When Kyle Dubas arrived to speak at the Maple Leafs’
year-end media availability on May 15th, 2023, his attire was the first
indicator that things weren’t going to go well. A pullover sweater in May is
not a good look. It was reminiscent of the Sally Ann sports jacket Craig MacTavish
wore at one of his last press conferences as the Oilers’ GM a few years ago.
Whether contrived or simply representative of how he felt, the sweater was a
bad omen. The slumped shoulders, the down-beat tone and talk of his family only
confirmed the worst. We were watching either a defeated man or a shameless
manipulator. If you go with ‘manipulator,’ then you have to acknowledge that
Dubas has a crater-sized lack of self-awareness in his personal make-up.
Whatever the truth is, after five years as the Maple Leafs’
GM and nine years in total with the organization, Dubas is out. It’s hard to
believe he was given the chance in the first place. With zero NHL experience,
Dubas was hired as the Leafs’ assistant GM at the age of 28. Four years later,
he was promoted to GM. On-the-job training as an NHL general manager with one
of the league’s most valuable franchises, and the one which undoubtedly
receives more media scrutiny than any other. It’s hard to fathom. But then, the
person instrumental in hiring him, Brendan Shanahan, is also a rookie in his
role as team president.
Though Shanahan had a long and successful NHL playing
career, he’d never had any team-executive experience before signing on with the
Leafs. In turn, Dubas as Leafs’ GM hired his buddy Sheldon Keefe, who also—
that’s right—had zero NHL coaching experience at that time. It wouldn’t be hard
to advance the theory that Shanahan hired a neophyte in Dubas in order to
insulate himself against the aspirations of a more seasoned GM. Shanahan, had,
indeed, hired Lou Lamoriello as the Leafs’ GM earlier and then replaced him
with Dubas. Perhaps taking his cue from Shanahan, Dubas pulled the same stunt
by hiring Keefe as head coach.
Regardless, that’s the situation that existed. Dubas was
handed the dream job of a lifetime without any real experience. So what went
wrong?
You have to first look at Dubas’s record of negotiating
contracts as general manager. When Dubas took the general manager’s reins, the
core of the team was already in place, including Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner,
William Nylander and Morgan Rielly. A few months after boy-wonder Dubas was
handed the keys by Shanahan, Dubas signed John Tavares to a seven-year contract
at an AAV of $11 million. Even at the time, many fans and pundits questioned
the deal. Though Tavares produced for the first four years of the contract
(even in the season just finished his totals were respectable, though 5 on 5
points for him are now rare), he’s now hitting the aging curve hard and will
undoubtedly be shifted to the wing next season. More importantly, the massive
over-payment will be a millstone around the franchise’s neck for the final two
seasons of the deal.
The Tavares deal set the stage for Dubas to renegotiate new contracts
with Nylander, Matthews and Marner. Dubas was taken to the woodshed on all of
those deals, a sequence of failed contract negotiations (read: team-unfriendly)
perhaps unmatched in recent NHL history. All the deals were bad at the time, and
though Nylander’s deal now looks better than the others, they all combined to
handcuff the team and limit the all-important depth pieces that could be added
later. Marner’s contract negotiations were particularly unpleasant and cemented
his reputation as a shameless money grubber whose lack of self-awareness is
maybe only matched by Dubas. While Matthews has improved as a player over the past
few seasons, and his contract’s AAV was acceptable based on his scoring
ability, the term was the real killer. In addition, Matthews has now taken on
the dreaded ‘chronic injury’ label and may never again match his 60-goal,
Hart-trophy winning season.
So Dubas had his skull caved in with the so-called core
four’s contract negotiations. Forty million dollars, nearly 50% of the cap,
tied up in four players. Dubas paid them as if they’d already won a Cup or two.
He tacitly announced he was doing things differently. More than a whiff of
arrogance emanated from Dubas when he discussed the players he’d blessed with
mammoth contracts.
Yes, the Leafs’ regular season record under Dubas’s guidance
as general manager was impressive. But the core four, already in place
when he took over, has failed repeatedly in the postseason and now will
undoubtedly be broken up. Tavares, Matthews, Marner and Nylander are oddly
similar in the way they perform in the playoffs. Gutless, emotionless and
rarely rising to the level of play that their contracts demand. At least
Tavares seems to give an honest effort most of the time. But the other three
regularly disappear for stretches in games and sometimes for full games in the
postseason.
