Opinion: Jonas Siegel and James Mirtle are a couple of Jellyfish.

[Mess]

Dubas suffers from premature expectations, he made his move too darn early……….

I've always viewed from day #1 of Dubas hiring, that he was unqualified for the job and should have never given it.. So then why was he hired then?

If you view Shanahan as the puppetmaster and the green horn Dubas as his puppet, with the full power and control lying with Shanahan, and Dubas was the GM in name only under adult supervision if you like, the situation has clarity.

Lets put a few pieces of the puzzle together .. Why would Shanahan move on from a legendary GM in Lou Lam coming off a franchise best 105 point season, when just 2 years earlier the Leafs were dead last overall and now a playoff team? ..

Easy answer with a veteran GM like Lou Lam in power Shanahan as a green horn President would have very little say or input as Lou Lam would have had full autonomy and other then getting Shanny opinion perhaps didn't need his help at all. . For all intents and purposes in this setup it was Lou Lam the puppetmaster and Shanny the puppet based on control and say even though the chain of command had Lou reporting to Shanny.

So Shanahan set up a situation with Lou Lam on a 3 year contract only, regardless of results to restore the Leafs to glory, while he and Dubas watched the master in action and then was willing to move on to Dubas so that Shanahan could be in the real control and authority position, and use Dubas as his puppet to do his bidding. The hard work was done the #1 franchise centre Matthews was delivered and they could take it from here, with endless cap space, and bunch of young talented players on ELCs and a playoff team. Attempting to ride the Lou Lam and Babcock coattails of success to their own glory is what they thought would happen.

When the news came out this week in a power move by Dubas that he tried to become the puppetmaster himself and no longer the puppet and go directly to the board and essentially cut Shanahan out of the chain of command trying to grab more control and power. That only confirms that further of the power dynamic and in what was the last straw the puppetmaster Shanny needed to cut Pinocchio who was attempting to become a real boy strings loose and send Dubas out the door. Shanny was only prepared to keep Dubas on in his current limited control capacity as status quo not based on performance but keeping the control for himself.

Dubas had no leverage as his results had him on an expiring contract as a lame duck GM to make any sort of power control play while holding nothing but 1 series win or 5 playoff games in a season over 5 years.

Now watch as Shanny hires an experienced GM and likely a new experienced coach because Shanny recognizes his job is next on the line, so he is gong to go back to a former dynamic that brought the organization success and rely on those new hires to get him his extension, where trusting Dubas while he was essentially calling the shots himself more likely to get himself fired.

 

[hullsy47]

Clearly they are reeling from Dubas' dismissal, and clearly they are friends with KD. 2 weeks ago they were ok with Shanahan. Now they are distrusting of anything Shanny does/says.

Now Siegel is interviewing anonymous MLSE employees who worked with Dubas and are "in mourning". I'm sorry? They are mourning? Yeah. Dubas must have been a nice guy, but doesn't Siegel know what pro sports is like? Did the MLSE employees think that a team who wins 1 playoff round in 7 attempts isn't going to last?

I think this is petty stuff and I can't believe that Mirtle/Siegel can't handle this.

Perhaps they were too close to Dubas and perhaps they need to go with Dubas (report on the Penguins?).

What they are doing seems to be so fan-like, and not disassociated journalism.

They need to get it together. This new campaign against Shanny is hilarious and shows they are lamenting what went on.

Both pigeons to bad Pittsburgh only has 2 beat writer

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

Hearsay is a legal term, not something that applies to journalism....

Journalists report on third party conversations all the time

If you have any actual proof CJ completely made it up, feel free to share it

That's the beauty of being a journalist...You don't have to prove anything...citing confidential sources etc. I wonder how much of the stuff we have read over the years is just fabricated and we have no idea that it was. I am not talking just hockey.

