The Fate of Dubas

[Leaf Fans]

The difference is in motivation.

Crosby wants to win Cups.

Our players want to earn the most money possible through their prime years.

It's all about them first.

The players have never said that.

 

[justashadowof]

Those young teams better get going soon if they want to catch those old leafs.

View attachment 573662

When the Leafs started making the playoffs again in 2017 from an influx of young stars, their roster was also lousy with veteran players.

 

[zeke]

When the Leafs started making the playoffs again in 2017 from an influx of young stars, their roster was also lousy with veteran players.

Check out those core ages, then.


The Leafs made the playoffs instantly, while these "young" teams you're scared of are bottomfeeding still while years older.

 

[justashadowof]

Check out those core ages, then.


The Leafs made the playoffs instantly, while these "young" teams you're scared of are bottomfeeding still while years older.

I'm not scared of those teams. Shanahan and Dubas are. I think it'd be great to cement home reality about how this wonderful window of opportunity has been wasted.

 

[Throw More Waffles]

Crosby's cap hit percentage was 17.30% of the cap when he signed. He signed for 5 years.

So there was literally no season where Crosby every made 17% of cap?

Lol, thought so.

Can you show me the actual year matthews cap hit was 14.64% of the cap? I don’t mean the number floating around on web sites. I mean the actual season that Matthews AAV counted 14.64% of the cap.

This ought to be good….

Matthews never made 14.64% of cap.

I'm bewildered at what's going on here. That is my precise argument. That Crosby made 15.2% of cap his first post elc year, and Matthews 14.2%.

There was NEVER a season where Crosby made 17% cap. Ever. So why was a proven 69 point player paid a mere ONE PERCENT less of cap than a proven 120 point player?

 

[Leaf Fans]

I'm not scared of those teams. Shanahan and Dubas are. I think it'd be great to cement home reality about how this wonderful window of opportunity has been wasted.

Shanahan and Dubas have never said that they are afraid of any team.

 

[zeke]

I'm not scared of those teams. Shanahan and Dubas are.

Nah, thats you talking about those bottom feeding not-much-younger teams coming to catch us, not them.

 

[justashadowof]

Nah, thats you talking about those bottom feeding not-much-younger teams coming to catch us, not them.

They aren't catching us in the regular season standings probably. I can see us winning the division. One of them may qualify for the playoffs and beat us in a 1st round series. Don't worry, it'll be the goaltending's fault again. Voodoo and expected wins and all that jazz.

 

[mikeyz]

The players have never said that.

They don’t have to say it. They’ve shown it with 6 straight 1st round losses.

 

[Leaf Fans]

They don’t have to say it. They’ve shown it with 6 straight 1st round losses.

LoL. Not very likely.

 

[Legion34]

So there was literally no season where Crosby every made 17% of cap?

Lol, thought so.

Matthews never made 14.64% of cap.

I'm bewildered at what's going on here. That is my precise argument. That Crosby made 15.2% of cap his first post elc year, and Matthews 14.2%.

There was NEVER a season where Crosby made 17% cap. Ever. So why was a proven 69 point player paid a mere ONE PERCENT less of cap than a proven 120 point player?

Thank You - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Thank you for the amazing 9 years

www.capfriendly.com

Because through absolutely no fault of Matthews/crosby/dubas/ whoever

The cap went up a record 14.2% in the next year. Which crosby Had no bearing on.

2 years later the cap % dropped. It was up and down. Some won. Some lost.

Matthews the cap went up 2% when it was supposed to go up an extra 3-5 million. Which Matthews had no bearing on.

Crosby signed for what he was worth. The cap went up a ton then slowed.

Matthews signed what he was worth. The cap didn’t go up as much then pandemic.

This isn’t new

Edit. It is also important to note that Crosby’s cap hit was Always going to be 8.7 million. The guy probably has to shake it 87 times before he zips up.

The crosby example is disingenuous. Because he got what he was worth. But that was more of a happy accident. His cap hit is due to an obsession with the number 87 than anything else.

Do people really think he was going to not take 8.7 million if the cap didn’t go up?

 

[WTFMAN99]

Thank You - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Thank you for the amazing 9 years

www.capfriendly.com

Because through absolutely no fault of Matthews/crosby/dubas/ whoever

The cap went up a record 14.2% in the next year. Which crosby Had no bearing on.