While Matthews has improved his back-checking and
fore-checking and throws more hits than at any time in his career, his demeanor
and actions when challenged are bizarre. There’s literally no fight there when
an opposing player gets in his face. Marner plays scared in the playoffs and
has recently adopted a rictus grin when he’s being rag-dolled by an opponent—the
same kind of grin Matthews has sported for years when someone gets in his face
during a game. And all of those four players deliver eerily similar,
don’t-give-a-fuck responses when their gutless play results in another early
postseason exit.
Dubas’s performance on other fronts is mixed. On trades, he’s
made some horrible blunders, including shipping Nazem Kadri to the Avalanche
for Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot, Mason Marchment to the Panthers for
Denis Malgin, Matt Martin to the Islanders for Eamon McAdam, and a first-round
pick to the Blue Jackets for Nick Foligno. Foligno played 11 games for the
Leafs and accomplished nothing of note, unless you count a staged fight against
Corey Perry in the 2021 playoffs. Dubas also puked up numerous other first-round
picks for various trades, some of them rentals.
On the other hand, Dubas has made some decent trades as well.
The Jake Muzzin trade in 2019 with Los Angeles worked out well until Muzzin’s
body fell apart. Even the trade the following season, again with the Kings,
that brought Jack Campbell and Kyle Clifford to Toronto in exchange for Trevor
Moore and a pair of third-round picks wasn’t too bad at the time. Dubas no
doubt got the best of the Penguins when Toronto received Jared McCann in
exchange for Filip Hallander. The problem was, Dubas promptly turned around and
protected Justin Holl instead of McCann in advance of the Seattle Kraken
expansion draft.
That brings us to one of Dubas’s fatal flaws. He often makes
decisions based on emotion instead of cold, hard logic. Despite all the talk of
Dubas’s reliance on analytics, it’s perplexing how often he goes with sentiment
when making a decision. Mixed in with that emotion is a huge dollop of arrogance.
His decisions as Leafs’ GM were precious to him. Things to be guarded, stroked,
revisited and doubled down on. His invincibly rigid stance on any player he
signed, traded for or otherwise considered ‘his’ is a story of a strange kind
of neurosis. His commitment to the gutless four ensured that the same story
played out postseason after postseason, with the same sullen, vaguely disinterested
post-elimination interviews from players.
And then there’s his pathological obsession with former
players from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, the Ontario Hockey League team Dubas cut his teeth with
on his road to becoming an NHL GM. He started out as a stick-boy with the ‘Soo’
because of family connections and ended up as the team’s general manager. And during
his time as Leafs’ GM, Dubas was often single-minded in his pursuit of signing
or trading for former Soo players. Before the start of the 2022-23 season,
Dubas acquired Soo alumni Matt Murray in a trade with the Ottawa Senators. No
one else in the league wanted Murray, despite the two Cups he won with the
Penguins. In fact, in Murray’s last season with the Sens, they put the
egg-shell fragile goalie on waivers and no one bit. But Dubas knew better. The
rallying cry at the beginning of Dubas’s final season with the Leafs was ‘Matt
Murray’s got a lot to prove.’ This line was repeated numerous times by Dubas,
Keefe and even Shanahan. It was one of the worst trades Dubas made as the Leafs’
GM. His mulish stubbornness ensured his Murray obsession became the final word
on his inability to ever fully sort out the goal-tending situation during his
time with the Leafs.
Dubas’s drafting with the Leafs was also less than stellar.
It’s hard to develop home-grown talent when you keep trading away picks. At
least Leafs fans can probably look forward to Matthew Knies contributing in the
coming seasons, though even that expectation is a bit premature.
Despite all Dubas’s shortcomings, he has many things going
for him. Most importantly, he’s a good communicator and is obviously well liked
by his players and peers. His ability to speak about both the game and the
increasing importance of analytics, and his vision for how to build a winning
team, undoubtedly cast a spell on Shanahan and led to Dubas being hired in the
first place. While he doesn’t speak to the media in public more than any
previous GM, when he does, he is eminently respectful and somewhat forthcoming.
It’s hard to believe that it took Dubas to figure out the ‘speak nicely to
people who buy ink by the barrel’ angle, at least when compared to some of the
blowhard Leafs’ GMs and coaches of the past.
And maybe in this day and age, that ability to communicate
directly with the media and fans is more important than ever. Coupled with
Dubas’s instinct for understanding the zeitgeist and how professional sports
teams now have to be conscious of so much more than in years gone by, it’s easy
to believe that he will land another NHL GM job at some point in the future. Especially
now that his training wheels are off and he will learn from his numerous
mistakes with the Leafs. But there’s a very real chance Dubas has learned
nothing at all.