 

[ULF_55]

Look at the ridiculous reaction on this board -- over 5000 posts in the "Kyle Dubas Not Returning" thread. Plus multiple threads on what is going to happen with the Leafs with or without this


There is a fourth scenario: After July 1st, Matthews decides not to re-sign with the Leafs and agrees to a trade.

Yep.

Completely in Matthews' hands.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Ah this hypothesis reminds me of the good old days of the puppet master Richard Peddie pulling the strings of JFJ, good times……….


Dubas suffers from premature expectations, he made his move too darn early……….

I had that same problem in high school.

 

[Nineteen67]

I listened to their podcast and they have definitive answer for hypotheticals and cant get their head around things they were told.
Without an attributed source, zero quotes from anyone, they can definitively say that Shanny is running back, but have no idea why Dubas wasn’t retained, they cant even speculate.

 

[Nineteen67]

Look at the ridiculous reaction on this board -- over 5000 posts in the "Kyle Dubas Not Returning" thread. Plus multiple threads on what is going to happen with the Leafs with or without this


There is a fourth scenario: After July 1st, Matthews decides not to re-sign with the Leafs and agrees to a trade.

They only way he can be traded is with the assurance he can be signed. Since he can’t be signed until July 1st, that pretty much means he’ll be traded after July 1st or he walks.
The other scenario is, he never plays again for the Leafs until his extension is agreed upon or he agrees to a trade.

 

[ULF_55]

I've always viewed from day #1 of Dubas hiring, that he was unqualified for the job and should have never given it.. So then why was he hired then?

...

Now watch as Shanny hires an experienced GM and likely a new experienced coach because Shanny recognizes his job is next on the line, so he is gong to go back to a former dynamic that brought the organization success and rely on those new hires to get him his extension, where trusting Dubas while he was essentially calling the shots himself more likely to get himself fired.

Punch died in 1987.

Leafs are going to have to wing it.

 

[WTFMAN99]

My friend has an Athletic subscription that I will use and that recent article from Jonas and how they're acting...it's an absolute joke.

Yes we know Cox and Simmons are ass clowns too but the Athletic is pathetic for different reasons.

 

[notbias]

How can you say this?

What narrative?

The facts are that Dubas inherited a team that was on a huge upswing and that had 105 points in the regular season but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Bruins.

The Leafs had made tremendous forward progress in a very short period of time with Lou as GM and Babcock as coach.

Still, changes were made.

After five years with Dubas at the helm, the team made very little forward progress from where he took over the team and after five full seasons the team won exactly one playoff round which occurred in year five.

At some point in time, reality has to set in and it’s time to switch it up and try something else, even if the GM is a “nice guy”.

and this?

The problem with this “core “is that the moment the playoffs start the “supporting cast” becomes the “core” as the supposed core disappears.

It sounds like he inherited a problem, not a good team, depending on what point you're trying to make.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

How can you say this?


and this?


It sounds like he inherited a problem, not a good team, depending on what point you're trying to make.

How can you not understand both of
those statements can be true at the same time?

What did Dubas inherit?

A 105 point team with a future core 3 who were not signed to unfavourable contracts. Now they are and that’s on Dubas.

Why?

Because Kyle “we can and we will”
Dubas went out and additionally added RFA Tavares to a 11 million dollar contract with a complete no movement clause, creating the core 4.

And it got the Leafs where exactly? Did they make forward progress?

No. They obtained 100 points in the regular season and lost again in the first round of the playoffs.

Who got the blame for that season failure?

Babcock. He’s too demanding and plays the wrong style of play for an offensively gifted team like the Leafs. So we have to get rid of Babcock, install Dubas’s coach of choice Keefe and the Leafs will go all the way.

The result?

Another first round exit.

Let’s now blame the fact that Keefe didn’t get a full season, yeah, that’s it. Then it’s the pandemic.

The simple fact is that Tavares was supposed to be the player that put the Leafs over the top and he simply didn’t and hasn’t. Adding Tavares was supposed make the Leafs offence so lethal and raise it to such a level that the Leafs would simply overwhelm any defensive scheme any opponent threw at them.