2 years later the cap % dropped. It was up and down. Some won. Some lost.

Matthews the cap went up 2% when it was supposed to go up an extra 3-5 million. Which Matthews had no bearing on.

Crosby signed for what he was worth. The cap went up a ton then slowed.

Matthews signed what he was worth. The cap didn’t go up as much then pandemic.

This isn’t new

Crosby and Malkin's extensions made things tight there for a while, cap grew enough for them to start adding support pieces.

Really lacking support pieces to help. After our bottom 6, who can actually score in OT? Our bottom 6 blows.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

Personally, I'm not surprised that you jumped into this thread, ignored the discussion at hand, and started throwing around lies and personal attacks about me because I discussed something accurately instead of conforming to your personal hatred of everything the GM does. There was nothing "twisted", and it wasn't even about Dubas, much less "defending" him. The only thing I'm interested in defending is the truth.

That individual was referencing two different things. Players are signed based on the cap at time of signing. Both Crosby and our RFAs did this. Throughout the history of the cap, the cap rises, and the percentage of the cap that a contract takes up decreases over the life of the contract. Unfortunately, due to the unforeseen global pandemic creating a multi-year stagnant cap, the Leafs did not experience this lessening of the cap hit percentage for their star players like every prior team did throughout the cap era with their star players and contracts - making things unexpectedly tighter.

You aren’t wrong about the passage of time rendering contract values less expensive relative to the cap. However, your post highlights the vital importance of getting max term on high value contracts as a team needs the passage of time to bring the relative cap hit down.

Max term deals are also often signed where players compromise, getting longer term and higher overall contract values in exchange for taking less money on a yearly basis which results in a lower yearly cap hit.

The problem is that Dubas didn’t negotiate long, max term deals with his key players. Instead he signed shorter, higher salary, overly player friendly contracts.

Now those same players will be up for renewal as UFA’s at precisely the time they can command maximum salary and term. So in all likelihood their salaries will go up even more, consuming even more cap space, that’s assuming they can even be resigned.

To your point, how much better would the Matthews contract be right now, if he had 4 years left instead of two and his cap hit was 10M instead of 11.6M?

Would the team be in a better position to get contract value resigning him as a RFA at age 26 or 28?

The unfortunate reality now is that resigning Matthews will likely mean paying him even more money, resulting in an even higher salary cap hit and that’s assuming he can be convinced to stay.

It’s not a great situation, but it’s where we are.

 

[Legion34]

You aren’t wrong about the passage of time rendering contract values less expensive relative to the cap. However, your post highlights the vital importance of getting max term on high value contracts as a team needs the passage of time to bring the relative cap hit down.

Max term deals are also often signed where players compromise, getting longer term and higher overall contract values in exchange for taking less money on a yearly basis which results in a lower yearly cap hit.

The problem is that Dubas didn’t negotiate long, max term deals with his key players. Instead he signed shorter, higher salary, overly player friendly contracts.

Now those same players will be up for renewal as UFA’s at precisely the time they can command maximum salary and term. So in all likelihood their salaries will go up even more, consuming even more cap space, that’s assuming they can even be resigned.

To your point, how much better would the Matthews contract be right now, if he had 4 years left instead of two and his cap hit was 10M instead of 11.6M?

Would the team be in a better position to get contract value resigning him as a RFA at age 26 or 28?

The unfortunate reality now is that resigning Matthews will likely mean paying him even more money, resulting in an even higher salary cap hit and that’s assuming he can be convinced to stay.

It’s not a great situation, but it’s where we are.

???? Matthews was never signing for 8 x 10??????

That’s fantasy. I mean anyone can say well how much better would Edmonton be if Connor signed for 5 million?

As far as timing,,,, it really depends. If Matthews signs long term at 84.5 cap then it is better for us then if he signs 2 years later at a 95-100 million cap.

I think he may go short term. But we will see

 

[Dekes For Days]

So there was literally no season where Crosby every made 17% of cap?

Crosby signed for 17.30% of the cap for 5 years. That was his valuation. It was the highest post-ELC valuation ever. What his contract took up relative to the growing cap throughout the life of the contract is a different matter, and is obviously going to be different for contracts that stretched throughout this unique and unexpected multi-year cap stagnation.

