The Toronto Maple Leafs are having a terrible offseason.
Not only did the Toronto Maple Leafs let Kyle Dubas walk, which was a terrible decision, but current GM Brad Treliving has been getting embarrassed by the rest of the NHL.
When you’re a new GM, you want to make a great first impression, but in my opinion, Treliving has done the opposite. With $17M in cap-space to play with, Treliving spent all of it on Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, John Klingberg, Ryan Reaves and David Kampf.
Bertuzzi is a legitimate first-line left-winger, but that $17M was spent was unwisely, especially now that we’re six weeks into free agency.
Toronto Maple Leafs Are Having a Terrible Offseason
Domi, Reaves and Kampf are all third and fourth-line players, yet they’re going to cost the team almost $7M next year.
For $2.5M, you could get the same results from Pontus Holmberg, Matthew Knies and and one of either Nick Robertson or Alex Steeves.
With that $5M saved, the team could have signed, I don’t know, Vladimir Tarasenko, who just signed a one-year deal with the Ottawa Senators for $5M. By signing Tarasenko, they wouldn’t have needed to sign Bertuzzi, so right there, you’d have another $5.5M saved, which could have been spent on someone like Matt Dumba, who just signed for $3.9M.
Then, with that $3.9M spent on Dumba, you wouldn’t have had to give Klingberg $4M, so all of a sudden this team could have had Dumba and Tarasenko for $9M with another $6M to play with.
I know it doesn’t work out that easily in free agency, but if the Leafs decided to wait a few days instead of going all-in during the first week of free agency, this team could have looked a lot differently and could have been even better.
Would you rather have Bertuzzi or Tarasenko? Personally, I’d rather have Tarasenko, especially for $500K less. The same can be said for Klingberg versus Dumba and the fact that Dumba signed for less than Klingberg, shows just how much the Leafs over-valued Klingberg.
With $6M to play with, Toronto could have went after Erik Karlsson way easier or could have used that money to sign both Tarasenko and Bertuzzi, which would have been fun.
With a combination of Tarasenko and Bertuzzi, the team could be under the salary-cap, without having to rely on players like Domi, Reaves and Kampf to put up points.
Imagine the Leafs with Matthews, Tarasenko, Bertuzzi, Nylander, Tavares and Marner? You could move Nylander to centre and split them up in pairings so you have a combination like this:
- Jarnkrok – Matthews – Marner
- Knies – Tavares – Tarasenko
- Robertson- Nylander – Bertuzzi
- Lafferty – Holmberg – Steeves
I know this is a fantasy world, but these are the type of things that the Leafs could have done if they didn’t decide to spend close to $7M on Domi, Kampf and Reaves. I can’t repeat this enough, but you can’t have your fourth-line players making more than minimum wage. It’s terrible cap management!
It’s a sick joke watching other teams sign players like Tarasenko for $5M and Dumba for $3.9M when the Leafs should have been in on them. Not only that, but watching the Pittsburgh Penguins make a splash for Erik Karlsson should drive everyone nuts because he would’ve seriously helped this roster.
It’s great to have cap-space in the offseason, but it’s awful when it’s spent unwisely. The Toronto Maple Leafs have done a terrible job thus far and Treliving should be ashamed by his spending habits.