Fire Shanahan/Dubas (Yay or Nay)

[Dreakmur]

No it didn't need to be done. You don't sign a 37 year old player to a 3 year/18M dollar deal when all your ELCs come up in two. And if he wants three, go find it elsewhere. It was a bad contract day one. There are other players with solid leadership qualities who will always be out there for far far less. Look what the Leafs got in Spezza...did he need three years? Would you sign Jason Spezza to a three year deal? He's 37.

In most cases, I would agree with you, this one I don't.

You don't think that if you were a player, just got drafted #1 overall, and #2-4 all get signing bonuses and you don't ("Three high selections from the 2016 draft class have already signed entry-level contracts – Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine (the No. 2 pick got $2.65M in potential bonuses), Columbus’ Pierre-Luc Dubois (the No. 3 pick got $2.5M in bonuses) and Montreal’s Mikhail Sergachev (the No. 9 pick got $850,000 in bonuses) – but Lamoriello was correct when he said there was no rush with Matthews.") ...are you going to turn around and give that team a friendly deal when your contract comes up? Like hell I would.

The only high end rookies that don't get signing bonuses are Lous. He's old school that way. But when you see stars like McDavid/Kane/Toews/Laine/Eichel, the list goes one get bonuses, you are a player are going to get yours back. It's just a matter of time.

Do I think Dubas overpaid. Oh heck yes, but that issue starts at the beginning of the whole story.

Lamoriello bonus policy makes Matthews deal worth watching - Sportsnet.ca

The team needed a veteran leader to help guide Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. They thought Marleau was the guy. The benefit of his guidance vs. the last year of the contract... I'm not sure it wasn't worth it.

 

[tp71]

The team needed a veteran leader to help guide Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. They thought Marleau was the guy. The benefit of his guidance vs. the last year of the contract... I'm not sure it wasn't worth it.

I can say without a doubt, considering where the Leafs are now in terms of Nylander/Matthews/Marner and what it cost to get rid of Marleau, it 100% was not.

It was a bad signing. It was a bad signing the minute it was signed. The 1st year. The 2nd year and the last where they traded him. It was bad. There are lots of players out there who are professional on and off the ice. There are lots of players who can show young players how to be pros. And there are lots of players who have both those qualities that you didn't need to sign that contract.

Lou did a lot of good turning the organization around. The Marleau deal is without a doubt his single worst move.

If he signed Marleau to a one year deal, I'd have zero problem with the deal. But he didn't.

 

[egd27]

Lou did a lot of good turning the organization around. The Marleau deal is without a doubt his single worst move.

Ok.....now do Kyle.

 

[Dreakmur]

I can say without a doubt, considering where the Leafs are now in terms of Nylander/Matthews/Marner and what it cost to get rid of Marleau, it 100% was not.

It was a bad signing. It was a bad signing the minute it was signed. The 1st year. The 2nd year and the last where they traded him. It was bad. There are lots of players out there who are professional on and off the ice. There are lots of players who can show young players how to be pros. And there are lots of players who have both those qualities that you didn't need to sign that contract.

Lou did a lot of good turning the organization around. The Marleau deal is without a doubt his single worst move.

They were better before Marleau left, right? I know I saw a noticeable regression the season after they traded him away.

 

[Gallagbi]

Ok.....now do Kyle.

Kyle's done a good job rebuilding our D and preparing for Andy's decline - Campbell turned out to be a brilliant move.

Overpaid for the original 3, overpaid at the deadline for his asset - not unlike Lou, just a higher premium for better players.

Neither is all good or all bad. I don't think we have a contract as bad as Marleau left currently, but we don't have a long-term deal as good as Mo or Kadri either,

 

[tp71]

Ok.....now do Kyle.

Sure. Kyle overpaid for Marner. He overpaid for Tavares. He overpaid (maybe) for Matthews.

He probably should have just let Nylander sit the entire year and set the tone for Marner and Matthews coming up. No one was going to offersheet Nylander to what he held out for.

He was completely ignorant for holding strong to building a team with no grit or sandpaper though the lineup and that absolutely cost them against Columbus last year.

He made a (in hindsight) a very bad judgement call not retaining McElhinney and going with Sparks and compounded that by not getting a quality backup the next year and going with Hutchinson who was a disaster.