Of course, there's more to interactions with the media than
speaking in scrums or at press conferences. It’s clear that Dubas has
cultivated some media members to do his bidding in their on-air hits and in the
columns they write. I have no doubt that he leaks info to certain media dupes
and engages in quid pro quos: access and information from Dubas in exchange for
favourable coverage. But not everyone in the media plays along. In a recent 32
Thoughts podcast, Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek discussed a situation in
which Dubas sent a profanity-laced text to them when they mentioned something
on Hockey Night in Canada that didn’t sit right with him. And they suggested it
was something that wasn’t uncommon from Dubas. Once again, arrogance and temper
tantrums. And a personality far different than the one he tries to project in
public.
But what about his relationship with the players? Yes, as
mentioned, it’s obvious the players like him. But then, why wouldn’t they after
the largesse he’s rewarded them with before they’ve won anything? By all
reports, he’s hired dozens or perhaps even hundreds of people within the
organization in an attempt to make life as enjoyable and stress-free as
possible for his stable of millionaire players. And that may be part of the
problem. Together with his penchant for sentiment over stepping on necks when
the time is right, Dubas is loyal to a fault. It’s created a sense of security
among the gutless four, and instilled the idea—confirmed year after year—that
there are no consequences for lack of postseason success. Whether Dubas set out
to cultivate loyal sycophants, or he simply came to the understanding of how
taking care of people pays off, the reality is he likes the outcome. At times
the whole set-up has a vaguely cultish feel to it.
And when Dubas’s arrogance and lack of self-awareness flare
up, things get weird. Those public temper tantrums near the end of the
just-finished season contrast oddly with the image Dubas tries to
maintain. He passed off those incidents as displays of passion. I don’t buy it.
It’s a lack of self control. People with anger problems like to grant
themselves the license to be enraged. I think Dubas wasn’t pleased that he was
left hanging throughout the season without a contract extension. The tantrums were
the result. But Dubas’s end-of-season tantrums aren’t something new. Justin
Bourne, sports-radio host and former video coach for the Toronto Marlies, says
he witnessed Dubas explode on a regular basis when things didn’t go his way.
Framed pictures shattered on the floor and other destroyed objects were often
the result, according to Bourne.
That arrogance was no doubt simmering under the
surface when Dubas took the podium for his year-end media availability. But
what really did him in was his lack of self-awareness and terrible mis-reading
of the situation. Perhaps a touch of greed also spurred him on during that odd
display. After being given the chance of a lifetime by Shanahan, and—have I
mentioned this yet?—having zero experience with an NHL team before the Leafs
hired him, Dubas went with the pity-play and mused that perhaps he did not even want to return as GM.
While Dubas may have discussed this with Shanahan prior to speaking publicly
about it, Shanahan was no doubt stunned to hear Dubas openly expressing doubts
about whether he wanted to sign an extension. After hearing everything that
Shanahan said on Friday, May 19th, it’s hard not to believe that Dubas was
trying to wrong-foot Shanahan and MLSE with this comments earlier in the week.
Dubas has not responded specifically to the timeline laid out by Shanahan.
Which tells me that it's probably accurate for the most part, though Dubas will undoubtedly one day add his own spin to those events.
But let’s get this straight: Dubas mewled and whimpered
about his family and talked about how hard the whole enterprise was while likely making $2 million or more per year? This as the world is coming out of
a pandemic that cost almost seven million people their lives? The resulting
economic convulsions have resulted in housing and affordability crises in
Canada that have crushed thousands and thousands of people. And this little
whiner offers up this horse-shit? He painted himself as invincibly arrogant,
insulated and monstrously self-absorbed. And now we find out that Dubas’s agent
sent Shanahan a new ‘financial package’ on Thursday followed up by an evening
email from Dubas that he was now onboard with returning? Word is that
Shanahan and Dubas were earlier working on an extension that would have given
Dubas $4 million-plus a year over five years. And that wasn’t enough for him? Speculation
floating around online, thought unconfirmed, is that the new ‘financial
package’ was close to $7 million per year. The $4 million per-year offer was
probably double his five-year, on-the-job training contract. And he was looking
to almost double again the offer he’d been discussing with Shanahan?
