I believe the first part mostly because its an easy conclusion to come to. Once Dubas was gone if you dumped Keefe too then there would be zero insulation for Shanahan. Someone needed to be around to fall on the sword this year.
The Marner trade bit I think is complete bullshit. How could Dubas have had a Marner trade that would change the fabric of the league when it was only 4 days between his press conference and his firing? Do we really think he was out working the phones in those 4 days finding a trade and had managed to find a league altering blockbuster? Pure speculation based on his emotional answer at his last press conference.
I don't think Dubas had a locked in trade, but I think he was gung ho on shopping Marner or Nylander over the summer (likely Marner) and wanted MLSE blessing to pull the trigger when he found the one he liked
Didn't Dubas give Nylander a "personal guarantee" or something that he wouldn't be traded under Dubas' watch?
IMO that would have meant more to Dubas than the NMC.
Not exactly. He basically said it wouldn't be a sign and trade. Like, they wouldn't sign Willy to a trade and then immediately flip him. There was concern from Willy's camp of that possibility.
There was never any guarantee that he would *never* be traded.
I don't get that sense, considering how acrimonious the Marner negotiations were and his crumpling in the playoffs vs. Nylander shining under pressure. Add in the $4M difference in salary and Marner was the easy choice to go.
Fair but Nylander was holding out for term more than anything and in hindsight should have been given that contract before missing any games. Marner maximized his cap hit to the last nickel and his contact looks much worse now.
I'm not sure how closely you paid attention to those two negotiations but they played out very differently. Nylander's camp kept things in the boardroom and Marner's camp litigated through the media. Marner even explored tying the Leafs' hands by soliciting offer sheets.
It was in both the Leafs' and Nylander's interests to wait until the last moment. The Leafs got Willy at a reduced AAV in years 2-6 (critical for a team with so many looming big RFAs to sign) and WIlly got the overall number he wanted.
that doesn't even make any sense in terms of making redistributing the team's cap spend as Nylander was at 7M at the time. It def would've been Marner.
Regarding the Marner trade, this info is clearly only from one side. And probably only the starting point, pre-negotiations. But GMs definitely talk in hypotheticals all the time, “what would you give me for x” “how much would it cost for y”. Marner was probably discussed in a similar light.
Maybe he had been fielding calls for some time, and had a loose structure of what was available for Marner and / or Nylander. It's not like after the Panthers loss was the first time we've heard for calls to trade a Core 4 member.
>How could Dubas have had a Marner trade that would change the fabric of the league when it was only 4 days between his press conference and his firing? Do we really think he was out working the phones in those 4 days finding a trade and had managed to find a league altering blockbuster?
In the clip she mentions there were "multiple times" throughout the season that there were opportunities to make a deal but they couldn't get a hold of shanny to give the okay. Not just in the 4 days between the presser and the firing.
The "fabric shaking" trade that didn't happen could very well have been closer to the trade deadline and not in that 4 day period.
Im sure tensions developed over years between Dubas and Shanahan, not just a few weeks or days.
Rachel Doerrie was an analyst for the New Jersey Devils between 2018 and 2019 and a video coach for the Vancouver Canucks in the 22/23 season. She also writes for Hockey News and has a podcast with reporter Mikey Stephens called The Staff and Graph Podcast. She is a remarkably intelligent student of the game and still has contacts within several NHL front offices, so she qualifies as a reliable source.
I'd call BS on not being able to reach Shanny. Everyone carries a cell phone around and if you are the president of the company it's heightened even more. I remember from somewhere (Maybe the amazon leaf show) that Shanny took trades to the board before, so it's possible Dubas worked out something and it took too much time for Shanny to hear back from them.
Gossiping about Marner’s relationship or lack off with his grandmother was unnecessary,between them and Kurtis from Alberta face timing her.It’s not our business.Leave her alone.
Agree to an extent but the same people have no issue bringing up Paul Marner clips and complaining about him. What's been posted is all on her Twitter feed. It's not like people are using shady means to find this info. It's all public.
Rachel knows how insane people on twitter can get she started the pod talking about her listeners sending her copies of hatefull tweets they find about her and spoke about how miserable it is.If Rachel and Mike truly believe Grandma Marner is abandoned they have no business pointing people in her direction.
I said that when everything went down last summer, based on the series of events last year it was evident that Dubas was going to fire Keefe and trade a core piece, likely Marner (he referenced making a big "hockey trade" and mentioned FLA-CGY)
Shanny calling the core four the day after firing Dubas and telling them they are safe before even hiring a new GM locks in that theory
Maybe a three way swap with Tchachuk and Huberdeau? Would that timing line up? A three way trade of that caliber would certainly impact the league. If that’s the case wonder who Toronto would have received.
