Weekend Notes: Dubas Linked to Ottawa, Senators Sign Matinpalo, Ownership Concerns
A little over a week ago, Kyle Dubas sat in front of a group of Toronto reporters for his end-of-the-season availability where he explained that if he was not returning as the general manager there, he would not be actively pursuing other opportunities.
Things may have changed.
Fresh on the heels of the unexpected twist that Dubas would not be returning to the Toronto Maple Leafs, a back-and-forth airing of how the Dubas negotiations played out with Brendan Shanahan has at least fuelled more speculation that Dubas could land somewhere soon.
After Dubas acknowledged the taxing nature of the Toronto job and its impact on him and his family, he publicly left the door open to the possibility that he would not be returning to his role. His noncommital stance gave Shanahan room for pause and a few short days later, the president and alternate governor for the Leafs bid Dubas an unceremonious goodbye.
For quite some time, Dubas has been linked to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who fired general manager Ron Hextall at the conclusion of their season. Now he is being linked to the Ottawa Senators.
Sources expressed a belief to Sportsnet’s Luke Fox that Dubas may be waiting for the Senators’ ownership situation to become resolved before expressing an interest in joining their front office.
We’re told the idea that Dubas would take over in Pittsburgh was more smoke than fire. One source: “I think Kyle’s waiting for Ottawa.” ~ Luke Fox, Sportsnet
The Penguins were given permission to talk to Dubas and he reportedly met with Crosby “at the Penguins’ practice facility late Tuesday night.”
The opportunity to work for the Fenway Sports Group and manage a team headlined by Crosby and Malkin would be attractive, but those two players are 35 and 36 years old. However, they are still very, very good. Their best days are behind them and the team’s best defenceman, Kris Letang, is also 36. The organization lacks depth, goaltending, and defence while having one of the worst-ranked farm systems in the league. For the first time in years, the Penguins are an organization that looks to be precariously positioned in that mediocre middle of the league where they are too good to properly bottom out and too crappy to realistically vie for anything of consequence.
If Dubas is interested in Ottawa, it is easy to understand why. He reportedly grew up as a Senators fan and new ownership is right around the corner. The expectation is that the next ownership group will inject a lot of capital and increase the size and capabilities of the hockey operations department. The ability to oversee that growth and shape the direction of this group would be attractive in itself, but with the exception of Jake Sanderson, the Senators’ young core is locked up on relatively team-friendly long-term contracts.
Many of the foundational building blocks are already in place and they should be here for an extended window of opportunity.
The prospect of bringing Dubas into the fold is a polarizing one. A significant chunk of this fan base’s identity is tied to rooting against Toronto as much as it is cheering for the hometown team. Thanks to that wrinkle, there’s a natural hesitation for many to openly welcome him into the fold. It does not help that there are some obvious blemishes on Dubas’ resume. One playoff series win during his tenure is inescapable and because of it, Dubas has drawn criticism for the structure of the team’s payroll. Luring John Tavares away from the Islanders and then having Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews pop off simultaneously at the time of their entry-level deals essentially threw the allocation of money into the blender. Any hopes of getting the more talented Marner and Matthews to commit to below-market-value deals evaporated. There is also the question of whether Dubas’ blindspot for former Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds players too.
Another thing that stood out while doing research on my Dorion tenure analysis is that the Leafs have accumulated a lot of draft value over the same span of time that Dorion has been in place. In 53 draft selections between 2018 and now, the Leafs have accumulated 171.4 goals above replacement value (GAR) out of their picks for the fourth-highest total in the league. On the surface, that value looks great. What it does not tell you is that almost three-quarters of that total value is tied to their selection of Matthews in 2016. Of Toronto’s total GAR, only 25.79 percent of that value was selected with picks drafted outside of a top-five selection. Only four teams have found less value outside the top five than the Maple Leafs — Colorado (, Columbus, Seattle (which only has two years of picks under its belt) and your Ottawa Senators.
