We’ve had arguably 3 good GM’s in 50 years. Grandpa Cliff back when he was under 200 years old, Quinn and Dubas.
HawtPackage
The standards here are so low 1 playoff win in an entire tenure is good now.
psychicoctopusSP
If he had drafted better I think his record would look a lot better but he’s certainly been our best GM in a few decades…..the bar is extremely low though
kingex11
The guy who let Hyman and McCann walk? The guy who traded Kadri away cheaply?
Dubas was an awful GM.
Donkilme
I’m too young to really remember the Gilmour and Clark years that well, so I’d say Dubas crafted the most entertaining teams to watch during my life as a Leafs fan. They didnt have the plyoff success of the early 2000s teams, but the high offence and speed made the team exciting. Shame they just couldn’t get a solid D group to support the goalies. Time heals all wounds and I will remember the peak of the core 4 fondly even if they couldn’t pull it off.
DK4E2XFpbETJrj
This guy’s whole tenure was built on the back of 3 specific players he inherited. He traded too many draft picks to conceal some really poor free agent decisions. Was too generous with his NMCs. I agree we could do worse – but Dubas warrants more of the blame than a lot of others.
oh5canada5eh
I think the biggest knock against Dubas will be the contracts he gave to Matthews and Marner coming out of their rookie deals. I thought he did pretty well with trades and signings outside of those two. You could argue (as I do in hindsight) that signing Tavares was a misstep but you also don’t have the chance to sign a 1C in FA. . . Ever.
I would love to know just how many of the moves were actually Dubas considering how involved Shanahan was. Will be an interesting read when someone writes a book in 30 years.
raremonument
I’m sorry but I refuse to believe he was that good. Sure he was good, but he had some head scratchers too. At the end of the day, he gave our top players too much money before winning anything. This caused us to have to cut corners everywhere else and find “discounts”.
Also trading a first with Marleau, Mrazek, and the Foligno trade were all horrible moves. Other than Knies, Hildeby, and Robertson we don’t have much in terms of prospects from his era as a GM.
Norm_MAC_Donald
Dubas was a mixed bag, he tried new things and some were good some were awful.
He used the huge wallets of MLSE to beef up our staffing and personnel off the ice which was long overdue.
He was a terrible negotiator for contracts and trades. He mortgaged the future to win now, for a team that couldn’t win 1 round, let alone 4. His hubris was his downfall, as is often the case, we can and we will. Plus he always came off like he thought he was the smartest guy in the room.
Overall, not a fan of his and he set the precedent for the team during their decade of regular season success and postseason failures.
commanderr01
I was honestly excited when Dubas basically said it was time to trade marner before his NTC kicked in, imagine the haul we actually could have gotten for marner with no trade restrictions and the team we trade him too gets him for 2 years (not a rental) but instead Shana fired him to try and keep his job which left a cluster fuck on the main office with tre getting here a week before the draft, effectively ruining the real chance to trade Mitch
MsAbsoluteAngel
kstacey
Rose tinted glasses.
JMM_1984
Just because Treliving is worse doesn’t mean Dubas was good.
AustonsCashews
At the end of the day, the roster was good enough to go further in the playoffs. We just have a group of guys that can’t seem to get up for big games. Choke artists, if you will.
Moosewalker84
Hard to known when the GM can’t do GM things. We only here about the good trades shanny blocked.
Excellent_Brush3615
Dubas did a great job for what the league was supposed to do at the time.
The NHL was talking about cleaning up the game, calling more penalties and making the game based around the stars that were skilled.
Dubas was young and naive. Now he understands.
Mike4DDL
I get it, but we had to (and still have to) try something different. Shanahan was the real problem in the 2nd half of his tenure.
T4kh1n1
Dubas and his horrible contracts will haunt the team for many years. He’s the Harold Ballard of our generation
Electronic_Map_1451
It’s been a wild ride. The moment Tre got hired I got the sensation that we might slip back into being a rudderless organization with corporate types clawing back control. It was just too safe/conventional. Kyle made many mistakes , especially at the negotiations table. It’s just a fact. But he had vision and passion.