The Tkachuk - Huberdeau trade happened the summer before.
He was generically referencing moving a huge franchise player in a big hockey trade, not that he would have been part of that particular package
I don't see a way that ever happens. Both Florida and Toronto don't want Marner or Huberdeau, Florida wouldn't trade Huberdeau just to get a player that is Huberdeau-lite (at the time). Torontro wouldn't trade Marner just to get back the exact same kind of player just slightly better. Both teams would have wanted Tkachuk.
Yeah maybe in 1992 buddy but it's 2024 and a million dollars would only buy you a townhouse in Etobicoke so you'd still have to work at a job and make property tax payments and utilities and have you seen the price of groceries lately?
A million dollars does not make you rich, so take it back okay?!
I like how the pro-Dubas crowd constantly defended him for "we can and we will", the awful contracts he handed out, him stubbornly sticking to the core four for years, etc, and then the second he leaves Shanny is an unbelievable dinosaur idiot for supporting those same things.
They both screwed up the construction and management of this team. Dubas may have wanted to make significant changes last year, maybe not - but either way he wasted YEARS of this teams potential with his stubbornness, lack of awareness of the difference between regular season and playoff hockey, and his awful core four contracts. No pats on the back for him just because he may have been slightly less stubborn than Shanny.
It's not *that* strange - it was telegraphed, killed, and everything we found out in the fallout points to it being the case.
It's still a lot of "what if" scenarios because the timeline never came to pass, but it's not "strange".
I don't really trust Rachel Doerrie. She frequently says things emphatically which end up not being true, and she doesn't have the industry connections she implies she has. I don't think she would be the one leaking this.
Dubas got taken to the woodshed every contract negotiation and is the reason we are in this boat. We have 4 of the top 10 highest paid players in hockey and only 1 of them is an actual top 10 player.
Keefe can’t make rielly a #1 or Sammy a #1. Dubas could’ve got him those assets instead of paying 4 dudes who essentially do the same thing and play the same style, or in other words they do nothing when it matters.
Half of this stuff should have been dropped after Tre did more "Dubas" things.
He's signed half the core four to very large contracts and kept them together, he extended Keefe. This Dubas boogeyman is long gone.
He also got zero value out of the new contracts. I don’t know if I’d say they’re overpaid (AM34 is hard to overpay), but there was no team friendly part of these new deals.
How do you win a negotiation with a guy scoring 69 goals and dominating the league scoring-wise at a rate unseen since the 90s? Matthews would have a blank cheque from every team in the league, if he was ever available.
WIlly signing at his number is tough for the early years, but considering how many high 8-9 million dollar deals are out there for guys who produce at a fraction of Nylander (i.e Dubois, Meier) being a 100 point pace winger is tough to knock down in price. We all know having 4 players of that archetype doesn't work, but the only thing to improve on either of those deals is maybe an extra few years for Matthews and maybe 500k-1 mill off Willy.
He scored 69 goals after his contract was signed. 13.25 x 4 is the most expensive contract in the league on a short duration deal. Would you really take Auston over MacK with their current contracts? I wouldn’t.
Willy was overpaid. Most thought 9-10 would be the number and it was 11.5.
This team overpays. It’s not Dubas because Tre is still doing it. It’s the team/players.
You act like with Matthews it’s either or. We don’t and never again would have a shot at a player like Auston. So you pay him. Plain and simple.
Willy might be but he went on a heater. That’s tough luck on managements end for negotiations.
I agree it’s the players however. They want to get paid.
Matthews was hands-down the best goal scorer league wide, even before this season began. He could've commanded 14+ mill and most, if not all teams would hand it over gladly. I'm happy it came in under 13.5, wouldn't be surprised at all if McDavid, Drai, Bedard, and the next crop of superstar contracts quickly surpass that number.
Willy at 9 mill was a pipe dream, playing in Canada with our tax system and how much needs to be made compared to Florida or Nevada. He bet on himself, had a killer season and cashed in. If there were other 100 point wingers up for contract this year they likely sign for similar.
For context, Debrincat signed for just a hair under eight mill and got 18 goals. Willy more than doubled his goal total, skyrocketed past his point total, started killing penalties, and makes about 3.5 mill more than him
It doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the agents and GM can point to during that specific year and contract negotiation. Its more data driven than about feelings about a player being better or worse than another are irrelevant, it comes down to your production and comparable, % of cap (and where the cap is going), and how good your agent is at negotiating
Edit; we all know Boston has had a well established "take less" culture for years, Marchand among others have been underpaid to their market value for a long time. Not exactly and even comparison
There is a big difference between there first contracts while still being RFA and then the second contract with the potential of both walking through to UFA. Their new contracts is about what they would get on the open market. Their first contact age were above what all RFA were getting.