Considering how much money and time the Leafs have put into their front office, one of the things I would have expected is greater results out of the amateur draft. In talking to some Leafs supporters, one of the things they noted was that Dubas’ draft record does not look as strong because of Nick Robertson’s injuries and what happened to Rodion Amirov.
What you cannot take away from Dubas is that in his five years as general manager of the Leafs, only four organizations have had better regular season success — the Boston Bruins (242-92-38, 522 points), the Tampa Bay Lightning (238-107-27, 503 points), the Colorado Avalanche (226-106-40, 492 points) and the Carolina Hurricanes (226-107-37, 489 points).
I never want to downplay Toronto’s lack of success in the postseason, but no one likes to tip their hat to the vast amount of luck that is often needed there. Prior to the 2023 postseason, the Leafs took three of those four first-round series to the brink before ultimately losing. It takes an exceptional (and hilarious) amount of bad luck to pull off that kind of ineptness. If there is some silver lining for Leafs fans, it probably hangs on the fact that of the teams they lost to (Boston in 2019, Montreal in 2021, and Tampa winning it all in 2022), almost all of them ultimately reached the Cup Final.
Staunch supporters of Dubas will also blame Mark Hunter’s amateur draft record and Lou Lamoriello’s bad contracts for putting Dubas in a tougher spot than he should have been in when he took over. And, even with the salaries being given to the team’s three highest-paid players, the unexpected pandemic creating a flat cap for a few seasons gets a lot of attention for compounding their cap space problems.
Having already outlined the reasons why the Senators could do better than Dorion, my preferred choice for the next general manager would be Carolina’s assistant general manager Eric Tulsky. In saying that, what makes Dubas appealing is that he’s a smart guy who has experience creating and integrating an analytics department to bolster and provide contrast to the opinions of the scouts and decision-makers. He is also a genuinely good person and an excellent communicator. After years of enduring embarrassing and conflicting soundbites from ownership and management, having a competent voice that you can trust will not embarrass the organization or its fans.
Some of Dubas’ best work has involved creatively working the margins around the tight cap to improve some of the depth. Some of his worst were gambles on goaltenders.
In many of the instances when other moves did not ultimately pan out, at least there was a sentiment that fans recognized and understood the process behind his decisions.
While the ownership sale process dragged on, one of my initial concerns was that good candidates would be quickly scooped up before the sale concluded. I mentioned Tulsky earlier and he is reportedly out of the running for the Penguins job (which is great!), but if Dubas is cautious about handpicking his next destination, the stalled ownership situation may work out in Ottawa’s favour.
Senators Sign Nikolas Matinpalo
After signing free agent forward Jiri Smejkal to a one-year contract, the Senators have dipped into the European free agent well again inking Nikolas Matinpalo to a one-year deal of his own.
The 24-year-old right defenceman is listed at 6’3” and 207 lbs per Eliteprospects. He recently finished a third season with Ässät of the Liiga where he tallied seven goals and 16 points in 51 games.
Offence is not the calling card for Matinpalo. General manager Pierre Dorion described Matinpalo’s game in the team’s official press release:
"Nikolas' signing represents a good depth addition for us on defence. He took a big step this past season in improving his overall game in a short period of time. He has size, reach and an active stick. He's also a very good puck mover who competes and plays with urgency which has helped him become a reliable defender."
Barring the addition of a veteran defender to compete for the team’s sixth or seventh spot, the expectation is that the Senators will roll with some combination of Erik Brannstrom, Tyler Kleven and Jacob Bernard-Docker on the third pair. Considering the performance of Brannstrom this season ad then Kleven after he arrived, I think these two have to have the edge.
The addition of Matinpalo should not change that, but Ottawa has hit on these kinds of signings before. Artyom Zub represents a great success story for the team taking a low-risk gamble and having it pay off, but expecting everyone to develop into a credible option just isn’t realistic. Not everyone can be a Zub. The safer expectation is that Matinpalo just adds a little more experience in Belleville that cushions the team in the event that injuries occur — especially if Bernard-Docker graduates to the parent roster as the team’s seventh defenceman.
Unfortunately for a prospect like Lassi Thomson, it’s just another veteran option who could wind up leaping him on the depth chart.
