Kyle Dubas will not be back as GM

[Turin]

Whether he was good or not does not matter. He was a bad allocation of cap space. That is the issue. If there was no cap it would have been a great signing. Unfortunately for Leafs fans it was not.

A ppg center to play on your 2nd line was not a bad allocation of cap space. I do think making him captain however was a stupid decision.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

The problem with that tweet is 99.9% of Toronto fans argued that all those things listed were considered positives in Dubas' favor.

It seems like only now that Dubas is out that suddenly Toronto's fans have an issue with those listed items. I know this firsthand because I had NUMEROUS discussions with Leaf fans over the years pertaining to the Tavares, Marner and Matthews contracts.

Ya I've heard the ridiculous arguments that Marner/Nylander/Matthews are now worth those contract, which is totally stupid. Superstar youngsters typically get underpaid in their 2nd deal - see Rantanen, Makar, Stutzle, Hughes, Drai etc as they continue to improve. I'd argue those three essentially got their UFA deals.

 

[berklon]

The problem with that tweet is 99.9% of Toronto fans argued that all those things listed were considered positives in Dubas' favor.

It seems like only now that Dubas is out that suddenly Toronto's fans have an issue with those listed items. I know this firsthand because I had NUMEROUS discussions with Leaf fans over the years pertaining to the Tavares, Marner and Matthews contracts.

Funny to use personal anecdotes as facts when you could've just ventured into a sub-forum of a board you're currently posting on to contradict yourself.

 

[Turin]

Ya I've heard the ridiculous arguments that Marner/Nylander/Matthews are now worth those contract, which is totally stupid. Superstar youngsters typically get underpaid in their 2nd deal - see Rantanen, Makar, Stutzle, Hughes, Drai etc as they continue to improve. I'd argue those three essentially got their UFA deals.

Nylander has been underpaid for multiple seasons already. Marner and Matthews are both clearly worth those AAV. Marner has lead the Leafs in scoring multiple times and just got nominated for the Selke. Matthews scored 60 goals and won the Hart last year. The problem is that Dubas didn't use any leverage to squeeze more out of them at the time, he just gave them market value when he probably didn't have to.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

Nylander has been underpaid for multiple seasons already. Marner and Matthews are both clearly worth those AAV. Marner has lead the Leafs in scoring multiple times and just got nominated for the Selke. Matthews scored 60 goals and won the Hart last year. The problem is that Dubas didn't use any leverage to squeeze more out of them at the time, he just gave them market value when he probably didn't have to.

That's exactly my point. He basically wasted all of his leverage while most GMs can get a Makar for only 9MM.

 

[BraveCanadian]

The problem with that tweet is 99.9% of Toronto fans argued that all those things listed were considered positives in Dubas' favor.

It seems like only now that Dubas is out that suddenly Toronto's fans have an issue with those listed items. I know this firsthand because I had NUMEROUS discussions with Leaf fans over the years pertaining to the Tavares, Marner and Matthews contracts.

64.5% of statistics are made up, and clearly this one was..

 

[Fatass]

Why wouldn’t he just say - I don’t have full autonomy here and this is no longer a fit - that makes way more sense than what just happened.

If a GM said that publicly he’d never get another GM job.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

If a GM said that publicly he’d never get another GM job.

????

 

[Fatass]

A ppg center to play on your 2nd line was not a bad allocation of cap space. I do think making him captain however was a stupid decision.

Don’t other teams have players on their UFA years playing second line centre at a ppg making a lot less? Miller, for example, in Vancouver is a ppg #2C and he’s making 8.
The Tavares contract was too much when signed.

 

[The Grim Reaper]

Dubas is just one of many problems in that organization. In a top 5, he’s like 3. Good luck Leafs, someday, maybe.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

Don’t other teams have players on their UFA years playing second line centre at a ppg making a lot less? Miller, for example, in Vancouver is a ppg #2C and he’s making 8.
The Tavares contract was too much when signed.

Kadri still has a better season last year than any Tavares season PPG wise.

 

[Fatass]

????

Dubas would be publicly criticizing his boss, who represents ownership. saying he didn’t have full autonomy is saying he wasn’t able to make the choices he wanted. It puts those above him into a bad light. It’s like saying it’s their fault. There were things he wanted to do to make the club better but those above him said no. GM’s don’t openly criticize those above them. If they want another job, that is.