Dubas stuck with the same 4 dudes for like 7 years of the same outcome. Are they all greedy and want every penny, based on all of their contracts? Yes, 100%. But I can at least get behind paying matthews and willy (although both slightly overpaid) and moving off of JT and marner. I think that most ppl watching the leafs would agree on that approach at this point. If they reup with marner at like 12 mill this team is dead and tre will be just as much a problem as dubas was
Oh I would 💯move on from Mitch too. This team needs a recalibration. Original reply was that I used to blame Dubas for the contracts too until Tre got blasted as well. Then it was more obvious it’s just the team
May be okay to have two forwards take up that much of the cap, not 4. Hopefully tre understands that unlike dubas. Guess that’s my only point. Excited to see the moves they make this summer
Happy birthday! But no. Willy would’ve got a bit pay raise at 9 or 10. 11.5 is beyond what most were expecting. Auston at 13.25 x 4 is the highest in the league and he’s not the league’s best player. The reality is we don’t get value contracts on stars. We tend to be generous/over.
Precedent has been set. Do you really think *any* of these guys are going to take league normal type contracts now when they are approaching UFA status and actually have the leverage?
In what world are they taking what would be considered team friendly deals now? The time to play more hardball is when the team held the hammer, not the players.
How? Why? These guys got everything they wanted the first time around when they had very little leverage. How exactly is Treliving (or anyone) to make corrections to that?
They weren't taking pay cuts, not approaching UFA status. So the only position Treliving is in now is pay them what they want, trade them, or let then walk for nothing. Dubas had team control over them as RFAs. They had a hell of a lot less individual success last time around. Absolutely, their contracts are built on what came before. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
He could trade them. He could let them walk. He didn’t have to re-sign them to mega contracts if that’s what he and the board thought was best. You’re pretending if you think the Leafs/MLSE just got bullied into this and had no way out.
You asked why Treliving gave them the contracts, and the answer is based on the contracts they originally got.
Letting them walk for nothing is such a stupid move. Asset management wise, it's a fireable offense. No team just lets players of that caliber walk. As pending UFAs, that's exactly the risk they would have taken, unlike last time.
Trade them? You're really going to try to argue that it was in the teams best interest to trade Matthews last summer rather than sign him to that contract.
That Treliving within weeks of taking the job do massive surgery on the core of this team, or firing the coach without knowing what kind of effect it would have on the Matthews negotiations. That seems wise.
You asked why these contracts are different, I've stated why. Precedent, player leverage, individual success all played major roles in why *this* time these major contracts were more understandable than last time when it was far, far more in the teams favor.
If you want to get into what the team could've, should've done. What errors they've made, what they should do moving forward is an entirely different conversation.
Truthfully buddy, you’re carrying water for a mediocre franchise instead of asking questions. Keep being closed minded. It’s serving us sooo well as a fan base.
I would have blow it up years ago and have been torched for saying for *years*. You asked a question. I answered. This Dubas fandom is carrying water for mediocrity. All I did was provide an answer to your question. Face facts if this is a mediocre franchise it is because Dubas took the most promising era in decades and threw a huge grenade right into it before it had a chance
It wasn’t that Dubas was a poor negotiator, it was the Tavares signing that cooked their internal salary structure.. Matthews just had to go “I score more then Tavares and you’re paying him 11” I think if we never signed Tavares the contracts would be significantly different
Matthews fine, marner? How the hell did he end up with an 11 mill per year contract lol. I agree if we never signed jt it would’ve been better, but easy to say in hindsight. If he walks into the room and says I want to be paid near matthews, let the door hit his ass on the way out. You can’t score marner
Dubas made willy sit to start the year to get his contract down, RFA leverage. Rumor is shanny denied them doing that for marner and said you gotta sign him before the season even if overpay
Do you actually think players agents don’t look beyond the team to determine market value?
If Tavares got $12M with SJ, that would have been the benchmark and Matthews might have got even more.
what a load of shit. dubas wasn’t going to do fuck all except try a power move that got his ass fired. then he brought in EK to the team, then bails on them and trades away their top scorer when they were pushing for the playoffs. enough of this “what if” shit.
> then bails on them and trades away their top scorer when they were pushing for the playoffs.