He has four players being paid way too much and we are about to see the mess of what is going to be this offseason. Losing Hyman will be the first of the cap casualties unless he unloads one of the big four. However, do we want Hyman for around 5-6M? Probably not.

No team has won a cup with a roster as heavily stacked in terms of dollars. And unfortunately they are probably going to go the way of the Blackhawks. Down. Unless they can move a Marner or a Tavares. If that's possible.

Which is the other issue, is at this point, you probably have to ride out the storm, because those contracts save the Nylander deal are probably untradeable unless your trading for someone elses mistake coming back.

The team is screwed. Kyle mismanaged the cap. Underestimated the need for grit and overpaid probably 3 of the 4 big players and its going to cost the Leafs and eventually Kyle, Shanahan and Keefe. Probably next offseason/season.

 

[hotpaws]

Im not trying to make Dubas look anything. Hes made himself look the way hes made himself look.

The Marleau contract was a bad contract the minute the pen hit the paper. It was going to get in the way of signing better, much more needed and valued players by year three no matter what Dubas did.

Lou is a good GM. One of the best. The Marleau move was a bad move. And Dubas was going to have to pay someone to get out of it, regardless of what anything else that happened.

Lou's other mistake? Not giving bonuses to the rookies. That's a move that also comes back to bite you. Don't pay me now? Fine, pay me later.

And I can't stress this enough, Lou is a great GM (even as critical of those moves as I am) and Dubas will fall on whatever mess he's created.

But the bad Marleau signing was Lou. Not giving Nylander/Matthews/Marner bonuses was Lou. Both of those things are bad moves. I realize this isnt the narrative people want right now, but neither of those are Dubas' doing.

Look, Dubas has a lot of blame on his shoulders. Overpaying Marner is one. But the Marleau issue is and always will be Lous fault, regardless of how this fanbase feels about Dubas and the job hes done thus far.

And once more, me criticizing Lou in this instance is not me saying Dubas has done well. I just dislike seeing others mistakes being blamed on the wrong party.

-Mathews received all his potential bonuses
-Marner did get bonuses , he just didn't get all the bonuses he could have earned and he would have only earned the one's he wasn't given in his 3rd year
-Nylander signed a year before Lou got here and received and didn't receive the same potential bonuses Mitch could have earned
-Sandin/Roberstson/Amirov were all signed by Dubas and none of them were given any performance bonuses by Dubas so was that also a mistake ?

Lou wasn't perfect but the way people are acting is like poor Dubas was left a horrible situation with no assets and an entire roster of long term cap anchors .

 

[socko]

The problem with Lou is his version of hockey is boring. If you don't care about that, there is no comparison between him and Dubas. Dubas can't hold his hockey bag.

 

[egd27]

Sure. Kyle overpaid for Marner. He overpaid for Tavares. He overpaid (maybe) for Matthews.

He probably should have just let Nylander sit the entire year and set the tone for Marner and Matthews coming up. No one was going to offersheet Nylander to what he held out for.

He was completely ignorant for holding strong to building a team with no grit or sandpaper though the lineup and that absolutely cost them against Columbus last year.

He made a (in hindsight) a very bad judgement call not retaining McElhinney and going with Sparks and compounded that by not getting a quality backup the next year and going with Hutchinson who was a disaster.

He has four players being paid way too much and we are about to see the mess of what is going to be this offseason. Losing Hyman will be the first of the cap casualties unless he unloads one of the big four. However, do we want Hyman for around 5-6M? Probably not.

No team has won a cup with a roster as heavily stacked in terms of dollars. And unfortunately they are probably going to go the way of the Blackhawks. Down. Unless they can move a Marner or a Tavares. If that's possible.

Which is the other issue, is at this point, you probably have to ride out the storm, because those contracts save the Nylander deal are probably untradeable unless your trading for someone elses mistake coming back.

The team is screwed. Kyle mismanaged the cap. Underestimated the need for grit and overpaid probably 3 of the 4 big players and its going to cost the Leafs and eventually Kyle, Shanahan and Keefe. Probably next offseason/season.

Well that was more than I was expecting

 

[tp71]

They were better before Marleau left, right? I know I saw a noticeable regression the season after they traded him away.

I just think you could have found a better way. I don't think theres any way someone would have given him 3 years. Either find someone else or hold out on him to get him to two. If someone else wants to give him 3 years, let him be their problem to pay someone to get rid of.

