Look there is A LOT of things you could be critical of Dubas for, I could and have gone over them before.
Signing Tavares is not one of them.
If you have a 27 year old legitimate #1 center that wants to play for your team you sign that contract.
ANYBODY would have signed that contract I don't care if you got Matthews and Kadri or not.
ANYBODY would have signed that contract you can say you wouldn't have but I know that's not true, and you know that's not true.
Besides if he wasn't here where would we be now? certainly not 1st place in the Atlantic.
Dubas doesn't get credit for very much, overall he's a bad GM.
But he does get credit for a couple things and that's one of them.
I have nothing against JT, but a lot against the signing.
We had Matthews going to be our 1C, we had Kadri and Bozak and Nylander all capable of being a 2C. We did not need a 2C enough that we made him not only the highest paid 2C ever (and by a lot!), but one of the very highest paid players period.
"If he wasn't here where would we be now?" Who knows. But imagine what might have been the team if we had his $11M, plus the overpayments to Matthews and Marner and to a lesser extent Nylander available. What might have been done with possibly $20M more each of the last 6 years?
We did not need the most expensive 2C ever when we already had quality 2C and had up-and-coming Matthews, Marner and Nylander, but desperately needed defence and goaltending.
And, no, much as I like JT I would not have signed him, as I said at the time and repeatedly even since.