Something is fundamentally wrong with Dubas if all this
information is correct. And of course, the caveat, especially regarding the contract
details, is that we don’t know for sure. But again, Dubas has not disputed the
series of events that played out as detailed by Shanahan after Dubas’s cringe-worthy
public display on Monday. And so the
whole talk of family starts to look like a ploy. A rather shameless and myopic ploy.
Or maybe both things are true. Perhaps Dubas was genuine when he spoke about
his family. And it just happened to come before he jacked up his salary
request. All that loot would no doubt help ease the stress experienced by his
wife and children. But the quick
turn-around and last-minute request for a huge increase in salary is very
slithery. I don’t see how Shanahan had any choice but to turf Dubas at that
point. If Dubas is willing to play public games to extort salary increases (and
isn’t it rich for Dubas to suggest in his vague statement released on Twitter
that he won’t talk about private discussions?), what other stunts would
he pull in the future?
Perhaps this whole talk of family is a generational thing.
Everyone cares about their family. But to talk about it in such a way that can
be so easily seen as disingenuous is very risky. Psychologists say that pity is
the trump card of sociopaths and hard-core narcissists. That’s not to say that
framing yourself as hard done by makes you a sociopath or narcissist, and I’m not
saying that about Dubas. But by God, suck it up and be grateful for the
privilege of having such a rewarding, high-profile job that would be the envy
of many. His salary probably puts him in the top half percent of all earners in
Canada. I guess attention seeking via airing in public your every weakness,
doubt, grievance and instance of not getting your own way is considered ‘authentic’ nowadays.
But back to the blow-by-blow details which Shanahan provided
regarding the breakdown in talks and eventual firing of Dubas. Some people suggest it was egregious to disclose exactly what happened. Perhaps in
normal situations. But Dubas is the one who got the ball rolling with his
performance at the media availability. Shanahan advised him not to do it. Dubas
did it anyway. Shanahan is his superior and could have told him not to speak in
no uncertain terms. Perhaps at that point, Shanahan still trusted him somewhat.
Following the emoting session by Dubas, Shanahan still trusted him, but unfortunately
for Dubas, it was only as far as Shanahan could swing a bull by its balls. Shanahan
had to get in front of things and advance a narrative. It’s called ‘prolepsis’
(look it up).
Again, the Dubas arrogance and lack of self-awareness. After working alongside each other for nine years, without question Shanahan had
seen other warning signs regarding Dubas. And oh yes, there was another very
public incident that played out under Shanahan’s watch while Dubas was GM. One
that is unique in the history of the NHL. It received almost unanimous praise at the time from Dubas’s sycophants in the media. He’d already built up good relations with
the media at that point. And remember, many of the Toronto hockey hacks
indirectly work for MLSE. Bell and Rogers own MLSE. And Rogers also owns
Sportsnet, which employs numerous fawning, desperate-for-access hockey
journalists. I use the word ‘journalist’ lightly because perhaps no other sports
media outlet employs so many flat-out terrible writers. But that’s the subject
for another article.
So what event am I talking about? The sacking of former
Leafs head coach Mike Babcock. When Babcock was hired by the Leafs in 2015,
there was a lot of fanfare. Babcock was hailed as one of the greatest NHL
coaches ever. And he was paid more than any other NHL coach before or since.
His $8 million per-year contract with the Leafs skewed head-coach salaries sharply
upwards in the NHL. Brendan Shanahan was instrumental in convincing Babcock to
come to Toronto. Babcock had coached Shanahan for a time in Detroit, and
Shanahan couldn’t say enough good things about his former coach. The Leafs
improved under Babcock but still couldn’t break through in the playoffs. But
perhaps more importantly, Babcock didn’t coddle the gutless four. And so, the
time was right when the Leafs got off to a slow start in the 2019-20 season,
and Dubas fired Babcock. Shanahan had to have been on board with the firing.
But what about everything that came after?
As Babcock was on the way out the door, Marner shared his
opinions of Babcock with the Toronto hockey media herd. And what he had to say
wasn’t very complimentary. It seems Babcock has a vicious streak and convinced
Marner to write out a list of who he, Marner, believed were the laziest players
on the team. And then, according to Marner, (and yes, later confirmed by
Babcock) Babcock by accident/on purpose, let some other players know who Marner
had ranked on that now-famous list. The horror! A list! Sure, a bit manipulative if we take Mitchie boy's word for how it went down. But anyone who knows anything about hockey and the history of the
NHL knows how utterly tame that incident really was, regardless of the details. Yes, things in the league have
changed for the better in past decade and nastiness isn’t going to build trust
with players in the long run. But I bet Marner was thrilled at first to think
he was being brought into the inner circle and asked for his opinion.
