Tribute Kyle Dubas discussion

[mapleleafs34]

Kerfoot saw this post during the intermission and decided to win the game tonight. You’re welcome.

Wow that's unreal. Thank you for posting that

 

[Sypher04]

I'm pretty sure STL traded Shattetnkirk when they were a playoff team, won the cup a couple of years later too if I'm not mistaken. I'm sure I'm in the minority here but I like it when GM's think outside the box. I've never been a big fan of rentals and keeping your pending UFA's are "own rentals" so I completely understand the reasoning behind trading them.

I disagree. And I personally hate the term “own rental”. A typical rental player is acquired at the deadline to improve the club and there is an understood risk/reward to that gamble. Holding onto a pending UFA is not about club improvement, it’s about not neutering the team that’s worked hard to put themselves in position to make the post season. It’s the absolute bare minimum a playoff bound team’s GM should do at the deadline; to not set their team back intentionally

 

[Gary Nylund]

I disagree. And I personally hate the term “own rental”. A typical rental player is acquired at the deadline to improve the club and there is an understood risk/reward to that gamble. Holding onto a pending UFA is not about club improvement, it’s about not neutering the team that’s worked hard to put themselves in position to make the post season. It’s the absolute bare minimum a playoff bound team’s GM should do at the deadline; to not set their team back intentionally

If you don't like the term, feel free suggest something else, doesn't matter to me.

Re. the second bolded - you can again put whatever label you like on it but own rentals or trading for other teams players as rentals boil down to essentially the same thing. In both cases you're making a choice between a player who will help your team for one playoff run and other assets. In both cases you're choosing between using assets to try to win now, or saving assets to help the team down the road.

 

[Sypher04]

If you don't like the term, feel free suggest something else, doesn't matter to me.

Re. the second bolded - you can again put whatever label you like on it but own rentals or trading for other teams players as rentals boil down to essentially the same thing. In both cases you're making a choice between a player who will help your team for one playoff run and other assets. In both cases you're choosing between using assets to try to win now, or saving assets to help the team down the road.

There are only two scenarios where pending UFA trades make sense for a playoff bound team:

1) you don’t believe the player makes a substantiative difference to the quality of play/results of your team

2) you are able to move them in a deal for a comparable player, or filling an equal need, but the player returned comes with term.

 

[Jojalu]

If you don't like the term, feel free suggest something else, doesn't matter to me.

Re. the second bolded - you can again put whatever label you like on it but own rentals or trading for other teams players as rentals boil down to essentially the same thing. In both cases you're making a choice between a player who will help your team for one playoff run and other assets. In both cases you're choosing between using assets to try to win now, or saving assets to help the team down the road.

The Blues were .500 when they traded Shattenkirk.

After the TDL they went on a 16-3-3 run to make the playoffs

 

[Gary Nylund]

There are only two scenarios where pending UFA trades make sense for a playoff bound team:

1) you don’t believe the player makes a substantiative difference to the quality of play/results of your team

2) you are able to move them in a deal for a comparable player, or filling an equal need, but the player returned comes with term.

Let's say for arguments sake that I'm the GM and I have pending UFA player X and the following things are true:

1)
I believe my team will make the playoffs with or without player X

2)
I believe my team has almost no chance of going deep in the playoffs with or without player X

3)
I believe that in the near future, my team will be a contender and assets I can get in a trade for player X might help my team win the cup down the road

If all these 3 points are true, trading player X makes a ton of sense, at least to me it does. This scenario is similar to what we had with JVR years ago except IIRC, we weren't sure to make the playoffs so you could argue that keeping him was worth it because making the playoffs was important. But if our chances of making the playoffs had been much better, there was a case to be made for trading JVR.

I would add that when STL traded Shattenkirk, neither of your scenarios was applicable. Shattenkirk was a very good player who would have made any team better and the weren't getting a comparable player back. They won the cup down the road as well so hard to argue that this was a bad move. I'm not sure your point 2 makes sense anyway, if you could trade a pending UFA for a comparable player with term than of course it makes sense to do it but why would the other team do it?

 

[Gary Nylund]

The Blues were .500 when they traded Shattenkirk.

After the TDL they went on a 16-3-3 run to make the playoffs

I just looked at the final standings and they finished 12 points ahead of the best team that didn't get in so I assume they were maybe a bubble team at the time of the trade?

