News Article: The Athletic: Shanahan blocked Dubas from completing trades that "could have improved the Leafs’ ability to advance further in the playoffs"

[myleafs]

Let's not forget, it was Shanahan's arrival in April 2014 that marked the turn of this franchise from more than a decade of miserable management. I still remembered the draft that year when everyone was expecting the Leafs to continue their pattern of drafting big tough "skilled" guys (Nick Ritchie) and the Leafs surprised everyone by drafting Nylander instead (with Ehlers and Larkin as their other options). To me, that draft decision marks the turn toward reasonable management (remember, up to that point in time, the Leafs were infamous for predominantly laughable moves like the Canucks did in recent years).

In retrospect, the choice of Dubas as GM at the time was probably a mistake. I was expecting though, that Dubas has grown in his job and could resign the stars to reasonable deals this time around. We'd never know if that'd be the case, but if he himself asked for the moon in contract talks then it'd be hard to persuade the players to refrain from squeezing every penny out of our cap space. And Dubas may have no other intention than ditching out even crazier contract this time around.

So yes, Shanahan should bear the responsibility of hiring Dubas and the past few years of playoffs failure. But his presence prior to hiring Dubas has made a difference in the organization (including "tanking" to get Marner and Matthews, the first time the Leafs had done so in decades). In fact, I would argue that whether a certain blocked trade turns out to be good or not is rather irrelevant when it comes to the significance of a president. Doesn't anyone feel scared of going back to the good old days of the Toronto Maple Laughs?

Yep people forget it was Shanny who turned the ship around and for some strange reason changed course. He gets one more crack to right the ship once again.

As for the bolded, Dubas couldnt even re-sign himself to a reasonable deal. I have no doubt he would have overpaid the fab3 and given them everything they wanted and more and we would have another 5 yrs of the same old same old.

 

[notdoneyet]

Hilarious how some people have just randomly decided that Shanny blocked trading Knies, based on absolutely nothing, and contrary to all known information.

Hilarious how some people accept the rumours that shanny blocked trades that would have made the leafs better. Maybe these expert insiders should give us the facts of said trade allegations or maybe they are just full of shit.

Im not saying its not true but if yiu know for certain this happened you should be able to give the complete facts of the trades

 

[myleafs]

I don’t know, it sounds like Dubas pretty much fired himself.
And then it’s reported that Shanahan tells the core they will all be back.
Finally, no word on the coach.

This smells an awful lot like running it back for an 8th time to me. Only it’s packaged as something different now by accident. Hey look folks, we aren’t running it back…new GM now!

Im getting a bad feeling about that.

 

[Sypher04]

Would a current member for next season really do that you think? I was thinking it maybe had to be an outgoing player who has nothing to lose if they burn a bridge or something. Still weird that any pro player would rat out someone else's business.

I’m thinking it’s an outright fabrication. Friedman is a tabloid. He sprinkles in things he knows to keep himself relevent but he talks a lot of bs

 

[myleafs]

McCann has 4 points in his last two playoffs...

McCann has 6 points in his last four playoffs...

He is not good.

People just hate it because Dubas did it, but we'd complain just as much, especially if he was being paid 5.5.

Wrong

 

[notdoneyet]

I haven't even seen reporting that he blocked an impact trade. The report was that there was way too much going up and down the ladder through GM, President and ownership, and that Shanahan had blocked trades that could have helped us advance in the playoffs, which given the tiny margins we've lost by, could be almost anything.

And regardless, even if it was an impact trade, an impact trade doesn't mean trading away Knies. That's ridiculous, and a wild leap. We have prospects and draft capital other than Knies. We made multiple impact trades at the deadline and none involved him. Given everything we know and everything Dubas has said about Knies, his availability, and his potential impact for our team in the playoffs, there's no reason to think that Knies was involved.

This shouldn't need to be said, but people shouldn't be making up wild scenarios they have no evidence of, and blaming Dubas for it.

