We didn’t know what we had

[Garthinater]

these are such a meaningless points

#1 how many teams in the Cap era have had 4 forwards that were by far the best players on their team. ...most have 2-3 at most and a dman as their best players. So, until there is another team that can say it's 4 best players are all forwards, its impossible to occur.

the 2nd point is a false narrative. players getting paid over 10 million (list from lowest to highest paid) Ovechkin, Burns, Aho, Josi, Rantanen, Backstrom, Vaselvski. ...they may have lower cap hits than 10 mil, but, all are making 10 or more.

Did any GM know that Covid would hit, and create a 'flat cap' for a number of years, when the average growth was 6-8% per year, and now every team in the league is in a cap mess (save 4 bottom dwelling teams).

None of what i said 'defends' Dubas, they are only statements of fact.

You think its meaningless to have 50% of your cap tied up in 4 forwards?

That leaves 50% for a starter goalie + a back up + 6 d + 8 forwards. That is not a recipe for success and that's why no team has won the almost half their cap spent on just 4 forwards.

It shouldn't take a degree to figure out.

I have no clue what point you're trying to make with your 2nd paragraph. No one cares about salary. The only thing that matters is cap hit and none of the players you mentioned make 10 mil or more.

Out of the top 16 highest paid players only 1 won a single round. We have 3 in the top 7. Again, not a recipe for success.

The nhl is a results oriented business. You don't get brownie points for trying hard. You get judged based on your results.

I doubt many gms get to inherit a 105 point team, lose in the first round twice, miss the PO once and still get to keep their job.

Lol your entire post is a pathetic attempt to defend our crappy gm. I'm honestly not suprised you think otherwise.

 

[egd27]

When Marleau was signed for 3 years, everyone said he'd only play the first 2. It was on every free agency news broadcast the minute the signing was announced. How is Dubas was responsible for Lou's 3 year contract? Did Dubas kick your dog or something....not sign an autograph for you...?

The reality is the final year of the Marleau contract only became a problem after Dubas allocated almost half of his salary cap to 4 forwards.

That's on Dubas and no one else.

Why is this so friggin hard for the Dubites to understand and acknowledge?

Without the Tavares contract, the 3rd year of Marleau (while a mistake) can be ridden out. Dubas knew that signing Tavares (and the rest) would mean he would need to clear cap, and if he didn't realize that, he has no right being a GM.

It is a clearly a case of an inexperienced manager spending more that he can afford and having to pay the consequences. Ironically what the Dubites are insisting is, and will, happen in Lou York.

 

[HamiltonNHL]

Only 1 player making 10+ mil won even a single playoff round. We have 3.

Jesus

 

[egd27]

No, so, really hard to understand, but a more mature team like Colorado is losing before they are expected to, consistently. They appear to be getting a free pass from people like you, but Dubas needs to be fired immediately. If next year we win a round and lose in the second, that is success in your eyes, right? We can do that for 3 years and it is fine.

I believe most of the critics of the current team would acknowledge that their playoff losses in 2017 & 2018 could be considered successful. 2020 / 2021 are considered failures.

Winning a round next season and losing in the second may be considered a success or failure depending on circumstances surrounding the series.

 

[sparxx87]

Why is this so friggin hard for the Dubites to understand and acknowledge?

Without the Tavares contract, the 3rd year of Marleau (while a mistake) can be ridden out. Dubas knew that signing Tavares (and the rest) would mean he would need to clear cap, and if he didn't realize that, he has no right being a GM.

It is a clearly a case of an inexperienced manager spending more that he can afford and having to pay the consequences. Ironically what the Dubites are insisting is, and will, happen in Lou York.

@LeafGrief Made a good point about salary distribution yesterday - You can look over 20-23 players and you’ll find certain spots where your cap dollars are a little high and others you’re a little low... but the important part is how this collection of players and salaries perform as a unit.

This measure in pro sports, comes from the W-L column with a particular emphasis on playoff wins.

 

[Garthinater]

No, so, really hard to understand, but a more mature team like Colorado is losing before they are expected to, consistently. They appear to be getting a free pass from people like you, but Dubas needs to be fired immediately. If next year we win a round and lose in the second, that is success in your eyes, right? We can do that for 3 years and it is fine.

You can preform as many mental gymnastics as you need / like. At the end of the day, 3 series wins >>> 0 series wins.

If some aves fans are getting tired of losing in the 2nd round, that's up to them.

I for one would trade dubas and losing in the first round for Sakic and losing in the 2nd round any day.

Winning 1 single round is not enough success to counter 2 years of losing in the first round and completely missing a 3rd. We need to win at least 2 or dubas is gone.

How many gms inherit a 105 point team and have as little success as dubas has? I doubt many.

How many get to keep their job past 3 years? Probably none tbh.