 

[Jojalu]

I just looked at the final standings and they finished 12 points ahead of the best team that didn't get in so I assume they were maybe a bubble team at the time of the trade?

Correct. Which is why they decided to unload Shattenkirk.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Correct. Which is why they decided to unload Shattenkirk.

Because they didn't care about making the playoffs?

 

[Jojalu]

Because they didn't care about making the playoffs?

Bubble teams are more likely to make a deal then teams that are locks.

I don't fault any team for the direction they choose at the deadline.

A team like the Leafs who knew they were going to make it early I would queation if they unloaded their UFA'S but if St. Louis had decided they were not going to win that year it made sense to trade Shattenkirk.

 

[Gary Nylund]

Bubble teams are more likely to make a deal then teams that are locks.

I don't fault any team for the direction they choose at the deadline.

A team like the Leafs who knew they were going to make it early I would queation if they unloaded their UFA'S but if St. Louis had decided they were not going to win that year it made sense to trade Shattenkirk.

No team ever knows for sure that they're not going to win but when your chances are very slim, then that's when trading pending UFA's can be a good idea, even you're fighting for a playoff spot and that's more or less what I've been saying all along. I'm sure there were STL fans saying OMG, how can you trade Shattenkirk when we're fighting for a playoff spot, you just don't do that but look, it worked out for them even if some fans weren't happy at the time.

I also love this example because I've had these discussions before and people often say things like trading this guy is dumb because what kind of message does that send to the team? It's bad for morale, shows that management doesn't care about winning and so on. The fact that STL went on a tear after the trade proves that that's just nonsense and as I've always said in these discussions, NHL players are professionals who do their jobs no matter what. And that's why GM's manage, coaches coach, players play and thinking how players might feel about this or that trade shouldn't be a big consideration.

Anyhow, that's just one example, I'm sure there are others. But even if there were no examples, I wouldn't even care. No reason a GM can't be the first to try something new, sometimes doing something that's never been done before can work out rather well. And most importantly, the fact that something has never been done before isn't a good reason in my mind for not considering doing it. All that does is put yourself in a box and why would you want to do that?

 

[disgruntleddave]

The juicy thing so far is that all the big bets are paying off.

Orielly. Acciari. Betting on the big guys. Specifically deciding to keep keefoot, bam, wins us game 4. Schenn. To a lesser degree, McCabe.

Guys around the edge like Lafferty, and of course murray are what they are, but the big decisions are all hitting.

 

[SImpelton]

He clearly tried to make the team more resilient, and it looks like he accomplished this.

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

Maybe if Dubas used more picks on larger players like Knies vs the 5'9 ahl lifers we would have a decent farm system.

Player that have Knies' size and skillset are never available in the 2nd round or later. Players his size are usually projects or have some major flaws. A lot of people couldn't believe he fell that far and we were lucky to get him where we did.

How did it work out with Burke, Nonis, and Lou drafting all those behemoths? Many of them weren't even good enough for the AHL.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Kyle Dubas Reacts to the Fans in the Stands | OverDrive

April 24, 2023

Bryan Hayes, Jeff O’Neill and Jamie McLennan discuss Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Kyle Dubas getting into it with the crowd in Tampa Bay.

 

[Blanche Blanche]

Those fans were probably yelling some very colourful profanity and have the gall to be shocked that Dubas would chirp back. I’m all for it. I love the “F*** You” energy exuding from this organization lately.

Its about time...

Its Hockey...

Not cheerleading.

About time Dubas talked to refs about bunting's target and flexed his largest NHL $$$$ muscles.

About time our team takes out people and injures them...

GO LEAFS GOOOO

 

[hockeywiz542]

Why we got the Kyle Dubas and Maple Leafs contract stalemate all wrong

Many of us could only speculate last fall that Dubas needed to get out of the first round before he could get an extension. We may’ve had that wrong.

www.thestar.com

Today there is a strong sense that we in the media may have read the tea leaves wrong. The delay in a contract extension may be less about actually winning a round and more about how much money Dubas and his employers think he is worth.

It’s still not confirmed whether or not Shanahan and the board made a formal offer to Dubas during the past season, but if they did discuss salary and term it may not have been anywhere near the price point the 37-year-old GM feels he is worth.

If that’s the case, the negotiation on a new deal will come down to how successful this post-season turns out for the Leafs and how lucrative it will be for Dubas and his family.

Dubas addressed his lack of contractual security going into training camp.

