Has Dubas failed at his job?

[ottomaddox]

I agree Dubas acquired the needed pieces at the TDL, unfortunately Foligno was injured, and Nash was not ready. Rittich and Hutton were good insurance although Hutton was not available for personal reasons when Muzz went down. Unfortunately the cap hell Dubas put himself in (yes can't blame him for flat cap) is going to be his demise IMO.

Jesus. Where were our prospects when we needed them? Look at all these holes and yet the TDL acquisitions didn't even participate. Couldn't Keefe have used someone from the Marlies?

 

[fahad203]

Jesus. Where are were our prospects when we needed them? Look at all these holes and yet the TDL acquisitions didn't even participate. Couldn't Keefe have used someone from the Marlies?

Joey Anderson would have been more useful than Simmonds and Thornton

He can at least skate

 

[notbias]

Jesus. Where are were our prospects when we needed them? Look at all these holes and yet the TDL acquisitions didn't even participate. Couldn't Keefe have used someone from the Marlies?

We didn't have any prospects that were really ready, unfortunately, Lou drafted for size and not skill

 

[ottomaddox]

We didn't have any prospects that were really ready, unfortunately, Lou drafted for size and not skill

It doesn't need to be perfection. Just play. Someone could have been good enough.

Clark Wilm used to play on TOR during the playoffs. Far from perfect.

 

[myleafs]

Would have been way better if Tavares had signed in San Jose!

Man, did San Jose ever dodge a bullet on that one!

Only to get in the way of another bullet named Karlsson.

 

[Canadian Finn]

My point is its not as black and white as failed or not.

You can analyze different parts of his job he's done well (Drafting) or poorly (core 4 $).

We are one of the best regular season teams which is a very underrated and important step to get to the ultimate goal. Can't be ignored.

underrated?

come on....

 

[Papi 4 Hart]

underrated?

come on....

Consistently making the playoffs with a good regular season standing is important. Not every bottom seed walks through to the finals every year like Montreal.

Is it not important to have regular season success?

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

I'm not a prospect guy so I will take your word for it on the 'progression'. That's great if it's looking good.
Curious, how much did the pandemic affect where players played and the quality of the opposition? Could that have had something to do with the progression?

IMO, I don't really care how it compares to 'past regimes'. I only care about this edition.

This past season there was a few of our American prospects like Abruzzese that didn't get to play at all. A good amount of our prospects are European so they all got good playing time in their leagues. In some cases I think a few of our guys like Amirov even got bumped up the lineup in the KHL because of other guys getting Covid. Overall I dont think It affected teams too much over there other than teams having one or two guys out here and there.

We look at guys like Niemela, Amirov, Hirvonen and Abramov at the WJC last year and for the most part they excelled. Niemela named best D man. Covid didn't really affect the competition much there.

The good thing about our draft last year was that we drafted guys that got to play. For the most part the CHL didn't get to play.

 

[Mess]

We are one of the best regular season teams which is a very underrated and important step to get to the ultimate goal. Can't be ignored.

Agreed, but he inherited a 100 year old franchise best 105 point team & 49 win as his starting point, coming off a 7 game round #1 loss to Boston.

6th overall in the standings with #2 best GF and #2 OA PP% with the #10 best GA and #8th best PK%.

This is the Leafs high water mark of the past 5 years on most of those stats.

In his 3 years what has he achieved that moved the team forward?

 

[Wafflewhipper]

Yeah, I sure loved those days when the Leafs had so little skill that Alan McCauley was their first-line centre while Mats Sundin was injured. How about the Bozak years when he was the lead dog in the middle of the ice? Man, I wish the Leafs had less talent and more grit now! That would show them, eh?

Where's John Brophy and Gord Stellick when you need them? Howsabout another Russ Courtnall for John Kordic dealeo? Now that goof Dubas is p***yfooting with assholes like Mitch Marner and John Tavares! Fifth highest scorer -- who needs that shit! For God's sake, he can't run an NHL team! He even let Matt Martin go! Just shows ya what he knows about hockey, huh?

For Pete's sake.

