How many first round loses is Dubas allowed before he should be fired?

[ShaneFalco]

It will be a little different at the end of this year. Matthews NMC will kick in at the end of this upcoming season.

Matthews will be contemplating a $14 m type of contract with maximum term I would think.

After glancing at CapFriendly for 2023-24, they will have about $65 m in cap tied up in 11 players, so about $18.7 m left over (could increase a bit if the cap goes up). If Matthews potentially gobbles up around $14 m of that amount, it's not hard to imagine or figure out what that situation would be like.

And, will Matthews want to hang around if they were to lose yet again in the first round?

At any rate, the situation is going to be pretty tough & interesting at the end of the upcoming season and some very difficult decisions will need to be made [or they will be made for them by a player(s)].

Can you imagine if he did decide to go.elsewhere? Think the pitchforks are out now for visionary Dubas....

Losing in any round first or fourth is effectively the same thing.

It's the context that matters.

If they had been embarrassed like last year or swept, it would have been 3 bad series in a row.

Instead they had a good series and were beat by a good team.

Judging all first round eliminations as equal means you've bought into the noise you hear from other fanbases who use it to trash talk the Leafs.

Context

 

[DraftSchmaft]

I'm on the fence with Dubas. Shanahan is really the only one I'd keep around.

Leafs are a shoe-in for the playoffs. That's minimum. Doesn't matter who the GM is, who the coach is. When your core 4 is our 4, you're making the playoffs guaranteed.

Nylander was the only savvy pick required and I don't think Dubas had anything to do with it. The rest were obvious and JT would have came here even if JFJ was still GM. He bleeds blue.


Based on our past losses, I can't say Dubas knows what a winning team looks like. Seems out of touch with how to build a supporting cast no?

Doesn't matter if the opponent is weak. Doesn't matter if the opponent is hard. The supporting cast is inadequate at being winners. Kampf was a step in the right direction but it can't take you 3 years per every Kampf. Tampa makes one random trade with Senators at the deadline and it costs us our season.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

I appreciate the fact that Dubas has gone a 180 on his philosophy after realizing he'd f***ed up. However, I don't think he actually knows what to look for in a player when it comes to "intangibles".

That's the issue that happens when you pretty much only value skill and high IQ hockey players I guess. The way I see it is that intangible player has to play a prominent role for you. You can't have him be a 10min or less a night player and expect him to drag people into the fight. I think it's hard to get a guy making around the minimum to feel he wants to kill himself so the guys making over $10M can get some extra jump. You need this player to be on the top 2 lines...we just don't have that ...yet.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Hey, in 2017 we took the president's trophy winners to 6 games. 6 years later, we take the back-to-back champs to 7 games. Progress!

Not only that...I think they took them to overtime in 5 of those games or at least made them 1g losses. The next year when we crapped the bed and let in 5 goals in the 3rd against Boston after being up 3-2 going into the 3rd...something broke with this team. I don't know what it was...but it broke us. The following year in game 7 we didn't even show up and the rest is history. It's too bad because had we beaten Boston the first time...we more than likely are much more like Chicago than what we ended up becoming now.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Unless you are Marleau bc that contract was really not bad for him

It was a bad deal because of the JT signing. It would have been nothing to have that 3rd year on the books had Dubas not done that. Do you think Lou sat there and wondered if giving Marleau that 3rd year would be a nightmare because he might be signing JT to an $11M deal after year 2 of the deal?

It was only an issue because Dubas made it one with his moves. Lou wasn't perfect by any means...but please stop with the blaming of Lou because of what Dubas did.

As an aside, I hated the Patty years and am convinced that he showed AM and MM that you need to get as much as you can from each contract. In retrospect, getting a Justin Williams would have been the play.

 

[ULF_55]

He's responsible for all of the players on the Leafs who've come up short every single year.

Who the hell else would be?

I completely agree he has had time to move out the underachievers.
So yes, he is responsible for the players on the team.
He is also responsible for the coach who deploys the players.
Each individual is responsible for their play.

So if you want to say Dubas is ultimately responsible I agree.