“I fully expect to be judged on the full body of my work over the five-year term of my contract. I have zero issue with being evaluated over the entire body of work here,” he said in September. “If we have the year that we’re capable of, and the team plays the way that it’s capable of and executes on it at the end … my situation will get taken care of without issue.”

Since then we’ve heard crickets from both sides.

For many of us on the outside looking in, “full body of work” could simply mean that advancing past the first round this year negates the playoff failures over his last five seasons. But as the stakes are raised with every Leafs win, there are the complexities of what a full body of work means to Dubas, MLSE and, ultimately, Leafs fans.

This season has turned into Dubas betting on himself like many top athletes do in hopes of hitting pay dirt.

Contract negotiations are all about a position of strength and leverage. Dubas knew going into this season that, without playoff wins, he didn’t have much of either. If the Leafs contemplated an in-season extension, it would have been with the thought of not needing to spend much more than what they were already paying him.

For Dubas’s salary to go well beyond that, he knew a first-round win against the Tampa Bay Lightning was a must. So here we are today and his Leafs are one win away from planting that all-important seed.

Yes, most GMs around the league would die for a bar that low to get a lucrative new contract, but most GMs don’t work for one of the most valuable sports empires on the planet with a starving fan base desperate for a morsel of success.

Some in the industry think that alone adds a $1-million (U.S.) premium for any executive title. That premium was generously offered by MLSE to Raptors vice chairman and team president Masai Ujiri, and to Shanahan.

Speaking of leverage swinging in Dubas’s favour, let’s add the Pittsburgh Penguins to the queue. They have a new analytical ownership group that is in cap hell right now. They are in dire need to rebuild their roster so they can start competing again as early as next season.

With Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang still making major contributions, the Penguins are looking for a new GM who has a reputation for finding good players at bargain-basement prices. Know anyone of that ilk, Leafs Nation?

Dubas couldn’t have asked for a better potential landing spot. Add Leafs assistant GM Brandon Pridham, known for his salary cap analysis and who Dubas promoted weeks after he was named GM, to that mix. The two are likely a package deal.

This eventual negotiation between Dubas and the Leafs has the potential to feel similar to former head coach Mike Babcock’s deal with MLSE back in 2015. When Babcock left Detroit, he drew in the Buffalo Sabres and played them like a fiddle. By starting hard negotiations with the Sabres for their head coaching job he drove the price sky-high with MLSE before settling in on an unprecedented eight-year, $50-million deal in Toronto. Clearly his strategy worked, tripling his Red Wings salary. Since that day salaries on the coaching and management side of hockey have never looked back.

 

[sxvnert]

Its simple...ownership wanted him gone last summer..Shanny put pressure to keep him for another year. Now Shanny is on the hook if this goes south. Even a full court press from the shill media can't save Dubas if they fail now. Thank god for that.

 

[ToneDog]

Why we got the Kyle Dubas and Maple Leafs contract stalemate all wrong

Many of us could only speculate last fall that Dubas needed to get out of the first round before he could get an extension. We may’ve had that wrong.

www.thestar.com

Today there is a strong sense that we in the media may have read the tea leaves wrong. The delay in a contract extension may be less about actually winning a round and more about how much money Dubas and his employers think he is worth.

It’s still not confirmed whether or not Shanahan and the board made a formal offer to Dubas during the past season, but if they did discuss salary and term it may not have been anywhere near the price point the 37-year-old GM feels he is worth.

If that’s the case, the negotiation on a new deal will come down to how successful this post-season turns out for the Leafs and how lucrative it will be for Dubas and his family.

Dubas addressed his lack of contractual security going into training camp.

“I fully expect to be judged on the full body of my work over the five-year term of my contract. I have zero issue with being evaluated over the entire body of work here,” he said in September. “If we have the year that we’re capable of, and the team plays the way that it’s capable of and executes on it at the end … my situation will get taken care of without issue.”

Since then we’ve heard crickets from both sides.

For many of us on the outside looking in, “full body of work” could simply mean that advancing past the first round this year negates the playoff failures over his last five seasons. But as the stakes are raised with every Leafs win, there are the complexities of what a full body of work means to Dubas, MLSE and, ultimately, Leafs fans.

This season has turned into Dubas betting on himself like many top athletes do in hopes of hitting pay dirt.

