Despite major challanges, Kyle Dubas has passed the tests

[arso40]

Thats a huge question but we don't need 20-20 hindsight to know that if the GM knew at the beginning of Covid they were not getting out of the first round any time soon he would have done things differently. He expects to make a deep run every year and he has done stuff every off season with a tiny pot licker budget.

Even guys who don't like KD will have to admit he has been able to get some good value from table scraps. I would love to have seen what he gets for $3.5M instead of $1.5M, wouldn't you? My guess is it wouldn't be a Nick Ritchie. We don't know what deals almost happened but for the budget but we know there would have been a lot of action. With no Nylander maybe they have Pietrangelo plus whatever cost controlled assets Willie could have brought in. I actually don't think KD was married to the concept of an ultra top heavy forward group , he was just attached to his guys. I think the missing $8M in cap growth would probably have been spent on the D rather than a 4th dangler


Willies cost is part of what forced the Kadri trade and led to the need to get a forward, plus RD, plus retention which was so specific that it probably ruled out a dozen interested parties in an NK deal. How well Nylander played is subjective because again, still out in the 1st round every year. Maybe two $3.5M forwards who hit everything in sight all night long are what's missing. The teams that went to round 2 and beyond mostly don't have anything like a big 4.

Was this year's Lightning club amazing? I know they think so in Florida but the Bolts were behind the Leafs in the standings and Vasi was not Vasi and Point was not point in that series. Ripe for the picking. Poorly constructed means they lost in spite of having that monster top 4. The 2017 Leafs took the 118pt Caps to 6 games and 3 losses in OT with no JT.

The Marner deal was part of an unfortunate chain reaction. 20-20 hindsight trade Willie when he shows he is holding out and move to signing Mitch before he breaks out. The holdout shit is on Willie, Mitch doesn't do that and signs for $8M and a bit. Or if Willie takes his $6.6 and shows up game 1, Mitch signs the first month, and then AM. They save 2-3M. Yes Mitch could have been signed to a better deal but the marathon Nylander mess exhausted our rookie GM and took Mitch too far into his breakout year. All comes back to WN, To add insult to injury the prick showed up out of shape and produced jack the rest of the year.

For sure they were close and if Murray is injury free and they meet a goalie like round 1 Vasi next playoff they will be on to round 2. But can this group win 2 series?

And why doesn’t Mitch do that when his whole problem is his elc compared to matthews it has nothing to do with nylander cause he didn’t get paid anywhere close to them and he’s the best contract we have I’m just confused on why nylanders being held accountable for the failure when he puts up as much points as three 11 mill players while playing with lesser talent im not saying that m&m aren’t better players but are they both 4 mill dollars better than him I kno atleast marner isn’t so let’s focus on the issues the leafs have it isn’t the 6.9 million dollar player look around the league at the money guys are asking for that are his comparables then look at the other players and there comparables you’ll see where the mistake or misstep is rielly is getting slightly less but he’s also less of a player nylander is as good if not better and still on the climb to his comparables in the 8 9 range this is a joke

And why doesn’t Mitch do that when his whole problem is his elc compared to matthews it has nothing to do with nylander cause he didn’t get paid anywhere close to them and he’s the best contract we have I’m just confused on why nylanders being held accountable for the failure when he puts up as much points as three 11 mill players while playing with lesser talent im not saying that m&m aren’t better players but are they both 4 mill dollars better than him I kno atleast marner isn’t so let’s focus on the issues the leafs have it isn’t the 6.9 million dollar player look around the league at the money guys are asking for that are his comparables then look at the other players and there comparables you’ll see where the mistake or misstep is rielly is getting slightly less but he’s also less of a player nylander is as good if not better and still on the climb to his comparables in the 8 9 range this is a joke

And kadri could have still been on this team we spent an extra 1.5 to get rid of him Barrie and kerfoot were 6 million to kadri 4.5 so he was not a casualty of nylander and that was a contract he sign a couple years bacc

 

[nuck]