Sorry to ruin your bro crush. He’s put a series of soft failures on the ice that lose first round when the going gets tough. Obnoxious the way you ignore posters that indicate we like better balance. You should watch pairs figure skating. Might be more your cup of tea. I warn you there is contact. Just a bit more than Dubas teams so you will ge able to deal with it

 

[darrylsittler27]

There are some fans who think losing is a badge of honour and soft beta males only need to dress nicely. Screw winning anything.

 

[MagicalRazor]

The team he took over was already that.

Also, I wish people would stop saying things like best Leaf team since whenever. It only serves to remind everyone what a shitty team this has mostly been for the last 50+ years.

He was assist GM in 2014 . I think alot of people forget that . It’s well known that the leafs organization groomed him and let him make multiple calls before he officially took over the reins from . If you Don’t think he had any impact on the team from 2014-2018 when he became the GM you’re wrong.

I’m not a huge Dubas fan by any means but he did decent job. Was he perfect by no means but did fail , not at all.

 

[centipede2233]

I think overall dubas has failed, and so has shanahan.

 

[Mentat]

In his 3 years what has he achieved that moved the team forward?

Nothing. That´s the hard cold factual truth.
We may spend hours debating as to why things have been so, but the facts remain. The Leafs under Dubas have done NOTHING in terms of PO progress. Heck, most of us (me included) would be glad to make it past the first round. And being a fan of such a historied franchise, that´s setting the bar limbo low.
Dubas, so far, has been little more than a failure. He has done some things right, but the bottom line is that under him we still haven´t even made it past the 1st round of the PO´s. And that is unacceptable.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Consistently making the playoffs with a good regular season standing is important. Not every bottom seed walks through to the finals every year like Montreal.

Is it not important to have regular season success?

It's "important", but just how important it is depends on who you talk to. The goal is to win the cup and making the playoffs is the first step towards that goal so it's obviously important. If you don't build on that success though it doesn't mean much. Since my goal is to win the cup, I'd say regular season is about 10 times less important than the playoffs. Of course there are those who ignore the fact that we always lose in the playoffs and keep bragging about us doing well in "expected this" and "expected that" statistical categories so ... opinions vary.

He was assist GM in 2014 . I think alot of people forget that . It’s well known that the leafs organization groomed him and let him make multiple calls before he officially took over the reins from . If you Don’t think he had any impact on the team from 2014-2018 when he became the GM you’re wrong.

I’m not a huge Dubas fan by any means but he did decent job. Was he perfect by no means but did fail , not at all.

If you want to give Dubas the credit for what happened while Lou was in charge because he was working as an assistant, that's up to you. Most people (including me) see it differently. I like much of what he's done but the results aren't there. Regular season results have stayed about the same and we've added a bunch of playoff failures. If you're logic is correct than maybe that's his problem, he's not as good at hiring assistants as Lou.

Just curious - what are these multiple calls that Dubas was allowed to make while Lou was in charge? TBH I don't believe this myself, I'm pretty that Lou had the final say on whatever he did unless it was something relatively minor like what kind of skate sharpeners we used.

 

[Stonehands1990]

Are we sure he's an excellent drafter? There are some players that look promising but they haven't performed at the NHL level yet, except Sandin, even that is limited

I don’t know a lot about prospects but the Leafs were one of the best represented teams at WJHC. All the other teams that had lots of prospects were rebuilding

 

[Pookie]

Is it not important to have regular season success?

it’s the bare minimum.

Like passing an exam with a 51%

 

[Blowfish]

The problem now is returning to the Atlantic with improving teams and the relentless bolts and bruins. Making the playoffs will be a struggle for a number of teams...it's obvious the leafs will not have the same success they did in the North. Dubas may be cooked by December. Going to be an interesting season.

 

[fahad203]

The problem now is returning to the Atlantic with improving teams and the relentless bolts and bruins. Making the playoffs will be a struggle for a number of teams...it's obvious the leafs will not have the same success they did in the North. Dubas may be cooked by December. Going to be an interesting season.

