Best GM in the North Division?

[RogerR]

No, I don't find it one bit odd commenting about the best GM's in the North Division in a thread specifically dedicated on it. This is a Main board message board, and I am a hockey fan, so not one bit. You do seem to be going out of your way to defend Dubas, not sure why the insecurity? It's only one poster's opinion, mine, in which he has a lot to prove. Missed the playoffs last year, negotiated himself into a cap crunch by allocating almost 50% of his capspace to 4 fwds, mistakes in player evaluations. IE. Ceci, Barrie, Sparks, Hutchinson, Kerfoot. I don't think he's done a great job given he inherited a 105 pt team with over 28M of capspace to miss the playoffs last season, but I am willing to see if he can improve on that this year. Given it is a 7 team division, 1 less than other divisions, and arguably the weakest. He should atleast meet that low bar of making the playoffs this season.

Question, what team doesn't have a "Cap Crunch"? It's tiresome hearing the narrative Leafs are just in the worst cap hell. It's garbage. Your fav team is in much worse situation right now and you know that.
Ok, 40 million on 4 stars, But Lou is spending more than the Leafs on forwards and they are what, 30th in GF? Where is the $ going? They can't score. Why are they spendfing more on forwards than the Leafs.

Every team has cap issues. Leafs with their talent should not have cap room at all. Colorado had to play short handed last week due to cap issues and in the offseason they were seen as a team with so much cap room.
Leafs played a team tonight that is literraly spneding 33 million on this:

Myers 6.0 Sutter 4.4 Holtby 4.3 Pearson 3.8 Ferland 3.5 Beagle 3.0 Roussell 3.0 Virtanen 2.6 Benn 2.0 33 million on THAT is what Vancouver is spending..

Study this:
CapFriendly - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps
Honestly, Leafs are one of the very few teams without a bad contract that can move anyone .

Oh and FYI, Leafs played 5 playoff games last season. it's on record.

 

[hamzarocks]

The only moves where Dubas gets blame from Leafs fans was when he choose to keep Garett Sparks instead of Curtis McElhinney and eventually trading for Michael Huthcinson.

Now the only reason he traded for Michael Hutchinson from the Panthers in December 2018 is because Frederik Andersen was injured and Sparks was forced to play as the #1 Goalie.

However at least Dubas realized those mistakes and that's why he traded for Jack Campbell who's became a great #2 Goalie behind Andersen.

He also gets shitted on for the kadri deal (deserving) but atleast in that deal we see how good Brodie is and he was the first target dubas had in mind.

Kadri for Brodie+Janko would be better than Barrie+Kerfoot with Brodie being a lot better than barrie and Janko while hot trash would give us 3.5M we could have used to sign a 3C this offseason.

Overall dubas has several strong deals and trading is only his 2nd best attribute after drafting

Muzzin deal is a beauty along with the contract signing

Campbell trade is a beauty despite clifford not coming back. Campbell is a starting caliber goalie signed next year 1.6M. Gives us a great rotation and if Andersen has a bad playoff start we can roll Jack

Zaitsev deal is really solid. Sucked to lose hometown boy Brown but zaitsev at 4.5 is 3 million to much. 1 year of Ceci who was a solid bottom pairing guy at 4, got us out of 4 years of a bad deal.

Marleau trade was a bit poor but with all stuff considered hard for Dubas to trade him without giving up the 1st. Marleau was an ass for not waiving the NMC to any team besides the sharks (waived it to be bought out by canes) and then was fine cup chasing with the pens

Kapanen deal is very good value now all that remains to be seen is how Amirov and Hallinder develop. Kapanen is a great player and can be a solid 2RW if he fixes some parts but hes not better than a top 5 winger in the game in marner and another elite 1RW in nylander

Even the AJ for Anderson deal which I wasnt a fan at the time could be solid if Anderson can continue to develop and become a solid 3rd liner who puts up 30ish points while giving good board play, and defense

 

[RogerR]

He also gets shitted on for the kadri deal (deserving) but atleast in that deal we see how good Brodie is and he was the first target dubas had in mind.

Kadri for Brodie+Janko would be better than Barrie+Kerfoot with Brodie being a lot better than barrie and Janko while hot trash would give us 3.5M we could have used to sign a 3C this offseason.

Overall dubas has several strong deals and trading is only his 2nd best attribute after drafting

Muzzin deal is a beauty along with the contract signing

Campbell trade is a beauty despite clifford not coming back. Campbell is a starting caliber goalie signed next year 1.6M. Gives us a great rotation and if Andersen has a bad playoff start we can roll Jack

Zaitsev deal is really solid. Sucked to lose hometown boy Brown but zaitsev at 4.5 is 3 million to much. 1 year of Ceci who was a solid bottom pairing guy at 4, got us out of 4 years of a bad deal.