 

[tp71]

Well that was more than I was expecting

Well I'm glad I could surprise you.

 

[Stephen]

The problem with Lou is his version of hockey is boring. If you don't care about that, there is no comparison between him and Dubas. Dubas can't hold his hockey bag.

Lou’s recipe isn’t glamorous but yields results. You could see the culture clash that was always on the horizon when we had the Big 3 coming up and a GM that wants to build an army of Kyle Palmieri’s and Travis Zajac’s en route to grind em out efficient wins.

 

[Stephen]

I just think you could have found a better way. I don't think theres any way someone would have given him 3 years. Either find someone else or hold out on him to get him to two. If someone else wants to give him 3 years, let him be their problem to pay someone to get rid of.

It’s not so much Marleau’s 3rd year was unmanageably bad. It’s just that those upper middle class contracts clashed with bringing in Tavares and later the Big 3 deals.

 

[nuck]

The Marleau trade has more to do with Lou signing a dumb contract than it does Dubas trading him away.

That contract was always going to get in the way of signing the others due to the 3rd year being tacked on for whatever reason and it either needed to be bought out or pay someone else to make it go away. Lou would have had to do the same thing. He just left the unpinned grenade behind for someone else (Dubas) to fall on. That move is the unfortunate fall out of having to fix someone else's stupidity.

But the Marleau contract was signed without the Tavares deal. They had tons of cap space until JT and the "we can and we will" fiasco. It was a bad contract for sure but Marleau's third year didn't sneak up on anyone. There was no grenade until Dubas went on a spending spree with the big 4 and burned through all the cap room. In fairness to KD I think he felt the RFAs were going to cost $3-4M less (as did most people) so he wasn't expecting the Tavares contract to contribute to so much cap pressure. If he knew he was going to reset the market with the big 3 maybe he doesn't make the JT move but he doesn't strike me as a guy who didn't consider the Marleau deal as soon as he inherited the big chair and again when he was about to sign Tavares. Shame on you for making me defend Lou but the guy had no intention of signing Tavares when they had just come off of a 105 point season with Kadri as a 30 goal #2 center.

I have lot more issue with Lou's Plekanec trade and his own rentals when the club was probably looking at Boston, then Tampa, then the defending champion Penguins just to get to the final. How does that seem like the right year to go all-in? Bad Lou! But lets not blame a GM for spending cap freely when he has it to spare because the next guy might want to sign an $11M UFA and then might get beat up on his first RFA contract negotiations.

 

[socko]

Lou’s recipe isn’t glamorous but yields results. You could see the culture clash that was always on the horizon when we had the Big 3 coming up and a GM that wants to build an army of Kyle Palmieri’s and Travis Zajac’s en route to grind em out efficient wins.

I'll never forget his Devils teams. They practically invented boring hockey.

 

[Dreakmur]

I just think you could have found a better way. I don't think theres any way someone would have given him 3 years. Either find someone else or hold out on him to get him to two. If someone else wants to give him 3 years, let him be their problem to pay someone to get rid of.

Who else? Somebody like him was an absolute necessity, and there was nobody else even close.

 

[Stephen]

I'll never forget his Devils teams. They practically invented boring hockey.

It's almost like a college program.

 

[Dreakmur]

But the Marleau contract was signed without the Tavares deal. They had tons of cap space until JT and the "we can and we will" fiasco. It was a bad contract for sure but Marleau's third year didn't sneak up on anyone. There was no grenade until Dubas went on a spending spree with the big 4 and burned through all the cap room. In fairness to KD I think he felt the RFAs were going to cost $3-4M less (as did most people) so he wasn't expecting the Tavares contract to contribute to so much cap pressure. If he knew he was going to reset the market with the big 3 maybe he doesn't make the JT move but he doesn't strike me as a guy who didn't consider the Marleau deal as soon as he inherited the big chair and again when he was about to sign Tavares. Shame on you for making me defend Lou but the guy had no intention of signing Tavares when they had just come off of a 105 point season with Kadri as a 30 goal #2 center.

I have lot more issue with his Plekanec trade and his own rentals when the club was probably looking at Boston, Tampa, then the defending champion Penguins just to get to the final. How does that seem like the right year to go all-in? Bad Lou! But lets not blame a GM for spending cap freely when he has it to spare because the next guy might want to sign an $11M UFA and then might get beat up on his first RFA contract negotiations.

