[Friedman] Pittsburgh hires Kyle Dubas as President of Hockey Operations

[GirardSpinorama]

The only remaining good parts of the leafs were the parts of other GMs
1) Matthews - Lou
2) Marner - Lou/Hunter
3) Nylander - Nonis
5) Reilly - Burke
4) Tavares - he and his wife wanted to move home
5) Brodie - he a his wife are from Ontario and she was diagnosed with MS. They chose Toronto to be home near family.


Casualties of Dubas: Kadri, Hyman, Mikheyev

He also royally messed up Marner/Matthews deals

Coach: Babcock replaced with Keefe

The rest of this roster is Dubas have your pick and enjoy, I cut out rentals:

Bunting
Jarnjkrok
Kerfoot
Kampf
Engvall
Aston Reese
Simmonds
Robertson
Knies
Holmberg

Liljegren
Mccabe
Holl
Giordano
Timmins

The parts of the roster he's responsible for all are easily replaceable. Bunting may be the only exception, but he's a 60 point player with 100 point players.

Wasn't engvall a 2014 pick, doubt he was dubas' personal pick.

 

[MLSE]

Dubas failed as a GM in Toronto but I would love to have had him back. Brilliant guy who fixed mistakes. Very good eye for talent.

Pittsburgh fans should be excited for the prospect of what he could do for them.

Clearly the best available executive. When the Leafs said they weren't bringing him back, I was looking around like... "there's nobody for us to replace him with"

 

[hfman]

Smart guy.

He took a team who lost in the first round 3 consecutive years before he was GM and traded 3 1st round picks only to lose in the first round 7 consecutive years. He then doubled down and traded another 2 1st round picks in his final year for a second round exit.

He's never proven any success at the NHL level - and now never has to because he's not the GM.

There's very few people who can obtain a high level position with zero results, Dubas seems to be one of them.

i said it all along.. i noticed it years ago.

he's all talk. that's his game.

sophisticated, eloquent, well-mannered and intelligent talk. Words and phrases are assemebled beautifully.

this way he convinces anyone that he's perfect for the job.

but sooner or later it wears thin just like a snake oil salesman.




Lets see how long it lasts this time

 

[Tripledeke333]

Smart guy.

He took a team who lost in the first round 3 consecutive years before he was GM and traded 3 1st round picks only to lose in the first round 7 consecutive years. He then doubled down and traded another 2 1st round picks in his final year for a second round exit.

He's never proven any success at the NHL level - and now never has to because he's not the GM.

There's very few people who can obtain a high level position with zero results, Dubas seems to be one of them.

Dubas got the Toronto job because he branded himself as a politically correct analytics guy. Moneyball popular and with the Mike Babcock controversy, Rogers/Bell wanted to steer away from the old boys club. Just look at his glasses. Of course he is very smart. Don’t look at his record/accomplishments, just look at his glasses. Toronto was so bad for so long, that the media loved when they started winning (of course, Dubas inherited a dream situation with 3 young stars and an star UFA who wanted to come to Toronto). Any GM would have had success. As Canadian media owned the team, they praised Dubas as the propaganda took affect. Liking Dubas was associated with being a passionate Leafs fan just like liking a dictator is associated with being a patriotic citizen in third world countries. Dubas handicapped the team by singing the big 4 to max max max contracts, and never put together a team that has what it takes to win the cup, while depleting all the picks/prospects of the team.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

The only remaining good parts of the leafs were the parts of other GMs
1) Matthews - Lou
2) Marner - Lou/Hunter
3) Nylander - Nonis
5) Reilly - Burke
4) Tavares - he and his wife wanted to move home
5) Brodie - he a his wife are from Ontario and she was diagnosed with MS. They chose Toronto to be home near family.


Casualties of Dubas: Kadri, Hyman, Mikheyev

He also royally messed up Marner/Matthews deals

Coach: Babcock replaced with Keefe

The rest of this roster is Dubas have your pick and enjoy, I cut out rentals:

Bunting
Jarnjkrok
Kerfoot
Kampf
Engvall
Aston Reese
Simmonds
Robertson
Knies
Holmberg

Liljegren
Mccabe
Holl
Giordano
Timmins

The parts of the roster he's responsible for all are easily replaceable. Bunting may be the only exception, but he's a 60 point player with 100 point players.