The craziest part is that the organization kept Marner, and didn’t make such a catastrophic mess of the deadline last year, there’s a different timeline where the group could make the playoffs and had a chance at their best path yet.
That being said , « ifs and buts » and hypotheticals are a pretty pointless exercise. The core still has shown us that they’re incapable of performing at the biggest moments. We’d possibly at least have a more full cupboard, and a more compelling on-ice product this year, but it’d ultimately be the same core that has been proven to fold when the chips are down .
erasedhead
Fuck no. He got us into this mess. Marleau trade, Hyman situation, the contracts, etc. He also handled his contract negotiation horribly. Brad has been terrible but Dubas was not the wunderkind he was let on to be, in my opinion.
MasPisco
The hard part for me is how do you evaluate a guy who became GM when the Leafs finally had young elite talent, but was also apparently handcuffed by Shanahan?
OPDBZTO
Dubas fucked the RFA signings of the core and he’s also part of the reason leafs future/prospects is cooked
reevoknows
Problem was timing with Dubas. If we got him now things would go better than when he way young and inexperienced.
I’ll forever wonder what would have happened if we kept Lou around especially for the core’s contract negotiations.
RomansBlueArmy
I’d be curious to kno how much control dubas really had and how much power Shanahan had over major decisions. Looking back dubas made some awful decisions(assuming they were his alone)
Rengars_Prey
Pittsburgh is also a disaster
oogyboogy44
Dubas should be fired from Pittsburgh for the job he did in Toronto.
He was amongst the worst GM’s we’ve ever had, when you consider what he “had” and what he did with what we had.
Him and Shanny destroyed the best opportunity this franchise has had in 50+ years.
Deep-Yard32
Oh boy here comes the revisionism. He leveraged our future very heavily and greatly contributed to this mess, and he never had any success. Lets not pretend like he was some genius. Not saying hes a bad GM but we need to be honest and not look at the past with rose tinted glasses. You can only contend and spend picks for so long till we reach what is currently happening. He also had some awful contract negotiations, that Rielly contract being a standout right now. Of course Shanahan also needs to bear a huge brunt of the responsibility.
CarriesLogs
Should have got rid of Shanahan not Dubas but old boys club always wins
mysterion693
For every genuis Dubas move there was an equally dumb Dubas move.
Trade Kapanen for a 1st round pick – genuis. Sell Marleau’s contract for a top 15 first round pick – dumb
Trade Hallander for McMann – genuis. Protect Holl in the expansion draft – dumb.
Find guys like Bunting for cheap that can play in your top 6 – genuis. Try to squeeze Nylander for a couple hundred but cave to Marner – dumb.
He was never going to fire Keefe, he was too loyal to his guys. We needed to move on from him, but not to Treliving.
Desperate-Cream-6723
It potentially was time for a change in Toronto… the biggest issue was who they replaced him with. Treivling literally destroyed Calgary, and then got rewarded for that gomg show with the Toronto job. Always a baffling choice for me.
931634
Precious Kyle over Dumbass Brendan every damn day!
DougFordsGamblingAds
I put a lot of blame on the guy that traded away 6 firsts, 4 seconds, got rid of multiple great prospects, got rid of Kadri and Hyman, gave bad contracts relative to our star players, and did make any notable progress on the playoffs. When you sign a 6 year deal that should be an 8 year deal, it starts to hurt in years 7 and 8.
And he didn’t recoup assets. Trading Sandin for a first isn’t recouping and asset. It’s exchanging one asset for another. He certainly lost a lot of trades while here, and the only clear win was the McCabe deal and maybe Kapanen.
thatguy_griff
i agree with you OP. he was never perfect but he was never complacent. he constantly tried things. he changed his perspective on who he tried to acquire. imo, the biggest issue with dubas is his big moves almost never truly worked, for a multitude of reasons. muzzin was awesome but career ended early, foligno was a decent idea but couldn’t get/stay healthy, oreilly was good but didn’t wanna stay, schenn was dope but was so good he got overpaid on his next contract, etc. then you got kadri who had to go(he proven to be a liability – even if personally, i woulda kept him once more) but he made a bad trade to do it. the brodie version woulda been so much better. and then when he finally said enough is enough, someone big has to go, shanahan said fuck that and fired him to protect the core that constantly failed. getting tre for him was stupid. favourite stat at the time was you fired a gm who won a playoff round once in 8 years for a gm who won a playoff round once in 8 years.
