TORONTO – Kyle Dubas showed more candid emotion and raw accountability in his 15-minute end-of-season meeting with the press than most of his core players have displayed in the wake of their seven early playoff bow-outs.
All that twisting in the wind, all that post-season disappointment, all that unrequited belief has pitted the executive at a philosophical and — above all — a familial crossroads.
If intangibles like effort or passion are sometimes pointed to as deficiencies of the Toronto Maple Leafs core he so handsomely paid and fiercely defended for six summers, they are also the hallmarks of a young, combustible general manger who poured everything he had into this franchise and is now wondering if he still has more to give.
Dubas spoke of his long, positive relationship with the crowded ownership board and president Brendan Shanahan, who ultimately bet on the puck-possession upstart over Lou Lamoriello’s old-school approach when it came to building this club.
Yet the men in charge of the man in charge sat back comfy in the shadows during the Leafs’ tensest season of memory and let lame-duck Dubas take all the heat, all the questions, and all the reaction shots on national TV.
A cracked voice. A forced joke. Another post-loss press conference with the same old questions and same old disappointment.
On garbage bag day, pressure didn’t look much like a privilege from the general manager’s hot seat.
Fans can see the all-consuming gig is taking a toll on Dubas. He’ll unleash a profanity-laced defence of Morgan Rielly and Leafs Nation at a bunch of rowdy Lightning fans in Tampa Bay. He’ll hurl a water bottle in anger. He’ll protest bad calls and celebrate winning calls with WWE-level vigor.
What they cannot possibly see is the stress this relentless pursuit is causing inside his home, on wife Shannon and their young children.
“It’s been (a) very taxing year on them. And that’s obviously very important to me,” said Dubas, an impending free agent.
“My family is a hugely important part of what I do. So, for me to commit to anything without having a fuller understanding of what this year took on them, it’s probably unfair for me to answer where I’m at. I wish I could give you more. But we haven’t been able to have those full discussions yet. But it was a very hard year on them.”
So hard, Dubas says he doesn’t have eyes of Pittsburgh or Ottawa or any other potential suitors if he cannot hammer out an extension with the Maple Leafs.
“I definitely don’t have it in me to go anywhere else. So, it’ll either be here, or it’ll be taking time to recalibrate, reflect on the seasons here,” Dubas said.
“But you won’t see me next week pop up elsewhere. I can’t put them through that after this year.”
Reporters came to the Leafs headquarters armed with questions, fired them at the principles over an eight-hour slog, and left with more.
We don’t know if Dubas will be back.
We don’t know if head coach Sheldon Keefe will be back. Although, unlike 2022’s exit, Dubas did not endorse his go-to bench boss: “A full, conclusive answer on that, I think to do so right now would be too hasty.”
We don’t know, for certain, if Shanahan himself will be back. The president was curiously unavailable and will speak in coming days, leaving Dubas to field the bullets unshielded.
“I’m responsible. So, the decisions made on trades, on roster, everything, they’re on me. So I feel like I should sit and take responsibility for them,” Dubas said. “It’s on me.”
Most intriguing: We don’t know if the Core Four — Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander, comfy and under contract as they are — will all return to their usual stalls and haute couture smoothies next fall.
Dubas pointed directly to the team that ousted the Leafs, the Florida Panthers, for providing the template of a blockbuster. Yes, the Cats won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022, but that didn’t stop them from firing their Jack Adams finalist coach (Andrew Brunette) and trade two core franchise pieces (Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar) to Calgary in an effort to become a better high-stakes club.
“It’s a big move, but I don’t think it was hastily done,” Dubas said.
“I would consider anything with our group here that would allow us a better chance to win the Stanley Cup. I would take nothing off the table at all. And I think everything would have to be considered with regards to anything to do with the Leafs.”
Seventh time’s the bomb.
Dubas always despised the just-win-a-round narrative. The goal is to win four. And the core he has septupled down on has let him down. Maybe for the final time.
“Perhaps the path needs to shift slightly. It needs to be adapted slightly. And you get in between persistence and full belief versus being a little too staunch and rigid,” Dubas said.
“That’s the question I would take the time for myself in reflecting on the year, and then decide on that heading into the spring towards the draft and free agency.”
Matthews and Marner have full no-move clauses kicking in July 1.
Tavares already has that security and has no desire to relinquish it, nor the captaincy.
Nylander can submit a 10-team no-trade list on Canada Day.
All four of them reaffirmed their desire to stay put and run it back Monday.
“Yeah, of course. My intention is to be here. I think I’ve reciprocated that before, how much I enjoy playing here and what it means to me, the organization, my teammates and how much I just enjoy being here,” said Matthews, who would prefer to lock down his deal before camp. “I really do enjoy playing here. It’s a true honour.”
Matthews has a strong relationship with Dubas. No doubt he’d prefer the current GM to sign his next contract. But even Toronto’s superstar centre — a major stakeholder here — isn’t sure how this off-season will shake out, top down.
“The sense is it’s kind of up in the air. There’s stuff that’s out of my control, and I can’t comment on that,” Matthews said. “My belief in our core players and the guys that have been here has never wavered. And I still believe in that.”
The Leafs’ last major pending UFA, Morgan Rielly, found an extension with relative ease.
“I think the world of Kyle,” Rielly said. “He’s a world-class GM. I’m not in charge of what happens with his next contract. But everything he did was in the team’s best interest. He put us in a position where we had a chance to play and to win and to succeed.
“Ultimately, the players were the ones on the ice at the end of the season.”
Players whom Dubas put in a position to succeed.
Players he might now walk away from.
“I’m an emotional person,” Dubas said. “I’m deeply passionate about what we do and our people here, the people I work with, the people who we’re forming.
“This is me. I’d like to say I’m able to not be that way or not be happy or angry when things don’t go well. But this is me.”
Dubas is sitting in the disappointment, owning the failure, wrapping his brain around an uncertain future.
That he’s wearing his heart on his sleeve while doing so is painful. It’s also refreshing and new.
The guard is down.
And, finally, the guardrails that allowed everyone under the GM’s chair to cruise along carefree, they may be down too.
“It’s a feeling that’s all too familiar,” Rielly said. “But every year feels a little bit different.”
Especially this one.