Regardless, for that knee-capping of Babcock to take place,
a couple of things had to happen. First, Marner and his ‘entourage’ would have
gone to Dubas and told him what they wanted to do. And Dubas would have said
‘Yeah, sure, let’s get it done!’ That’s remarkable. After the Leafs had praised
Babcock as one of the greatest coaches who’d ever lived, they now thought it
was a grand idea to try to ensure that he would never again coach in the NHL.
Was Shanahan fully on board with the career assassination of his former coach?
He had to have been to some degree. But perhaps it was floated to him in one
way and then it played out in a harsher manner than he’d anticipated. Perhaps
Dubas already had numerous staff and management types on his side and made a
real push to show everyone to what lengths he would go to protect one of the
gutless four.
I imagine that whole sordid affair was in the back of
Shanahan’s mind as he laid out the timeline of poor little hard done by Dubas’s
final days with the Leafs. One interesting footnote to the Babcock affair: Babcock
and Dubas’s contracts expire on the same day: June 30, 2023. Except Babcock got
paid a lot more not to coach the Leafs than Dubas did to perpetrate his failed
on-the-job training experiment on the team. Regarding that huge amount of money
that Babcock was paid for four years after being fired: even for an empire like
MLSE, $20 million for not coaching is a lot of money. That must have grated and was likely a
black mark on Dubas’s record (and Shanahan’s) as far as MLSE was concerned.
It now appears that Dubas will take some kind of management
job with the Pittsburgh Penguins only a week or so after he said it was Leafs
or no one. And right on schedule, the media shills say that going against his
word doesn’t really matter. It does matter. It shows him to be a shameless manipulator
willing to say and do a lot to get what he wants. He thought he was rocking
MLSE with Machiavellian masterstrokes, but he was really offering up cack-handed
blunders that highlighted him as the lacking-in-real-world experience novice he
actually is.
His most loyal media lackeys are currently in full
cloak-and-dagger, palace-intrigue mode. A couple of The Athletic’s writers are
doing their best to please Dubas with teary-eyed pieces about the emotional
destruction suffered by the servile troops left behind to soldier on without
their fearless leader. These are some real hyper-sensitive Leafs staff members
who need immediate triage for the horror they’ve experienced. What trauma did
they go through? They had to watch the person who handed them their cushy jobs
find out what consequences are all about.
Another access-seeker who likely fancies himself a real
operator in the world of ‘NHL insiders’ says that Dubas’s words about not going
elsewhere no longer matter because of a ‘paradigm shift.’ Mind you, he’s the
same person who claimed that Auston Matthews’s vicious cross-check into the
side of Rasmus Dahlin’s head at the 2022 Heritage Classic in Hamilton wasn’t
what it seemed. Trying to defy reality but failing miserably, the
journalist in question said that Matthews didn’t drive the cross-check into
Dahlin’s head at all. In fact, the fabulist claimed, Matthews drove the vicious
blow into Dahlin’s shoulder, and pesky fantasy-world physics did the rest. No
one bought it, least of all the NHL, who assessed Matthews a two-game
suspension for the gutless assault. Nothing warmed Dubas’s heart during his
time as Leafs’ GM more than a loyal media boot-licker going to bat for one of
the gutless four, regardless of how unhinged or divorced from reality the claims
may have been.
So the fallout from the media availability, Dubas’s sacking
and Shanahan’s public account of how it all went down has included numerous
questionable articles in the media. Though it may seem like ex-post-facto
reasoning, the flood of nonsense from Dubas’s media shills lends support to the
logic behind Shanahan’s sharing of details at that press conference. Even if he
hadn’t done that, the innuendo and gossip about a supposed power struggle would likely have shown up anyway. Shanahan had learned enough about Dubas to understand
what he was dealing with. So he protected himself.
This is not to suggest that Shanahan looks good after all
the melodrama. He doesn’t. But getting his side of the story out first makes
more sense than ever after the articles and leaks which have followed. And it's important to note that not all hockey writers are going along with the
Dubas-friendly narratives being peddled. Push-back has appeared and more is
coming. As mentioned, Friedman and Marek are offering up less than flattering
accounts of blunder boy’s time as Leafs’ GM. Friedman is one of the most
reliable NHL insiders. He covers the entire league instead of one team and
strives for accuracy and fairness. He apologizes when he screws up. And based
on everything else we know about Dubas, Friedman and Marek’s anecdotes have the
air of truth about them.
