Dubas offers up confidence
GM upbeat about prospect of reaching long-term deals with Matthews and Marner
Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas remains steadfast he can sign star forwards Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews to new long-term contracts before free-agent season next summer and develop the current roster into a championship team.
Dubas, in a wide-ranging scrum with media after practice Monday, was most pointed when discussing contracts for his two young superstars. The subject of offer sheets for Matthews and Marner didn’t cause him a moment’s hesitation.
“Our salary cap situation is set up in a way that we could defend any of those threats with no worry at all,” Dubas said. “I know that they’ve become a huge topic of late, but I spend zero per cent of my time having any worry about that.”
Both Marner and Matthews close out the final year of their three-year, entrylevel contracts this season. That juncture has long been circled on the Leafs’ calendar, with Dubas coming under an increasingly intense spotlight as he negotiates two deals that will undoubtedly be expensive. In addition, they will almost certainly define the early years of his GM tenure and the shape of the Leafs’ roster and direction moving forward for the next several years.
At the moment there is no reason to believe Dubas can’t pull off new long-term deals for the 21-year-olds, both of whom will become restricted free agents if they do not sign new deals by July 1.
Dubas remains confident both will be under contract by then, but if they aren’t they can be approached with an offer sheet by any NHL team and the Leafs will have the option to match the deal or receive compensation from the team that signs their player.
Among Dubas’s challenges will be that Marner and Matthews could be joined by Kasperi Kapanen, Andreas Johnsson, Igor Ozhiganov and Garret Sparks in restricted free agency next summer. Jake Gardiner, Ron Hainsey, Martin Marincin, Par Lindholm and Tyler Ennis will all be eligible for unrestricted free agency. Dubas is also expected to have workable cap space entering next summer’s off-season, with $23 million (U.S.) available, according to CapFriendly.com.
“If a team wants to go down that path with us, that’s the way it goes,” Dubas said of the potential offer sheets for Matthews and Marner. “
“But our focus will be to continue to work with these players (on new deals). The players have both stated they want to be here and it’s our goal to continue to work with them and their agents towards an agreement.”
Depending on who you talk to, Marner’s projected salary demands could come in at a low of $8 million to a high of $10 million. Nothing official, though, from Marner’s camp, which is believed to have already given the Leafs a hometown favour when he was asked to forgo most or all of the Schedule B bonuses in his entry-level contract. Matthews, who has more goals per game than any player since he entered the NHL in 2016-17, is also somewhat unpredictable in what he might command. Estimates have pegged his potential salary in the Connor McDavid category or higher — a cap hit of roughly $12.5 million per season.
“It’ll be our intention to try to get those (done) as soon as possible,” said Dubas, who says he wants to avoid the impasse that arose with William Nylander, one that cause the younger winger to miss the club’s first 27 games this season while negotiating a six-year, $45-million deal.
“We want to avoid the situation we were just in (with Nylander) … we’re completely in control of that this time in that there’s no excuse that I can’t say, ‘Well I wasn’t doing this job a year ago.’ We have to continue to work away with them. It (will) be our intention well before July 1 that we have an agreement and both players are here long-term. One way or another we’ll get to that point.”
Dubas’s biggest challenge, though, will be the changing landscape around his two young guns.
Marner has exploded over the past 18 months into one of the finest playmakers in the NHL and has become, arguably, the Leafs’ best player, day-in and day-out. He’s routinely regarded as the player who “drives” the team, all of which has elevated his value from last June when reports suggested it “was the time” for the Leafs to lock Marner up.
Marner is now on a 95-pointplus pace this season but would rather deal with contract talks after the season. Matthews, apparently, remains fluid in terms of the timing of a new deal, but his status as one of the game’s elite goal-scorers could translate into one of the game’s most expensive contracts, if not the most expensive.
In the meantime, Dubas also expressed confidence when the subject of his team’s toughness was raised Monday.
“For whatever reason, that takes on a life of its own — the whole toughness question,” Dubas said.
“I look at Tampa Bay, they’re eight or nine points ahead of us now and they built their team their way. I understand it’s at every level, whether it’s been Sault Ste. Marie or the Marlies (his past GM jobs), it’s been the same question. I just ... I don’t buy it, myself. I know that there are a lot of pundits that say you have to have it, but I look at the teams that have had success and I don’t think bringing in one big person is going to change our culture and it’s not going to have us carry on with the process we’ve started.
“We want to have skill, we want to be fast and we want to be competitive. I don’t really think the way the league is going that having someone that can come in and fight or anything like that ... is going to change that.
“We’ve got a way that we want to play and we’re just going to carry on with that. In the end people will judge whether it was effective.”