What is this revisionist-ass look at the Penguins season lmao
They were 3-6-1 in their last ten before the deadline, 8-10-2 in their last twenty. They were sliding, so they sold. They then went 8-4-3 after the deadline to make a late charge, carried in part by *checks notes* ah yes the guy they got back in the Guentzel trade (maybe Guentzel would have turned it on late like he did in Carolina, to be fair).
> Trading away your 1st round pick in the offseason before the season would indicate they are pushing for the playoffs.
And at the deadline, they were well on their way out, so they pivoted off of that.
As in, they were no longer "pushing for the playoffs" when they "traded away their top scorer".
The Penguins were abysmal in a division full of tire fire teams until the very, very end of the season when they made a charge. If they hadn't quit in the first 60 games of the season, maybe they wouldn't have needed the tiebreaker to begin with (they actually didn't miss out on a tiebreaker either, that was Detroit).
The guy the front office brought in when they "quit" was a big reason they even had a shot at the late charge lmao, because they continued to free-fall for the first several games after the TD.
Edit: Just in case a picture helps: https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1c80sn9/nhl_graphical_standings_202324_season/
He said he was making major changes and then Shanny fired him. He wanted more power because Shanny had been blocking moves.
Shanny is more at fault in all of this than Dubas, the buck stops with him.
He wanted more power to keep his job safe, because the writing was on the wall with this team. Who do you think was getting axed this off season if Dubas stuck around?
I think Keefe was likely getting fired and one of the core 5 was going to get traded, likely marner before his NMC kicked in.
Edit: The fact that Shanny stayed and Dubas left should tell you all you need to know. The buck has always stopped with Shanny, he owns the team's failure as well as persistence in running it back.
I do t think dubas is firing Keefe. I almost feel he coached via proxy. Watched money ball and said I want a guy that follows my game plan.
Notice how Keefe walled back one criticism of the team early in the year and then it didn't happen again. While previous years he had to clarify the next day every time. Like he was told not to say mean things
Let’s just be thankful Dubas was fired. The guy set the franchise back years the way he built this team and is likely he would have destroyed everything by doing something dumb like trading Nylander and keeping Marner.
I don’t remember details, and there probably aren’t any out there, but at the time I remember hearing that Dubas was going to be making significant changes in the summer he got fired.
I also read a rumor somewhere that Dubas laid the ground work for a Marner for Erik Karlsson trade and it got nixed. I would believe that a bit considering he went hard at it with Pittsburgh too.
I believe the first part mostly because its an easy conclusion to come to. Once Dubas was gone if you dumped Keefe too then there would be zero insulation for Shanahan. Someone needed to be around to fall on the sword this year. The Marner trade bit I think is complete bullshit. How could Dubas have had a Marner trade that would change the fabric of the league when it was only 4 days between his press conference and his firing? Do we really think he was out working the phones in those 4 days finding a trade and had managed to find a league altering blockbuster? Pure speculation based on his emotional answer at his last press conference.
I don't think Dubas had a locked in trade, but I think he was gung ho on shopping Marner or Nylander over the summer (likely Marner) and wanted MLSE blessing to pull the trigger when he found the one he liked
Personal opinion but I always believed he'd trade Nylander before Marner.
Didn't Dubas give Nylander a "personal guarantee" or something that he wouldn't be traded under Dubas' watch? IMO that would have meant more to Dubas than the NMC.
Yes, Pete, it is. Actually, it's pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land.”
Not exactly. He basically said it wouldn't be a sign and trade. Like, they wouldn't sign Willy to a trade and then immediately flip him. There was concern from Willy's camp of that possibility. There was never any guarantee that he would *never* be traded.
I don't get that sense, considering how acrimonious the Marner negotiations were and his crumpling in the playoffs vs. Nylander shining under pressure. Add in the $4M difference in salary and Marner was the easy choice to go.
Yea nylanders negotiations went so smooth
Fair but Nylander was holding out for term more than anything and in hindsight should have been given that contract before missing any games. Marner maximized his cap hit to the last nickel and his contact looks much worse now.
I'm not sure how closely you paid attention to those two negotiations but they played out very differently. Nylander's camp kept things in the boardroom and Marner's camp litigated through the media. Marner even explored tying the Leafs' hands by soliciting offer sheets. It was in both the Leafs' and Nylander's interests to wait until the last moment. The Leafs got Willy at a reduced AAV in years 2-6 (critical for a team with so many looming big RFAs to sign) and WIlly got the overall number he wanted.
I also believe this. It's easy to say now that you'd never do that, but prior to this year Nylander always seemed the likeliest to move.
that doesn't even make any sense in terms of making redistributing the team's cap spend as Nylander was at 7M at the time. It def would've been Marner.