 

[Gary Nylund]

No actually they aren't "way off". Your posts are right there for everyone to read. Stop lying.

Also, you'd think someone who acts so condescending would know that threads from 2017 are no longer archived.

The oldest thread with "marleau" in the title is from 2020.

Sounds like it is you who needs to learn how to use the search function lmao

Not a single soul thought that the 3 rfas would cost us almost 30 mil a year. Most said they would cost us around 22mil. Dubas had more than enough room to absorb the 3rd year of the Marleau deal.

But due to his incompetence, we had no cap room and had to trade a 1st just to clear one year.

I'm sure that if you ever did catch me in a lie, you'd quote me and show everyone where I lied. But I haven't lied, you have nothing to show so you're just ranting.

I haven't used the search function in years. Old threads used to be archived but if you say they no longer are, I'll take your word for it.

The Leafs are a team that always spends to the cap so a bad contract would hurt the on ice product one way or the other. You can debate whether or not Dubas handled it in the best way but that 3rd year was a terrible idea, about that there can be no debate and that is 100% on Lou.

 

[Gary Nylund]

What irks me is having to throw assets like Kappy, Hyman, AJ, Mik and Soup (soon), 1st for Marleau overboard and having to dumpster dive every summer to fill out the lineup in order to pay 4 guys who can't get it done, 1/2 your cap. Four first round exits is enough of a sample size to prove that Dubas' vision is flawed. Attempt #5 should be the last if they fail again. Make peace with it, buckle up and embrace the pain.

Yeah maybe but then again, that's what people were saying last year, and the year before.

If I took over for Shanahan today, I'd interview Dubas and make my decision based on how that went. Off the top of my head, these are the questions I would start with and if I didn't like the answers, I wouldn't wait another year to "see how it goes":

1)
What are the 5 best moves you've made, and your 5 biggest mistakes during your tenure.

What I'd be looking for here is mostly an ability to acknowledge and learn from his mistakes.

2a)
Why did you promise Nylander that you would never trade him (I would also hope that would be on his list of biggest mistakes)?

If he didn't think that was a mistake, I would fire him. If he acknowledged the mistake, the next question would be:

2b)
Are you willing to break your promise to Nylander if the right deal came along?

If he said no, I would fire him.

3)
Tell me the story of how Marner's contract came about.

Again, I would be looking for an understanding that he overpaid Marner and if he didn't think this was an overpayment, I would fire him.

Assuming he still had a job at this point, I would move on to other things like his plan for next year and so on but yeah, I would need to be happy with his answers to this point to consider keeping him.

That sounds exactly like something Dubas or Shanahan would say.
There is a HUGE difference between losing in the 1st round as opposed to, say, the 4th round.
How many kicks at the can should this group, core and management, get before people realize changes have to be made? Will winning the 1st round only to be eliminated in the next round be good enough? It has gotten to the point where this team needs to make a deep run. The only problem is, you have to hope and pray that Dubas is able to catch lightning in a bottle with his free agent signings and trade deadline acquisitions. There is only so much wiggle room available due to the very limited amount of cap room that he has created due to the contracts given to “his core group”.

100% true. There's also a HUGE difference losing to CLB, or MTL who we were huge favorites against or the powerhouse TB team. There's always context so be considered, and ignoring context is always a HUGE mistake.

I completely agree he has had time to move out the underachievers.
So yes, he is responsible for the players on the team.
He is also responsible for the coach who deploys the players.
Each individual is responsible for their play.

So if you want to say Dubas is ultimately responsible I agree.

Yup. The buck obviously stops with Dubas. I mean if not him then who?

 

[ULF_55]

2a)
Why did you promise Nylander that you would never trade him (I would also hope that would be on his list of biggest mistakes)?

If he didn't think that was a mistake, I would fire him. If he acknowledged the mistake, the next question would be:

2b)
Are you willing to break your promise to Nylander if the right deal came along?

If he said no, I would fire him.

If the answer 2b) doesn't apply to every player on the team then he should be fired.

Matthews is not the best player in the league.
marner is not the best player in the league.
Rielly is not the best player in the league.
...