This shouldn’t need to be said but people shouldn’t be making up wild scenarios they have no evidence of and blaming shanahan for it.

 

[thewave]

I don’t know, it sounds like Dubas pretty much fired himself.
And then it’s reported that Shanahan tells the core they will all be back.
Finally, no word on the coach.

This smells an awful lot like running it back for an 8th time to me. Only it’s packaged as something different now by accident. Hey look folks, we aren’t running it back…new GM now!

It's the Leafs...

20 managers are talking about the negative impact on merch for trading Marner
30 managers are talking about the negative impact on sponsorship and merch if Matthews leaves
300 managers are hiding and just agreeing with directors because they don't want to rock the boat
2-3 managers are realists and probably have a good idea how to build a winner but are ignored because the mass above and around them.

 

[Kurtz]

There are multiple inquiries on any competitive team's top prospect. There's nothing that suggests that Dubas was prepared to trade him, and a lot that suggests that he wasn't. It doesn't say impact trade. It says trade. And even for an impact trade, there are endless possibilities that don't involve Knies, including the multiple impact trades we saw this deadline. There's enough chaos right now. We don't need people spreading false information that they have no evidence of.

If the reporting in the article is true (and it might not be), then Knies is by far the most logical conclusion.

We know it was a win-now move as it says it would have made our team better for the current run.

We know for a fact that Dubas wasn't stopped from trading any picks for rentals - as he traded away a whole bunch. We know that all of the other prospects in our system aren't more valuable than the firsts we traded, so that's not it either.

That pretty much leaves just Knies as the only logical conclusion, if, again, the article is at all truthful.

 

[myleafs]

I’m thinking it’s an outright fabrication. Friedman is a tabloid. He sprinkles in things he knows to keep himself relevent but he talks a lot of bs

He says things like they are fact but he also sprinkles in "I think" a lot to cover his ass.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Hilarious how some people accept the rumours that shanny blocked trades that would have made the leafs better. Maybe these expert insiders should give us the facts of said trade allegations or maybe they are just full of shit. Im not saying its not true but if yiu know for certain this happened you should be able to give the complete facts of the trades

I mean, anything said in this from either side or media should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's not that unusual to have leaked information about general front office dynamics without a complete play by play rundown of specific impacts.

 

[Trapper]

I don’t believe for a second that Dubas was actually going to trade Knies. I believe Chicago asked for him, but that’s it

Without that article providing specifics, it might as well be made up. I’m not saying it is but they provided no proof.

I could just as well say Shanahan blocked Nylander for Kane.

 

[Rare Jewel]

McCann has 4 points in his last two playoffs...

McCann has 6 points in his last four playoffs...

He is not good.

People just hate it because Dubas did it, but we'd complain just as much, especially if he was being paid 5.5.

Unfortunately, that ends up still being better than the top guys here in their last 5 games vs. Florida.

But, the guy had 40 goals during the regular season, saying he isn't good seems quite off.

 

[Sypher04]

Without that article providing specifics, it might as well be made up. I’m not saying it is but they provided no proof.

I could just as well say Shanahan blocked Nylander for Kane.

It’s exactly the level of reporting I expect from a hack like James Mirtle

 

[Notsince67]

The Leafs brought in 6 different players for the deadline. Ranging from ROR to McCabe.
Doesn’t seem handcuffed to me. Was Dubas looking to trade bigger?

Would seem logical

 

[myleafs]

I'm a bit surprised to see some outright refuse to believe this could be true.

Shanny has openly from the very start of his time with MLSE back in 2014 played an active role in hockey decisions.

For example, He personally made phone calls about Nylander to guys in Sweden prior to the draft to get a read on his background/character.

He didn't suddenly stop doing this.

