Toronto Maple Leafs: Time Vindicates Kyle Dubas on Big Contracts

Did the Toronto Maple Leafs Wait Too Long?

The biggest criticism you can make against the Leafs for these contracts is that they waited so long to negotiate them. The implication of this criticism is that if the Leafs had of tried to sign their two best players earlier, the contracts would have cost less.

Kyle Dubas was named the Toronto Maple Leafs GM on May 11, 2018.  Auston Matthews didn’t sign his extension until February 5th 2019.   Marner didn’t sign until September, 2019.

In the NHL you can sign players to an extension a year before their contract expires.  Since they were rookies at the same time, both Marner and Matthews had their entry-level deals expire at the end of the 18-19 season, and were eligible for extensions around the time Kyle Dubas was first hired.

The Leafs waited nine months to sign Matthews, and over a year to sign Marner.  Would the team have gotten the players signed cheaper if they acted earlier?

The risk of waiting with most players is that they suddenly break out and you are on the hook for more money.  This famously happened to Montreal when PK Subban won the Norris Trophy on a bridge deal.

It wasn’t a real risk for the Leafs with these players, however.  Whatever happened in year three, it was already clear that Matthews and Marner’s next contracts would be negotiated from the perspective that they were two of the best players in the world.

It was clear even then that these were franchise players, so other than an annual rising cap and re-adjustment of the market, the Leafs didn’t have to worry about signing their two players before they broke out.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to think the contracts would be better (for the team) if they were signed earlier, but if I know that, so do the Leafs.  If they could have signed them earlier, they would have,  but what incentive did the players have to do so?

I fully agree with the critics that the Leafs should have signed these deals earlier, I just don’t know why the players would have done that.   Some players will trade the uncertainty of the future for guaranteed money, but that can be countered with an insurance policy for a lot less money than it will cost you to sign early when you know you are a franchise player.

This criticism has always struck me as unfair.  If the Leafs dithered and in fact Matthews and Marner were not allowed to sign a contract early, then that would be a disaster.  But that is clearly not what happened.

RFA players have very little leverage in the first place, so refusing to sign the day they are eligible is one of their strongest moves.  Something you could blame the Leafs for is not acting more aggressively when Marner and Matthews were on their entry-level deals, but they should get a pass for this.