I said at the time, he should have kept Marleau and traded Johnsson and Kapanen as RFAs. Just a year later, those two needed to be moved ayway....

 

[Menzinger]

Selling him as a 40ish point player is pretty dishonest. He was a solid top 9 player that offered versatility and leadership that was worth more than just his on-ice contribution. Him being 37 wasn’t as big with skating still being a strength of his. Age concerns are of injury and loss of foot speed which Marleau had no concerns.

3rd year was a stretch and nobody is saying it was good but it was the Tavares signing that upset the internal cap structure and created the need to dump 6m for one more year.

More twisting from you.

Edit: Lamoriello future cap forecast included Kadri @4.5M as 2c + 3RFAs. He didn’t project 11m for his 2c.

He had a 47 and a 37 point season with the Leafs I'd say referring to a 42 point average player as "40ish" point player is an exceedingly accurate description. Age concerns were an absolute justifiable concern for Marleau and we're visibly observed by the fact that he literally got worse and worse over that three year period (he put up a mere 28 point pace with the Sharks on what would have been his 3rd year with the Leafs. There's no "twisting" needed to call it a terrible contract, even at the time of it's signing.

Lou signed the three year deal knowing that 1) it would overlap with the Leafs main rfas needing new deals and 2) knowing that several prime free agents such as Tavares would also be available and 3) even worse that the contract would extend beyond his own GM contract with the Leafs. Lou got to sign that contract knowing full well there was a going to be a fair chance that he wouldn't even have to deal with the fallout of the third year of it....

 

[mikeyz]

I am watching the Lightning Hurricanes game right now. And my goodness, if Dubas and Shanny have intentions of modeling us like Tampa, then they've got their work cut out for them and have a long, long, LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGĢG way to go before that comes to fruition.

Tampa looks so much better then us ATM it's not even funny.

 

[Stephen]

I said at the time, he should have kept Marleau and traded Johnsson and Kapanen as RFAs. Just a year later, those two needed to be moved ayway....

Johnsson was a waste of time but keeping Kapanen was the right call. We got a good return for him in the end as well.

Another overlooked scenario is what if we had pulled off the rumored Weegar for Johnsson and Dermott? That guy turned out to be a stud this year.

 

[ChickenMcNugget]

Imagine if we fire Dubas and sign Peter Chiarelli lmao

 

[sparxx87]

He had a 47 and a 37 point season with the Leafs I'd say referring to a 42 point average player as "40ish" point player is an exceedingly accurate description. Age concerns were an absolute justifiable concern for Marleau and we're visibly observed by the fact that he literally got worse and worse over that three year period (he put up a mere 28 point pace with the Sharks on what would have been his 3rd year with the Leafs. There's no "twisting" needed to call it a terrible contract, even at the time of it's signing.

Lou signed the three year deal knowing that 1) it would overlap with the Leafs main rfas needing new deals and 2) knowing that several prime free agents such as Tavares would also be available and 3) even worse that the contract would extend beyond his own GM contract with the Leafs. Lou got to sign that contract knowing full well there was a going to be a fair chance that he wouldn't even have to deal with the fallout of the third year of it....

There’s zero point in trying to reason with you if your main focus is point production. Marleau was brought in for the room, the road, the plane etc as much as the ice.

I‘m not a big fan but selling Marleau as any other 40 point player is incredibly misleading.

It doesn’t matter whether you value that or not, it’s important and no successful team is without these players.

Marleau fit with the 3 RFA’s and a 4.5M 2C, just not an 11M player at 2C.

 

[socko]

I think they brought Marleau in for his hockey. I mean he had 27 goals and 47 points that first year. I was never a fan of his because he's soft and was always soft, but that's a productive season. It's very hard to predict exactly when a guy will fall off a cliff. I don't see the Tavares contract aging any better, it could end up being much worse.

 

[Menzinger]

There’s zero point in trying to reason with you if your main focus is point production. Marleau was brought in for the room, the road, the plane etc as much as the ice.

I‘m not a big fan but selling Marleau as any other 40 point player is incredibly misleading.

It doesn’t matter whether you value that or not, it’s important and no successful team is without these players.

Marleau fit with the 3 RFA’s and a 4.5M 2C, just not an 11M player at 2C.

You don't pay 18 million dollars for intangibles when you can add guys like Spezza for a fraction of that.