In saying that even the best player in the league could be traded, but I don't know how you could fit McKinnon and Rantanen's contract into Edmonton's Cap.

Every answer should be how are you going to make the team better.

 

[Nineteen67]

Can you imagine if he did decide to go.elsewhere? Think the pitchforks are out now for visionary Dubas....


Context

I dont foresee Matthews re-signing with the Leafs. I’ll be shocked if doesn’t sign with Vegas.

 

[Gary Nylund]

If the answer 2b) doesn't apply to every player on the team then he should be fired.

Matthews is not the best player in the league.
marner is not the best player in the league.
Rielly is not the best player in the league.
...

In saying that even the best player in the league could be traded, but I don't know how you could fit McKinnon and Rantanen's contract into Edmonton's Cap.

Every answer should be how are you going to make the team better.

Sure, that's fair. I only mentioned Nylander because I'm not aware of him making any such promises to anyone else. But much better than breaking promises is not making them in the 1st place.

 

[ULF_55]

Sure, that's fair. I only mentioned Nylander because I'm not aware of him making any such promises to anyone else. But much better than breaking promises is not making them in the 1st place.

Maybe the promise is worth 2-3 million a year?
Perhaps marner asked for the same promise but he decided to give him an extra 3 million instead?

 

[PromisedLand]

I dont foresee Matthews re-signing with the Leafs. I’ll be shocked if doesn’t sign with Vegas.

If you look at the presser. Dubas said that "Matthews believes we are close".

To me it came off as Matthews is running the show. If true, chances are that Matthews wouldn't want to go to Vegas and compete with Eichel for the "defacto shadow GM of the team"

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

Does everyone have selective memory when it comes to this guy? He had his first win on the dumpster diving this past off season. He brought us Jumbo and Vesey and a whole host of other useless guys that people forget. They act like Mrazek is the first time he goofed. It wasn't.

If you want to give the guy credit for Kampf and Bunting along with Kase...fine...I agree they were good finds...but lets not pretend it's a yearly occurrence. He did it 1x out of 4 shots.

Mikheyev, Bogosian, were solid adds as well a d Galchenyuk played well here for the most part in his short stint with us. Other than that I would agree with your post. This year was definitely Dubas' best.

 

[PromisedLand]

I think you are not thinking back correctly and mixed up the actual years and you are the one 100% wrong.

The leafs would have had over 30 million in cap space going into the Nylander talks with Matthews/Marner coming the year later.
All expectations had the 3 coming in at around 22 million leaving plenty in the till on Patty's last year.

Hardly anybody I knew were worried about that last year but now some claim they did which is really strange since we were still rebuilding and had no idea a guy like JT was coming here and that the kids would get another 7 million.

Dubas signs JT to that big contract ad then gets bent over with the other 3 and overpays the planned 22 mil by a large margin.
Viola,Dubas creates his own giant mess that not a single fan I know could possibly see coming.

It is easier for Dubas fans to look back and blame it on Lou after the fact but looking with clear eyes it was never going to be a concern until Dubas made it one.

Great post. Precise and concise and uses Context!

 

[Nineteen67]

If you look at the presser. Dubas said that "Matthews believes we are close".

To me it came off as Matthews is running the show. If true, chances are that Matthews wouldn't want to go to Vegas and compete with Eichel for the "defacto shadow GM of the team"

I have no idea why they wanted Eichel, but my hope is they find a way to get rid of him by then. Pacioretty will gone and it was setting up nicely for them and AM.

 

[Skullz]

I would say this is the last chance for all three of them. Failing to advance should result in all of them being fired. I like all three, but if we can't do it again, it's time.

 

[PromisedLand]

Well said.

It's amazing how the dubas fan boys can blame everything on literally anyone but dubas.

I was on the site back in 2018. No one thought the three rfas would cost us a combined ~30mil.

Dubas painted himself into a corner by overpaying his restricted free agents. There's a reason he won the award for the gm agents can get the best deal for their clients from.