 

[Arzak]

my fav is this notion that "lou wouldnt cave".. like do we have literally 1 example of this? He just gave Barzal, who was a RFA mind you.. in a flat cap era.. 3x7.. And Barzal will be a RFA again and will have a ridiculous QO floor, which we know Lou will then cave and give him an ugly ass contract.. if hes even alive in 3 yrs

Wait a minute, did he really gave Barzal Nylander money? With a deal that won't even bring him to UFA? Good to know you prefer to overpay straight to UFA

You make it sound like it's good think your contracts went straight to UFA ...QO floor my ass, comparing player who actually performed and being scared what their contract will look like in the future vs overpaying for potential.

Stop mixing wishful thinking with reality. Barzal is well worth his cap of 7 mill., cheap 3 years and he still to be RFA.What ever he'll make next 3 year I don't know. It's 4 mil per year less than Marner.Probably won't Marners $$$ ( who does ?) on his next RFA contract, but we'll see.

 

[sparxx87]

Life cycle in sport is very short. Many very good teams have a window of 5 years or less.

I’m not sure where the Leafs window was supposed to start, but if they’ve already entered it (as the JT contract indicates) I’d say that hourglass should be making a few people sweat right now.

 

[egd27]

If you could somehow take Lou's ability to negotiate with RFAs, his no nonsense attitude, and ability to get guys to buy into a strong TEAM mentality, and then never let him sign a UFA and instead have that decision go over to an assistant GM, you'd have a pretty good management group.

Lou's downfall are the Clowe, Marleau, Komarov, etc type of contracts.

Could be Kyle's as well but he doesn't have the money to spend on a supporting cast, so we may never know.

 

[Garthinater]

The dubas fan boys have been 100% wrong about the islanders over the last 3 years.

They kept telling us how they had no star players, had a terrible old gm and were in cap hell.

Meanwhile they are in the semi finals and have made it further than us each of the least 3 seasons.

The same dubas fan boys have been 100% wrong about the leafs.

They told us paying half the cap to 4 forwards was fine, that a 1st for foligno was a win, that we would beat the jackets, crush the habs in 6 or less, that dubas is one of the best gms (lol), etc, etc.

What kind of delusion does it require to be wrong so often and yet still unable accept reality?

Is anyone surprised most of the leaders of the fan boys are in complete hiding?

 

[Cap'n Flavour]

I love how the Lou fanboys pining for the good old Babcock days concoct fantasy scenarios where Komarov, Martin and Kadri grind their way to winning the Leafs a Cup, then turn around and call Dubas supporters deluded. Maybe it's possible that they're both flawed GMs who've had a mixed bag of results in recent years?

edit: lol, right on cue.

 

[AvroArrow]

Lou sucked while he was here lol. He prob would've done a better negotiation with 34/16 and Tavares but he was far from great when we had him. Signing Marleau to that deal was atrocious, we lost JVR for free because of it. The Zaitsev deal made us lose Connor Brown, just to get rid of that awful contract.

 

[Gurglesons]

Lou hasn’t really done much of anything in NYI outside of the Palmieri deal.

The majority of that roster is built from Snow’s drafting and ownership that is finally willing to spend.

 

[sparxx87]

Lou hasn’t really done much of anything in NYI outside of the Palmieri deal.

The majority of that roster is built from Snow’s drafting and ownership that is finally willing to spend.

So a team that was spinning its wheels for 30 years that now finds themselves in back-to-back conference finals (after knocking off the defending champs 3 years ago) has a GM that just arrived at the right time.

Just a coincidence, maybe.

 

[hotpaws]

Lou sucked while he was here lol. He prob would've done a better negotiation with 34/16 and Tavares but he was far from great when we had him. Signing Marleau to that deal was atrocious, we lost JVR for free because of it. The Zaitsev deal made us lose Connor Brown, just to get rid of that awful contract.

Lou walked into the 3 atrocious long term cap hits in Robidas-Lupul-Phaneuf and made them disappear pain free . He also handed Dubas team friendly deals in Kadri/Andy/Rielly/Browm/Hyman which heavily outweigh the small issues of giving Marleau one year too many and Z roughly 1 m too much .

the amount of positive moves Lou made that have to be overlooked to try to paint him as doing a poor job in his time here is staggering

 

[Leafs87]

He's learned and started adding toughness last year. I bet we'll be adding more this offseason. His first year on the job and "our pp will be our enforcer" mindset was extremely naive though.

Id hope he doesn’t look for grit in the bargain bin this year. That was a sign of “okay I’ll do it so everyone shuts up” rather than yes this is what we need.
His draft is questionable too. I get his draft for skill and trade for toughness mentality. However good toughness historically has been drafted not traded for in most successful teams cases.

