Toronto Maple Leafs: Kyle Dubas Best and Worst Moves as GM

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.

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.