You'd think leaf fans would want to succeed. But far to many appear to be in favour of keeping dubas as gm even if it means constantly failing.

I read quite a bit of other teams' boards. I was also reading things here when Burkie and then Nonis were GMs.

I have never seen such cult like blind support for any GM. It is just weird, confusing, baffling and funny at the same time lol

 

[PromisedLand]

You guys do realize that we used to routinely MISS the playoffs every year after the lockout, right?

We made the playoffs once in 11 years - and that was the devastating loss to the Bruins in 2013 - that's why it hurt so much, because it was the first time we experienced playoffs in over a decade.

Does that mean management should get a pass? Hell no - I wanted them to make big moves last year. But the team has been getting better every year even if the core group was repeating the same mistakes.

Lumping everything together is revisionist and it's just parroting whatever the media is saying.

2017 against WSH - weren't even supposed to be there.
2018 against BOS - pushed a strong Boston team to the brink
2019 against BOS - this one hurt because of how they lost the 3-2 lead
2020 against COL - this was BS and complete lackluster performance
2021 against MON - there are no excuses
2022 against TB - lost the series by 1 goal to B2B champions

If they had come out with the same effort and play as they did against Columbus and especially Montreal, I'd be on board for wholesale changes.

But right now, I'm willing to give it another shot.

After a laughable performance against montreal, this team did not show up to play in Game 2, Game 4 and turtled in Game 6 in the 3rd period with only 4 shots on goal.

Coach kept saying "happy with split"; "we are fine" other BS; with icing on the cake of "respect in handshake line" in Game 7

This is not a team that played like they had something to prove after montreal embarrassment. They were too complacent. That is not acceptable.

 

[PromisedLand]

What irks me is having to throw assets like Kappy, Hyman, AJ, Mik and Soup (soon), 1st for Marleau overboard and having to dumpster dive every summer to fill out the lineup in order to pay 4 guys who can't get it done, 1/2 your cap. Four first round exits is enough of a sample size to prove that Dubas' vision is flawed. Attempt #5 should be the last if they fail again. Make peace with it, buckle up and embrace the pain.

Just to put in context how badly dubas has screwed the pooch

- Matthews is 3 years into his contract ( 2 more years left, has NTC/MNC in last year of his contract)
- Marner is 3 years into his contract (3 more years left, has NTC/NMC in the last 2 years of his contract, kicks in the same time as Matthews)
- Nylander is 4 years into his contract (modified NTC in last year of his contract)
- Tavares is 4 years into his contract (full NTC/NMC)

Simply put: Next year is the only year both Matthews and Marner can be traded; else they have full autonomy to walk as UFAs; whether Dubas is here or not does not matter !

The failure that is the dubas era will be one for the ages. Dubas will be used as an example in textbooks on how "NOT" to be a GM and run a team

Keefe should take a lot more heat than he does.

Dubas: "Keefe will be talked about as one of the great coaches in next 10-15 years"

do you not know?

 

[nuck]

Yeah maybe but then again, that's what people were saying last year, and the year before.

If I took over for Shanahan today, I'd interview Dubas and make my decision based on how that went. Off the top of my head, these are the questions I would start with and if I didn't like the answers, I wouldn't wait another year to "see how it goes":

1)
What are the 5 best moves you've made, and your 5 biggest mistakes during your tenure.

What I'd be looking for here is mostly an ability to acknowledge and learn from his mistakes.

2a)
Why did you promise Nylander that you would never trade him (I would also hope that would be on his list of biggest mistakes)?

If he didn't think that was a mistake, I would fire him. If he acknowledged the mistake, the next question would be:

2b)
Are you willing to break your promise to Nylander if the right deal came along?

If he said no, I would fire him.

3)
Tell me the story of how Marner's contract came about.

Again, I would be looking for an understanding that he overpaid Marner and if he didn't think this was an overpayment, I would fire him.

Assuming he still had a job at this point, I would move on to other things like his plan for next year and so on but yeah, I would need to be happy with his answers to this point to consider keeping him.


100% true. There's also a HUGE difference losing to CLB, or MTL who we were huge favorites against or the powerhouse TB team. There's always context so be considered, and ignoring context is always a HUGE mistake.