You aren’t wrong about the passage of time rendering contract values less expensive relative to the cap. However, your post highlights the vital importance of getting max term on high value contracts as a team needs the passage of time to bring the relative cap hit down.

You don't need max term to see this effect. For example, due to the stagnated cap, Matthews' contract currently takes up 14.10% of the current cap. However, if we didn't have a global pandemic, we'd probably have Matthews taking up closer to 12.5% of the cap, with 2 years still to go. Longer terms generally allow this effect to continue for longer, but it means starting from a higher cap hit percentage.

Max term deals are also often signed where players compromise, getting longer term and higher overall contract values in exchange for taking less money on a yearly basis which results in a lower yearly cap hit.

Higher term creates a higher cap hit for post-ELC contracts, not lower.

The problem is that Dubas didn’t negotiate long, max term deals with his key players. Instead he signed shorter, higher salary, overly player friendly contracts.

5 and 6 year terms are the most common terms for high-end post-ELC contracts. Dubas signed his RFAs to 5 and 6 year deals to keep cap hits lower and ensure that he could keep everybody and still be able to build around them. The contracts we signed are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

To your point, how much better would the Matthews contract be right now, if he had 4 years left instead of two and his cap hit was 10M instead of 11.6M?

Well yeah, of course that would be better for the team if we massively screwed Matthews and paid him significantly less than he had earned, but that's not how this works. Matthews was never signing a 10m x 8 year contract. We could similarly fantasize about signing him for $5 and a pack of gum, but it doesn't make it realistic.

The unfortunate reality now is that resigning Matthews will likely mean paying him even more money, resulting in an even higher salary cap hit and that’s assuming he can be convinced to stay.

If you actually look at the history of UFA contracts following high-end post-ELC contracts, the differences in cap hit percentages are usually not as drastic as people make it out to be. Somebody like Matthews will probably see a modest bump, but we'll actually have more flexibility through his UFA contract than we did through his post-ELC contract because the cap will be rising again. And there's really no reason to think Matthews is going anywhere.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

???? Matthews was never signing for 8 x 10??????

That’s fantasy. I mean anyone can say well how much better would Edmonton be if Connor signed for 5 million?

As far as timing,,,, it really depends. If Matthews signs long term at 84.5 cap then it is better for us then if he signs 2 years later at a 95-100 million cap.

I think he may go short term. But we will see

Funny you mentioned McDavid, he signed a max term 8 year contract in 2018-2019, a year before Matthews for 12.5M per year.

McDavid will be 29 when his contract is up and he’s an RFA.

Matthews will be 26 and has a NMC in his last year before becoming an RFA.

I’d suggest Chiarelli signed a much better contract for the Oilers.

 

[Bomber0104]

The players have never said that.

Crosby did. In an interview.

Openly discussed taking $8.7M for almost his entire career for the betterment of his team.

Compare that to the Leafs where Marner’s agent openly complaining about Dubas overpaying Matthews the most player friendly contract in league history and wanting the same scale of contract for his client.

Do your research.

 

[BrannigansLaw]

Dubas never signed "unprecedented dramatic overpayments". Dubas signed contracts based on the cap at time of signing that were consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

It's a trade-off. You sign for what is likely to be a little less in overall dollars, in order to lock in financial security, and take away the risk of a downturn in the 3rd year. Unfortunately, with Babcock abusing our young stars and holding them back offensively, there was likely less incentive for our players to want to sign early.

You're discussing two different things. Players are signed based on the cap at time of signing. Both Crosby and our RFAs did this. Throughout the history of the cap, the cap rises, and that percentage of the cap decreases over the life of the contract. Unfortunately, due to the unforeseen global pandemic creating a multi-year stagnant cap, the Leafs did not experience this lessening of the cap hit percentage for their players like every prior team did throughout the cap era with their players and contracts - making things unexpectedly tighter.

The contracts he handed out to Matthews and Marner were a total disgrace. Those are numbers you pay for 8 year max deals. Instead Dubas got bent over the table and gave them both everything while getting pretty much no concessions from them. Even Edmonton signed McDavid and Draisaitl to max deals.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

Crosby signed for 17.30% of the cap for 5 years. That was his valuation. It was the highest post-ELC valuation ever. What his contract took up relative to the growing cap throughout the life of the contract is a different matter, and is obviously going to be different for contracts that stretched throughout this unique and unexpected multi-year cap stagnation.

