NHL Insider Links Leafs GM Kyle Dubas to the Senators
As part of the Daily Faceoff Rundown Podcast’s Eastern Conference playoff preview yesterday, NHL insider Frank Seravalli reflected on the future of Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas.
“I think everything is on the table for the Leafs. There’s been a real power struggle there between Kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan and they’ve done a great job of keeping it lower case and lower key. But, who at the end of the day is holding the keys and who has final decision-making power? Brendan Shanahan has it and he’s leveraged on multiple occasions. I think that relationship has been stressed is the best way to say it. How does that play out? If the Leafs win… if they don’t… I mean, the fact that Kyle Dubas doesn’t have a contract would probably indicate to you what might be coming next in that… Brendan Shanahan did ask the board for an extension for Kyle and wasn’t granted one last summer. Yeah, who knows? Everyone has been saying Kyle Dubas and Pittsburgh and I think people draw lines that may or may not be there.”
I can’t speak to the reports that Shanahan and Dubas are not meshing well, but it would seem weird when the two have been working together since Dubas was handpicked as the anointed one. When Dubas made the jump from Sault Ste. Marie to the show, it was clear that the goal was for him to learn from Lou Lamoriello and eventually be his successor. If there is discord between Dubas and Shanahan, it is probably a function of the pressures created by the organization’s postseason shortcomings. Not to mention that it sounds odd for Shanahan to go to the board last summer and go to bat for a Dubas extension only to turn around months later and decide he’s no longer the right person for the job.
So, what do we really know?
It is widely known that Dubas is in the last year of his contract. It is fair to assume that his future largely hinges on how well his Leafs fare in the postseason this spring. If they fall short of expectations again, it is reasonable to assume that Dubas will be out.
And, if he does, one viable destination could be the Ottawa Senators per Seravalli.
“I wonder what happens with the Ottawa Senators," Seravalli speculated. “Like, I think that could be a team that could be a destination for Kyle Dubas if he ends up leaving.”
Ottawa was widely considered one of the least desirable jobs in the league for the better part of the last two decades for some reasons. One interesting story that was relayed to me centred around an up-and-coming front-office executive who probably should have been hired by another NHL organization as their general manager. When asked why it was taking him so long to become the general manager of an NHL team, the executive mentioned that he had interviewed for jobs elsewhere but was rebuffed. When asked, “Why not Ottawa?”, his paraphrased response was, “I was warned by a league employee to avoid working for (Melnyk).”
Today, there are a ton of attractive reasons to be interested in the Senators’ gig. First and foremost, the Senators have a young core of players that are almost all locked up to team-friendly contracts. In a league where the best players are now earning north of $10 million, Ottawa’s best players are locked in at $8.205 AAV or less. A core of Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk, Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson, Thomas Chabot, Shane Pinto, and Ridly Greig is a nice group to build around. Short-term contracts to Jake Chychrun and Claude Giroux are not even that concerning because both players have significant local ties that the organization should be able to leverage and ensure that both remain a part of the franchise for the foreseeable future.
In Dubas’ case, Auston Matthews is about to enter the last year of his contract before becoming an unrestricted free agent. William Nylander is in the same situation and will be due a healthy raise. Mitch Marner and Tavares have two years left on their deals before unrestricted free agency. Without a ton of blue chip prospects in the system, the reality of Toronto’s situation is that the 2023-24 season may represent one of the last chances for this core to win.
Working for one of the richest franchises in the league allows Dubas to bankroll one of the largest front offices and it would be hard to walk away from that luxury. In saying that however, with new ownership around the corner in Ottawa, there is an expectation that more money will be pumped into the Senators’ hockey operations department.
Assuming that new ownership wants to bring in their own hires, any incoming general manager should have carte blanche to build and shape this barebones front office in the direction they want. That kind of opportunity and the challenge in taking a “small market” franchise to greater levels would have to be attractive for any competitive manager. Building up Ottawa’s amateur and professional scouting departments is paramount, but integrating the information from these departments with an in-house analytics department to help identify players to target and help mitigate risks is at the forefront of things that the Senators need to do.
Would Dubas represent a significant upgrade?
I think so.
The improvement in communications and messaging alone would be well worth it, but Dubas is not without his detractors and for good reason.
The Leafs’ general manager is often criticized for the Leafs never advancing past the first round of the postseason. Since Dubas took over in May of 2018, the Leafs have lost to the Boston Bruins, Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning in the opening round. Proponents of Dubas will point to all four of those series losses being taken to the limit (game seven or five during the 2020 qualifying round) and three of those four opponents wound up being Stanley Cup finalists.