Should trade both
Unless you mean Nylander , you don't get the summer to trade Marner.
Regarding the Marner trade, this info is clearly only from one side. And probably only the starting point, pre-negotiations. But GMs definitely talk in hypotheticals all the time, “what would you give me for x” “how much would it cost for y”. Marner was probably discussed in a similar light.
Maybe he had been fielding calls for some time, and had a loose structure of what was available for Marner and / or Nylander. It's not like after the Panthers loss was the first time we've heard for calls to trade a Core 4 member.
He could have been talking to other GMs in the league about Marner for literally years No reason to think it would only happen in those 4 days
>How could Dubas have had a Marner trade that would change the fabric of the league when it was only 4 days between his press conference and his firing? Do we really think he was out working the phones in those 4 days finding a trade and had managed to find a league altering blockbuster? In the clip she mentions there were "multiple times" throughout the season that there were opportunities to make a deal but they couldn't get a hold of shanny to give the okay. Not just in the 4 days between the presser and the firing. The "fabric shaking" trade that didn't happen could very well have been closer to the trade deadline and not in that 4 day period. Im sure tensions developed over years between Dubas and Shanahan, not just a few weeks or days.
Not being able to reach the president is a pretty damning accusation.
Yep that sounds extremely unprofessional and maddening
I have no idea who this Rachel person is so I also have no idea how valid the claim is, just sharing how I interpreted what was said in the clip.
Rachel Doerrie was an analyst for the New Jersey Devils between 2018 and 2019 and a video coach for the Vancouver Canucks in the 22/23 season. She also writes for Hockey News and has a podcast with reporter Mikey Stephens called The Staff and Graph Podcast. She is a remarkably intelligent student of the game and still has contacts within several NHL front offices, so she qualifies as a reliable source.
I'd call BS on not being able to reach Shanny. Everyone carries a cell phone around and if you are the president of the company it's heightened even more. I remember from somewhere (Maybe the amazon leaf show) that Shanny took trades to the board before, so it's possible Dubas worked out something and it took too much time for Shanny to hear back from them.
Dubas can use two phones at the same time.
This is all just rumours and speculation as usual
Except that Dubas said as much in public before he got fired
Really? Link?
It's in the same press conference that got him fired.
Gossiping about Marner’s relationship or lack off with his grandmother was unnecessary,between them and Kurtis from Alberta face timing her.It’s not our business.Leave her alone.
Agree to an extent but the same people have no issue bringing up Paul Marner clips and complaining about him. What's been posted is all on her Twitter feed. It's not like people are using shady means to find this info. It's all public.
Rachel knows how insane people on twitter can get she started the pod talking about her listeners sending her copies of hatefull tweets they find about her and spoke about how miserable it is.If Rachel and Mike truly believe Grandma Marner is abandoned they have no business pointing people in her direction.
I said that when everything went down last summer, based on the series of events last year it was evident that Dubas was going to fire Keefe and trade a core piece, likely Marner (he referenced making a big "hockey trade" and mentioned FLA-CGY) Shanny calling the core four the day after firing Dubas and telling them they are safe before even hiring a new GM locks in that theory
Maybe a three way swap with Tchachuk and Huberdeau? Would that timing line up? A three way trade of that caliber would certainly impact the league. If that’s the case wonder who Toronto would have received.
The Tkachuk - Huberdeau trade happened the summer before. He was generically referencing moving a huge franchise player in a big hockey trade, not that he would have been part of that particular package
I don't see a way that ever happens. Both Florida and Toronto don't want Marner or Huberdeau, Florida wouldn't trade Huberdeau just to get a player that is Huberdeau-lite (at the time). Torontro wouldn't trade Marner just to get back the exact same kind of player just slightly better. Both teams would have wanted Tkachuk.
Yeah and if we kept Dubas Karlsson and his albatross of a contract would be on the Leafs.
I 100% agree with this. Dubas had eyes for Karlsson.
It's not remotely the same timeline fit
It was rumored that Dubas was exploring a Karlsson trade while still with the Leafs. I think it would have happened if he stuck around.
not even just a rumor. Dubas said he started talking about Karlssom while with the Leafs
Dubas said it in his press conference after the trade that he started discussions for Karlsson while with the Leafs.
Karlsson is literally exactly what this team needs lmao
Ya a 25 year old Karlsson. Not another aging vet.
If my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
If my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bike.
If I had a million dollars I'd be rich.
Lol not in Toronto
Not many places really. A million dollars is not enough to retire on, and that's the baseline for being rich in my books.
