Last spring, when the Pittsburgh Penguins decided to counterprogram the Maple Leafs’ ‘Why we hired Brad Treliving’ press conference with their own ‘Why we hired Kyle Dubas’ presser, they started a fight.
Nobody called it a fight. Leafs president Brendan Shanahan specifically denied it was a fight.
But if a half-hour before your party starts, your ex-friend sends out a note saying they are hosting their own party the same day, that’s a fight.
The two clubs were in different stages of life – the Penguins are old and accomplished, and compelled to keep trying because they employ the greatest player of his generation; the Leafs talk like they’re young, but that’s mostly because they haven’t made it out of their parents’ basement, rather than anything chronological.
They both have this much in common – they need to win, now.
Both knew that if that didn’t happen, the next basis for judgment was how they did vis-a-vis each other.
Did the Leafs win the deal by getting rid of Dubas? Or did the Penguins win by catching him on the hop?
The Leafs are still wrestling with their end, but the Penguins are on the verge of losing theirs.
When Dubas showed up in Pennsylvania, it was in the usual word-cloud of upbeat bafflegab that is his trademark. Say this much for Treliving: he talks like a human, not like someone reading off the back of a brochure for time shares.
This is why it’s hard to quote Dubas in print. His sentences run on so long they are column-inch killers.
But here’s what he said about Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh when he was hired: “In the short run, [my job] is to continue to make decisions that are going to allow the team to be competitive with the core group of players that have led the team here to championships in the past, to continue to perform at the levels that they have for as long as they can, and make the decisions that will support them in the line-up every night that will allow the team to continue to contend each season while those players are with us.”
And breeeeeeathe.
The shorter way of saying that is, ‘Sidney Crosby is viable for a couple more years. My job is not to waste them.’
There was other stuff in there about building a competitor for years to come, but that’s not a plan. It’s a hope.
The only thing that matters in Pittsburgh is whether or not the person in charge can organize one more Cup drive for Crosby. The Penguins making the playoffs this season was a basic requirement for the new boss.
In Toronto, Dubas was a minimalist. He preferred small moves with small upsides, but also small risk.
In Pittsburgh, he has a new executive personality as an agent of chaos.
The first big thing he did was sign Erik Karlsson – a win-right-now move.
If he’d gotten Karlsson and a time machine, that’s a great trade. But he only got the declining 33-year-old. Karlsson was slotted into what was already the oldest team in the NHL.
When that didn’t work out the way he’d hoped, Dubas swung the other way. At the deadline, he traded Pittsburgh’s best young-ish star, Jake Guentzel – a win-later move.
When Crosby was asked what message the trade sent the team, he said, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask [management].”
His body language could only have been worse if he’d burst into tears.
Guentzel told reporters he’d wanted to stay in Pittsburgh, but “they thought there was a better direction.”
For all the talk of how tough it is to work in Toronto, Dubas didn’t have to deal with dissension in the ranks. Nothing that stuck, at least. This was his first taste of public back and forth. It didn’t go well.
Dubas blamed the team for not being good enough – “my hope going into the year was that everything would go to the most optimistic viewpoint.”
Lots of presidents and GMs talk this way – like only the good things that happen are their fault. But when the president in Pittsburgh makes Sidney Crosby sad, he should probably have a better explanation teed up than, ‘Hey, what do you expect me to do?’
When the Guentzel trade was done, there was a bottleneck of teams between the Penguins and the postseason. It’s cleared. As they arrive in Toronto for a game on Monday night, Pittsburgh is hanging on to the bumper of the final wild-card spot.
The glass-half-full take – nice recovery.
The glass-half-empty – too bad the guy running things wrote the club off in March.
In Toronto, Dubas was always able to slip responsibility for the annual disappointment. Leafs fans were willing to accept that Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner et al weren’t winners because they’d never won anything.
Who’s Dubas going to blame in Pittsburgh? All the proven winners?
There is still a world in which Crosby & Co. drag Dubas out of the fire he lit. First, they have to make the playoffs. Then they have to win a round. Beating the Leafs in the second round would probably do it.
But the other world – the one in which they fall short in the final 10 days of the season, or get hammered by the Bruins in the first round – is more likely. Once that happens, the buzzards stop circling and start landing.
If Dubas fails in Pittsburgh, Toronto won’t claim it as a victory. That wouldn’t be good manners.
But when you’re as used to losing as the Leafs are, even the fights you win by default must feel good.
Cathal Kelly