Dubas has also taken flak for the contracts doled out to the Leafs’ highest-paid players. Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner are two of the best players in the league. John Tavares is overpaid, but that was the price to lure him off Long Island.
Like Pierre Dorion in Ottawa, an argument could be made that the Dubas should have been more patient and bided his time with his own internal options (ie. moving forward with Nazem Kadri, Ottawa keeping its top 10 selection at last year’s draft) that were less expensive. Unfortunately for Dubas, an unintended consequence of the Tavares signing is that it complicated the contract negotiations with Matthews and Marner — forcing the Leafs to pay more than they were probably hoping to sign their emerging stars for. It also never helped that Covid wreaked havoc on the league’s revenues which created a freeze on the salary cap ceiling. Without the expected cap increases, creatively managing Toronto’s roster with limited space became a juggling exercise.
The Leafs have done well in recent years to insulate their core given the circumstances, but I’ve always felt like in the formative years of Dubas’ career as general manager, the organization tried to overcompensate for its deficiencies by overpaying for sandpaper players like Nick Foligno. Like the Senators acquiring players that their coaching staff had relationships and familiarity with, the Leafs have exhibited a tendency to acquire players who played junior hockey for Dubas in Sault Ste. Marie.
The similarities between the Senators and Leafs has actually been a bit uncanny. Although the Leafs play a much more structured game than the Senators, both organizations have put an emphasis on acquiring offence while ignoring the benefits of developing a good blue line internally. At least in Ottawa’s case after 16 years since their Cup Final appearance, they finally appear to be headed in the right direction with a number of promising young defencemen. In Toronto, their blue line was built differently. It features Morgan Rielly, Timothy Liljegren and a bunch of veteran players who are talented, but feel like patchwork solutions.
Addressing the goaltending position has been a chore with both organizations talking themselves into and overcommitting to Matt Murray.
Pierre Dorion and his amateur staff get a lot of credit for putting the young core in place. As I have discussed in this space numerous times, the organization has clearly hit home runs with their top-five selections. Landing Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle and Jake Sanderson has put this team in a great position, but whiffing on a top-five selection is pretty difficult. There is also something to be said about being lucky. If San Jose does not move up in the lottery, that Karlsson trade looks less lopsided than it does. Had the Canadiens drafted Tkachuk instead of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, or Los Angeles taking Stützle instead of Quinton Byfield, the rebuild would not be viewed under the same “successful” lens that it is now.
The Senators have done well with some of their picks outside of the top-10. Shane Pinto, Drake Batherson, and Ridly Greig have been great finds where they have been drafted, but I find Ottawa’s reputation for being amateur savants is overstated. For the quantity and quality of draft pick value that was available to the Senators with the volume of picks that the Senators had, I feel like there should be more promising prospects in the fold — a situation that explains why the Senators’ pipeline ranks in the bottom third of the league.
On the flip side in Toronto, with all of their data and resources, I would have assumed that the organization would have unearthed more talent than they have.
Like most managers, both Dorion and Dubas have blemishes on their records, but the latter aligns better with the trends hitting all major sports front offices.
With all of the data and resources available to the Maple Leafs, another benefit to Dubas is that he actually has experience managing larger staffs and integrating proprietary data and information to help the coaching staff and the front office make informed decisions. Whether Dorion stays or new ownership brings in their own manager, someone will have to oversee the the growth and development of the Senators’ analytical department. Hiring the right people and making significant inroads to bring them in line with their peers will be paramount.
As Ian Mendes noted on the ‘Coming In Hot’ podcast, if Pierre Dorion retains his job, he would be the first general manager in the salary cap era to survive missing the postseason for six consecutive seasons. It seems reasonable to assume that new ownership will want their own people in place, but this ownership sale has the potential to paralyze this franchise.
The longer it drags into the offseason, the more it is going to negatively impact the team’s ability to improve ahead of the start to the 2023-24 season.
Some indications were that the change could occur around the time of the NHL Draft (June 28th/29th) or in early July. The consequences of that should not affect the Senators too much at the draft table since the team has moved most of its early selections. Unfortunately, the draft and the opening of free agency are prime times for player movement. If Dorion’s hands are tied until the sale is complete or if new hires enter the fray late in the process, it could hamper the organization’s ability to add quality players to the mix.
As an organization that should be desperately trying to improve the players surrounding their young core, it would be a shame to see another year of this group’s prime potentially be lessened, or worse, wasted because of these circumstances.