Yes that was a truly bad take, I believe Babs and the team bought into it but unfortunately everyone soon realized it won’t work

 

[hotpaws]

Lou hasn’t really done much of anything in NYI outside of the Palmieri deal.

The majority of that roster is built from Snow’s drafting and ownership that is finally willing to spend.

who made the Pageau deal ?
who finely convinced Sorokin to leave Russia ?
who hired Trotz ?

 

[Gurglesons]

So a team that was spinning its wheels for 30 years that now finds themselves in back-to-back conference finals (after knocking off the defending champs 3 years ago) has a GM that just arrived at the right time.

Just a coincidence, maybe.

Charles Wang sells stake in Isles

this is what happened.

 

[AvroArrow]

Lou walked into the 3 atrocious long term cap hits in Robidas-Lupul-Phaneuf and made them disappear pain free . He also handed Dubas team friendly deals in Kadri/Andy/Rielly/Browm/Hyman which heavily outweighed the small issues of giving Marleau one year to many and Z roughly 1 m overpaid .

the amount of positive moves Lou made that have to be overlooked to try to paint him as doing a poor job in his time staggering

Calling that a small issue is a massive understatement. He gave Marleau the money we were supposed to give JVR. That's worse than the Kadri deal. At least we got Kerfoot back in that trade and used the free cap to get Brodie. We lost the 13th overall pick in last years draft AND had to let JVR walk because that Marleau deal and it screwed us for the cap. That's about as garbage as it gets.

And having to give up Connor Brown just to get rid of Zaitsev.

 

[Gurglesons]

who made the Pageau deal ?
who finely convinced Sorokin to leave Russia ?
who hired Trotz ?

Once again, a change in management allowed the Isles to be financially competitive. Lou has made some good moves. But ultimately if your example of success is post season success the Isles have ultimately accomplished nothing.

This idea that Lou is some contract mastermind is also quite silly consider the Isles are about to be f***ed by the Cap next year harder than the Leafs.

 

[ACC1224]

Calling that a small issue is a massive understatement. He gave Marleau the money we were supposed to give JVR. That's worse than the Kadri deal. At least we got Kerfoot back in that trade and used the free cap to get Brodie. We lost the 13th overall pick in last years draft AND had to let JVR walk because that Marleau deal and it screwed us for the cap. That's about as garbage as it gets.

And having to give up Connor Brown just to get rid of Zaitsev.

They didn’t have to do any of that, Dubas chose that path.

 

[Suntouchable13]

You can preform as many mental gymnastics as you need / like. At the end of the day, 3 series wins >>> 0 series wins.

If some aves fans are getting tired of losing in the 2nd round, that's up to them.

I for one would trade dubas and losing in the first round for Sakic and losing in the 2nd round any day.

Winning 1 single round is not enough success to counter 2 years of losing in the first round and completely missing a 3rd. We need to win at least 2 or dubas is gone.

How many gms inherit a 105 point team and have as little success as dubas has? I doubt many.

How many get to keep their job past 3 years? Probably none tbh.

They won't win 1 or 2 with this Dubas philosophy. It would be better to can him now and not waste any of the fans time. UNLESS he is willing to budge on his stance of not trading Marner, for example. Bringing back the same core will yield same results.

 

[Aus34Matt]

Once again, a change in management allowed the Isles to be financially competitive. Lou has made some good moves. But ultimately if your example of success is post season success the Isles have ultimately accomplished nothing.

This idea that Lou is some contract mastermind is also quite silly consider the Isles are about to be f***ed by the Cap next year harder than the Leafs.

I can't think of another club who's cap allocation is more f***ed than the Leafs

 

[AvroArrow]

They didn’t have to do any of that, Dubas chose that path.

Yes I'm sure he took the first deal that he got and didn't bother negotiating or making calls. Who the hell is gonna take on 6.9M for an old guy who can't even skate anymore. Imagine we had Thornton signed for 6.9M going into next year lol who on earth would take that deal without a massive payment. It was known he was shopping around looking for takers. And for us to have a decent roster under the cap, that's the price we had to pay. And since we couldn't afford to pay JVR because we locked up this old LW for 3 years, JVR went to Philly for ree.

Zaitsevs deal was awful too, there's no way you move that contract without adding.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Calling that a small issue is a massive understatement. He gave Marleau the money we were supposed to give JVR. That's worse than the Kadri deal. At least we got Kerfoot back in that trade and used the free cap to get Brodie. We lost the 13th overall pick in last years draft AND had to let JVR walk because that Marleau deal and it screwed us for the cap. That's about as garbage as it gets.

And having to give up Connor Brown just to get rid of Zaitsev.

I'm the first one to critique Dubas lately but he didn't sign PM
And Zaitsev had what 5 years left? Connor Brown was another Soup here.