Dubas deserves a lot of heat for his earlier rosters when Matthews and Marner were taking over the reigns in 2019 and 2020 and the Leafs were doubling down on small, skill, speed.
How do you get beat up by the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins in 2017 and 2018 and think the answer is to surround your young 21-22 year old core pieces with even smaller support guys while getting rid of that playoff sandpaper in Komarov, Martin, Polak? Dubas was trying to re-invent the wheel but didn't even have a grasp on playoff basics and the human factor of physical and emotional intimidation.
Not sure why you keep trying to push this incorrect idea that Dubas was trying to reinvent the wheel.
They didn't get "beat up" by Washington and Boston, and the Leafs weren't "doubling down" on small skill and speed.
None of the players you named even played through the whole playoffs in 2017 and 2018. Martin only played in the playoffs in 2017, Komarov only played in 2017 and 2 games in 2018 as a suspension replacement, and Polak only played in 2018 and 2 games in 2017. Two of them were removed from our playoff rosters before Dubas even became GM, and the other's contract expired as that transition happened. All were overpaid for what they brought, and Dubas would have been blasted for re-signing healthy scratches to multi-million dollar contracts.
And the idea that those type of players were gotten rid of and never replaced is just flat out wrong.
The main change of players between the 2018 and 2019 playoffs were JVR/Bozak/Plekanec/Polak -> Tavares/Moore/Gauthier/Muzzin.
That's not erasing physicality and getting smaller.
The main change of players between the 2019 and 2020 playoffs were Marleau/Brown/Moore/Kadri/Gauthier/Zaitsev/Gardiner/Hainsey -> Mikheyev/Spezza/Clifford/Kerfoot/Engvall/Holl/Barrie/Ceci. That's not erasing physicality and getting smaller.
In fact, Muzzin was tougher than anybody lost from 2018, and Clifford was tougher than anybody lost from 2019.
Even aside from Muzzin, we had a Polak replacement every year, between Ozhiniganov, Ceci, Bogosian, Lyubushkin, and Schenn.
Tavares is definitely the Big One. If he hadn't signed at $11 million per season, maybe the Big 3 contracts wouldn't have escalated the way they did. You could have saved $3 million on Matthews and Marner combined
UFA contracts have nothing to do with RFA contracts. You're not getting them for 3m less, whether you sign Tavares or not.
Second is they should have been more proactive in moving UFAs like Gardiner and Andersen.
Competitive teams do not move their starting goalie and top-4 defenseman, especially when their internal stocks of potential replacements have been stripped bare by the previous GM. By the time they weren't those things for us and we had potential to move on without taking steps back, they were injured and not worth much.
Yeah if they had moved off Johnsson and Kapanen one year earlier they could have just lived with Marleau.
Much easier to say with hindsight and the knowledge that a sudden, pandemic-induced flat cap helped push them out later, that we're just going to throw away a competitive year and two young players in order to save a cap anchor and on-ice liability.
And then just all the little heads up moves other teams made during this era that Toronto could have plausibly done if they had the cap flexibility. Trading 2 2nd's for Devon Toews, re-signing Verhaeghe instead of passing over a few hundred k.
When did we pass over Verhaeghe, aside from when Lou threw him away? Yeah, if we cherry pick the best hindsight moves around the league over the past 5 years, you could argue any GM had potential missed opportunities. Doesn't really say anything.
