Craig Button sounds off on Penguins president Kyle Dubas.

It would seem that, now that Kyle Dubas has officially left the Toronto Maple Leafs and taken a new job with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the gloves are coming off.

While there were some voices that were critical of the work that Dubas did during his tenure in Toronto, they were largely in the minority. That is at least up until the point that Dubas was fired by Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, with seemingly many more analysts suddenly willing to speak out about Dubas' work in Toronto.

The latest example of this is TSN's Craig Button, who last week absolutely unloaded on Dubas when it comes to his work as a general manager for the Leafs. Button was quick to argue that Toronto's now infamous 'core four' shouldn't be taken to task over the lack of success, but instead that it should be Dubas who shoulders the brunt of the blame when it comes to their inability to be more competitive in the playoffs.

"The problem isn't Matthews, the problem isn't Marner, the problem isn't Nylander or those guys, they're not the problem," said Button. "The problem is the previous manager didn't build a winning team."

Button argued that the Leafs needed more depth in the bottom six as well as a heavier defense on the blue line, and doubled down on his criticisms of Dubas.

"The manager failed," said Button. "He failed.... Kyle Dubas thought that he had a different formula. He failed spectacularly with a formula that had shown never any semblance of being able to have success."

To play devil's advocate here I'm sure Dubas would have prefered to improve at those positions but he was faced with the challenging reality of the NHL's flat cap era as a result of an unexpected pandemic. It would seem though that Button isn't willing to give Dubas the benefit of the doubt.