Toronto Maple Leafs: Dear MLSE, Extend Kyle Dubas While You Can

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to sign Kyle Dubas to a contract extension as fast as humanly possible.

Of the NHL’s 31 teams that are not the Toronto Maple Leafs, 31 of them would be interested in hiring Kyle Dubas in some capacity should the Leafs do the stupidest thing possible and let him leave.

Of those 31 teams, you would have to think that a good majority of them would fire their current GM to hire Dubas.

He is 37 years old and has almost a decade of running a team, he is a players-first manager who is a class act when it comes to representing the team in the community, but most of all, he’s proven to be one of the best general managers in the NHL at an age where most potential managers still have a decade to go before they get a chance to be a rookie GM.  (i.e the NHL mostly has ancient executives).

Whatever you personally think of the how the Toronto Maple Leafs are currently assembled is irrelevant, because despite whatever anyone says for public consumption, you can bet that anyone in a hiring position in 2022 understands what most fans refuse to even consider: regular season success is the best indicator of future playoff success.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Kyle Dubas

As fun as it is to yell “SIX STRAIGHT PLAYOFF LOSSES” directly into the face of anyone you suspect of  using their brain, the math itself is not controversial at all.

The  NHL Playoffs are a variance filled nightmare where upsets frequently occur and the best team rarely wins the Stanley Cup.

Consider, if you will, how four of the NHL’s best teams are in one division (Toronto, Boston, Florida, Tampa).

Consider that, in almost any possible NHL series, the underdog will win three out of ten times.

Consider how random goalies make the game of hockey, even across a seemingly huge 82 game season, or how injuries to star players drastically alter the playing field after every round.

And finally consider how stupid it is to base the future of the franchise on whether or not the goalies, referees, health, random luck and the rest of your team all come together at the exact right time to win.

Anyone who cares about hockey past the age of 12 should be able to understand that the best team doesn’t always win, and should be satisfied as long as their team does their best and gives a solid effort.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have done that.  They lead the modern NHL in coming-from-behind to force overtime and lose on a fluke goal.  They only lost game six to Tampa because of a bad call. They only lost game seven because of a Herculean all-time-great performance from a first-ballot hall-of-famer.

But over 250 odd games, they are flirting with a .700 points percentage.

They might win. They might not. You can’t say they haven’t built a team that could win.  And that should be good enough to keep the obviously good general manager.

It’s a No-Brainer

If Dubas stubbornly stuck to his vision and still lost, refused to change, and kept losing, then fine.  Get rid of him.

But he traded for Nick Foligno. He brought in Jake Muzzin and Zach Bogosian.  He went out and got Kampf.  The Leafs are not anywhere close to the NHL’s most “high flying team” and yet, that reputation persists in spite of all evidence.

Dubas adjusted.  He tried to split the difference between the NEW NHL and The Way Things are Done, and he’s actually done it.  The Leafs are one of the most balanced, best teams in the league.

They have been for years.

The first three of the SIX FIRST ROUND LOSSES don’t count because they were rebuilding years. You aren’t allowed to retroactively criticize a team for the years they over-achieved.

The fourth loss was a random five game series six months after the season ended and the world almost did.  Losing by one goal in the deciding game under the circumstances isn’t really that bad.

The fifth loss was the worst.  But it’s worth noting that Tavares played 2 minutes in the series, while Auston Matthews could not shoot the puck, and immediately followed the loss with surgery.   They also would have advanced if not for Jack Campbell allowing an 80 foot floater after his team just got the first 12 shots of overtime.

Last year they had to play a team that guaranteed that if they actually did make the Finals, it would be against a worse team than their 1st round opponent.  And they outplayed them and deserved to win.

So yeah, if you want to fire the guy who built a great team because he was provably unlucky in any context you can put the games into, be my guest.  But you deserve what you get after that.

The Leafs will turn back the clock, run the team like the Canucks are run now, and Kyle Dubas will rattle off multiple championships with a team that probably isn’t as good as the one he built in Toronto.

Or you could just do the most obvious, easiest thing in the world and sign the best young executive in sports to finish what he started.

Bonus Reason for doing it now: Keeping Dubas makes signing Matthews about 10000x more likely.

Bottom Line: Either sign him or don’t, but don’t try sell people on the ridiculous stupid idea of basing what happens on playoff results.  The team is either good now, or it isn’t.  The actual results should have no bearing on that in a league as random as the NHL.

This may sound counter-intuitive,  but in the NHL all you can do is build a solid team and hope for the best.  There are A LOT of Stanley Cup Champions that don’t hold a candle to the Canucks or Sharks teams of the past 10-15 years that didn’t actually win a championship.

There is no guarantee the Leafs win, but you can’t do much better than what Dubas has done over the last several years.  No one could.