Toronto Maple Leafs: Kyle Dubas Best and Worst Moves as GM
Kyle Dubas and the Toronto Maple Leafs have made some pivotal moves in the past couple of seasons
When the Toronto Maple Leafs promoted Kyle Dubas to General Manager on May 11th 2018, almost two years ago to date, many fans questioned Brendan Shanahan’s decision to put the future of the NHL franchise in the hands of a young an inexperienced GM.
It is important to remember that a lot of the foundation of this team that Kyle Dubas has inherited would not be the same without Lou Lamoriello’s impact in his short time with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
In just two seasons, Lamoriello took on what seemed to be an impossible situation in Toronto, where P.A. Parenteau was second in points behind Nazem Kadri, and eventually built a large portion of the contending team they have today.
Dubas has been under fire for a lot of decisions he has made in his short time with the Toronto Maple Leafs, including his supposed inability to sort out a cap situation that bodes well for the entire team to grow, rather than investing a major portion of their money in just a few players.
While a lot of the criticism on Dubas’ decisions have been warranted, there are still some situations where he has handled adversity very well, and those are worth highlighting just as much as his failures.
On that note, let’s take a look at some of Kyle Dubas’ best and worst moments during his time as General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Kyle Dubas’ Best Moves
Signing John Tavares
Just two short months after being hired, Kyle Dubas went out and made it known to Leafs fans that he wasn’t going to shy away from making this Maple Leafs team immediately more competitive, and signed John Tavares to a seven-year, $77 million contract.
While this move would definitely complicate the cap situation for this team, this was the first major free agent signing for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 20+ years, and his 47 goal performance in his first year with the club helped relieve some of the stress moving forward.
While not putting up the same amount of goals that he has this season, Tavares has found other ways to impact the game and remain offensively consistent. Despite missing some time due to injury, Tavares recorded 60 points through 63 games, good enough for third on the Maple Leafs in scoring.
With this signing, Kyle Dubas added one of the best centres in the league to a roster with an already all-star caliber centre in Auston Matthews, and placed him alongside one of the best playmakers in the league in Mitch Marner.
While their potential hasn’t translated to postseason success just yet, at the time, many fans were all-in on the Maple Leafs making a deep playoff run, and that is exactly the type of excitement and competitiveness you want to instill on your fanbase for a first impression as general manager.
Firing Mike Babcock/Hiring Sheldon Keefe
Say what you will about who you believe had the final say in the decision to fire Mike Babcock, but there was definitely a mutual agreement between President Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas to move on from the culture and mindset that Babcock was bringing into the locker room, and I bet the only regret they had was that they didn’t do it sooner.
Hiring Mike Babcock in the spring of 2015 was one of the first major managerial decisions that altered the course of this Maple Leafs team for the seasons ahead. Unfortunately as time passed and the team continued to become younger, the beliefs of how this franchise was going to be run outgrew Babcock’s dated philosophies, and his coaching methods created some tension in the Leafs locker room that was well documented after he was fired.
Sheldon Keefe’s relationship with the players and management seems to have built the morale much higher since being promoted to the NHL in November of 2019. While Keefe hasn’t spent enough time as coach to make a definitive decision on who has done better, there are tons of reasons to believe that hiring Sheldon Keefe was one of the best decisions they made.
Familiarity was one of the biggest factors in this move being potentially successful, as 11 of the current Maple Leafs played for Keefe in the Marlies organization, and the fact that Keefe seems far more inclined to make in-game adjustments to their game plan than Babcock was during his time here. This is crucial considering that while under Babcock, the Leafs let games get away from them a lot of times this season, giving up crucial leads and losing on multiple occasions.
Kyle Dubas’ Worst Moves
The Nazem Kadri Trade
In an attempt to boost their depth on defense, Kyle Dubas pulled the trigger on July 1st in a trade that would send Tyson Barrie and Alex Kerfoot to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for Nazem Kadri, Calle Rosen, and a conditional 3rd round pick.
This deal looked like it was going to be a real boost for Toronto as they acquired two quality NHL players in exchange for one, and Colorado had even softened the blow to the salary cap by retaining 50% of Barrie’s $5.5 million annual salary.
In addition, Kadri now had an opportunity to play in a top-six role that he never would have played in while playing in Toronto, making it seem like a pretty good deal on both sides at first glance.
This trade has not turned out that well for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Nazem Kadri was on one of the team’s best contracts, and he was happy with playing in the role he was given.
After two consecutive seasons with 30+ goals, Kadri’s point production dropped significantly due to the signing of John Tavares, and was absent yet again for majority of their playoff run due to suspension.
Kadri’s physicality got the best of him on a number of occasions, but the Leafs were clearly missing that player with an edge this year or else they would not have gone out and acquired Kyle Clifford.
Tyson Barrie had a pretty poor start to the season in Toronto, starting without a goal throughout his first 16 games and struggling with defensive positioning in his own zone.
Although as the season progressed, Barrie improved. His numbers after the team hired Sheldon Keefe were quite strong, though they didn’t live up to his previous 60 point season.
Barrie is an all-out offensive defensemen, and they traded a key defensive player in Kadri in exchange for more offense, which is exactly the opposite of what they need.
The Patrick Marleau Trade
While I mentioned a lot of the success should be credited from this Lamoriello-built team that Kyle Dubas has inherited a major portion of, this is an instance where Dubas was forced to make a move based on a contract he had to take on and manage.
With cap space needed to re-sign Mitch Marner, Dubas traded veteran Patrick Marleau to the Carolina Hurricanes along with a conditional first and seventh round pick in the 2020 draft, while only getting a sixth round pick in return. Obviously it would have been hard to ask for much more for Marleau, but giving up a first round pick for a salary dump was not a good look.
You can argue that this situation could have been handled better if the contract extensions Dubas made prior to this deal, like the William Nylander contract (which is probably already a bargain), were managed better, but Dubas has built this team around a certain philosophy which he believes will bring a Stanley Cup to the city of Toronto and he has remained pretty transparent about that throughout his time here.
He is clearly putting his money in the places he believes will make this team competitive for a long period of time, and he has yet to have been proven wrong.
Next. Can The Current Toronto Maple Leafs Core Win A Cup?. dark
Kyle Dubas has previously talked about how this process of taking this team to the next level is not easy, and that it takes time. With every successful GM there are going to be highs and lows, but if the Toronto Maple Leafs can win a Stanley Cup in the Kyle Dubas era, he will likely go down as one of the best GM’s in franchise history.