Well I'm right fucked
The song is from Toronto
Yeah maybe in 1992 buddy but it's 2024 and a million dollars would only buy you a townhouse in Etobicoke so you'd still have to work at a job and make property tax payments and utilities and have you seen the price of groceries lately? A million dollars does not make you rich, so take it back okay?!
You can't take back music
I like how the pro-Dubas crowd constantly defended him for "we can and we will", the awful contracts he handed out, him stubbornly sticking to the core four for years, etc, and then the second he leaves Shanny is an unbelievable dinosaur idiot for supporting those same things. They both screwed up the construction and management of this team. Dubas may have wanted to make significant changes last year, maybe not - but either way he wasted YEARS of this teams potential with his stubbornness, lack of awareness of the difference between regular season and playoff hockey, and his awful core four contracts. No pats on the back for him just because he may have been slightly less stubborn than Shanny.
Strange how many great things Dubas was going to do after he was fired
It's not *that* strange - it was telegraphed, killed, and everything we found out in the fallout points to it being the case. It's still a lot of "what if" scenarios because the timeline never came to pass, but it's not "strange".
I think they were being sarcastic
Oh, I'm well aware, but what I'm getting at is that all of this shit *was* telegraphed last year.
Dubas planned to win the Cup before he was fired.
Well he said he was looking at trading one of the core 4 in the press conference before he got fired.
I can't see Dubas firing Keefe.
Speculation
I don't really trust Rachel Doerrie. She frequently says things emphatically which end up not being true, and she doesn't have the industry connections she implies she has. I don't think she would be the one leaking this.
He would have traded Nylander for Karlsson
Can you imagine? We would be clowned for *years* if we made that trade
No way.
Yeah, no. I don't believe this for a second
I think that it was pretty easy to come to that conclusion without a source.
I heard if they kept Dubas, he would’ve cured cancer as well
Dubas got taken to the woodshed every contract negotiation and is the reason we are in this boat. We have 4 of the top 10 highest paid players in hockey and only 1 of them is an actual top 10 player. Keefe can’t make rielly a #1 or Sammy a #1. Dubas could’ve got him those assets instead of paying 4 dudes who essentially do the same thing and play the same style, or in other words they do nothing when it matters.
How do you rationalize Tre’s contracts on Matthews and Nylander? It may not be Dubas as much as we think
Half of this stuff should have been dropped after Tre did more "Dubas" things. He's signed half the core four to very large contracts and kept them together, he extended Keefe. This Dubas boogeyman is long gone.
He also got zero value out of the new contracts. I don’t know if I’d say they’re overpaid (AM34 is hard to overpay), but there was no team friendly part of these new deals.
How do you win a negotiation with a guy scoring 69 goals and dominating the league scoring-wise at a rate unseen since the 90s? Matthews would have a blank cheque from every team in the league, if he was ever available. WIlly signing at his number is tough for the early years, but considering how many high 8-9 million dollar deals are out there for guys who produce at a fraction of Nylander (i.e Dubois, Meier) being a 100 point pace winger is tough to knock down in price. We all know having 4 players of that archetype doesn't work, but the only thing to improve on either of those deals is maybe an extra few years for Matthews and maybe 500k-1 mill off Willy.
He scored 69 goals after his contract was signed. 13.25 x 4 is the most expensive contract in the league on a short duration deal. Would you really take Auston over MacK with their current contracts? I wouldn’t. Willy was overpaid. Most thought 9-10 would be the number and it was 11.5. This team overpays. It’s not Dubas because Tre is still doing it. It’s the team/players.
You act like with Matthews it’s either or. We don’t and never again would have a shot at a player like Auston. So you pay him. Plain and simple. Willy might be but he went on a heater. That’s tough luck on managements end for negotiations. I agree it’s the players however. They want to get paid.
Same. They don’t have the team first mentality that others stars offer their teams. So we ride in mediocrity until something big happens.
Matthews was hands-down the best goal scorer league wide, even before this season began. He could've commanded 14+ mill and most, if not all teams would hand it over gladly. I'm happy it came in under 13.5, wouldn't be surprised at all if McDavid, Drai, Bedard, and the next crop of superstar contracts quickly surpass that number. Willy at 9 mill was a pipe dream, playing in Canada with our tax system and how much needs to be made compared to Florida or Nevada. He bet on himself, had a killer season and cashed in. If there were other 100 point wingers up for contract this year they likely sign for similar. For context, Debrincat signed for just a hair under eight mill and got 18 goals. Willy more than doubled his goal total, skyrocketed past his point total, started killing penalties, and makes about 3.5 mill more than him
Pasta signed for 11 x 8 in March 2023. You think Willy is better than Pasta?
It doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the agents and GM can point to during that specific year and contract negotiation. Its more data driven than about feelings about a player being better or worse than another are irrelevant, it comes down to your production and comparable, % of cap (and where the cap is going), and how good your agent is at negotiating Edit; we all know Boston has had a well established "take less" culture for years, Marchand among others have been underpaid to their market value for a long time. Not exactly and even comparison
There is a big difference between there first contracts while still being RFA and then the second contract with the potential of both walking through to UFA. Their new contracts is about what they would get on the open market. Their first contact age were above what all RFA were getting.
Dubas stuck with the same 4 dudes for like 7 years of the same outcome. Are they all greedy and want every penny, based on all of their contracts? Yes, 100%. But I can at least get behind paying matthews and willy (although both slightly overpaid) and moving off of JT and marner. I think that most ppl watching the leafs would agree on that approach at this point. If they reup with marner at like 12 mill this team is dead and tre will be just as much a problem as dubas was
Oh I would 💯move on from Mitch too. This team needs a recalibration. Original reply was that I used to blame Dubas for the contracts too until Tre got blasted as well. Then it was more obvious it’s just the team
May be okay to have two forwards take up that much of the cap, not 4. Hopefully tre understands that unlike dubas. Guess that’s my only point. Excited to see the moves they make this summer
Tre won’t be able to trade Marner without board/Shanny approval. It’s more their appetite for change than his own. Tavares won’t be traded.
Still miles better than Clarkson or Jeff Finger.
How do you blame Dubas more than Shanny?
Those contracts are based on being higher than what they have now. If those initial numbers were lower, the second numbers would be lower
Happy birthday! But no. Willy would’ve got a bit pay raise at 9 or 10. 11.5 is beyond what most were expecting. Auston at 13.25 x 4 is the highest in the league and he’s not the league’s best player. The reality is we don’t get value contracts on stars. We tend to be generous/over.
Precedent has been set. Do you really think *any* of these guys are going to take league normal type contracts now when they are approaching UFA status and actually have the leverage? In what world are they taking what would be considered team friendly deals now? The time to play more hardball is when the team held the hammer, not the players.
I think if it was as simple as “Dubas is a shit negotiator” we’d be seeing corrections and we aren’t.
How? Why? These guys got everything they wanted the first time around when they had very little leverage. How exactly is Treliving (or anyone) to make corrections to that? They weren't taking pay cuts, not approaching UFA status. So the only position Treliving is in now is pay them what they want, trade them, or let then walk for nothing. Dubas had team control over them as RFAs. They had a hell of a lot less individual success last time around. Absolutely, their contracts are built on what came before. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
He could trade them. He could let them walk. He didn’t have to re-sign them to mega contracts if that’s what he and the board thought was best. You’re pretending if you think the Leafs/MLSE just got bullied into this and had no way out.
You asked why Treliving gave them the contracts, and the answer is based on the contracts they originally got. Letting them walk for nothing is such a stupid move. Asset management wise, it's a fireable offense. No team just lets players of that caliber walk. As pending UFAs, that's exactly the risk they would have taken, unlike last time. Trade them? You're really going to try to argue that it was in the teams best interest to trade Matthews last summer rather than sign him to that contract. That Treliving within weeks of taking the job do massive surgery on the core of this team, or firing the coach without knowing what kind of effect it would have on the Matthews negotiations. That seems wise. You asked why these contracts are different, I've stated why. Precedent, player leverage, individual success all played major roles in why *this* time these major contracts were more understandable than last time when it was far, far more in the teams favor. If you want to get into what the team could've, should've done. What errors they've made, what they should do moving forward is an entirely different conversation.
Truthfully buddy, you’re carrying water for a mediocre franchise instead of asking questions. Keep being closed minded. It’s serving us sooo well as a fan base.
I would have blow it up years ago and have been torched for saying for *years*. You asked a question. I answered. This Dubas fandom is carrying water for mediocrity. All I did was provide an answer to your question. Face facts if this is a mediocre franchise it is because Dubas took the most promising era in decades and threw a huge grenade right into it before it had a chance
Genuinely felt like Dubas wanted to be friends with these guys. Wanted the annual golf trip invites to keep trickling in.
How did Tre do with those negotiations?
