One of Kyle Dubas’ lasting legacies with the Toronto Maple Leafs was his inability to reach team-friendly contracts with his superstar players — if you view this as a fault, of course. The permutations of the salary cap are confines that every general manager needs to work around and Dubas often paid his players greater than market value, while negotiations often stalled into the proverbial 11th hour.
Dubas seems to be aware of his Maple Leafs’ legacy. In a forthcoming book written by The Athletic’s Craig Custance, titled The Franchise: The Business Of Building Winning Teams, Dubas admitted his greatest regret during his tenure with the organization.
“The biggest mistake I think I’ve made in my whole time here has been not taking care of the three incumbent contracts,” Dubas told Custance. “(William) Nylander was up, (Mitch) Marner and (Auston) Matthews could have been done on July 1 extensions
The book is expected to be released in October 2024. As for Dubas, it’s a candid, self-aware admission that he needly lost some negotiations with the core members of the Maple Leafs’ organization. Nylander ended up signing a six-year, $41.4 million extension in 2018 at the last minute, requiring a new contract to become eligible to participate in the 2018-19 season. It was a sign of things to come as Marner briefly staged a holdout before signing a long-term pact with the Maple Leafs in September 2019.
Toronto’s roster-building under Dubas’ supervision was routinely criticized for being too top-heavy and while both Dubas and the Maple Leafs certainly don’t regret the successful pursuit of John Tavares, perhaps there’s a message to be found here: sometimes, there’s no optimal value to be found in contract negotiations, getting a deal done in a timely manner usually bodes well for the club.
Dubas has since taken over as president of hockey operations for the Pittsburgh Penguins since June 2023, bringing Jason Spezza with him immediately. Wes Clark, Toronto’s former head scout, who was responsible for the Easton Cowan and Ben Danford selections, joined the Penguins earlier this week. There are going to be many lessons for Dubas to draw from relatively early in his career and it’ll be fascinating to see if history repeats itself with the Penguins.
H/T Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun.
