• For users coming over from tmlfans.ca your username will remain the same but you will need to use the password reset feature (check your spam folder) on the login page in order to set your password. If you encounter issues, email Rick couchmanrick@gmail.com

Kyle Dubas not returning as GM

CarltonTheBear

Administrator
Staff member
https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1659588872483885057
https://twitter.com/reporterchris/status/1659589020786065408
 
I guess we'll have to see if it's a mutual thing or not but it's not much of a surprise. He probably didn't get the longest/fairest shake but he did get long enough that, at this point, he should have more on his resume where you had more on the ledger to balance out some of the really bad decisions he made.

I said it in the other thread but with the Leafs resources available they really should expect top tier performance from the guy running the hockey team and there's very, very little to suggest that's what Dubas was delivering.

Edit: Well, it's certainly phrased like it was the Leafs' decision. I still think he's a good hockey mind and he's young enough to learn from his mistakes. I wouldn't be surprised if he emerges as a really good GM somewhere with less pressure.
 
We'll have a new GM next season, almost certainly a new coach, and possibly see a member of the core 4 dealt. Times are changing. All cause the team didn't show up to game 3.
 
He was really good, and got better and better, at finding cost-effective, useful depth to fill out the roster, and I think the team's draft record under him is quite good. But that extra 2% stuff was all needed to make up for his biggest mistakes, which resulted in coming out of contract negotiations with the top stars with a salary structure that couldn't withstand a pandemic. It's fitting, narratively, that he's out after declaring he was staking his job on the top 4's ability to come through, but I am curious to see how he would've changed course. Oh well. Here's hoping whoever takes over can close with Matthews.
 
I will say it feels wrong to make this move when the Leafs finally show a little progress. If they couldn't expand on it next year, sure, but this feels like a team maybe not having realistic expectations for having a young team and jumping the gun the way they always tend to.
 
Not unexpected.  Not surprised.  Happy in a way, but also disappointed. 

Preferred the continuity he would have provided.  But if they are going to completely change things and this is the first domino, then I'm all for it.  Next up Keefe.  And then we'll see which of the core players, if any, follow up.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
We'll have a new GM next season, almost certainly a new coach, and possibly see a member of the core 4 dealt. Times are changing. All cause the team didn't show up to game 3.

There were a few games 7s and a 5 too, I think.
 
The Leafs according to multiple sources already had a deal on the table for Dubas on the weekend. Not surprised at all. I think the tone was set at the end of season presser and if this is mostly the Leafs' decision, then they did this in large part due to the "hard on my family" comment at the presser, which from my understanding, the Leafs had no information about. So if Dubas still hadn't made up his mind in a day or two afterward the Leafs had no choice but to get on with it.

I think it was a mistake to hand the keys over to a wonderkind with no experience, but we also haven't had luck with Burke/Nonis and even Lou made a ton of questionable moves. Anyway, he always seemed like a thoughtful and good person, but I wonder if this will teach him to be more cutthroat in the future. Good luck to him.

Bring on Eric Tulsky.

 
Is there a bet available on Bet365 for who wins the cup first , Dubas with his next team or the Leafs?

I?m betting Dubas
 
Nik said:
I will say it feels wrong to make this move when the Leafs finally show a little progress. If they couldn't expand on it next year, sure, but this feels like a team maybe not having realistic expectations for having a young team and jumping the gun the way they always tend to.

Progress is progress I guess, but it's hard to look at the Leafs/Tampa series and call winning a round progress when if Vasi played like a league average goalie we'd be out of the first round again.
 
Bender said:
Progress is progress I guess, but it's hard to look at the Leafs/Tampa series and call winning a round progress when if Vasi played like a league average goalie we'd be out of the first round again.

Sure. Feels like I could just as easily say though that if Bobrovsky plays like anything other than a Vezina winner the Leafs very well could have won the 2nd round too.

Regardless, I don't even just mean in terms of playoff results. I think this year's team took a real step forward before the playoffs began. Like I said, I don't think this is a terrible decision. Just not one I'd have made right now. Especially when contracts might force the team to shift drastically next year anyway. The guy you hire to try and keep the skeleton of this year's team together might not be the same guy you'd hire to build something new.
 
There are a lot GMs, a lot of trades, and free agent signings where I think "wow, that's terrible."  Very few of Kyle's transactions are in that group.  Most of the time, at the time of the move, it looks pretty reasonable to me.

In the long sample sizes we get in the regular season, he looks pretty good.

In the short sample sizes of the playoffs, the leafs have failed.  However, ahead of those series, people don't usually say "I think the Leafs will lose this series because their GM has done a poor job building the team."

I can really only come up with two reasons the leafs have lost so often:  (1) luck, (2) some hidden variable I can't put my finger on (this is indistinguishable from luck from my vantagepoint but perhaps not from someone else's who is smarter).

That's a really roundabout way of saying that I can pick out many GMs who I think are worse than Kyle but I can't pick out any that I think are clearly more likely to succeed.  I hope such GMs are out there and that Shanahan picks well.  Or simply that the leafs get lucky.

I would have preferred to have fired Keefe.  He has more direct control over the outcomes. 
 
princedpw said:
There are a lot GMs, a lot of trades, and free agent signings where I think "wow, that's terrible."  Very few of Kyle's transactions are in that group.  Most of the time, at the time of the move, it looks pretty reasonable to me.

In the long sample sizes we get in the regular season, he looks pretty good.

In the short sample sizes of the playoffs, the leafs have failed.  However, ahead of those series, people don't usually say "I think the Leafs will lose this series because their GM has done a poor job building the team."

I can really only come up with two reasons the leafs have lost so often:  (1) luck, (2) some hidden variable I can't put my finger on (this is indistinguishable from luck from my vantagepoint but perhaps not from someone else's who is smarter).

That's a really roundabout way of saying that I can pick out many GMs who I think are worse than Kyle but I can't pick out any that I think are clearly more likely to succeed.  I hope such GMs are out there and that Shanahan picks well.  Or simply that the leafs get lucky.

I would have preferred to have fired Keefe.  He has more direct control over the outcomes. 

We'd like to welcome our new GM

undrafted-9781982146825_hr.jpg
 
Back
Top