But come the playoffs that simply hasn’t happened and it hasn’t worked.

Dubas is solely responsible for the Tavares contract and what it did was it completely changed the salary balance of the team. It set the standard and the precedent for the Matthews contract and then the Marner contract. The Tavares signing was Dubas’s fatal mistake as it contributed to causing the overpayments for Matthews and Marner and it simply tied up too much payroll in four players, who were all too similar.

So the short answer is that the contracts of the original core 3 plus the add of Tavares has simply not allowed the team to obtain and retain other important players needed to make forward progress.

On top of that, Dubas has emptied the cupboards using draft picks as capital in an attempt to work around the root cause of the Leafs problem of the core 4. And that hasn’t worked.

Regardless of whether you think any of that is true or not, Dubas has tried the same approach for five years and it simply hasn’t worked. The team is not, and has not progressed forward in a meaningful way.

So it only makes sense to change things up and try something different.

 

[Donnie740]

We heard about claims of Shanny meddling and getting involved in transactions, even by Dubas biggest supporters in the media so you know it must be true.

What IF it was those trade deadline moves that Shanahan directed Dubas to make and then by praising Dubas was in essence praising his own work?

Dubas was the GM in name only, as Shanahan as we're finding out was pulling all the important strings behind the scenes. Keeping Dubas in place simply keeping the chain of command and real power in the President's hands.

As far as the core 4 are concerned its their current contracts and pending no trade status that is really controlling that outcome, never-mind there is no new GM in the chair to make those moves. Leafs would not get fair market value in return for pending UFAs, you're essentially dealing rentals for 50 cents on the dollar return in a very tight 4 week window here until July 1st. That is a worse outcome then keeping them, and facing their new contract demands and then making good decisions at that point of stay or leave.

Then consider the new GM coming in.. What kind of welcome or fresh or fair start would he receive from Leaf Nation if one of his first moves was to deal fan favourites Matthews or Marner away, particularly for a poor return?

A betting man would say keeping the core 4 together going into next year was the odds on favourite of happening anyways. Lets not lose sight these are star players here and its mainly their bloated contracts that are causing the problem of not being able to ice a Cup competitive team around them. Nobody should want them dealt simply for the sake of change and disappointment with the teams end results, unless there is a trade that makes the Leafs better and not worse.

An excellent post. And pretty much sums up my rationale for keeping the core four - - Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Morgan Riley - - together.

Let’s get rid of the two biggest problems - - Dubas and Bozo the Keefe - - then see what happens when the core has a competent GM and coach.

 

[Donnie740]

I've always viewed from day #1 of Dubas hiring, that he was unqualified for the job and should have never given it.. So then why was he hired then?

If you view Shanahan as the puppetmaster and the green horn Dubas as his puppet, with the full power and control lying with Shanahan, and Dubas was the GM in name only under adult supervision if you like, the situation has clarity.

Lets put a few pieces of the puzzle together .. Why would Shanahan move on from a legendary GM in Lou Lam coming off a franchise best 105 point season, when just 2 years earlier the Leafs were dead last overall and now a playoff team? ..

Easy answer with a veteran GM like Lou Lam in power Shanahan as a green horn President would have very little say or input as Lou Lam would have had full autonomy and other then getting Shanny opinion perhaps didn't need his help at all. . For all intents and purposes in this setup it was Lou Lam the puppetmaster and Shanny the puppet based on control and say even though the chain of command had Lou reporting to Shanny.

So Shanahan set up a situation with Lou Lam on a 3 year contract only, regardless of results to restore the Leafs to glory, while he and Dubas watched the master in action and then was willing to move on to Dubas so that Shanahan could be in the real control and authority position, and use Dubas as his puppet to do his bidding. The hard work was done the #1 franchise centre Matthews was delivered and they could take it from here, with endless cap space, and bunch of young talented players on ELCs and a playoff team. Attempting to ride the Lou Lam and Babcock coattails of success to their own glory is what they thought would happen.