It's hardly inconceivable that he may have had a radically different view on a particular move or two than Dubas and used his authority in the MLSE hierarchy to block them. Whether or not that interference was justified would remain to be seen as not enough details are out there on it

I dont think anybody thinks that Shanny wouldnt have input, of course he would but the way the article is written is that Shanny blocked trades that probably would have put the leafs over the top....no proof, just trust me cause I know ,which is weak, lazy, and bias.

 

[WillNy29]

Hunter was a disaster

yeah for some reason people wanted us to draft more Korshkovs and fridges and less Ahos and Hintz

 

[andora]

So any real details come out yet about what was blocked?

 

[thewave]

Hilarious how some people accept the rumours that shanny blocked trades that would have made the leafs better. Maybe these expert insiders should give us the facts of said trade allegations or maybe they are just full of shit.

Im not saying its not true but if yiu know for certain this happened you should be able to give the complete facts of the trades

Pro Dubas rumors = True
Pro MLSE rumors = False

That's all you need to know with these peoples opinions.

 

[myleafs]

When you’re a subordinate in a professional role, it’s typical that you would need the bosses input if you had radically different ideas about how to do things than previously agreed on or what your company wants to do. You might get a green light or a red light but that’s what it’s like to work in a hierarchy.

Yep but like Dubas when he took over and tried to reinvent the wheel, he seems to think that he needed to reinvent MLSE structure as well. After all he is the smartest guy in the room dont you know. The hubris is apparent.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

It took Shanny too long to figure out Dubie has liking for wrong type of analytics players .. and he thought he could change him over time .. i hope he gets Penguins job and we can trade all of Dubie's softies to them and get back some big fast hockey players who love to fight for pucks

 

[Guided by Veseys]

I can’t believe Shanahan blocked the Kyle Clifford for Hagel, Fleury and a 1st trade. Wtf mlse, how could you let this happen?!

 

[Dekes For Days]

If the reporting in the article is true (and it might not be), then Knies is by far the most logical conclusion.
We know it was a win-now move as it says it would have made our team better for the current run.
We know for a fact that Dubas wasn't stopped from trading any picks for rentals - as he traded away a whole bunch. We know that all of the other prospects in our system aren't more valuable than the firsts we traded, so that's not it either.
That pretty much leaves just Knies as the only logical conclusion, if, again, the article is at all truthful.

Knies is not a logical conclusion. In fact, quite the opposite, based on everything Dubas said and did when it came to Knies.
People are inserting a whole bunch of random speculation and assumptions into this, based on nothing. The only thing it says is that at some point, Shanahan blocked trades that could have improved the Leaf's ability to advance in the playoffs. That could literally mean anything.
It doesn't say Knies was involved. It doesn't say it was a massive trade. It doesn't say that picks weren't involved. We didn't trade picks every year, and even in the years we did, there were likely multiple options of what we could have done with them. We also have a bunch of prospects other than Knies, who have also been held onto.
People also seem to be assuming that the trade was blocked to save X, but we don't even know that at all. It could have just as easily been blocked to use X to acquire Y instead.

 

[Trapper]

It’s exactly the level of reporting I expect from a hack like James Mirtle

This isn’t even reporting, it’s tabloid. The only purpose is to wind everyone up.
It’s like if I worked for Shanahan and said Dubas wanted access to the company jet because the core didn’t want to travel with the team. Enjoy.

PS: This is not true by the way for those that need an explanation.

 

[Squiffy]

I mean, he's just telling us what he heard, not pretending he was on the phone with Shanny shooting the breeze about blocking Kyle's trades. That's what these guys do. Then you get to judge for yourself.

Wouldn't think he would know the trade(s) being hypothetically spoken of. Too specific leads back to source, source wants anonymity.

 

[notbias]

Unfortunately, that ends up still being better than the top guys here in their last 5 games vs. Florida.

But, the guy had 40 goals during the regular season, saying he isn't good seems quite off.

He isn't good in the playoffs. And no it isn't better than the top guys, he has 6 pts in 20 games.

Wrong

Well, McCann is overpaid and disappears in the playoffs, you want him?