And why doesn’t Mitch do that when his whole problem is his elc compared to matthews it has nothing to do with nylander cause he didn’t get paid anywhere close to them and he’s the best contract we have I’m just confused on why nylanders being held accountable for the failure when he puts up as much points as three 11 mill players while playing with lesser talent im not saying that m&m aren’t better players but are they both 4 mill dollars better than him I kno atleast marner isn’t so let’s focus on the issues the leafs have it isn’t the 6.9 million dollar player look around the league at the money guys are asking for that are his comparables then look at the other players and there comparables you’ll see where the mistake or misstep is rielly is getting slightly less but he’s also less of a player nylander is as good if not better and still on the climb to his comparables in the 8 9 range this is a joke

Mitch's deal was huge because the negotiation was way too far into the season, not because of what Willie got for sure. Although I would say Willie's protracted negotiation tenderized Dubas for the next one up. Dub was always going to do them one at a time starting with Willie, probably so as not to give a high AM number for the others to target.

If Willie signs in the summer there is no way Marner doesn't also extend, the holdout is a Nylander thing and led to the in season inflated negotiations with the other two. It wasn't 65 point Mitch they were dealing with, it was a heading for 90 points guy by the time Nylander was signed. My guess is he is going to be the same tough negotiator as an UFA.

 

[supermann_98]

IMHO they absolutely don't deserve the benefit of doubt, agree 100%. Had Dubas been fired last summer, it would have been hard to disagree with that but after the amazing regular season we had and playing our best playoff series in almost 20 years (yes we still lost, I know), it would be harder to justify. I feel like this is their last shot though, lose in the 1st round again and I think Dubas is gone.

Definitely agree but what about a 2nd or 3rd round exit? He probably survives again but does he run it back again or actually break up the core for once?

 

[LeafEgo]

IMHO, this isn't quite true, and it's possible that covid hurt us more than any other team in the league. I don't believe any other teams signed three top stars to long term deals just before covid hit, and I think it's safe to say that had covid hit before we did those deals, and the projeced cap was lower than it ended up being, the cap hits for our big stars would have been substantially less. The timing of covid for us was just brutal.

Having said that, Dubas had the opportunity to pivot at some point but he chose not to, that's on him and doing something like what you suggest (Nylander out, young talented Dman with less of a cap hit in) makes a lot of sense, at least to me as I'm one of those who doesn't believe that paying 4 guys big money is in itself guaranteed doom, but the fact that they are all forwards is far from ideal.

1.5 million might have made a difference. We were so close to beating TB and one goal in OT against MTL would have been enough there, we'll never know.

I'm on the fence about Dubas. I can see the argument for staying the course the way he did, yes people will yell at me (we lost 6 times in a row blah blah blah) but I think the teams Dubas put together have been really good. I have no idea why we kept sucking in game 7's (until TB at anyway) and I don't think Dubas or anyone else could see that coming. Dubas did a good job surrounding the core, the fact that they didn't get it done is on the players.

Shaking it up last summer after losing to MTL would have made a ton of sense, harder to justify after this season which despite being yet another failure, was impressive in many ways, certainly a huge improvement over last season. Hard to see an ownership group demanding major changes after a record breaking regular season and almost beating a borderline dynasty in the playoffs. They're getting one more year and I'm fine with that but I do believe that this is the last chance they get. Winning one round won't be enough either, they need more than that. I just hope that if they do fail again and Dubas is gone, they bring someone else in who will do a good job. People like to shit on Dubas but he might be the best GM we've had in the last 50 years. That's less of a compliment to him than it is a comment on how bad our GM's have been but still, we've had so many bad GM's that there's no reason to assume that whoever the new guy ends up being will be any better.

Covid hurt us of our own doing. If we passed on JT (maybe Petro later?) and signed reasonable contracts to the RFAs we wouldn't need to frame an excuse story. Moving one of the amigos early on was an option. That type of structuring is more conventional - we went a different route and paid for it. If the cap went up our yearly fringe players would have costed more. Covid burdened all teams equally and its not the reason we have an unbalanced team.

I agree that post MTL was the time to make a change. It's hard to reconcile that with not making a change now given we had the same results.

This season wasn't a huge improvement. Our young players became stronger and half the teams in the East benefited from modest point increases given the lack of parity. Despite the 115pts I remember this last regular season being particularly concerning with a lack of consistency. Major ups and downs, which continued into the playoffs, and long stretches that were hard to watch. And then we failed the real test.

