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Around the League 2019-2024 Edition

Dubas, meanwhile, inherits a Penguins team that had just 91 points last season, but which has a lot of salary-cap flexibility and a group of older stars led by Sidney Crosby who should easily be able to outperform their cap hits in the next two years.

A five-player core of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust earning only $32 million versus a five-player core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly, William Nylander and John Tavares earning $48 million?

Pretty intriguing. And pretty different challenges facing the new men in charge.

To me, it is not out of the question that these two teams are closer together in the standings in the coming years than they were this past season, depending on the moves they make this summer. Dubas has more work to do here, in terms of bad contracts to try to wipe out, but Treliving has tough negotiations ahead with most of his stars and a lot of holes to fill.

After years of contention, both teams are lacking in high-end prospects and badly need to restock their forward depth on the cheap this July, in what will be one of the most challenging free-agent markets in NHL history.


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I don't really think a worse older, core, and extra money is a good thing this year.

And I think Pittsburgh's prospect pool is signficantly worse than ours.

insanity.
 
And by the time Dubas finds and commits to 2ndary players , it may turn out that the core is no longer good enough. Going to be a tough task.
 
And their core includes Bryan Rust. Like come on. They don’t just need depth.

they have Rust, Carter, Rakell and Granlund signed (for $20 mill). They need top of the lineup players.
Up front they’re alright, but that was with zucker and rakell both having massive bounce backs after some ugly years, Sid + Gino being old men and rust in his 30s.

the d looks pretty atrocious though, they don’t have any potential impact players in the pipeline, their goaltender is a ufa and they’ve got 8m tied up in boat anchors in carter and granlund.

Good luck dubes.
 
Pittsburgh wasn't a tough luck 91 point team this season. Sid & Gino played 82 in the same season for the first time ever, against all motherfucking odds at their ages. They suffered no significant long term injuries to the entire core group. They didn't have a single key forward miss more than a small handful of games. Their blueline was a bit more injury prone but nothing catastrophic at all. Goaltending was fine and performed within rough expectations for the 2 guys they had.

Literally nothing went sideways for them all season. Sid had his 2nd 90+ point season since 13/14, Gino his first 80+ point season in the last 5.

Without some significant lineup changes, they're more likely to decline next season than improve, lol nevermind gaining ground on the regular season Leafs.
 
If they get Murray back, they’ll have the same key pieces as the last cup championship team. That, and the SSM connection, I can’t see how Dubas doesn’t make that trade.

Murray + rights to Kerfoot and Holl + #28 for #14 😏
 
Dubas will be stuck doing the oft-dreaded “competive rebuild” for the foreseeable future. There’s no gaining ground on the Leafs for a while — more like build the pipeline while trying to catch lightning in a bottle during the playoffs

He's going to spend at least 2-3 years just trying to appease the ghosts of stanley cups past and likely failing to make the playoffs, at best sneaking in and getting mollywhopped. Then comes the actual tank (not just the drafting 12th overall unintentional tank), which we all know is a handful of years unto itself before you even acquire the kids worth building a core around. What are his bosses going to do when he's in year 2 of tank mode and coming up for a new, extremely expensive contract?

I mean, I can't blame the dude for getting the bag, but I don't think is going to end up looking like a good move for him on his resume at fucking all.

FSG is going to have to be pretty enamoured with him to not want to maybe consider another direction by then and Dubas' track record is going to be of a smart sounding guy with little success and the narrative will likely retcon to him inheriting the best parts of his Leaf team from legend Lou by then. "Was he ever really that smart".

Heaven forbid we actually get better without him here as well. Got the bag though.
 
Pretty sure Dubas presented them with several plans and they bought the “if you want to keep your franchise icons, it’s going to take a while” package
 
Dubas will be stuck doing the oft-dreaded “competive rebuild” for the foreseeable future. There’s no gaining ground on the Leafs for a while — more like build the pipeline while trying to catch lightning in a bottle during the playoffs
Which is why he orchestrated his way out of town because no one could resist such an opportunity. Which family wouldn’t pack up and zip to Pittsburgh on a moment’s notice?

Or maybe he negotiated a massive face plant for himself and then got lucky that Pittsburgh was willing to give him the cash after all.
 
He's going to spend at least 2-3 years just trying to appease the ghosts of stanley cups past and likely failing to make the playoffs, at best sneaking in and getting mollywhopped. Then comes the actual tank (not just the drafting 12th overall unintentional tank), which we all know is a handful of years unto itself before you even acquire the kids worth building a core around. What are his bosses going to do when he's in year 2 of tank mode and coming up for a new, extremely expensive contract?

I mean, I can't blame the dude for getting the bag, but I don't think is going to end up looking like a good move for him on his resume at fucking all.

FSG is going to have to be pretty enamoured with him to not want to maybe consider another direction by then and Dubas' track record is going to be of a smart sounding guy with little success and the narrative will likely retcon to him inheriting the best parts of his Leaf team from legend Lou by then. "Was he ever really that smart".

Heaven forbid we actually get better without him here as well. Got the bag though.
Tree is going to execute on the original Dubie plan better than Dubie himself could now.
 
Love how Kyle Dumbass had to dump his horrendous Mrazek deal only to jump into the horrendous Murray deal without 50% retention.
 
Love how Kyle Dumbass had to dump his horrendous Mrazek deal only to jump into the horrendous Murray deal without 50% retention.
Habsy Circa summer 2022. "We'll be back here talking about Murray being shit next summer".

I also did like the Samsonov pickup at that time but not as a full time starter.

Treliving should trade Murray to Dubas in Pittsburgh. That should be the cost of Pittsburgh tampering and they tampered. It'll eventually come out when nobody cares anymore.

Get that second rounder as compensation on the minimum. To not even try smells like MLSE just wants it to go away and move on.
 
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