1. The person an employer is negotiating with for a contract extension suddenly questions if he wants the job an...

I do kind of have to cut you off there because that's where we kind of get into the stuff we don't actually know and has just been floated by various "insiders" who may or may not have agendas here. We don't know the specifics of what Dubas asked for money-wise or autonomy-wise and absent those specifics I'm not sure it's a super fertile ground for meaningful discussion outside of going back and forth on my positions that A) I don't give the slightest damn how much MLSE pays the guy they identified as the right guy to take the team forward and B) I, generally speaking, think the GM should have autonomy in making hockey decisions.

2. The context by which you used "good ol boy" characters the hiring, and Treliving, in a negative light. Other than the lack of an "exhaustive search" (and, I guess, the fact that Treliving's father isn't a loner with less effluent friends), I don't see what it is about Treliving's track record that makes him that much of a worse candidate than Dubas or a "musical chair" hiring, for that matter. Treliving has had exactly one stint in the GM position and was fairly successful (arguably no less successful than our outgoing GM, who, apparently, was also a musical chair hire, considering how quickly the Pens' process was done and him having the same amount of GM'ing experience as Treliving).

I mean, it strikes me as slightly disingenuous to suggest the Tanenbaum thing is about his wealth and not, you know, the fact that he owns the Maple Leafs which seems somewhat relevant to the discussion of whether this hire feels merit based or insider-y but sure, we can get deeper.

To start, I'm not sure that Treliving is a much worse candidate than Dubas for the job. Again, if the Leafs had said "We don't think Kyle's the guy we need to take the next step" after the season and just fired him, I'd have been ok with it. If I had to grade his tenure I'd give him a B or something. I'd still have preferred stability going into this off-season but the idea that he was the best of all possible candidates has never been my position. To not thoroughly search for either A) A bright young mind in the vein of Dubas or B) Someone with a proven track record of big success in the NHL but to instead come back with a guy without that track record and who the best thing you could say about him is "Well, he's not significantly worse than Dubas anyway" then does strike me as going with the worst of both worlds. Instability and no real reason to think the Leafs have made an upgrade.

Again, if the Leafs wanted to move on from Dubas because he was a B student and they think that the Leafs need someone who consistently turns in As then great! And if you go out and find a guy who either has some of that success on his resume or is Dubas 2.0 with better calculators ok but to come back with a guy who has 8 years on his resume where he absolutely conclusively did not show any elements of GM-savanting then I don't see how it's possible to not see this in a negative light.

Secondly, Regarding the Pens and their decision to hire Dubas I think it's important to note that I don't really care if Dubas is or isn't a good hire for them. I suppose if I had to play some sort of Devil's Advocate I'd say that Dubas had some pretty good press so far as being a very good hockey mind and that if the Leafs did decide to move on from him a smart organization would snap him up which both proved prophetic but also does distinguish it from the Treliving hire to some extent. Even if you think the talk about Dubas and his magic calculators was hype, at least you could say the Pens bought into the hype. You can't say that with Treliving whose name, when kicked about, was met with shrugs at best.

But beyond that I think Dubas does have a legitimate track record of doing the thing the Pens will need him to do in the next few years and that's to cultivate a team of young players into a team that consistently makes the playoffs. There is nothing comparable to Treliving. The Leafs are a talented team looking to get over the playoff hump and retain their best players. Does Treliving have a history of building teams that go on deep playoff runs? He doesn't. Does he have a bunch of "Oh wow, look at the deal he got that star to sign" contracts under his belt? Again, no unless one slips my mind(And it's probably worth mentioning that he couldn't get Gaudreau to re-sign). This strikes me as a pretty significant difference if you can credibly make a case that Dubas has broadly speaking done what the Penguins will want him to do when the best thing you can say about Treliving and what the Leafs will want him to do is "Well, he hasn't proven he can't do it either!".

Also I suppose I could mention that if you look at their second-to-last jobs then Dubas was perceived as running a pretty successful OHL team while Treliving helped run the Coyotes who are to success what Abraham Lincoln is to satisfied theatre goers but, you know, again, I don't care about the Penguins much.

Maybe I'm naïve or missing something here but I'm still not sure how the Leafs "fumbled the bag" and why Treliving simply qualifies as a "good ol boy"?

With regards to the first thing there I'm not sure how deeper it's possible to get. In terms of things we know, or at least what people involved have actually said we have some pretty basic facts. The Leafs wanted Dubas to return. He didn't. The possible explanations we have for why they either couldn't or didn't make that happen are either their reaction to something incredibly inoffensive and innocuous he said at a press conference or new salary request. Neither, to my mind, seems like a good enough reason for a team to not get the guy they had already decided they wanted to run the hockey club. I suppose "fumble" does imply that it wasn't intentional so I guess it's fair to say that's not the best word but I'm not sure we have a better shorthand for intentional incompetence. 

(Edit: And this is, again, before what will almost certainly be an incredibly important off-season for the Club so even if there were some Super GM Candidate with 11 Cups to his name you'd still be choosing the unknown over stability at a time when I think most would prefer stability, the Leafs apparently included)

As to the second while that's certainly not a scientific term I'm not sure what your objection would be to the categorization of a guy who's been in NHL front offices for 20 years, was hired in a process whose length all but guarantees that the team was not particularly thorough or exhaustive in looking at all candidates(both traditional or innovative) and has no real track record of success anyone can point to that would lead anyone being even vaguely honest to say something along the lines of "Well, if he becomes available you have to hire him". Again, based on the speed of the process there's really no way to justify the hiring outside of a previous relationship between him and Shanahan which...I mean, I feel like I've made a pretty solid case here without even mentioning the Sportsnet article that went out of its way to point out that Larry Tanenbaum is pals with his Dad.