Blaming the players isn't going to get us anywhere.

 

[Dreakmur]

IMHO, this isn't quite true, and it's possible that covid hurt us more than any other team in the league. I don't believe any other teams signed three top stars to long term deals just before covid hit, and I think it's safe to say that had covid hit before we did those deals, and the projeced cap was lower than it ended up being, the cap hits for our big stars would have been substantially less. The timing of covid for us was just brutal.

More cap space just means the new contracts get signed for more money.

 

[arso40]

Mitch's deal was huge because the negotiation was way too far into the season, not because of what Willie got for sure. Although I would say Willie's protracted negotiation tenderized Dubas for the next one up. Dub was always going to do them one at a time starting with Willie, probably so as not to give a high AM number for the others to target.

If Willie signs in the summer there is no way Marner doesn't also extend, the holdout is a Nylander thing and led to the in season inflated negotiations with the other two. It wasn't 65 point Mitch they were dealing with, it was a heading for 90 points guy by the time Nylander was signed. My guess is he is going to be the same tough negotiator as an UFA.

Fair enough as far as the tenderizing goes but Mitch beef was always with how Lou treated his and matthews elc differently where the mistake was was bringing in an 11 mil center on his contract year to help inflate his number I don’t think nylanders next contract will be that bad as long as it’s under 10 it should be fine and he should be moved to center to make it more justifiable but we must have those 3 players under contract

 

[Gabriel426]

Definitely agree but what about a 2nd or 3rd round exit? He probably survives again but does he run it back again or actually break up the core for once?

Is 2nd round really an accomplishment of some sort?
3rd round is different bc that’s the Conf Finals.

 

[Nut Upstrom]

What a strange post. Why are you so bothered by the fact that we have one of the best teams in the league?

Probably top 3 team in the league and that's nothing to mess with. I'd rank the top in this order:
1. Colorado
2. Whichever team beats Toronto in round one
3. Toronto

 

[notDatsyuk]

Even guys who don't like KD will have to admit he has been able to get some good value from table scraps. I would love to have seen what he gets for $3.5M instead of $1.5M, wouldn't you? My guess is it wouldn't be a Nick Ritchie. We don't know what deals almost happened but for the budget but we know there would have been a lot of action. With no Nylander maybe they have Pietrangelo plus whatever cost controlled assets Willie could have brought in. I actually don't think KD was married to the concept of an ultra top heavy forward group , he was just attached to his guys. I think the missing $8M in cap growth would probably have been spent on the D rather than a 4th dangler


Willies cost is part of what forced the Kadri trade and led to the need to get a forward, plus RD, plus retention which was so specific that it probably ruled out a dozen interested parties in an NK deal. How well Nylander played is subjective because again, still out in the 1st round every year. Maybe two $3.5M forwards who hit everything in sight all night long are what's missing. The teams that went to round 2 and beyond mostly don't have anything like a big 4.

Everything you say there is at least as applicable to Tavares as it is to Nylander, except that the extra cap space would have been $11M instead of just $6.9M.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Definitely agree but what about a 2nd or 3rd round exit? He probably survives again but does he run it back again or actually break up the core for once?

Hard to draw the line in some arbitrary place, so much depends on how exactly things go down. As for what he does, who knows?

Covid hurt us of our own doing. If we passed on JT (maybe Petro later?) and signed reasonable contracts to the RFAs we wouldn't need to frame an excuse story. Moving one of the amigos early on was an option. That type of structuring is more conventional - we went a different route and paid for it. If the cap went up our yearly fringe players would have costed more. Covid burdened all teams equally and its not the reason we have an unbalanced team.

I agree that post MTL was the time to make a change. It's hard to reconcile that with not making a change now given we had the same results.

This season wasn't a huge improvement. Our young players became stronger and half the teams in the East benefited from modest point increases given the lack of parity. Despite the 115pts I remember this last regular season being particularly concerning with a lack of consistency. Major ups and downs, which continued into the playoffs, and long stretches that were hard to watch. And then we failed the real test.

Blaming the players isn't going to get us anywhere.

I don't agree that covid burdened all teams equally. I've explained why that is and if you see it differently, that's fine but I just can't agree.