Marleau trade was a bit poor but with all stuff considered hard for Dubas to trade him without giving up the 1st. Marleau was an ass for not waiving the NMC to any team besides the sharks (waived it to be bought out by canes) and then was fine cup chasing with the pens

Kapanen deal is very good value now all that remains to be seen is how Amirov and Hallinder develop. Kapanen is a great player and can be a solid 2RW if he fixes some parts but hes not better than a top 5 winger in the game in marner and another elite 1RW in nylander

Even the AJ for Anderson deal which I wasnt a fan at the time could be solid if Anderson can continue to develop and become a solid 3rd liner who puts up 30ish points while giving good board play, and defense

He traded for Hyman as well. And his trade down to get Sandin looks great.

 

[hamzarocks]

He traded for Hyman as well. And his trade down to get Sandin looks great.

The sandin deal more praise to the drafting as trading down is a normal thing at draft and the value he got was normal. The selection of sandin who looks really promising was the great thing there

Hyman deal was give me. Hyman was signing here as a UFA and had a good relation with Babs who had scouted him when on the wings watching larkin in college. Credit for pushing him into the system early but that was a simpler move imo.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

The only moves where Dubas gets blame from Leafs fans was when he choose to keep Garett Sparks instead of Curtis McElhinney and eventually trading for Michael Huthcinson.

Now the only reason he traded for Michael Hutchinson from the Panthers in December 2018 is because Frederik Andersen was injured and Sparks was forced to play as the #1 Goalie.

However at least Dubas realized those mistakes and that's why he traded for Jack Campbell who's became a great #2 Goalie behind Andersen.

I would add the Kadri deal as a mistake. Barrie was a flop in Toronto. He also replaced Kadri with Kerfoot and promptly signed him to 3.5M, just 1M less than Kadri made who was signed at 4.5 as one of the team's best contracts. A further example of Dubas negotiating himself into a cap crunch. I don't think anyone would disagree Kadri is a much better player than Kerfoot who has an ability of taking questionable PIMS and is not very productive. 28 pts last year, and just 4 this year in the highest scoring division in the NHL.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Question, what team doesn't have a "Cap Crunch"? It's tiresome hearing the narrative Leafs are just in the worst cap hell. It's garbage. Your fav team is in much worse situation right now and you know that.
Ok, 40 million on 4 stars, But Lou is spending more than the Leafs on forwards and they are what, 30th in GF? Where is the $ going? They can't score. Why are they spendfing more on forwards than the Leafs.

Every team has cap issues. Leafs with their talent should not have cap room at all. Colorado had to play short handed last week due to cap issues and in the offseason they were seen as a team with so much cap room.
Leafs played a team tonight that is literraly spneding 33 million on this:

Myers 6.0 Sutter 4.4 Holtby 4.3 Pearson 3.8 Ferland 3.5 Beagle 3.0 Roussell 3.0 Virtanen 2.6 Benn 2.0 33 million on THAT is what Vancouver is spending..

Study this:
CapFriendly - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps
Honestly, Leafs are one of the very few teams without a bad contract that can move anyone .

Oh and FYI, Leafs played 5 playoff games last season. it's on record.

I'm still boggled how any GM could have zero stars signed yet be in cap hell. That takes a special brand of horribad. Thank God for a "retirement".

 

[ClydeLee]

He also gets shitted on for the kadri deal (deserving) but atleast in that deal we see how good Brodie is and he was the first target dubas had in mind.

Kadri for Brodie+Janko would be better than Barrie+Kerfoot with Brodie being a lot better than barrie and Janko while hot trash would give us 3.5M we could have used to sign a 3C this offseason.

Overall dubas has several strong deals and trading is only his 2nd best attribute after drafting

Muzzin deal is a beauty along with the contract signing

Campbell trade is a beauty despite clifford not coming back. Campbell is a starting caliber goalie signed next year 1.6M. Gives us a great rotation and if Andersen has a bad playoff start we can roll Jack

Zaitsev deal is really solid. Sucked to lose hometown boy Brown but zaitsev at 4.5 is 3 million to much. 1 year of Ceci who was a solid bottom pairing guy at 4, got us out of 4 years of a bad deal.

