Dubas has his work cut out in Pittsburgh
Major shifts happening in Eastern Conference
In the end, Kyle Dubas got what he wanted. Now he has to deliver, and it won’t be easy.
Just minutes before his former team the Toronto Maple Leafs’ introductory press conference for new GM Brad Treliving, the Fenway Sports Group’s Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they had hired Dubas.
Meow.
But the curiously timed announcement was not to say that Dubas was hired for the vacant GM’S job but rather that he’s the new President of Hockey Operations and that he’ll be interim GM until he hires someone for the job (i. e. another analyticsminded “progressive” candidate he can tell what to do).
If Leafs head hockey honcho Brendan Shanahan thought that Dubas was after his job, or a good chunk of his power, who could blame him?
But leaving all the power play drama aside, one thing is clear. The job that Dubas has in front of him is going to be a lot more difficult than the one he left behind, even without the frenzy that accompanies all things Leafs.
When Dubas was named Toronto GM by Shanahan in 2018, the building blocks of a very good team were in place. In the years prior to his ascension, they had drafted Morgan Rielly, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews. In his first free agency period as a GM, Dubas beat out, among other teams, the Bruins to sign prized free agent John Tavares, whose desire to return home was strong.
But none of that brought postseason success. The Leafs finally broke the first round curse this year by beating the weakened three-time defending Eastern Conference champion Tampa Bay Lightning in six games, but promptly got bounced by the Florida Panthers in five.
He never quite got the goal
tending or depth right. It looked like this might be the year, when he added former Selke Award winner Ryan O’reilly and hit machine Noel Acciari, plus defenseman Sam Lafferty and defenseman Jake McCabe from Chicago. But the win over the Bolts proved to be his first and last playoff victory.
Now it’s on to Pittsburgh, where he inherits a good coach in Mike Sullivan (smartly given an endorsement by the new guy) and a trio of aging greats in Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, plus a couple of decent younger players in Jake Guentzel and Rickard Rackell. On Friday, Sullivan stressed the need to improve the team speed, and it certainly sounds like the coach and Dubas are in step with each other.
The defense corps, led by Letang and Jeff Petry, is just not very good. Like the B’s, Avalanche and Lightning, the Pens’ prospect pool ranks near the bottom of the league, thanks to years of going all-in at the trade deadline. The goaltending is a huge question mark. They have to figure out if Tristan Jarry, a Ufa-to-be, is their man or not. Casey Desmith appears to be a decent backup but not the guy you want carrying the load. Sullivan hinted that they could be looking to go with more of a 1A-1B situation.
It all adds up to quite a challenge. In his time with the Leafs, fixing the defense and the goaltending was not exactly Dubas’ strong suit. We’ll soon see what and how much he learned while working in the Toronto fishbowl. …
Turmoil in Toronto
As for Treliving landing in Toronto, it was hardly the bold choice that the Leafs made when they elevated the then 31-year-old Dubas to the role of GM back in 2018. That doesn’t mean it was a bad choice. Time will tell on that, but Treliving’s run in Calgary was a mixed bag.
Treliving, B’s fans will remember, made a splash in the summer of 2015 when he facilitated recalcitrant defense
man Dougie Hamilton’s escape from Boston by handing over the Flames’ first-round pick and two second-round picks in a deep draft. Just three years later, Treliving had seen enough of Hamilton and decided to ship him, forward Michael Ferland and the rights to future Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox to Carolina for forward Elias Lindholm and defenseman Noah Hanifin.
Last summer, he was hit with a one-two punch when UFA Johnny Gaudreau decided to sign elsewhere and Matthew Tkachuk informed him that he had no plans to sign long-term.
Put in a bad spot, Treliving made the most out of it, getting set-up man supreme Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman Mackenzie Weegar. With Tkachuk’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals, many have crushed Treliving, but he had to do something, especially in the wake of Gaudreau bolting.
And not that it matters in the overall scheme, but the Flames actually finished a point ahead of the Panthers in the league standings, but
it wasn’t good enough to get into the Western Conference playoffs. Maybe if he had been just as proactive in firing old school coach Darryl Sutter when it was clear he wasn’t getting the best out of new star Huberdeau (he went from 115 points in his last year in Florida to 55 in Calgary), they might have nudged their way into the post-season.
Similar big decisions await Treliving in TO. With the fate of coach Sheldon Keefe twisting in the wind, Treliving’s stated No. 1 priority is gauging star Auston Matthews’ interest in remaining a Leaf beyond this upcoming year, his last under contract. His no-move clause kicks in on July 1. But Treliving made one thing clear. His vision for this team does not necessarily revolve around the supposed “Core Four” — Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander — if there’s no way to move the ball forward with that group intact.
Yes, a Matthews trade would be mammoth. A deal for any of the other three could send out some shockwaves, too. But right now it doesn’t feel such a seismic
move is as unthinkable as it once did. …
Coyote ugly
If you can’t make fun of the Arizona Coyotes, who can you make fun of?
Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy, who often says the quiet part out loud, appeared to get in hot water with, well, someone when he was bemoaning his team’s puck management during his team’s series with Dallas when he decided to add — God forbid — a little color to his commentary.
“We had 24 giveaways,” said Cassidy. “I’m not sure you’re beating the Arizona Coyotes in January with 24 giveaways. That’s no disrespect to Arizona, but it’s not the right way to play.”
The “no disrespect to Arizona” part should have had him covered. But no, Cassidy felt compelled to apologize the next day.
“It was disrespectful,” said Cassidy. “It was a dumb thing to say about puck management, to bring another team in.”
I get it that there are good hockey people working in Arizona and that there are some
good players there as well. But the Coyotes have been propped up by the league for years. They play in a 5,000seat college arena and their town essentially told them they could not care less if the team moved elsewhere. Someone, somewhere is awfully sensitive. …
Short summer for Sweeney
With the calendar turning to June, business will soon pick up for the B’s and GM Don Sweeney, who has a lot of work to do. Presumably, he’ll have an idea by the July 1 start of free agency whether Patrice Bergeron and/or David Krejci will be in the picture, and he’ll have to offload some salary just to fill out his roster, never mind making enough room to sign a UFA like Tyler Bertuzzi, which it’s believed he’d like to do in a perfect world. There are plenty of executives and player agents alike who have their fingers crossed that salary cap bump will be bigger than expected, but Sweeney will still have to make some moves.