Probably top 3 team in the league and that's nothing to mess with. I'd rank the top in this order:
1. Colorado
2. Whichever team beats Toronto in round one
3. Toronto

LMAO. Very well played sir, very well played indeed.

Seriously though, I can't argue with the way the betting lines are currently set. COL is the favourite to win it again next year and we are in the next tier of contenders along with TB, FLA, and CAR. Seems reasonable to me. I can understand why people are saying that we'll "never win" as currently constructed, or as long as Dubas is the GM, or as long as the core remains the same or whatever else, all those 1st round exits make it easy to be negative and laugh at anyone who thinks we have a shot. But stranger things have happened than a team with as much talent we have finally breaking through and I really don't see who else has a better chance then we do.

 

[nuck]

Everything you say there is at least as applicable to Tavares as it is to Nylander, except that the extra cap space would have been $11M instead of just $6.9M.

For sure but we were discussing sticking to a big 4 after the cap stopped growing and JT isnt tradeable. Different Dubas mistake.

 

[colchar]

That’s sad if advancing to the 2nd round is worthy of celebration and some sort of achievement.

Yes it is. That is how sad this team has become, that we will celebrate winning the opening round.

 

[Gabriel426]

Hard to draw the line in some arbitrary place, so much depends on how exactly things go down. As for what he does, who knows?

I don't agree that covid burdened all teams equally. I've explained why that is and if you see it differently, that's fine but I just can't agree.


LMAO. Very well played sir, very well played indeed.

Seriously though, I can't argue with the way the betting lines are currently set. COL is the favourite to win it again next year and we are in the next tier of contenders along with TB, FLA, and CAR. Seems reasonable to me. I can understand why people are saying that we'll "never win" as currently constructed, or as long as Dubas is the GM, or as long as the core remains the same or whatever else, all those 1st round exits make it easy to be negative and laugh at anyone who thinks we have a shot. But stranger things have happened than a team with as much talent we have finally breaking through and I really don't see who else has a better chance then we do.

Think the question is can this team do it? They have the top end talents, their depth and D is as good as anyone in the league, and goaltending is an unknown for now.
Can they do it, can they slay their demons….

 

[DraftSchmaft]

The 8x8 Nylander wanted originally looked like it made more sense for both sides given how things are playing out right now. Nylander always knows what he's doing.

So I just woke up from a nap and in the wrong thread lmao . Whatever.

*if you don't understand what I mean , those 2 extra years of only a 2 mil bump for Nylanders current production would have been so clutch for our current window. His 8x8 he valued himself at was 100% correct. So I guess this does fall into a Dubas test. Should have just paid the guy from the beginning.

 

[Hoglund4MvP]

The 8x8 Nylander wanted originally looked like it made more sense for both sides given how things are playing out right now. Nylander always knows what he's doing.

So I just woke up from a nap and in the wrong thread lmao . Whatever.

*if you don't understand what I mean , those 2 extra years of only a 2 mil bump for Nylanders current production would have been so clutch for our current window. His 8x8 he valued himself at was 100% correct. So I guess this does fall into a Dubas test. Should have just paid the guy from the beginning.

1 mil bump for 2 extra years of Nylander not 2 mil

 

[NewEraGM]

Seriously what has dubas done over the course of his tenure…sure he brought a few good spare parts here and there, but he doesn’t win trades and hasn’t established a foundation to this team above and beyond what he inherited from Lou.

Zero playoff wins to show for it, continuously rolling in new players to fill bottom 6. No year to year continuity. This is a joke.

 

[DraftSchmaft]

1 mil bump for 2 extra years of Nylander not 2 mil

Like I said I just woke up from a nap all groggy and did the snow angel in bed for my phone lol.

8x8 for Nylander sets us up better with cap management after Nylander's 6th year. Nylander will be over 8 mil to sign in year 7 if he continues to put up 30 goals and 80 points.

It's so fitting with how bad Dubas has been with contracts and trades that he enters a standoff with Nylander because of a demand that hindsight has proven he was worth, yet Dubas caves at the first sign of sitting out for Marner whose contract is admittedly at least 1 mil too high.

Really going to make Nylander miss a whole season because of ~1 mil but bend over for Marner for ~1 mil.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Think the question is can this team do it? They have the top end talents, their depth and D is as good as anyone in the league, and goaltending is an unknown for now.
Can they do it, can they slay their demons….

