Kyle Dubas Explains Why the Toronto Maple Leafs Core Four Was A Failure
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Former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas is now with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but that doesn't mean he's stopped reflecting about his failures.
Kyle Dubas was a controversial figure during his tenure with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and to this day, fans aren't huge fans of his.
Some felt as though he squandered the prime of the Core Four and made the wrong moves at the wrong time.
Now that Mitch Marner is out of Toronto, fans feel as though the Core Four era is over, and that it was a colossal failure given the skill of the players involved.
Kyle Dubas speaks on Toronto Maple Leafs failures
During an appearance on the Cam & Strick Podcast, Dubas actually took full accountability for what took place out in Toronto.
He said that the flat cap was an issue for the team and that he made a lot of mistakes along the way.
Dubas refused to blame the players for the lack of playoff success. Instead, he said it had to do with a refusal from the front office to adapt to the times.
I don't wanna say [the Core 4] handcuffed us because of needing to pay them; what handcuffed us was the salary cap being flat.
We basically used the template of what a lot of other teams had done that had the fortune of having high picks, and we added John [Tavares] in 2018; then that first year with all the extensions, then COVID trying to keep the league rolling, and they worked to keep things flat.
That's life. No one could have predicted it and we just had to adapt. I think in some cases we adapted poorly...We took a lot of shots in 2020, 2021 that weren't as successful and we adapted from that.
We didn't get to where we wanted to be but that's not on them, it's on us to make the right decisions around that group of players.
I think everyone wishes those players who have performed better as a group and individually in the playoffs, and I don't point to one situation but we didn't get it done.
We basically used the template of what a lot of other teams had done that had the fortune of having high picks, and we added John [Tavares] in 2018; then that first year with all the extensions, then COVID trying to keep the league rolling, and they worked to keep things flat.
That's life. No one could have predicted it and we just had to adapt. I think in some cases we adapted poorly...We took a lot of shots in 2020, 2021 that weren't as successful and we adapted from that.
We didn't get to where we wanted to be but that's not on them, it's on us to make the right decisions around that group of players.
I think everyone wishes those players who have performed better as a group and individually in the playoffs, and I don't point to one situation but we didn't get it done.
While it probably doesn't hurt any less, it is probably at least a little bit vindicating for Maple Leafs fans to hear this kind of rhetoric from Dubas.
He is taking his licks about what happened in Toronto, and he has been very reflective about what went wrong.
Some general managers wouldn't even do that. They would just mess up a team and move on. It just goes to show that the GM has high moral character.
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