Why would you cut out rentals?

Adding quality rentals to a contender is a pretty key part of a GM's job. Personally, the types of rentals he picked up last year are exactly what I hope he can bring to Pittsburgh going forward.

 

[Fatass]

The only remaining good parts of the leafs were the parts of other GMs
1) Matthews - Lou
2) Marner - Lou/Hunter
3) Nylander - Nonis
5) Reilly - Burke
4) Tavares - he and his wife wanted to move home
5) Brodie - he a his wife are from Ontario and she was diagnosed with MS. They chose Toronto to be home near family.


Casualties of Dubas: Kadri, Hyman, Mikheyev

He also royally messed up Marner/Matthews deals

Coach: Babcock replaced with Keefe

The rest of this roster is Dubas have your pick and enjoy, I cut out rentals:

Bunting
Jarnjkrok
Kerfoot
Kampf
Engvall
Aston Reese
Simmonds
Robertson
Knies
Holmberg

Liljegren
Mccabe
Holl
Giordano
Timmins

The parts of the roster he's responsible for all are easily replaceable. Bunting may be the only exception, but he's a 60 point player with 100 point players.

Are Murray and Samsonov rentals?

 

[Leaf Fans]

Are Murray and Samsonov rentals?

No, but one has to be tendered.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Are Murray and Samsonov rentals?

Also Mrazek

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

pens almost moved to hamilton
pens franchise struggling

Almost only counts on horseshoes and your mom, or however that expression goes

 

[Coaches Coroner]

A generational talent let go too soon. Great move by Pitt. I think he could have a greater impact on the franchise than even Sid the Kid!

 

[Antropovsky]

About a week ago, Doug Maclean told a story about when Dubas was GM in SOO he had requested to meet Maclean for coffee. Maclean agreed, but had never really heard of him before. The purpose of the meeting was that Dubas feared SOO owners were going to fire him and wanted advice from Maclean on how he could keep his job.

The meeting was set up by a different well known sportscaster, I forget who....

Considering he only was the GM of SOO for three seasons, I thought it was interesting how quickly Dubas went from fearing he was going to be fired as an OHL GM, to being the person touted by the media as "boy genius" hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

 

[Antropovsky]

Are Murray and Samsonov rentals?

I forgot to add goalies. Goaltending this past seasons was a castaway by Washington and a cap dump from Ottawa. One of the two worked out okay, but looked pretty shaky in the playoffs.

Also Mrazek

Don't forger Hutchinson, Sparks and Rittich.

 

[Breakers]

So something like $40-45 million over 7

 

[Jaded-Fan]

For those who are going to roast Toronto if this works out for Pittsburgh as I, and frankly most others, including respected analysts, think is that Dubas basically was making Toronto choose. Shanahan or him.

One big advantage that Pittsburgh had was that there was no power struggle here. Burke and Hextall were gone.

Huge difference.

Much harder call for Toronto.

Time will tell if they made the right choice between the two in the power struggle.

 

[Divine]

Jesus - he secured a 7 year/40M contract using big words.

This right here is a lesson to kids out there. Use big words and go to Brock instead of Harvard and pretend you're analyzing stats that only you can see.

Burke, the Harvard graduate Pittsburgh fired for Dubas said it best:

"The nerds are smart. They're making up stats only they can replicate so you have to hire them"

None of these new advanced analytics has equalled success yet - but Dubas secured arguably the biggest POHO contract in the NHL with no results. Shanahan for reference got 12.5M over 5 (2.5M a year).

 

[Bowski]

Good hire.
Bout time someone took charge after JR's mysterious disappearance into Vancouverland.

@ Leaf Dubas haters still chiming in on how awful the Pens will be with this hire.
We get it, you won, he got fired. He left the country. Just enjoy year 10 or whatever the hell it is of the Shanaplan and get excited for Calgary's scraps.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

I forgot to add goalies. Goaltending this past seasons was a castaway by Washington and a cap dump from Ottawa. One of the two worked out okay, but looked pretty shaky in the playoffs.