We'll have to wait and see. I refuse to believe that this team "can't win" so as of today, I'll say we're better than 50% to win a round in the spring. I say that because at worst we should be a slight dog in round 1 and best case is that we're solid favourites. The goaltending is the wild card that could swing the odds in either direction but as of today, I'll go with 50+%.

 

[Gabriel426]

We'll have to wait and see. I refuse to believe that this team "can't win" so as of today, I'll say we're better than 50% to win a round in the spring. I say that because at worst we should be a slight dog in round 1 and best case is that we're solid favourites. The goaltending is the wild card that could swing the odds in either direction but as of today, I'll go with 50+%.

As of today, they showed they can’t do it collectively.
I hope they can do it this coming playoffs. Like you, the goaltending is the unknown.

 

[Gabriel426]

Seriously, what is/are the major challenges that Dubas faced?
COVID? Everyone in the league are facing this problem.
Lack of top end talents on the Leafs? Are you kidding me.
Lack of prospects and picks when Dubas took over? That’s not the case at all.
Honestly, what was/were Dubas major challenges?

Now I am not saying Dubas been bad bc he is far from bad. He ain’t great either. Like all GMs, he made his fair share of mistakes and made some good moves.

As for passing the test? If the test is being a playoff team, then sure. However, I think the test is being a contender and challenges for the Cup, then Dubas failed the test as the Leafs under his guidance is still a playoff team.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Seriously, what is/are the major challenges that Dubas faced?
COVID? Everyone in the league are facing this problem.
Lack of top end talents on the Leafs? Are you kidding me.
Lack of prospects and picks when Dubas took over? That’s not the case at all.
Honestly, what was/were Dubas major challenges?

Now I am not saying Dubas been bad bc he is far from bad. He ain’t great either. Like all GMs, he made his fair share of mistakes and made some good moves.

As for passing the test? If the test is being a playoff team, then sure. However, I think the test is being a contender and challenges for the Cup, then Dubas failed the test as the Leafs under his guidance is still a playoff team.

Yeah the thread title was poorly chosen. He has had challenges but that's true for every GM so big deal.

 

[Shooter2x]

Like I said I just woke up from a nap all groggy and did the snow angel in bed for my phone lol.

8x8 for Nylander sets us up better with cap management after Nylander's 6th year. Nylander will be over 8 mil to sign in year 7 if he continues to put up 30 goals and 80 points.

It's so fitting with how bad Dubas has been with contracts and trades that he enters a standoff with Nylander because of a demand that hindsight has proven he was worth, yet Dubas caves at the first sign of sitting out for Marner whose contract is admittedly at least 1 mil too high.

Really going to make Nylander miss a whole season because of ~1 mil but bend over for Marner for ~1 mil.

If we lose Nylander for nothing because we played hard ball with the only 1 of the 3 willing to give us 8 years at a cap hit proven to be worth it, he will go down as the worst GM of all time.

It doesn't matter if you're not willing or don't want to pay Nylander 8x8 today (for the nylander haters who will scoff at your post) all that matters is he's worth it.

People shouldn't be concerned that hindsight is being used. What they should be concerned about is hindsight almost always proves Dubas wrong.

8x8 Beastlander, make Marner sit instead until he smartened up and accepted 9.5-9.75 or something.

If not, anyone not named Matthews, who wanted Matthews money can be swapped for Matthew Tkachuk or equivalent.

 

[andora]

People shouldn't be concerned that hindsight is being used. What they should be concerned about is hindsight almost always proves Dubas wrong.

This is what has me frustrated is that i dont think he comes close to breaking even in hindsight of all his moves/decisions

All the noise put aside this is what primarily bothers me is that when you look back and see how what turned out and it isnt wins so to speak you start questioning how the decisions are being made and what process or information is being used

Your tactics and philosophy come into question if you are wrong alot

 

[Havoc]

One thing I always found really odd on this board is people hate Dubas for the 5 year deals but also despise the only stud who wanted his deal to be 8 years.

 

[centipede2233]

What test? The test in how stubborn can you be test? Yes he has passed that test with flying Colours