Kadri still has a better season last year than any Tavares season PPG wise.

And Kadri is a lot harder to play against than Tavares. Good for him that he was a big part of the Avs’ Cup.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Whether he was good or not does not matter. He was a bad allocation of cap space. That is the issue. If there was no cap it would have been a great signing. Unfortunately for Leafs fans it was not.

It didn’t prevent us from doing anything, any relevant players that have been available were affordable just by shuffling around some Kerfoot tier salaries. The problem was Tavares wasn’t enough of an impact player, or at least wasn’t used as one.

If Drai’s RFA negotiations went south and he was suddenly available in UFA for 8x11 before he really went nuclear with his production, would that have been a mistake? Or if a prime Kucherov shook loose somehow. Tavares was “good enough” but he doesn’t take over games as often as other guys around that pricepoint and doesn’t really fit with any of the other expensive talent in terms of game tempo.

I know they sold him on playing with Marner and co but they really should have run him with bargain bin grinders like he carried in NY and stacked the rest of them on other lines.

 

[nturn06]

I think Dubas was willing to play chicken in this respect, and although he got burned I don't think he was completely blindsided or unware of the possibility of that happening. There's a lot of hoopla on Canadian sports radio about how AMAZING it is to be the GM of the Leafs, but if you're a known commodity who will have options, it's not that amazing.

Or maybe he thought that winnig a playoffs round made him unfireable in Toronto.

 

[McVespa99]

It didn’t prevent us from doing anything, any relevant players that have been available were affordable just by shuffling around some Kerfoot tier salaries. The problem was Tavares wasn’t enough of an impact player, or at least wasn’t used as one.

If Drai’s RFA negotiations went south and he was suddenly available in UFA for 8x11 before he really went nuclear with his production, would that have been a mistake? Or if a prime Kucherov shook loose somehow. Tavares was “good enough” but he doesn’t take over games as often as other guys around that pricepoint and doesn’t really fit with any of the other expensive talent in terms of game tempo.

I know they sold him on playing with Marner and co but they really should have run him with bargain bin grinders like he carried in NY and stacked the rest of them on other lines.

As I recall Toronto had to give up a lot of good players due to cap space so yes, it was a mistake. That money should have been used for depth, grit, and defense.

 

[nturn06]

Nylander has been underpaid for multiple seasons already. Marner and Matthews are both clearly worth those AAV. Marner has lead the Leafs in scoring multiple times and just got nominated for the Selke. Matthews scored 60 goals and won the Hart last year. The problem is that Dubas didn't use any leverage to squeeze more out of them at the time, he just gave them market value when he probably didn't have to.

That's market value of UFAs not for RFAs....For RFAs that's too much.

 

[Martin Skoula]

As I recall Toronto had to give up a lot of good players due to cap space so yes, it was a mistake. That money should have been used for depth, grit, and defense.

Any of Kadri, Hyman, Mikheyev, Brown etc could have been kept, 5 mil is not hard to find. Kerfoot + Engvall vs any of those guys + a Marlie is cap even. They spent their money on the wrong players, the amount of money available was never a limiting factor.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Dubas would be publicly criticizing his boss, who represents ownership. saying he didn’t have full autonomy is saying he wasn’t able to make the choices he wanted. It puts those above him into a bad light. It’s like saying it’s their fault. There were things he wanted to do to make the club better but those above him said no. GM’s don’t openly criticize those above them. If they want another job, that is.

So standing up for himself and providing the reason for leaving in a straightforward manner puts him in a bad light.

So instead, he does something to make himself look like a schmuck to intentionally get fired. This… somehow puts him in a better light?

No.

 

[horner]

When JT was signed, most people felt like he was a huge piece to winning a cup. And really, they should’ve done much better than they have. You couldn’t have predicted that Marner would shit the bed every year.

Another thing to consider is that Tavares got badly hurt in the Montreal series and hasn’t been the same since.

Yes, he gave too much to his core. Yes he never should’ve made Tavares captain. But as far as mistakes go, signing a huge star to put you over shouldn’t rank as a terrible mistake.

I didn't wr didn't have a great defence.
I never thought JT wasn't elite, He was a good player.