Don't forger Hutchinson, Sparks and Rittich.

We drafted Sparks. The rest were backups.

Good hire.
Bout time someone took charge after JR's mysterious disappearance into Vancouverland.

@ Leaf Dubas haters still chiming in on how awful the Pens will be with this hire.
We get it, you won, he got fired. He left the country. Just enjoy year 10 or whatever the hell it is of the Shanaplan and get excited for Calgary's scraps.

eh, there's plenty of non-Leaf Dubas haters that miraculously over night found their way to loving him.

 

[Jaded-Fan]

Jesus - he secured a 7 year/40M contract using big words.

This right here is a lesson to kids out there. Use big words and go to Brock instead of Harvard and pretend you're analyzing stats that only you can see.

Burke, the Harvard graduate Pittsburgh fired for Dubas said it best:

"The nerds are smart. They're making up stats only they can replicate so you have to hire them"

None of these new advanced analytics has equalled success yet - but Dubas secured arguably the biggest POHO contract in the NHL with no results. Shanahan for reference got 12.5M over 5 (2.5M a year).

I doubt that it was the money in Toronto, but what I said above. A power struggle.

Dubas basically said that it was Shanahan or him with his demands. Choose.

Toronto chose. Time will tell if they chose right,

It's not like Pittsburgh was the only team who would have paid for Dubas. reports are that at least one other team was competing for him.

If in the end the choice was made to save a few million dollars in a market like Toronto where the fans pay a fortune for seats I would riot if the choice did not turn out to be right.

In Pittsburgh, we have no crystal ball. I can not tell the future.

But a couple of things that I love about the move. FSG identified their top candidate, one with a definite clear plan that I can understand, They spent whatever it took to get him, and gave him the power without meddling and time, the better part of a decade, to prove his plan. Patience.

As a fan you can not ask for anything more from ownership.

As for the choice, Thank God it was forward thinking.

Pittsburgh for years was the same old school hiring of buddies whether they had skills or not for management. Two of the three fires made immediately by Dubas were buddies of Hextall's that he played with.

That old school approach should be dead. Not that being an ex-player should exclude you from the job. Spezza is rumored as a candidate to come over and shouldn’t be excluded simply because he played. But it became too often the sole criterion.

Hell, the Pens hired a guy with zero hockey experience once as one of the top executives because he worked on a political campaign with one of the owners.

This hire may work. It may not. But it was the right idea.

To quote the movie Money Ball:

I mean, anybody who's not building a team right and rebuilding it using your model, they're dinosaurs. They'll be sitting on their ass on the sofa in October, watching the Boston Red Sox win the World Series.

 

[MessierII]

Jesus - he secured a 7 year/40M contract using big words.

This right here is a lesson to kids out there. Use big words and go to Brock instead of Harvard and pretend you're analyzing stats that only you can see.

Burke, the Harvard graduate Pittsburgh fired for Dubas said it best:

"The nerds are smart. They're making up stats only they can replicate so you have to hire them"

None of these new advanced analytics has equalled success yet - but Dubas secured arguably the biggest POHO contract in the NHL with no results. Shanahan for reference got 12.5M over 5 (2.5M a year).

Ridiculous by the pens

 

[Divine]

I doubt that it was the money in Toronto, but what I said above. A power struggle.

Dubas basically said that it was Shanahan or him with his demands. Choose.

Toronto chose. Time will tell if they chose right,

It's not like Pittsburgh was the only team who would have paid for Dubas. reports are that at least one other team was competing for him.

If in the end the choice was made to save a few million dollars in a market like Toronto where the fans pay a fortune for seats I would riot if the choice did not turn out to be right.

In Pittsburgh, we have no crystal ball. I can not tell the future.

But a couple of things that I love about the move. FSG identified their top candidate, one with a definite clear plan that I can understand, They spent whatever it took to get him, and gave him the power without meddling and time, the better part of a decade, to prove his plan. Patience.

As a fan you can not ask for anything more from ownership.