Unfortunately it won't. Leafs will be good enough for Keefe and Dubas their jobs. But not good enough to move forward

It's essentially Doug Wilson of San Jose. Always good enough to retain their jobs but can't do anything beyond that

At least they went to the finals

We should have already fired Keefe

 

[Leaf Fans]

it’s the bare minimum.

Like passing an exam with a 51%

It is vitality important to have regular season success. It is the only way to get into the playoffs. We have to also have success in the playoffs.

 

[Fogelhund]

It is vitality important to have regular season success. It is the only way to get into the playoffs. We have to also have success in the playoffs.

Regular season success, is qualifying for the playoffs.

At this point, it shouldn't even be a question for this group. This group should be expected to be a playoff team.

Winning rounds, is the measurement of success. Winning two rounds of playoffs, is the minimum acceptable result for this team, for this year. If they cannot, changes will be needed, whether that's roster, coaching or management, is TBD.

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

The problem now is returning to the Atlantic with improving teams and the relentless bolts and bruins. Making the playoffs will be a struggle for a number of teams...it's obvious the leafs will not have the same success they did in the North. Dubas may be cooked by December. Going to be an interesting season.

Boston got way worse with the loss of Krejci and Rask. They are going into the season with Ullmark who is unproven and Swayman, who had a very good rookie year but can he do it again? Their Defense is nothing special now but their top line is still one of the biggest power houses in the league.

Tampa got worse with the losses of Coleman, Goodrow, Gourde and Johnson. They still have the best core in the league and their defense is intact but they did get worse.

Florida- who knows if they can repeat what they did last year. Can Marchment and Verhaeghe repeat their brrakout numbers. Can Bennett? They Lost Driedger. Who knows if Bobrovsky can return to his old self. Can Spencer Knight show what he did late in the year over a full rookie season?

Montreal lost Weber and Price which is huge for them. Can Kotkaniemi, Caufield and Suzuki take the next step for them? Can Carey play like his old self coming back from knee surgery?

Buffalo is nothing to worry about. We'll pile up points against them.

Ottawa - is interesting because they play hard and their young players will be a little older and have more experience. Will be interesting to see Steutzle,Tkachuk, Norris, Chabot and Batherson take the next step.

Detroit is nothing to worry about.

The loss of Hyman is going to hurt a bit but I think we might get a little addition by subtraction by losing Jumbo. We should have a bit more sandpaper to this lineup with Ritchie and Bunting and also should have more team speed with Bunting and Kase. I dont think we necessarily got better but I don't think we are worse either.

This division for the most part did not get better. Will we be in tougher than playing in the Canadian Division? Most likely but I don't think we are in danger of missing playoffs at all looking at these teams after this offseason.

 

[Fogelhund]

Boston got way worse with the loss of Krejci and Rask. They are going into the season with Ullmark who is unproven and Swayman, who had a very good rookie year but can he do it again? Their Defense is nothing special now but their top line is still one of the biggest power houses in the league.

.

Boston Bruins Still Expect Rask To Play For Them This Season

Krejci was replaced by Hall. Rask is likely still a Bruin. Ullmark is a pretty damned good goalie, and great signing by Boston.

 

[justashadowof]

Jesus. Where were our prospects when we needed them? Look at all these holes and yet the TDL acquisitions didn't even participate. Couldn't Keefe have used someone from the Marlies?

The most ideal situation for NHL teams is having pro level prospects advance during the season to the point that it's the AHL callups who fortify a team's playoff run in place of expensive TDL rentals. This hasn't happened here.

If you average over the past 5 seasons, I bet this team has produced quality new NHLers at a higher rate than most other franchises. The problem is that the mismanagement of the team's cap has forced the GM to sell off this talent.

 

[killer1980]

Like so many businesses, the guys making the decisions are so far detached from reality. Their criteria is does the hire look good in a suit, is he hip, does he say yessir? None of the major criteria as far as management is concerned is how well can he do the job. It is not Dubas fault he has no hockey knowledge, he overpays players, brings in a useless coach and loses in the first round of the playoffs to the 18th ranked team in the league. All that is what he is, incompetent and clueless but, his bosses love him because he fits all their criteria.