36 Comments
[deleted]
Dubas was a good GM.
We’ve had arguably 3 good GM’s in 50 years. Grandpa Cliff back when he was under 200 years old, Quinn and Dubas.
The standards here are so low 1 playoff win in an entire tenure is good now.
If he had drafted better I think his record would look a lot better but he’s certainly been our best GM in a few decades…..the bar is extremely low though
The guy who let Hyman and McCann walk? The guy who traded Kadri away cheaply?
Dubas was an awful GM.
I’m too young to really remember the Gilmour and Clark years that well, so I’d say Dubas crafted the most entertaining teams to watch during my life as a Leafs fan. They didnt have the plyoff success of the early 2000s teams, but the high offence and speed made the team exciting. Shame they just couldn’t get a solid D group to support the goalies. Time heals all wounds and I will remember the peak of the core 4 fondly even if they couldn’t pull it off.
This guy’s whole tenure was built on the back of 3 specific players he inherited. He traded too many draft picks to conceal some really poor free agent decisions. Was too generous with his NMCs. I agree we could do worse – but Dubas warrants more of the blame than a lot of others.
I think the biggest knock against Dubas will be the contracts he gave to Matthews and Marner coming out of their rookie deals. I thought he did pretty well with trades and signings outside of those two. You could argue (as I do in hindsight) that signing Tavares was a misstep but you also don’t have the chance to sign a 1C in FA. . . Ever.
I would love to know just how many of the moves were actually Dubas considering how involved Shanahan was. Will be an interesting read when someone writes a book in 30 years.
I’m sorry but I refuse to believe he was that good. Sure he was good, but he had some head scratchers too. At the end of the day, he gave our top players too much money before winning anything. This caused us to have to cut corners everywhere else and find “discounts”.
Also trading a first with Marleau, Mrazek, and the Foligno trade were all horrible moves. Other than Knies, Hildeby, and Robertson we don’t have much in terms of prospects from his era as a GM.
Dubas was a mixed bag, he tried new things and some were good some were awful.
He used the huge wallets of MLSE to beef up our staffing and personnel off the ice which was long overdue.
He was a terrible negotiator for contracts and trades. He mortgaged the future to win now, for a team that couldn’t win 1 round, let alone 4. His hubris was his downfall, as is often the case, we can and we will. Plus he always came off like he thought he was the smartest guy in the room.
Overall, not a fan of his and he set the precedent for the team during their decade of regular season success and postseason failures.
I was honestly excited when Dubas basically said it was time to trade marner before his NTC kicked in, imagine the haul we actually could have gotten for marner with no trade restrictions and the team we trade him too gets him for 2 years (not a rental) but instead Shana fired him to try and keep his job which left a cluster fuck on the main office with tre getting here a week before the draft, effectively ruining the real chance to trade Mitch
Rose tinted glasses.
Just because Treliving is worse doesn’t mean Dubas was good.
At the end of the day, the roster was good enough to go further in the playoffs. We just have a group of guys that can’t seem to get up for big games. Choke artists, if you will.
Hard to known when the GM can’t do GM things. We only here about the good trades shanny blocked.
Dubas did a great job for what the league was supposed to do at the time.
The NHL was talking about cleaning up the game, calling more penalties and making the game based around the stars that were skilled.
Dubas was young and naive. Now he understands.
I get it, but we had to (and still have to) try something different. Shanahan was the real problem in the 2nd half of his tenure.
Dubas and his horrible contracts will haunt the team for many years. He’s the Harold Ballard of our generation
It’s been a wild ride. The moment Tre got hired I got the sensation that we might slip back into being a rudderless organization with corporate types clawing back control. It was just too safe/conventional. Kyle made many mistakes , especially at the negotiations table. It’s just a fact. But he had vision and passion.
The craziest part is that the organization kept Marner, and didn’t make such a catastrophic mess of the deadline last year, there’s a different timeline where the group could make the playoffs and had a chance at their best path yet.
