About that 105-point team Dubas "inherited":
- I'm interested to know which defencemen among Jake Gardiner, Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev, Travis Dermott, Roman Polak, Calle Rosen, Connor Carrick, Andreas Borgman and Martin Marincin would you think were worth keeping and added to the value of the franchise?
- The Leafs' defence was a known weakness, and the Dubas management team kept Morgan Rielly and Justin Holl, and eventually promoted Timothy Liljegren from within.
- I think Dubas kept the right players, moved the ones that needed to be moved, and vastly improved the defence.
- Just looking at the defence then and now, I don't think much of anything was handed to Dubas on a silver platter.
- The same question about forwards James vanRiemsdyk, Patrick Marleau, Tyler Bozak, Zach Hyman, Connor Brown, Leo Komorov, Dominic Moore, Matt Martin, Kasperi Kapanen, Josh Leivo, Andreas Johansson, Thomas Plekanec, Fred Gauthier, Nikita Soshnikov and Eric Fehr? They kept Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, and also promoted Pierre Engvall from within. However, I think it's a fantasy to think that Dubas "inherited" a capable forward group that could possibly have been kept intact moving forward. The three good pieces were fantastic, but the rest of the group other than Kadri and maybe Bozak was pretty much a mess. Not only that, but in April 2018 Nylander was still unsigned some ten months into his RFA negotiation window, which was unfortunate to say the least.
- The Leafs were in much better shape in goal then than they are now, with a younger, better Fred Andersen signed long-term and a highly capable back-up Curtis McElhinney having been picked up off waivers. Goal was and continues to be the Achilles heel of Dubas' management, and it is a significant failure.
On balance, I'm tired of the "105-point" mantra because it really doesn't hold water when you look at the actual rosters then and now. It took a lot of work to move from where the Leafs were then to where they are now.
Furthermore, if anyone should think that having Matthews, Marner and Nylander on ELC's and Rielly on a long-term team-friendly contract is an automatic ticket to success, then I suggest you read up on the progress of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom with another team; or on the success of Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals for the first ten years of his NHL career. You don't put these young stars in an Easy-Bake oven and expect them to come out perfectly formed ten minutes later. That aspect of roster-building and player-development takes work too, and it isn't automatic.