You don't need max term to see this effect. For example, due to the stagnated cap, Matthews' contract currently takes up 14.10% of the current cap. However, if we didn't have a global pandemic, we'd probably have Matthews taking up closer to 12.5% of the cap, with 2 years still to go. Longer terms generally allow this effect to continue for longer, but it means starting from a higher cap hit percentage.

Higher term creates a higher cap hit for post-ELC contracts, not lower.

5 and 6 year terms are the most common terms for high-end post-ELC contracts. Dubas signed his RFAs to 5 and 6 year deals to keep cap hits lower and ensure that he could keep everybody and still be able to build around them. The contracts we signed are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

Well yeah, of course that would be better for the team if we massively screwed Matthews and paid him significantly less than he had earned, but that's not how this works. Matthews was never signing a 10m x 8 year contract. We could similarly fantasize about signing him for $5 and a pack of gum, but it doesn't make it realistic.

If you actually look at the history of UFA contracts following high-end post-ELC contracts, the differences in cap hit percentages are usually not as drastic as people make it out to be. Somebody like Matthews will probably see a modest bump, but we'll actually have more flexibility through his UFA contract than we did through his post-ELC contract because the cap will be rising again. And there's really no reason to think Matthews is going anywhere.

Your original argument defending Dubas was that the salary of players comes down relative to the cap with the passage of time.

Now you’re trying to argue that term is really not important and most teams don’t sign max year deals anyway.

Pick a lane. You’re deflecting like a politician does.

Of course most teams don’t sign max term contracts with most players, what you fail to mention is that they usually do with their key players and their cornerstone players.

McDavid who is a generational talent, signed a max term of 8 years and 12.5M THE YEAR BEFORE Matthews signed a 5 year deal at 11.6M.

McDavid will be 29 when his contract expires
and he becomes a UFA.

Matthews will be 26 when his contract expires and he becomes a UFA.

Matthews also got a NTC for his fifth year which is about to become an extremely important element of the contract he signed, for obvious reasons.

McDavid is a better player, was performing at a higher overall level than Matthews when Chiarelli signed McDavid and still somehow, Chiarelli managed to sign McDavid to a much more team friendly contract versus Dubas’ Matthews’ contract. It looked better then, it looks better now.

I’ll take McDavid for 900K more and for 3 extra years, thank you very much.

In the end, if you honestly think “there’s really no reason to think Matthews is going anywhere” then you’re honestly not worth the time debating with.

 

[CaptainCrunch17]

The contracts he handed out to Matthews and Marner were a total disgrace. Those are numbers you pay for 8 year max deals. Instead Dubas got bent over the table and gave them both everything while getting pretty much no concessions from them. Even Edmonton signed McDavid and Draisaitl to max deals.

Yes exactly.

Apparently signing someone to a 10M X 8 year max contract is now equatable to screwing them and offering to pay them with a pack of gum.

 

[rocketman588]

LoL. Not very likely.

What's not very likely that they've lost 6 in a row? Because that's 100% happened already

Your original argument defending Dubas was that the salary of players comes down relative to the cap with the passage of time.

Now you’re trying to argue that term is really not important and most teams don’t sign max year deals anyway.

Pick a lane. You’re deflecting like a politician does.

Of course most teams don’t sign max term contracts with most players, what you fail to mention is that they usually do with their key players and their cornerstone players.

McDavid who is a generational talent, signed a max term of 8 years and 12.5M THE YEAR BEFORE Matthews signed a 5 year deal at 11.6M.

McDavid will be 29 when his contract expires
and he becomes a UFA.

Matthews will be 26 when his contract expires and he becomes a UFA.

Matthews also got a NTC for his fifth year which is about to become an extremely important element of the contract he signed, for obvious reasons.

McDavid is a better player, was performing at a higher overall level than Matthews when Chiarelli signed McDavid and still somehow, Chiarelli managed to sign McDavid to a much more team friendly contract versus Dubas’ Matthews’ contract. It looked better then, it looks better now.