Is either of those really that much of a disaster to the point that there's been two weeks of media drama? I personally don't think so.

I mean, it's not worth anyone tearing their hair out or anything but I don't think there's a lot of ways to look at this for the Leafs other than they seemingly let pettiness and/or frugality mean they didn't get their #1 choice to run the team and his replacement is a guy who's biggest career accomplishment to date is producing a consistently middling Flames team.

Edit: And I've said it before but it bears repeating. This isn't a case of me being all that torn up about Dubas not being around either. If after the season the Leafs had come out and said "We appreciate all Kyle did for us here but we feel we need to move in another direction to take that next step forward" I'd have been ok with that provided there was a pretty credible case for whoever they decided was the guy to replace him. Instead we get the aforementioned bag fumbling followed by a one week GM search that produces another round of "Which member of the Good Ol' Boy network is currently out of a job" musical chairs.

My point though is I think people can understand that circumstances can change, and people can change their mind, but saying what he said to the media, then negotiating in the manner he did made him look foolish and in a lot of ways led to his dismissal, so I can understand why people can feel sour about it.

We don't know how he negotiated. We have a lot of speculation, and post a messy break-up many, many sports teams have been known to plant stories via friendly sources in order to make their decision seem less stupid than it does on the surface.

What we do know is that Kyle Dubas was let go. Then, very shortly afterwards, he was snapped up and given a promotion from an organization that have been able to win cups since the first Prime Minister Trudeau.

That was a very poor decision and it ended up costing him the most prestigious GM job in the business.

Wow. The Canadiens fired him too? Tough week for ol' Dubie.

I don't know to what degree people said he wasn't "allowed" but I can easily see why it's bad optics to many.

Given that it's only seems to be read as bad optics by people who already seem determined to paint Dubas in a pretty bad light here I'm not sure I'd read much into that. Nearly all of the "This looks bad for Dubas stuff" seems to boil down to people not thinking that circumstances can change and/or wildly overreacting to something Dubas might have said during a professional lowpoint that may not be an entirely true reflection of his less emotional self. This really isn't any different.

Good for him. i never got the sense he was someone to shrink from a challenge and I think Pittsburgh post-CrosKin will provide him with the opportunity to remake the organization in his image in a way that probably wasn't available in Toronto. As people have pointed out there's maybe 1 or at most 2 years to maybe try and orchestrate a last hurrah there but then it's right back to rebuilding. Hopefully he'll try and get it right this time.

Pretty uninspiring if true.

I did like that... unfortunately I thought the last two episodes were a bit Game of Thronesy in the sense that everything seemed extra convenient and the show runners just wanted to wrap it up, which is unfortunate. The season could've been the best, but they really, really didn't stick the landing at all. I get what they were trying to do and some aspects were interesting, but again, it's like they just wanted the whole thing to wrap and just made the ending simple and easy. The fact that Jim Moss had Barry tied up and just... like... forgot he had him... I guess? is unforgivable.

I guess the explanation was that he became so convinced that Gene was behind Janice's death he sort of stopped caring about Barry but I agree that doesn't make sense. That said, I never really liked the Jim Moss character to begin with and him catching Barry in the first place just seems like it was done to slow Barry down for a bit so Sally could return to LA and get captured.

Broadly though, I'm with you. The ending wasn't great in terms of tying up plot threads but I did like the comedic aspects of it. From Barry's gun buying(and trouble getting out of the car) to the movie at the end to just "Oh wow" as Barry's last line I thought were pretty funny. Story wise, I got the sense Hader was done with the show and just wanted to wrap it up. That makes it not entirely satisfying but I am excited to see what he does next as a writer/director.

For a player with a big question mark as far as elevating his game in the playoffs why do we have to pay him more than McD or MacK?

Because that is how finances work in sports.  Look at the NFL.  There is no better QB in the game than Mahomes, but every year, the QB that is up for renewal makes more, because inflation exists.

Exactly. What the people who constantly whine about this don't get is that one player signing a below market deal, or even lots of players, doesn't fundamentally change the market. Lots of guys got deals with higher AAVs than Crosby, FA defensemen will get higher deals than Makar...hell, San Jose apparently offered John Tavares 13 million a year when he signed here and Matthews is considerably more valuable than Tavares is.

The Cap artificially restricts the market but it doesn't fundamentally alter the reality of what these guys are worth.

So great that we won't get a reasonable aav or term when most other teams seem to get it from their stars.

That would be a great term for the Leafs. You don't want to commit big money to years 32-35.

[13.4.]

What's every ones acceptable number for Matthews?  I would do 8 years $100 million. 

McDavid's at 12.5, I'd give Matthews 13.4.

What's every ones acceptable number for Matthews?  I would do 8 years $100 million. 

McDavid's at 12.5, I'd give Matthews 13.

Well then we might as well make it $13.4 million. 

I'm tempted to say 12,500,001

My opinion. Dubas was coming for the President of Hockey Ops job and Shanahan was like, I don't think so, that's my job. Simple as that.

Terrific. Good to know big decisions being made are about the strength of the hockey team.

What's every ones acceptable number for Matthews?  I would do 8 years $100 million. 

McDavid's at 12.5, I'd give Matthews 13.

I want a GM that forechecks hard, clears the front of the net, and makes the timely save in a game.

I want a GM who gets up early, stays up late, with uninterrupted prosperity, and who uses a machete to cut through red tape.

I want a GM with a short cap debt and a long........playoff bracket.

It's the only way for the Leafs to go the distance.