Former Leafs GM rips Kyle Dubas for his handling of negotiations with Shanahan, MLSE
Yesterday on The Real Kyper and Bourne Show, Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne had former Leafs GM Brian Burke on to share his thoughts on the Leafs GM search and how the whole Kyle Dubas situation was handled. Burke, being the outspoken person that he is, did not hold back when discussing Dubas' negotiation tactics.
Burke, who was with the Leafs from 2008-2013, so he does have some knowledge on how the Leafs organization operated once upon a time. He revealed as much before getting into how things went off the rails between Dubas and Shanahan.
"Basically, I told Richard Peddie what I thought we should do, he might say think about this, think about that, but basically, he was the conduit to ownership. It was simpler when I was there... It seems to me, that you had a process they were going through there, moving towards an extension. That much was clear. Right up until 2 or 3 days before, they had extensive discussions with Kyle's agent and with Shanny, so they were moving towards an agreement and then it went off the rails." - Burke on negotiations between Dubas and Shanahan
Burke pointed out that while an accord was almost reached between the two sides, Dubas choosing to speak with the media and planting those seeds of doubt as to whether or not he'd be back was absolutely backbreaking.
"I think right there, the math changes. If you're a team President, right there the math changes. One of the guys who works for you - your right hand man, the most important guy in the organization just told you 'I'm not sure I want to come back'.. and then it went on and they said they exchanged proposals and that put 2 new things on the table.. one is new terms of employment and terms of money, apparently, and the 2nd is a new reporting scheme that will effect the balance of power.. I'll tell you from experience, if you're in the last year of your contract and you just got beaten in a playoff series that everyone expected you would win and you want to discuss that after you had lengthy discussions framing these issues... you wanna put 2 new issues on the table... 'oh, by the way - I know we've gone down the road a long ways, but I want to talk about power and I want to talk about money..' that's really a problem. That's a huge problem and even if it's not a problem for Shanny, which it would be, it would be a problem for your owners." - Burke on Shanahan and MLSE being right to fire Kyle Dubas
While it may seem like Burke is not a fan of Dubas, he did say that he was an excellent human and very smart person. He was just not a fan of his negotiation tactics. Having been at the negotiating table a handful of times in his management career, Burke understands how these negotiations typically work and from the sound of his voice and how he felt, he would have done the exact same thing that Shanahan did in changing direction when Dubas publicly stated he was not sure if he wanted to come back next season.
| POLL |
MAI 30 | 575 ANSWERS Former Leafs GM rips Kyle Dubas for his handling of negotiations with Shanahan, MLSE Do you agree with Brian Burke's take on the Leafs being justified in canning Kyle Dubas? |
| Yes | 441 | 76.7 % |
| No | 134 | 23.3 % |
| List of polls |
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