We present an improved analytical model describing transmittance of a metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) waveguide coupled to an arbitrary number of stubs. The model is built on the well-known analogy between MDM waveguides and microwave transmission lines. This analogy allows one to establish equivalent networks for different MDM-waveguide geometries and to calculate their optical transmission spectra using standard analytical tools of transmission-line theory. A substantial advantage of our model compared to earlier works is that it precisely incorporates the dissipation of surface plasmon polaritons resulting from ohmic losses inside any metal at optical frequencies. We derive analytical expressions for transmittance of MDM waveguides coupled to single and double stubs as well as to N identical stubs with a periodic arrangement. We show that certain phase-matching conditions must be satisfied to provide opt al filtering characteristics for such waveguides. To check the accuracy of our model, its results are compared with numerical data obtained from the full-blown finite-difference time-domain simulations. Close agreement between the two suggests that our analytical model is suitable for rapid design optimization of MDM-waveguide-based compact photonic devices.