The Toronto Maple Leafs Could Give a Christmas Gift to Their Fans

The Toronto Maple Leafs could give a gift to their fans.

It would be an easy one to give, since the Toronto Maple Leafs should already have done it.

It would ensure this franchise is competitive for years and years.

It would all but guarantee another decade or more of being the best team in the NHL.

And every single fan would rejoice.  Or at least, most of them would.

The Toronto Maple Leafs should disappoint 31 other teams and bring joy to their fan’s hearts by re-signing Kyle Dubas to a contract extension that ensures the Leafs have the league’s best GM for years to come.

The one they must be insane to not have already offered. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs Must Re-Sign Kyle Dubas

Outside of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, the most important person associated with this franchise is their brilliant young general manager.

In the entire length of their Original Six history, there have been very few times when the Toronto Maple Leafs had the best team, player, coach or manager in the league.

The Legends of NHL management, Sam Pollock, Glen Sather, Bill Torrey, Scotty Bowman have one thing in common: none of them were Leafs.

The best NHL Players: Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, Bossy, Crosby, Ovechkin, Howe have the same thing in common.

But today is different.  The best player in the world is Auston Matthews, and he’s a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The best coach alive today is anyone’s guess, but it very well could be Sheldon Keefe.

And I don’t even think there is debate on who the best GM is.   This would be because I’ve made up my mind and stopped listening to debates.   I know, for a fact, that there isn’t a better GM than the Toronto Maple Leafs current GM.

I know this because I’ve witnessed him take the biggest joke of a franchise in professional sports and transform it into one of the best.  The Leafs are the most player-friendly team in the NHL. Their GM is 40 years younger than most of his competition, and what he lacks in experience he makes up for by not being beholden to hockey’s ridiculous and handcuffing standard way to run an NHL team.

The reason that the Leafs should re-sign Dubas is because he is a free-thinker in one of the most closed-minded groups in the entire world.  NHL GM’s have no tolerance for innovation, and ideas are foreign to them.

The average fan would be better than at least half of the horrible managers this league has.  The slightly informed fan could easily be a top ten NHL GM.

And Kyle Dubas is a lot smarter than the average fan.  90% of the league bases their entire conception of things on the past.  This is a league that, for the most part, doesn’t have very many people involved in it (be them fans, media or managers) that realize just how horrible Ken Holland is at his job. 

When you find yourself with Kyle Dubas as your GM, in a league that thinks Ken Holland is a competent manager, you’ve got to lock it in.  The Leafs have an unbelievable competitive advantage in that their GM is above average intelligence in regular society, making him a genius amongst his peers.

They can’t squander it.  And they can give a genuinely excellent present to their fan base at the same time.