Dubas believes he’s on the right path
Kyle Dubas might be wrong. He will tell you this as he states something he deeply believes, something he has studied, something he has devoted his waking hours to building brick by brick. He might be wrong, he will tell you. He doesn’t believe in being too sure.
Entering his second year as general manager of the Maple Leafs, the 33year-old Dubas has already seen some heavy weather. The William Nylander contract was a mess, before and shortly after. The Auston Matthews contract was internally seen as inevitable, because what if he ever went to market? The Nazem Kadri trade came after another seven-game, first-round loss in Boston. And as of this writing, Mitch Marner’s contract remains unsolved after 16 months. That’s the last big step, for now.
And when Mitch arrives, if he does, Dubas will unleash a team that is closer to his vision of fast, skilled, dragster hockey than anything this franchise has seen.
“If we’re going to be wrong — and this could be something that gets thrown in my face in time — you’d rather be wrong following the vision that you have and you’ve charted,” Dubas says, sitting in his Mastercard Centre office, a framed Bill Belichick poster looming behind his desk. “I just think that if we continue to move forward the way that we really want to play, that it’ll be proven out over time whether it’s successful or not.”
The Leafs were fourth in goals scored last season and 12th in goals against, and coach Mike Babcock spent the year griping that they needed to be harder to play against, that they needed to play hockey that started with defence. The St. Louis Blues won the Cup — over the team that beat the Leafs in the first round in seven games — and playing the Blues resembled skating through thornbushes.
So Toronto pushed closer to Dubas hockey. Among the changes, he chucked the last of coach Mike Babcock’s comfortable toys — Patrick Marleau, Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev. Get the puck, move the puck, play with skill and speed, go. New defenceman Tyson Barrie is second in points per minute played among defencemen over the past two seasons, two spots ahead of Morgan Rielly. Some edge additions tend toward versatility — Alexander Kerfoot, like Nic Petan and even Nick Shore, can play centre and wing — and maybe Toronto’s scouts have unearthed other undervalued gems. They even think defenceman Cody Ceci may have some upside hidden in those awful analytics. It has required certain philosophical choices, and again, Dubas admits he might be wrong.
He has paid his stars — John Tavares, Matthews, Nylander and Marner could combine to cost between $37 million and $40 million (U.S.) — and admits the Tavares signing raised the ceiling on what the franchise would pay its best players.
“If that’s the cost, having John has been worth it,” Dubas says.
“His performance, 47 goals last year, and who he is and what he brings, that’s completely subjective, but you can feel it in here. You can objectively look at what he does for every player that he’s played with for the last six or seven years and see his impact on them, when they play with him, when they play without him, and you can quantify that. And I just think that we would never change anything about that.”
Other teams call to check if those stars are too expensive, and the Leafs have said no. Dubas has decided to pay the players you can’t otherwise buy, and rely on the organization he has built to unearth value in the rest of the roster, in free agency or the draft. Or as he puts it, grinning, “We have to continue to get players in, and develop the s--- out of everybody.”
Dubas is still evolving as a GM, but that’s by design. His voracious book-reading continues — he is partway through Loonshots by Safi Bahcall. He read Leadership In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke, too. Range, by David Epstein, is next.
Similarly, his belief in hockey style isn’t just about hockey. He figures soccer, which he started paying attention to back when he was the GM in Sault Ste. Marie, is played on a bigger field, but includes offside, a goalie, and multiple styles of play. His favourite style, and the best, is what’s being mirrored here.
“I mean, it’s not just my idea: it’s backed from other sports, and how other teams in hockey have played,” Dubas says. “So (Dutch soccer legend) Johan Cruyff, and (Manchester City manager) Pep Guardiola, and (Liverpool manager) Jurgen Klopp, and so many other teams, they all went through the same (external doubts), especially Guardiola … You can be a team that just plays with the long ball, chases down the second ball, or you park the bus and you’re really defensive and you counter attack and you take advantage of your chances.
“Or you’re a team that possesses the ball for 60 to 70 to 80 per cent of the game, you focus on short passes, and then when you don’t have the ball you press like mad to get it back, and you focus on getting the ball, get the ball, pass the ball, and work your way up. And I think for one, it’s excellent to watch versus the other, and the players all require skill but they also require — everyone thinks that it’s all offensive, but it’s tenacious defending. And if you don’t press and you’re not a tenacious defender all over, you’re coming off.”
Get the puck, move the puck. Dubas figures this team can settle in after Marner signs, but then, most of the defence hits free agency next year, and goaltender Frederik Andersen and defenceman Morgan Rielly come up in the years after that.
The organization has to keep evolving, and Dubas has to shape it. So he has to continue to evolve, too. Ask him how he’s better at the job now, and he doesn’t hesitate.
“It’s an easy answer: We’ve gone through a year and made lots of mistakes,” he says. “And you go back through the year, and look at the mistakes, some of them were errors in process, which to me is a cardinal sin, but they were mistakes ... (So you ask), ‘Was it a good decision? Was the process good and the outcome was just bad? Or was it a bad process?’ And there were some that were bad process. Like the way we handled William’s contract, front and centre.”
And now Marner’s contract is the echo, with dangers for both sides: Nylander provided a leverage blueprint, and showed the costs to both sides in how his disappointing season unfolded after he signed. Toronto has been knocked out in the first round for three years running.
The cheap entry-level deals for the stars are gone. Dubas knows what’s at stake, every year.
“I think the players know that they don’t want to squander anything else,” he says. “And it may or may not work out that way. But every day’s a good opportunity, and now for this group, because of its talent level, every year’s a huge opportunity for them.”
He has charted the course based on what he has learned and what he believes, and based on what he had to work with. Every decision will reverberate, and could be the tiny difference between success and failure. It’s a lot of pressure, and there’s a lot riding on it. Kyle Dubas might be wrong, and he knows that, every day. But then, he might be right, too.