team in playoff contention.

That's what we need from our best players and if they can't bring it every night then it doesn't matter if you have the best bottom 6 in the league when its your best players that will be playing the bulk of the minutes and are counted on to put up points.

You could say that Dubas bet on the wrong core guys to lead this team, but was there a reason not to believe in them when they're young, talented and look like they can get even better? Even with Tavares that some might consider to be a 'bad' signing, its not like he's been bad during his time here and he's always put in the effort on the ice and has been near PPG as a Leaf. Its just that he hasn't been the game breaker that we might've hoped for that would push this team over the top and allow them to go deep in the playoffs every year.

 

[Shooter2x]

That's true but we also have many posters here who say we have no prospects or that the GM is bad at drafting which is false as we have many prospects doing well and it's also too early to say that.

Just from Dubas’ first draft you've got Sandin and Durzi who has played a decent number of NHL games and we have Kral making his debut tomorrow night after being probably the Marlies best D man last year. We also have Holmberg from that draft that was named playoff MVP in Sweden and will likely play games this year. Just from that draft alone, that's a good percentage of picks looking like possible NHL players.

From the following year you've got Robertson and Abbruzese who have played few NHL games, but like I said, they're still young and Abruzzese is only playing his first full year of pro hockey.

The prospects are pass worthy only because they're needed for insulation. Take away what runs the team and you have an empty lineup. You can't say for certain any of our prospects are going to make it full time in the NHL as of this very moment.

So yeah maybe it's too farfetched to claim he sucks at drafting, but there's nothing to rave about either.

Dubas is trending towards indifference. That's even worse than disliking him.

 

[centipede2233]

Lost in all of this Dubas talk is by sticking with the same group thick and thin, he's also really failed to deliver on an entertaining product on the ice. As high priced entertainment is concerned, you just don't want to fork over $115.00 CDN for standing room only.

That’s the thing, not only is it now not a winning product atm, it’s not even entertaining. Show some damn emotion, start a fight, make a hit, but dubas thinks you don’t need grit in a CONTACT SPORT!

 

[Jojalu]

Nothing is going to happen this season.

It's the final year of Dubas's contract. They probably wont' allow him to do any huge trade or anything. He's got his guys and he's loyal to a fault, so they'll give him the season. Keefe will stay. The core will stay.

If they win a round, Dubas will be extended and he'll likely keep Keefe and the core. If they miss the playoffs or lose in the first round, Dubas and Keefe will be fired, and the core will be broken up once and for all.

I kind of think you are correct

I think there may be a chance Dubas is allowed to let Keefe go.

Usually a GM is allowed to hire and fire his guy, bring in another and if that doen't produce quick results then thwy are usually next.

 

[centipede2233]

The worse case scenario is the leafs squeak into the playoffs, win one round and get swept in rd2 and dubas is extended for 3 years….so with that said, it’s likely to happen lol

 

[Stamkos4life]

How many gms get to inherit a 100+ point team with cap space and elite rfas of the matthews, marner and Nylander calibre?

How many of those gms are hired by a team with almost unlimited money? I would love to know how much each team pays to run their hockey operations. I have no doubt the Leafs are among the most expensive to run.

How many of those got to keep their job after 4 consecutive first round losses?

I doubt many gms have been given the opportunity that dubas walked into and yet the guy has accomplished nothing.

It's safe to say that the dubas experiment has been a total disaster.

 

[DarkKnight]

The bottom 6 can be better and so can the defense, but why should it be the supporting cast that's pulling the team forward rather than our stars? .

I’ve never argued they should, but it would be nice to have them contribute every once in a while, not even goals, but tone. Great teams have that, we have lifeless passengers. Nobody is absolving the core pointing out the supporting cast stinks.

 

[Jojalu]

How many gms get to inherit a 100+ point team with cap space and elite rfas of the matthews, marner and Nylander calibre?

How many of those gms are hired by a team with almost unlimited money? I would love to know how much each team pays to run their hockey operations. I have no doubt the Leafs are among the most expensive to run.

How many of those got to keep their job after 4 consecutive first round losses?

I doubt many gms have been given the opportunity that dubas walked into and yet the guy has accomplished nothing.

It's safe to say that the dubas experiment has been a total disaster.

It can't be both ways.

If the core is indeed the problem then it wasn't a very good scenario to walk into.

If the core is not the issue then all the responsibility can fall onto his shoulders for not being able to surround them with the right players.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

The pivotal mistake Kyle made was putting all of his faith in the core group (Tavares, Marner, AM, Rielly, Nylander). All 5 have dissapointed, although overall, I am pretty happy still with Nylander.

He said he would ride or die with them, and they just aren't the players he thought they were.

It can't be both ways.

If the core is indeed the problem then it wasn't a very good scenario to walk into.

If the core is not the issue then all the responsibility can fall onto his shoulders for not being able to surround them with the right players.

Why can't it be both ways?

Dubas failed to structure the team properly, but the core also let him down.