Kyle Dubas probably regrets ugly fallout with Leafs these days
When Kyle Dubas left the Toronto Maple Leafs last spring, it was the shocking end of an era for one of the most polarizing management figures in hockey in quite some time.
Dubas, who joined Toronto’s front office some nine years prior as a 28-year-old former OHL GM with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, seemed to be fighting a constant battle to prove himself against the NHL’s “old guard” of seasoned executives during his whole time with the Leafs.
In his final press conference with Toronto, Dubas appeared to speak from the heart — he said the 2022-23 season was hard on his family and that he wasn’t quite sure what the future held for him.
With his five-year general manager contract set to expire, Dubas essentially said it was either Toronto or nowhere that he would return to the Leafs in 2023-24 or take some time away from the NHL.
It was a rare moment of true human transparency from a sports executive, and the Leafs let him go just four days after that press conference.
Toronto president Brendan Shanahan admitted that Dubas’s press conference — which he wasn’t all that thrilled with his GM doing in the first place until Dubas’ contract situation was decided — caused a bit of a shift in how he saw the organization’s future and played a part in Dubas’ departure.
Dubas’s mind obviously changed as well when he was offered the job to run the Pittsburgh Penguins less than two weeks after leaving Toronto.
The opportunity to run one of hockey’s most iconic franchises would be enticing to just about anyone, with trying to build a contender in the final years of future Hall of Famers in 36-year-old Sidney Crosby and 37-year-old Evgeni Malkin seemed ready-made for Dubas.
Details emerged of Crosby and Dubas having a late-night meeting at the team facility to talk about the direction of the franchise, with the two seemingly on the same page.
He made a major splash in August when acquiring reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson from San Jose and said all the right things about returning Pittsburgh to the juggernaut franchise they’d been known as for much of the past two decades.
But following his first trade deadline with the team, Dubas’ situation in Pittsburgh hasn’t been rosy at all. The franchise sits some eight points out of a playoff spot and is in danger of missing the playoffs for the second year in a row after qualifying every year from 2007 to 2022.
Pittsburgh ended up as sellers this year, making three deals over the last two days, including longtime team forward Jake Guentzel.
When asked about the Guentzel deal, Crosby himself spoke highly of the player but didn’t seem all that enthused about the deal overall, directing the question back to management, aka Dubas, the one-man team president and general manager.
"I don't know. It's probably a better question for them."
Sidney Crosby when asked about the message management sent by trading Jake Guentzel 🎙️
(via @penguins) pic.twitter.com/xrlyBa3R7c
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 8, 2024
Even if his tenure in Toronto ending wasn’t totally in his control, there’s probably a part of Kyle Dubas that wonders how exactly things would’ve gone had he just been given the shot to continue with the Leafs rather than join a completely new organization with a set of unique problems he inherited with a rather short timeline to solve.
Perhaps a bit more of a commitment to the Leafs would’ve enticed Shanahan to keep Dubas, and perhaps waiting out his end-of-season press conference might’ve allowed a clearly emotional general manager a week or two to better clear out his thoughts. Of course, Toronto went a different route, eventually hiring Brad Treliving as his replacement.
Meanwhile, it’s not too sure that the Leafs are doing much better without Dubas than they would’ve with him. Toronto’s on pace for 104 points this season, some seven and 11 points lower than each of the last two seasons.
It’s not hard to play the “what if?” game given the fallout and wonder how exactly Dubas — and the Leafs, and the Penguins — might have been different if not for his fateful firing last spring.
- You might also like:
- Leafs make last-minute trade with Minnesota Wild