Marleau trade was a bit poor but with all stuff considered hard for Dubas to trade him without giving up the 1st. Marleau was an ass for not waiving the NMC to any team besides the sharks (waived it to be bought out by canes) and then was fine cup chasing with the pens

Kapanen deal is very good value now all that remains to be seen is how Amirov and Hallinder develop. Kapanen is a great player and can be a solid 2RW if he fixes some parts but hes not better than a top 5 winger in the game in marner and another elite 1RW in nylander

Even the AJ for Anderson deal which I wasnt a fan at the time could be solid if Anderson can continue to develop and become a solid 3rd liner who puts up 30ish points while giving good board play, and defense

A lot of these result in thinking, we can win next year or in a couple. But the losing of a year where contention was possible shouldn't be a gloss over. Like the 1 year for Ceci that didn't need to ever happen, that was a lost year. That they wanted Brodie but got him now, but could they have not wasted last year potentially? Like that's not a scenario that is always gonna play out good down the line.

Part of it is why I never liked praising Yzerman as much as some others. Like dragging your stars into a playoff without a next contract didn't seem to bode well for them. And I didn't like that method which changed as he's gone.

 

[RogerR]

So since Dubas finally got his choice of coach, here's the results in 58 games: 2nd best record in the NHL, and that's with bad goaltending and a lot of injuries.
Maybe Dubas has helped build a great team. He got a coach to simply have them play a style which suits them and they were built for.

 

[Garthinater]

I'm still boggled how any GM could have zero stars signed yet be in cap hell. That takes a special brand of horribad. Thank God for a "retirement".

How does a gm have 3 of the top 7 highest paid players and yet he can't even win a round? Not even a qualifier? That's mind boggling.

 

[RogerR]

How does a gm have 3 of the top 7 highest paid players and yet he can't even win a round? Not even a qualifier? That's mind boggling.

He's had 1 single season in which Covid struck and interrrupted the year where he's had 3 of the top 7 highest paid player. Besides they have the same cap max # as everyone.
1 single year...

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

How does a gm have 3 of the top 7 highest paid players and yet he can't even win a round? Not even a qualifier? That's mind boggling.

Not particularly. 5 game sample sizes don't tell you much. If they did, you're probably one of those folks struggling to understand Vancouver's results or NYI pacing for almost a 10 point standings drop last year and no playoffs (save a pandemic) and now pacing for around 70 points. Small sample sizes falsely convince short term thinkers.

 

[Garthinater]

He's had 1 single season in which Covid struck and interrrupted the year where he's had 3 of the top 7 highest paid player. Besides they have the same cap max # as everyone.
1 single year...

His 1st season as gm he had 2 of the top 5 highest paid players.

His 2nd season he had 3 of the top 7.

How do you lose every series when you inherit a team with that much elite talent?

Dubas is extremely lucky this year that we get to avoid Boston and Tampa and Columbus (lol) for the 1st round. If we fail to win a round under his watch, again, he's gone.

 

[Garthinater]

Not particularly. 5 game sample sizes don't tell you much. If they did, you're probably one of those folks struggling to understand Vancouver's results or NYI pacing for almost a 10 point standings drop last year and no playoffs (save a pandemic) and now pacing for around 70 points. Small sample sizes falsely convince short term thinkers.

So small sample size is not good but 10 games is enough for you? You sound like one of those "short term thinkers" you were talking about lol

 

[RogerR]

His 1st season as gm he had 2 of the top 5 highest paid players.

His 2nd season he had 3 of the top 7.

How do you lose every series when you inherit a team with that much elite talent?

Dubas is extremely lucky this year that we get to avoid Boston and Tampa and Columbus (lol) for the 1st round. If we fail to win a round under his watch, again, he's gone.

Not accurate. He only had Tavares as a high cap hit. You are using Nylander's "Salary" which I don't agree with. He also missed a lot of the season.
Again, does any of that matter in your argument since hockey is such a team game and every team deals with a hard cap?
Yes, Dubas is lucky Covid occurred. It's only helping the Leafs. Covid has flat-lined the cap LOL

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

So small sample size is not good but 10 games is enough for you? You sound like one of those "short term thinkers" you were talking about lol

Except we have more than 10 games to look at. You can start with looking at the numbers since his coach took over. Won't go well for you.

 

[Pucklington]

Chevy has done good job with market and money constraints. Always seems like a good drafter, and doesn't seem to make any terrible mistakes.

Holland took over a mess, and has had good/bad moments but not long enough to judge.

 

[LeafsNation75]

I would add the Kadri deal as a mistake. Barrie was a flop in Toronto. He also replaced Kadri with Kerfoot and promptly signed him to 3.5M, just 1M less than Kadri made who was signed at 4.5 as one of the team's best contracts. A further example of Dubas negotiating himself into a cap crunch. I don't think anyone would disagree Kadri is a much better player than Kerfoot who has an ability of taking questionable PIMS and is not very productive. 28 pts last year, and just 4 this year in the highest scoring division in the NHL.

The Kadri for Barrie trade looks bad with hindsight because of the way Barrie played in Toronto.

However when the trade was officially made it didn't look like a bad deal, so it's easy to say Dubas made a mistake after the fact.