Contract negotiations are all about a position of strength and leverage. Dubas knew going into this season that, without playoff wins, he didn’t have much of either. If the Leafs contemplated an in-season extension, it would have been with the thought of not needing to spend much more than what they were already paying him.

For Dubas’s salary to go well beyond that, he knew a first-round win against the Tampa Bay Lightning was a must. So here we are today and his Leafs are one win away from planting that all-important seed.

Yes, most GMs around the league would die for a bar that low to get a lucrative new contract, but most GMs don’t work for one of the most valuable sports empires on the planet with a starving fan base desperate for a morsel of success.

Some in the industry think that alone adds a $1-million (U.S.) premium for any executive title. That premium was generously offered by MLSE to Raptors vice chairman and team president Masai Ujiri, and to Shanahan.

Speaking of leverage swinging in Dubas’s favour, let’s add the Pittsburgh Penguins to the queue. They have a new analytical ownership group that is in cap hell right now. They are in dire need to rebuild their roster so they can start competing again as early as next season.

With Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang still making major contributions, the Penguins are looking for a new GM who has a reputation for finding good players at bargain-basement prices. Know anyone of that ilk, Leafs Nation?

Dubas couldn’t have asked for a better potential landing spot. Add Leafs assistant GM Brandon Pridham, known for his salary cap analysis and who Dubas promoted weeks after he was named GM, to that mix. The two are likely a package deal.

This eventual negotiation between Dubas and the Leafs has the potential to feel similar to former head coach Mike Babcock’s deal with MLSE back in 2015. When Babcock left Detroit, he drew in the Buffalo Sabres and played them like a fiddle. By starting hard negotiations with the Sabres for their head coaching job he drove the price sky-high with MLSE before settling in on an unprecedented eight-year, $50-million deal in Toronto. Clearly his strategy worked, tripling his Red Wings salary. Since that day salaries on the coaching and management side of hockey have never looked back.

What a shmuck that Babcock was. Gets Leafs to overpay on an 8 year deal, then does everything possible to get himself fired half way through the deal. Brilliant but slimy move.

As for Kyle, his camp will spread rumours linking Kyle to Pittsburgh and the Leafs will overpay to keep him. Matty and Willie will then bend Kyle over a barrel, again.

Anything less than the ECF will not make it worth it.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

What a shmuck that Babcock was. Gets Leafs to overpay on an 8 year deal, then does everything possible to get himself fired half way through the deal. Brilliant but slimy move.

As for Kyle, his camp will spread rumours linking Kyle to Pittsburgh and the Leafs will overpay to keep him. Matty and Willie will then bend Kyle over a barrel, again.

Anything less than the ECF will not make it worth it.

Imagine still thinking the Willy contract is bad.

 

[kevsh]

I imagine the conversation between MLSE and Dubas going something like this:

Dubas: "I deserve $X because I built a team with the best regular season record in franchise history."
MLSE: "But you haven't won a playoff series yet."
Dubas: "True, but I did build a team with the best regular season record in franchise history."
MLSE: "Yes, but you haven't won a playoff series yet."

 

[ToneDog]

Imagine still thinking the Willy contract is bad.

factor in the first year and a half and it wasn't as great as some make it out to be. He got more than Pasta who has put up numbers Willie never will.

Yup Kyle thought the Nylander contract was so good, he paid Willie to sit out two months, before signing him last minute. Go figure.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

factor in the first year and a half and it wasn't as great as some make it out to be. He got more than Pasta who has put up numbers Willie never will.

Just because the contract didn't turn out as amazing as Pastranak's doesn't mean it was a bad contract lol

 

[Dekes For Days]

He got more than Pasta who has put up numbers Willie never will.

He didn't get more than Pastrnak (despite having good justification to), and pointing to some contract that turned out great doesn't make Nylander's contract bad.

 

[ToneDog]

Just because the contract didn't turn out as amazing as Pastranak's doesn't mean it was a bad contract lol

He should have landed between Ehlers and Pasta. Whether it turned out good the last half, Kyle overpaid.

He didn't get more than Pastrnak (despite having good justification to), and pointing to some contract that turned out great doesn't make Nylander's contract bad.

Never showed up year 1 and beginning of year 2. Picked it up the rest of year 2. 17 goals year #3. He became a $7m player the last two years.

Never called it a "bad" contract. I said Willie and Matty will bend Dubas over a barrel again and that was turned into "still thinking the Willy contract is bad".