When the news came out this week in a power move by Dubas that he tried to become the puppetmaster himself and no longer the puppet and go directly to the board and essentially cut Shanahan out of the chain of command trying to grab more control and power. That only confirms that further of the power dynamic and in what was the last straw the puppetmaster Shanny needed to cut Pinocchio who was attempting to become a real boy strings loose and send Dubas out the door. Shanny was only prepared to keep Dubas on in his current limited control capacity as status quo not based on performance but keeping the control for himself.

Dubas had no leverage as his results had him on an expiring contract as a lame duck GM to make any sort of power control play while holding nothing but 1 series win or 5 playoff games in a season over 5 years.

Now watch as Shanny hires an experienced GM and likely a new experienced coach because Shanny recognizes his job is next on the line, so he is gong to go back to a former dynamic that brought the organization success and rely on those new hires to get him his extension, where trusting Dubas while he was essentially calling the shots himself more likely to get himself fired.

If Shannahan has been as meddlesome as you’re suggesting why hasn’t there been any mention of it for the past THIRTEEN (13) years?

Then immediately after Dubas gets fired, it’s suddenly front page news how Shannahan was bullying poor little Dubas and controlling everything?

That narrative just doesn’t add up, my friend.

 

[keonsbitterness]

If Shannahan has been as meddlesome as you’re suggesting why hasn’t there been any mention of it for the past THIRTEEN (13) years?

For one thing, he's only been here nine years

 

[notDatsyuk]

Dubas did a good enough job to get an extension, but barely. He certainly didn’t do a good enough job to have any kind of leverage in an attempted power play.

I disagree. If he had fired Keefe the moment they were eliminated, or even better, mid season or the end of last season (or the season before, or the one before that), then he might have earned an extension.

He has gone nothing to earn it.

 

[Squiffy]

For one thing, he's only been here nine years

Thirteen!

Sundin Wore #13

Sundin Led Muskoka 5

Dubas Was Gm 5 Years

Are You Suggesting This Is A Coincidence?

 

[FerrisRox]

But I will say that all this nebulous talk of Shanny blocking moves and not letting Dubas build his team is kind of sad. The same people screaming about too many Greyhounds on the roster suddenly believe that it was Shanny's team all along?

I think it's ridiculous to even suggest that in a massive front office literally filled with people that were hand picked and hired by Kyle Dubas nobody ever once leaked that that big meanie Brendan Shanahan was bullying Kyle and making him complete transactions he didn't want to and forcing him to sign guys he didn't want to sign and he was always blocking the really great things he was going to do, that we never got to see.

With an army of journalists covering the team and a bloated front office, not one single person ever leaked this out? It's only, strangely, surfacing after Dubas is gone?

I think it's absurd.

 

[DarkKnight]

Mirtle has some good insights. He should recuse himself from this discussion however because he isn’t objective. Really bad look for him, it’s so painfully obvious where he’s coming from.

Jonas is naive. They used to ride him at TSN all the time, because he literally had zero life experience, he was just a numbers guy with no sense of sport whatsoever, a dweeb in every sense of the word. Former players couldn’t stand him, nobody took his musing seriously, he runs the excel file and thinks hockey Is a theorem. I simply don’t respect his opinion, smart guy, also kind of clueless and sheltered.

Dubas’ “base” seem mostly people picked last for athletics, that think they’re actually smarter than everyone else. I love math too, but it’s just one subject, sport, particularly a fluid one, is a much broader palette. Even the Dube began to realize this as his grew into a more realistic vision of what it takes.

 

[57 Years No Cup]

I've always viewed from day #1 of Dubas hiring, that he was unqualified for the job and should have never given it.. So then why was he hired then?

If you view Shanahan as the puppetmaster and the green horn Dubas as his puppet, with the full power and control lying with Shanahan, and Dubas was the GM in name only under adult supervision if you like, the situation has clarity.