That being said , « ifs and buts » and hypotheticals are a pretty pointless exercise. The core still has shown us that they’re incapable of performing at the biggest moments. We’d possibly at least have a more full cupboard, and a more compelling on-ice product this year, but it’d ultimately be the same core that has been proven to fold when the chips are down .
Fuck no. He got us into this mess. Marleau trade, Hyman situation, the contracts, etc. He also handled his contract negotiation horribly. Brad has been terrible but Dubas was not the wunderkind he was let on to be, in my opinion.
The hard part for me is how do you evaluate a guy who became GM when the Leafs finally had young elite talent, but was also apparently handcuffed by Shanahan?
Dubas fucked the RFA signings of the core and he’s also part of the reason leafs future/prospects is cooked
Problem was timing with Dubas. If we got him now things would go better than when he way young and inexperienced.
I’ll forever wonder what would have happened if we kept Lou around especially for the core’s contract negotiations.
I’d be curious to kno how much control dubas really had and how much power Shanahan had over major decisions. Looking back dubas made some awful decisions(assuming they were his alone)
Pittsburgh is also a disaster
Dubas should be fired from Pittsburgh for the job he did in Toronto.
He was amongst the worst GM’s we’ve ever had, when you consider what he “had” and what he did with what we had.
Him and Shanny destroyed the best opportunity this franchise has had in 50+ years.
Oh boy here comes the revisionism. He leveraged our future very heavily and greatly contributed to this mess, and he never had any success. Lets not pretend like he was some genius. Not saying hes a bad GM but we need to be honest and not look at the past with rose tinted glasses. You can only contend and spend picks for so long till we reach what is currently happening. He also had some awful contract negotiations, that Rielly contract being a standout right now. Of course Shanahan also needs to bear a huge brunt of the responsibility.
Should have got rid of Shanahan not Dubas but old boys club always wins
For every genuis Dubas move there was an equally dumb Dubas move.
Trade Kapanen for a 1st round pick – genuis. Sell Marleau’s contract for a top 15 first round pick – dumb
Trade Hallander for McMann – genuis. Protect Holl in the expansion draft – dumb.
Find guys like Bunting for cheap that can play in your top 6 – genuis. Try to squeeze Nylander for a couple hundred but cave to Marner – dumb.
He was never going to fire Keefe, he was too loyal to his guys. We needed to move on from him, but not to Treliving.
It potentially was time for a change in Toronto… the biggest issue was who they replaced him with. Treivling literally destroyed Calgary, and then got rewarded for that gomg show with the Toronto job. Always a baffling choice for me.
Precious Kyle over Dumbass Brendan every damn day!
I put a lot of blame on the guy that traded away 6 firsts, 4 seconds, got rid of multiple great prospects, got rid of Kadri and Hyman, gave bad contracts relative to our star players, and did make any notable progress on the playoffs. When you sign a 6 year deal that should be an 8 year deal, it starts to hurt in years 7 and 8.
And he didn’t recoup assets. Trading Sandin for a first isn’t recouping and asset. It’s exchanging one asset for another. He certainly lost a lot of trades while here, and the only clear win was the McCabe deal and maybe Kapanen.
i agree with you OP. he was never perfect but he was never complacent. he constantly tried things. he changed his perspective on who he tried to acquire. imo, the biggest issue with dubas is his big moves almost never truly worked, for a multitude of reasons. muzzin was awesome but career ended early, foligno was a decent idea but couldn’t get/stay healthy, oreilly was good but didn’t wanna stay, schenn was dope but was so good he got overpaid on his next contract, etc. then you got kadri who had to go(he proven to be a liability – even if personally, i woulda kept him once more) but he made a bad trade to do it. the brodie version woulda been so much better. and then when he finally said enough is enough, someone big has to go, shanahan said fuck that and fired him to protect the core that constantly failed. getting tre for him was stupid. favourite stat at the time was you fired a gm who won a playoff round once in 8 years for a gm who won a playoff round once in 8 years.
Marchment for Malgin, enough said. Lock it up
Can never forgive him for the Kadri trade.