I’ll take McDavid for 900K more and for 3 extra years, thank you very much.

In the end, if you honestly think “there’s really no reason to think Matthews is going anywhere” then you’re honestly not worth the time debating with.

Matthews will be making more then mcdavid for a couple of years which is a joke. He might be making as much as 4 mil a year more

If the rumours are true and he tries to just continuously go 2/3 years on his next extension so he can get paid more after we better not give him trade protection because that's him just trying to hold the franchise over a barrel for cash.

If he gets a 2 year deal he'll be on his third by the time mcdavid gets his second age wise. Just a total f*** up in negotiating. Giving marner trade protection his last two years was also a complete f*** up.

We over paid both and gave them the ability to hold the team hostage in the next negotiations.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Your original argument defending Dubas was that the salary of players comes down relative to the cap with the passage of time.
Now you’re trying to argue that term is really not important and most teams don’t sign max year deals anyway.

I never said term isn't important; I said that you don't need max term deals to benefit from the effect being discussed. Higher term often ends up being beneficial for the team because you get that effect for longer, but it also comes with a higher initial cap hit percentage, and as a result, 5 and 6 years have historically been the most common high-end post-ELC terms.

Of course most teams don’t sign max term contracts with most players, what you fail to mention is that they usually do with their key players and their cornerstone players.

No, they don't. They're actually historically quite rare for high-end post-ELC contracts. They're common for UFA contracts, because unlike with post-ELC contracts, higher term decreases the cap hit percentage for UFA contracts because you're adding relative decline years.

McDavid who is a generational talent, signed a max term of 8 years and 12.5M THE YEAR BEFORE Matthews signed a 5 year deal at 11.6M.

McDavid is one of the few who did sign an 8 year deal. His negotiated value was 17.67% of the cap, and then he took a voluntary discount to bring it down to 16.67% of the cap. This resulted in one of if not the best post-ELC contracts ever, especially by some of the more simplistic, traditional measures that some people adamantly refuse to look beyond. Matthews' contract is not as good as McDavid's, but that doesn't make Matthews' contract bad, and Matthews was actually a lot closer to McDavid at their respective times of signing than many want to acknowledge.

Matthews also got a NTC for his fifth year

This is common for players of his caliber. McDavid also got a NMC for every eligible year.

In the end, if you honestly think “there’s really no reason to think Matthews is going anywhere” then you’re honestly not worth the time debating with.

There is zero reason to think Matthews is going to leave. It's media-induced panic based on nothing.

The contracts he handed out to Matthews and Marner were a total disgrace.

The contracts he handed out to Matthews and Marner were consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts.

 

[Leaf Fans]

What's not very likely that they've lost 6 in a row? Because that's 100% happened already



Matthews will be making more then mcdavid for a couple of years which is a joke. He might be making as much as 4 mil a year more

If the rumours are true and he tries to just continuously go 2/3 years on his next extension so he can get paid more after we better not give him trade protection because that's him just trying to hold the franchise over a barrel for cash.

If he gets a 2 year deal he'll be on his third by the time mcdavid gets his second age wise. Just a total f*** up in negotiating. Giving marner trade protection his last two years was also a complete f*** up.

We over paid both and gave them the ability to hold the team hostage in the next negotiations.

That is an ignorant post as history won't change. So obviously it is that our players are only interested in the money is what is not very likely.

 

[Fixxer]

The issue, initially, is that Dubas learmed the hard way by not doing great with contracts to star players. The guy lacked experience, but the years he spent in Toronto, it gave him plenty of opportunities to make mistakes, but Shanahan seems to love him. He now seems to know what he’s doing, but the leash is much shorter.

 

[Bomber0104]

That is an ignorant post as history won't change. So obviously it is that our players are only interested in the money is what is not very likely.

Marner’s agent (Ferris) pubicly complains on social media that his represented player is being lowballed against Matthews “most player-friendly” deal in league history..

Players “likely” don’t care about money?

Their agents have on-record quotes about how much money does matter, and they were negotiating top-rate against each other’s contract.

Do more research. This is what happened and at least a good part of the reason why the Leafs can’t ice a team capable of playoff success.

Don’t call others ignorant when you don’t have a cursory knowledge of basic history and facts.

Dubas Fans.