And what exactly does Fenway Sports Group see in Dubas? I’m
not exactly sure. They’re on record as saying that no one they currently employ
really knows anything about hockey. But for whatever reason, they like the cut
of Dubas’s jib. His communication skills (when he’s not in tantrum mode) have
got to appeal. And his ability to develop mutually beneficial relationships
with the media also have to be a selling point. Similarly, years of postseason
failure with the sword hanging over his head but never falling, has got to
impress his potential new bosses. And Fenway have made it clear, through the
forced actions of Ron Hextall and Brian Burke in their final season with the Penguins,
that Fenway, like Dubas, understands the importance of coddling and hanging
onto to marquee players, no matter their age or ability to deliver when it
matters most.
Or maybe, more simply, they just speak the same language as
Dubas. They come from the same privileged backgrounds and can speak off the
cuff, crafting clever new platitudes on the fly while using all the right words
to appeal to the emotions of the fan base. Perhaps that dubious display of
emotions in Dubas’s final press conference with the Leafs actually impressed
them. In the modern era of North America’s bloated, 30-plus-team professional
sports leagues, winning may come along but once or twice in a generation. Or
not at all. Maybe hiring a GM who can spin narratives, feign emotions when
necessary, and be someone younger fans can identify with, is now more important
than having a winning record.
But if they don’t know much about hockey, what are they
going to ask Dubas when they sit down to interview him for some kind of
management role with the Penguins? Maybe they’ll go with the free association,
get-to-know-you-over-several-days-and-different-interactions type of
examination. Stand to the side and see how Dubas performs when interacting with
Penguins players for the first time. Get him yapping about his vision for the
team and see how well he distills esoteric information into something the
layman can understand. Invite him for a nice dinner at a restaurant with some
important people, get a few drinks in him and see if his table manners hold up.
And then when he’s feeling relaxed and thinking it’s his job to lose, hit him
with one of those classic questions and gauge his response. “So, Kyle, can you
tell us what really happened?”
Dubas is one of those hipsters of a certain age
who thinks he’s got the world figured out, but as his actions have
demonstrated, he’s still got a lot to learn. In short, he’s a punk. He’s been
involved in hockey his entire working life and obviously has some gaps in
knowledge about the ways of the world. Here’s a hint, Dubas: if they ask you
that question, offer a bland, diplomatic, anodyne dodge and that’s it. If you
give them the real dirt, then they immediately wonder what you’ll say about
them when they’re not around. Got it?
Almost certainly, Fenway will want to probe Dubas about that
now-famous media availability. Though they probably won’t phrase it so
directly, what they really want to know is: “Could you one day do the same
thing to us as you pulled with MLSE (negotiating through the media, using the
pity card etc.)?” As mentioned, there well may have been aspects of Dubas’s
performance that appealed to Fenway. Shamelessly manipulating the fan base and
doing whatever necessary to save your own skin is one thing. But when it was
apparent Dubas was playing games with the people who paid his salary
and tolerated the team’s lack of success under his watch, then Fenway’s ears
likely pricked up. It’ll be a tough one, but they’re likely looking for a ‘What
have you learned?’ type of response.
It would have been fascinating to sit in on that final
meeting with Shanahan and Dubas. When Shanahan stood, swung the metaphorical
ball-peen hammer and landed the blow directly between Dubas’s eyes with the news
that Dubas would not be returning as Leafs’ GM, how did Dubas react? Did he cry
out? Slump into his chair, defeated? Stare, uncomprehending? If his past
actions are any guide, my guess is he lashed out with a temper tantrum for the
ages.
Whatever happened, it’s almost certain that waves of
life-altering regret are currently washing over Dubas. He’s a bit too young
now. But in ten years or so, depending of course on what comes next in his
career, when the mortal bell is tolling not as far off in the distance as it
once was, the true horror of what Dubas did to himself, and yes, his
family, too, will come down on him like the proverbial ton of bricks. But at the moment, perhaps he's so monstrously arrogant that he's now driven on by rage that he
couldn’t finagle things to a situation he felt he deserved.
One thing is
certain, employers and employees never get exactly what they expect. Dubas may
find that, if he’s hired by Fenway in some management capacity with the
Penguins, he might walk into a situation where he has less autonomy than he had
with the Leafs. And Fenway may soon realize that Dubas isn’t the genius they
thought he was.