Yup. The buck obviously stops with Dubas. I mean if not him then who?

I am pretty sure he knows all those things were mistakes, but he just doesn't admit that publicly His owning of frequent failures tends to be more abstract and he intentionally avoids talking about specifics, just like when he discusses the improvements the club needs. Of course there is zero positive value in discussing how he got railed by the big 3 on their contracts or whether the JT signing was what he thought it would be. Like him or not, there is nothing constructive to be gained by saying this player or that deal was a mistake.

But I do wish that rather than back handed acceptance of fault (things like "we never made it a positive environment for Ceci and Barrie to succeed" or whatever it was) he would own things more clearly. Like that he has made some incorrect assumptions and there are a a number of things he would have done much differently if given a chance as it otherwise comes of like he genuinely doesn't understand he has made mistakes. Either too proud to admit it or too stupid to see it. I doubt the former and the latter has to be wrong but the optics are part of what pisses fans off about him. Just saying "we have to do better" doesn't indicate he knows how to accomplish that.

 

[Racer88]

Just to put in context how badly dubas has screwed the pooch

- Matthews is 3 years into his contract ( 2 more years left, has NTC/MNC in last year of his contract)
- Marner is 3 years into his contract (3 more years left, has NTC/NMC in the last 2 years of his contract, kicks in the same time as Matthews)
- Nylander is 4 years into his contract (modified NTC in last year of his contract)
- Tavares is 4 years into his contract (full NTC/NMC)

Simply put: Next year is the only year both Matthews and Marner can be traded; else they have full autonomy to walk as UFAs; whether Dubas is here or not does not matter !

The failure that is the dubas era will be one for the ages. Dubas will be used as an example in textbooks on how "NOT" to be a GM and run a team



Dubas: "Keefe will be talked about as one of the great coaches in next 10-15 years"

do you not know?

And Shanny should be in the same text book under the heading, don’t hire a rookie dumb a$$ to be the president of your club.

 

[ULF_55]

I have no idea why they wanted Eichel, but my hope is they find a way to get rid of him by then. Pacioretty will gone and it was setting up nicely for them and AM.

Eichel is probably there to stay.

I think it is a great fit.

And love the $8mm Pietrangelo will be getting to age 37.

Maybe they can check with San Jose and pick up Karlsson?

 

[Gary Nylund]

I am pretty sure he knows all those things were mistakes, but he just doesn't admit that publicly His owning of frequent failures tends to be more abstract and he intentionally avoids talking about specifics, just like when he discusses the improvements the club needs. Of course there is zero positive value in discussing how he got railed by the big 3 on their contracts or whether the JT signing was what he thought it would be. Like him or not, there is nothing constructive to be gained by saying this player or that deal was a mistake.

But I do wish that rather than back handed acceptance of fault (things like "we never made it a positive environment for Ceci and Barrie to succeed" or whatever it was) he would own things more clearly. Like that he has made some incorrect assumptions and there are a a number of things he would have done much differently if given a chance as it otherwise comes of like he genuinely doesn't understand he has made mistakes. Either too proud to admit it or too stupid to see it. I doubt the former and the latter has to be wrong but the optics are part of what pisses fans off about him. Just saying "we have to do better" doesn't indicate he knows how to accomplish that.

Maybe, maybe not. If it was me then I'd like to know for sure. I agree about saying publicly that this move or that mover was a mistake doesn't need to be done, I'd just want to 100% know where his head is at.

As I've said before, my biggest worry is that he maybe takes the concept of loyalty too far. I think it's possible that he won't even consider moving on from a core piece or from Keefe. I hope that's not true but I think it might be and if is, that's obviously not a good thing.

 

[Nineteen67]

Eichel is probably there to stay.

I think it is a great fit.

And love the $8mm Pietrangelo will be getting to age 37.

Maybe they can check with San Jose and pick up Karlsson?

Sadly you may be right. The SC playoffs are going to miss the buzz around Vegas and the game day atmosphere for the next couple of years.