32 Thoughts on Dubas and Sparks Bid
Elliotte Friedman hit on a few Senators-related notes on the most recent episode of the ‘32 Thoughts Podcast’.
“I think (Pittsburgh’s vacant GM position is) Dubas’ job if he wants it, it’s just obviously not closed yet. I think some people have wondered if he’s keeping one eye on Ottawa, I think we’re getting really close to the end of that. I heard there was some movement on Thursday night.”
Marek eventually chimed in saying that he believed he was keeping an eye on the Ottawa situation, but it is encouraging to hear that the ownership sale is progressing positively and could be wrapping up shortly.
Unfortunately, the discourse surrounding one of the bids is one of the reasons why it will be great to see the process come to a head soon.
“Look, if you’ve seen any of these stories on the Neko Sparks bid this week, I think it’s just become an incredibly nasty process. Like, just some of the mudslinging behind the scenes has become something really, really something. I think there’s a desire to get this closed as much as they want to stop the sniping as much as they want it to close.”
Some of this has trickled into the public sphere where fans engaged with Sparks on Twitter creating some uncomfortable back-and-forths.
The problem right now is that a lot of people are reading into the continued recruitment of investors for the Sparks bid and that it reflects poorly on the candidacy of his bid without any intimate knowledge of the financial details of his proposal.
Frank Seravalli tweeted:
“More alarming details surfacing about the Neko Sparks-led bid to buy the #Sens. Sources say within the last 24 hours, the "Sparks Finance Group" is still soliciting funding.
"This is somewhat of an urgent matter," the Sparks Group wrote to prospective investors.
That led to Bruce Garrioch chiming in that the group had been looking for more financial investments in the last two weeks, which in turn created fan concern that this group did not have the financial capital to be a credible solution for the organization.
Ian Mendes has pointed out that the Sparks bid is still alive and very much involved in the process.
The whole thing is gross.
As I wrote on Twitter this morning, if the Sparks group isn’t viable, I’m confident that they would have been vetted from the process already. If their continued pursuit of more capital is problematic, I trust that the league will flag it and disqualify their group from moving forward. That other journalists are quick to point out their concerns with Sparks’ bid when Mendes has very much said that the Sparks group is still involved in the process just leads me to believe that these individuals are getting their information from other parties with vested interests in how this plays out. And, that Mendes is being accused of kowtowing to the Sparks group is about as ironic as it gets.
Admittedly, fatigue from this ownership sale has set in. Everyone is looking forward to moving past this stage of the process and getting on to important hockey-related decisions.
It’s getting closer, but in the interim, it would be great to see the mudslinging end. It’s just so unnecessary.
Other News and Notes:
Pierre Dorion gave an exclusive interview to a Czech journalist at the World Championships. The general manager reflected on Jiri Smejkal and Tomas Hamara and shed some light on where he thinks Smejkal can help the team next season. Dorion believes Smejkal can play on the penalty kill and be a net-front presence on the power play. Interestingly, he noted that the team is looking to change how it attacks offensively with its depth lines and because of it, Ottawa's coaching staff and European scouts believe he can help.
The cast of Dragon’s Den are some of the most recent celebrities to join the ever-expanding list of investors who have attached themselves to Neko Sparks’ bid to buy the Senators.
The Senators are set to lose Ben Roger (2nd round, 2021), Carson Latimer (4th round, 2021), and Chandler Romeo (7th round, 2021) to unrestricted free agency if these prospects do not sign entry-level contracts (ELC) by next week. It is pretty rare to see a second-round pick not be tendered an entry-level contract, but the team never offered 2018 second-rounder Jonny Tychonick an ELC. Before that, you would have to go all the way back to the 2007 NHL Draft when the team took Ruslan Bashkirov with the 60th overall selection.
As the ownership situation continues to evolve, Elliotte Friedman speculated that Steve Apostolopoulos’ bid may have been the highest one that came in. If Apostolopoulos wins the bid, it is expected that Sportsnet talking head Nick Kypreos would have a role within the organization.