 

[horner]

When JT was signed, most people felt like he was a huge piece to winning a cup. And really, they should’ve done much better than they have. You couldn’t have predicted that Marner would shit the bed every year.

Another thing to consider is that Tavares got badly hurt in the Montreal series and hasn’t been the same since.

Yes, he gave too much to his core. Yes he never should’ve made Tavares captain. But as far as mistakes go, signing a huge star to put you over shouldn’t rank as a terrible mistake.

By the way they all shit the bed if it was just marner we would have won a round or two.

 

[GirardSpinorama]

They won a cup 12 years ago so therefore the biggest collapse in sports history in 2023 is fine ? If you say so lol


And lost

And when did the leafs last made it to the cup finals with this core?

 

[shaner82]

The problem with that tweet is 99.9% of Toronto fans argued that all those things listed were considered positives in Dubas' favor.

It seems like only now that Dubas is out that suddenly Toronto's fans have an issue with those listed items. I know this firsthand because I had NUMEROUS discussions with Leaf fans over the years pertaining to the Tavares, Marner and Matthews contracts.

In your limited sample size of a few conversations with a few people, suddenly that's 99.9%. It's amazing the mental gymnastics people do when discussing statistics.

Almost everyone loved the JT signing. In no way was it too much money because that was the market rate for JT. So it's either don't sign him at all or sign him to what they did. So yeah, most agreed with signing JT.

As for MM and AM, most people said the deals weren't ideal. MM was overpaid and AM didn't have enough term. Basically everyone agreed with that, but I wouldn't say it was significant. Marner wasn't overpaid by a lot, and AM wasn't overpaid at all in terms of salary cap hit. What could the Leafs have really done with that extra little bit of money saved from a slightly lower deal for Marner? If they gave Marner $1 million less, do they win the cup?

The JT deal in hindsight probably derailed everything, but most GM's probably sign him just like Dubas did.

It's not 1 or 2 things that stopped the Leafs from winning the cup. It's everything combined

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

The problem with that tweet is 99.9% of Toronto fans argued that all those things listed were considered positives in Dubas' favor.

It seems like only now that Dubas is out that suddenly Toronto's fans have an issue with those listed items. I know this firsthand because I had NUMEROUS discussions with Leaf fans over the years pertaining to the Tavares, Marner and Matthews contracts.

There was a lot of pushback from the cap hits and/or years when they happened. Many people said that the JT contract was going to inflate Mitch and Matthews. Also when AM signed for 5 years many people were shocked.

LIke said above, there are only 2 contracts ever that were 10M+ and not max contract length.

 

[WetcoastOrca]

In a cap world no team has ever won the Cup with such a high percentage of the cap allocated to four forwards. I think that the fundamental mistake was sticking with that structure. ‘We can and we will!’ The fact that none of the four forwards are very physical just compounded the problem.

For that structure to be effective you would need to get a lot of value players elsewhere in the lineup including some young players on ECL’s outperforming their contracts and great goaltending.
Dubas actually did a good job of filling out the lineup, including the D, given the cap allocation issue, but he never had the young ECL players and the great goaltending. At some point he should have acknowledged his mistake and traded one of the core forwards for help elsewhere or for a more physical player.

 

[yianik]

I am not picking sides but I do have a question. The team did not offer him a new deal last summer and they said lets wait and see, then when the season is over he says he wants to have a few days to go over all of it with his family and he is out?

Thats kinda crappy imo. The team can play wait and see but wont even give him a few days to discuss with his family.

From what I understand Shanahan told Dubas he wouldn't be offered a new contract at end of last season yibsee how things went. In March Shanahan went to talk contract and Dubas said no, he wanted to focus on hockey.

Before the press conference Shanahan told Dubas not to talk about being GM, but Dubas insisted. Shanahan was surprised by Dubas being so conflicted about being GM.

Shanahan spoke to Dubas and was even more concerned about Dubas having his head into being Leafs GM, his commitment and desire.

Shanahan had made an offer. Next thing he gets a counter proposal and at this point decides Dubas is out because of all this Dubas thinking out loud, and probably the more money.

If Dubas wanted time, then fine, if that's all there is. Buy he spoke to the press about his misgivings for no good reason, aside from thinking he was gaining leverage in negotiations by saying he may not come back. He apparently doubled down when he met with Shanahan. Then the misgivings are not a problem if he gets more money.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.