As for the choice, Thank God it was forward thinking.

Pittsburgh for years was the same old school hiring of buddies whether they had skills or not for management. Two of the three fires made immediately by Dubas were buddies of Hextall's that he played with.

That old school approach should be dead. Not that being an ex-player should exclude you from the job. Spezza is rumored as a candidate to come over and shouldn’t be excluded simply because he played. But it became too often the sole criterion.

Hell, the Pens hired a guy with zero hockey experience once as one of the top executives because he worked on a political campaign with one of the owners.

This hire may work. It may not. But it was the right idea.

To quote the movie Money Ball:

I disagree.

People who quote moneyball forget one big difference:

In Moneyball, analytics got results.

Dubas' analytics did a poor job. Based on performance, and the asset cost of that poor performance - he should have been fired.

Dubas spent a ton of money hiring analytics people, created the biggest front office in the entire NHL and struggled to get out of the first round. It's possible the analytics he uses do not equate to success in hockey. Maybe he would have better luck in baseball?

 

[Jaded-Fan]

I disagree.

People who quote moneyball forget one big difference:

In Moneyball, analytics got results.

Dubas' analytics did a poor job. Based on performance, and the asset cost of that poor performance - he should have been fired.

Dubas spent a ton of money hiring analytics people, created the biggest front office in the entire NHL and struggled to get out of the first round. It's possible the analytics he uses do not equate to success in hockey. Maybe he would have better luck in baseball?

Again, I have no crystal ball. Dubas certainly could fail. Hot shots at times do. Old school GMs fail all the time too.

It does not change a word of what I said above being true. Hockey management is filled with old school guys who are stuck in old school mind sets. Often hired for friendships rather than skills. To the detriment of their teams.

You only need to look at Brian Burke's recent comments on Dubas, whining about how Dubas had signed elsewhere when he said that he wouldn't.

How could he? For $40 million and the control he asked for and was denied? What a terrible person,

What nonsense. Not just old school thinking but indicative of how out of touch with today most of management in the NHL is.

Part of the illusion of the whole 'love of the game' fantasy.

They would do it for free.

That ceased being a thing a hundred years ago. Certainly since the sports made billions and salaries were in the millions.

It is a business.

But shattering the average fan's illusion is a red line too far.

 

[Golden_Jet]

None of these new advanced analytics has equalled success yet - but Dubas secured arguably the biggest POHO contract in the NHL with no results. Shanahan for reference got 12.5M over 5 (2.5M a year).

That was Shannys original deal in 2014.
Signed an extension in 2019 for 6 years @ 5 million per year.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Why do people give a shit about what kind of money Dubas is making? FSG is rich and the money is irrelevant to them.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Why do people give a shit about what kind of money Dubas is making? FSG is rich and the money is irrelevant to them.

No idea. probably the same reason some fans seem to care about viewership numbers, should make no difference to fans.

 

[Antropovsky]

Good hire.
Bout time someone took charge after JR's mysterious disappearance into Vancouverland.

@ Leaf Dubas haters still chiming in on how awful the Pens will be with this hire.
We get it, you won, he got fired. He left the country. Just enjoy year 10 or whatever the hell it is of the Shanaplan and get excited for Calgary's scraps.

I think most leaf fans are surprised he's being hailed as an excellent gm. Lou refused to mortgage the future for playoff rentals. He was let go and Dubas walked onto a gold mine. Elite young talent entering their prime, good group of youngish role players and all his draft picks and a Franchise 27 year old center about to come home. He proceeded to pretty much mess it up entirely. He's burnt through all the leafs draft picks for the foreseeable future and key players like Hyman, Mikheyev and Kadri were lost for essentially nothing. He signed Marner to a contract that even other GMs wouldn't have dared offersheeted.... And the only good parts of the rostet Teliving has are the same players that Dubas himself inherited, except they are much older.

He wasn't a good GM... But it sounds like people like his ability building a management group. Hence why he is president of hockey operations and not the GM?

Read the threads.... Much of the leaf fans thought he should be gone if he lost the first round, a lot wanted him gone of he lost the second round.