Mirtle: This Maple Leafs win was nine long years in the making for Kyle Dubas
Kyle Dubas made some mistakes and learned from them along the way but now has the Leafs in a position to do something special.
theathletic.com
This team now has the best, most-playoff-ready roster that the franchise has had in decades. The current grit-infused lineup has been building throughout the past few years, with additions like Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Michael Bunting, David Kampf and others.
But Dubas truly hit a home run at the trade deadline in bringing in heart-and-soul types – Ryan O’Reilly, Luke Schenn, Jake McCabe and Noel Acciari – after previous misses when it came to in-season roster construction.
At some point amongst the postseason losses, he realized that he had enough skill and what his group of young superstars really needed was more steady hands at the wheel in order to win the type of one-goal playoff nailbiters that they pulled out in overtime of Game 6 against the battle-hardened Lightning.
They also needed some good fortune, which finally arrived in the form of three overtime wins in what was again an incredibly tight series.
“Kyle did an unbelievable job throughout the offseason and the trade deadline to put us in a position to succeed,” head coach Sheldon Keefe said, listing off some of the key additions that allowed them to succeed where they had previously failed. “And he probably more than anybody deserved to have this result because he’s believed in the group.”
The other key thing Dubas finally solved this season was finding a goaltender who wouldn’t wilt under the pressure in the postseason.
Few would have guessed that the answer would come in Ilya Samsonov, a first-round pick who flamed out in Washington to the extent he wasn’t given a qualifying offer last summer. But the young Russian was debatably the team’s MVP in this series, carrying his team when they were besieged by the Lightning’s relentless attack for long stretches and outplaying countryman Andrei Vasilevskiy, something no one predicted going in.
Dubas was largely vindicated in his belief in his stars in this series, too. Matthews and Mitch Marner are among the postseason scoring leaders, with Matthews producing five key goals in the six games and Marner adding 11 points while logging a ridiculous 23:29 minutes per game.
Morgan Rielly was maligned much of the season for his defensive play as he played through injuries, but he came up huge, scoring three key goals and adding five assists to emerge as one of the best defensemen in the NHL in Round 1, justifying the massive extension he signed in the fall of 2021.
Captain John Tavares, meanwhile, contributed not only a Game 2 hat trick but the series winner in Game 6, delivering in the clutch despite questions about his age and diminishing speed.
Perhaps the most encouraging thing in the aftermath of Saturday’s win was how all of the above Leafs players stepped forward and talked about how they hadn’t yet accomplished much.
Winning a round, after all, is only a quarter of the way to the ultimate goal.
