Six years is long but I believe ownership had to do this. Clearly they believe in the guy, right or wrong, and they were probably concerned another team would put the big out that they’d like to poach him after his contract expires. Does he deserve it? Hard to argue that the leafs didn’t do a lot of smart things in a short period of time to do a quick turnaround. He surrounded himself with a good team so I’m just as inclined to think it was a group effort. It’ll be interesting going forward as two major pieces left (Hunter and Lamorillo) and with the cap tightness I’m keen on seeing what they can do. They have solid tradable pieces so I have little doubt they will be fine. Avoiding getting their players poached will be the one I’m most curious about as I don’t believe Dubas has the respect of his peers in the older old boys club.
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