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Rumor: Kyle Dubas has already picked his next NHL team.
David Berding/USA TODAY Sports  

Rumor: Kyle Dubas has already picked his next NHL team.

The now former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs is reportedly biding his time.

Jonathan Larivee

The dust has not yet settled and the reverberations on the Toronto Maple Leafs organization have not yet been fully felt following the firing of now former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas on Friday, but Dubas himself may already be looking towards the future.

As many of you reading this will have already heard by now, Dubas has been linked to a number of teams over the past few weeks, including the Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators, but it may be the case that Dubas has already made up his mind.

On Saturday, Sportsnet's Luke Fox squashed any talk of Dubas becoming the next general manager of the Penguins when he dismissed those rumors as mere smoke.

From Fox:

We’re told the idea that Dubas would take over in Pittsburgh was more smoke than fire.

That is an interesting nugget of information in its own right given that it likely drove up Dubas' value during negotiations with the Maple Leafs over the last week or so, and you have to wonder where those rumors originated from. In spite of the lack of any real connection to the Penguins however, it sounds like the link to the Ottawa Senators is very real.

"I think Kyle’s waiting for Ottawa," said one source as per Fox.

The Ottawa Senators have a young team and appear to be on the verge of being purchased by one of several ownership groups with considerable financial might behind them, a situation that would be attractive to any young NHL general manager. For Dubas this would also see him join one of the Maple Leafs' chief rivals, one located in the very same province no less, and it's not hard to see why that might be attractive to him after he was so publicly fired by the Maple Leafs on Friday.