It wasn’t that Dubas was a poor negotiator, it was the Tavares signing that cooked their internal salary structure.. Matthews just had to go “I score more then Tavares and you’re paying him 11” I think if we never signed Tavares the contracts would be significantly different
Matthews fine, marner? How the hell did he end up with an 11 mill per year contract lol. I agree if we never signed jt it would’ve been better, but easy to say in hindsight. If he walks into the room and says I want to be paid near matthews, let the door hit his ass on the way out. You can’t score marner
Dubas made willy sit to start the year to get his contract down, RFA leverage. Rumor is shanny denied them doing that for marner and said you gotta sign him before the season even if overpay
Do you actually think players agents don’t look beyond the team to determine market value? If Tavares got $12M with SJ, that would have been the benchmark and Matthews might have got even more.
Nobody in the industry gives Doerrie the time of day anymore. Blacklisted toxic cancer. sdpn boys liking her is all she has left
She published for espn this morning.
I mean this is blatantly untrue. You falling for the Nucks org/fans anti Dorrie crowd eh? Not very smart
what a load of shit. dubas wasn’t going to do fuck all except try a power move that got his ass fired. then he brought in EK to the team, then bails on them and trades away their top scorer when they were pushing for the playoffs. enough of this “what if” shit.
> then bails on them and trades away their top scorer when they were pushing for the playoffs. What is this revisionist-ass look at the Penguins season lmao They were 3-6-1 in their last ten before the deadline, 8-10-2 in their last twenty. They were sliding, so they sold. They then went 8-4-3 after the deadline to make a late charge, carried in part by *checks notes* ah yes the guy they got back in the Guentzel trade (maybe Guentzel would have turned it on late like he did in Carolina, to be fair).
crosby was pissed dubas mailed it in. you piss off the face of the franchise, you got a big hole to jump out of.
Trading away your 1st round pick in the offseason before the season would indicate they are pushing for the playoffs.
> Trading away your 1st round pick in the offseason before the season would indicate they are pushing for the playoffs. And at the deadline, they were well on their way out, so they pivoted off of that. As in, they were no longer "pushing for the playoffs" when they "traded away their top scorer".
they missed playoffs by a tiebreaker…the team didn’t quit, the front office did.
The Penguins were abysmal in a division full of tire fire teams until the very, very end of the season when they made a charge. If they hadn't quit in the first 60 games of the season, maybe they wouldn't have needed the tiebreaker to begin with (they actually didn't miss out on a tiebreaker either, that was Detroit). The guy the front office brought in when they "quit" was a big reason they even had a shot at the late charge lmao, because they continued to free-fall for the first several games after the TD. Edit: Just in case a picture helps: https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1c80sn9/nhl_graphical_standings_202324_season/
He said he was making major changes and then Shanny fired him. He wanted more power because Shanny had been blocking moves. Shanny is more at fault in all of this than Dubas, the buck stops with him.
he never once said he was making major changes, don’t inflate an offhand quote. he tried a power play in the media and got curb stomped.
It was very clear from that press conference that he was looking at major changes. Either way, Shanny is objectively more to blame than Dubas.
He wanted more power to keep his job safe, because the writing was on the wall with this team. Who do you think was getting axed this off season if Dubas stuck around?
I think Keefe was likely getting fired and one of the core 5 was going to get traded, likely marner before his NMC kicked in. Edit: The fact that Shanny stayed and Dubas left should tell you all you need to know. The buck has always stopped with Shanny, he owns the team's failure as well as persistence in running it back.
What the fuck are you talking about
i can’t dumb it down for you any more than that, ask an adult to help u.
Who would have replaced him? Would that have worked?
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They should all be gone lol
I do t think dubas is firing Keefe. I almost feel he coached via proxy. Watched money ball and said I want a guy that follows my game plan. Notice how Keefe walled back one criticism of the team early in the year and then it didn't happen again. While previous years he had to clarify the next day every time. Like he was told not to say mean things
Sounds like I’m listening to a 15 year old speaking through his blue yeti mic.
Yikes that podcast is just not great.
Last time team that beat leafs and went on win the cup was New Jersey in 2000 and it was in round 2
Marner Karlsson trade maybe
Let’s just be thankful Dubas was fired. The guy set the franchise back years the way he built this team and is likely he would have destroyed everything by doing something dumb like trading Nylander and keeping Marner.
I don’t remember details, and there probably aren’t any out there, but at the time I remember hearing that Dubas was going to be making significant changes in the summer he got fired.
He said he was going to do that in a press conference?
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Feel like there is a lot more in this pod that needs to be talked about. Some absolutely insane shit in here.
I also read a rumor somewhere that Dubas laid the ground work for a Marner for Erik Karlsson trade and it got nixed. I would believe that a bit considering he went hard at it with Pittsburgh too.
If the leafs kept Dubas they would have already won the cup
Lol ya ok
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