Lets put a few pieces of the puzzle together .. Why would Shanahan move on from a legendary GM in Lou Lam coming off a franchise best 105 point season, when just 2 years earlier the Leafs were dead last overall and now a playoff team? ..

Easy answer with a veteran GM like Lou Lam in power Shanahan as a green horn President would have very little say or input as Lou Lam would have had full autonomy and other then getting Shanny opinion perhaps didn't need his help at all. . For all intents and purposes in this setup it was Lou Lam the puppetmaster and Shanny the puppet based on control and say even though the chain of command had Lou reporting to Shanny.

So Shanahan set up a situation with Lou Lam on a 3 year contract only, regardless of results to restore the Leafs to glory, while he and Dubas watched the master in action and then was willing to move on to Dubas so that Shanahan could be in the real control and authority position, and use Dubas as his puppet to do his bidding. The hard work was done the #1 franchise centre Matthews was delivered and they could take it from here, with endless cap space, and bunch of young talented players on ELCs and a playoff team. Attempting to ride the Lou Lam and Babcock coattails of success to their own glory is what they thought would happen.

When the news came out this week in a power move by Dubas that he tried to become the puppetmaster himself and no longer the puppet and go directly to the board and essentially cut Shanahan out of the chain of command trying to grab more control and power. That only confirms that further of the power dynamic and in what was the last straw the puppetmaster Shanny needed to cut Pinocchio who was attempting to become a real boy strings loose and send Dubas out the door. Shanny was only prepared to keep Dubas on in his current limited control capacity as status quo not based on performance but keeping the control for himself.

Dubas had no leverage as his results had him on an expiring contract as a lame duck GM to make any sort of power control play while holding nothing but 1 series win or 5 playoff games in a season over 5 years.

Now watch as Shanny hires an experienced GM and likely a new experienced coach because Shanny recognizes his job is next on the line, so he is gong to go back to a former dynamic that brought the organization success and rely on those new hires to get him his extension, where trusting Dubas while he was essentially calling the shots himself more likely to get himself fired.

Cool story. War and Peace was shorter.

That's the beauty of being a journalist...You don't have to prove anything...citing confidential sources etc. I wonder how much of the stuff we have read over the years is just fabricated and we have no idea that it was. I am not talking just hockey.

Almost everything.

 

[57 Years No Cup]

For one thing, he's only been here nine years

Well, Shanny is so meddlesome that he was meddling before he was here!

 

[Ianturnedbull]

 

[nuck]

The beginning of the movie with Cruise and Zellwegger but imagine its Kyle and Spezza



Seriously there is likely to be some kind of exodus. Once KD gets his new gig he will reach out to people that he knows and trusts. Every new GM does it, even sometimes replacing people with with seemingly less competent folks that they are familiar with. There will probably be some good people lost but the new GM will do the same with his own circle. Hopefully Pridham and Sanford stay. I am not too attached to the rest. Interesting times ahead.

 

[Trapper]

 

[Ianturnedbull]

The beginning of the movie with Cruise and Zellwegger but imagine its Kyle and Spezza



Seriously there is likely to be some kind of exodus. Once KD gets his new gig he will reach out to people that he knows and trusts. Every new GM does it, even sometimes replacing people with with seemingly less competent folks that they are familiar with. There will probably be some good people lost but the new GM will do the same with his own circle. Hopefully Pridham and Sanford stay. I am not too attached to the rest. Interesting times ahead.

Who are these "good people" ? The kind of "good people" that deliver 1 playoff series win in 5 years? I'm being a bit negative here. Sorry. It's not like I am a blood thirsty fan, but I believe MLSE has to be open to change no matter how they felt about Kyle. I would hope that MGMT wouldn't hesitate to do the right thing despite the time, the difficulty, the complexity, or the awkwardness.

 

[Torontonian]

Never seen such an outcry for someone getting fired for not getting the job done? -- The media cries about needing changes to the core and to this group, but they don't like the change to the main person?