Please Grade Dubas on today's Free Agent Pickups.

  • Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates

Give Kyle Dubas a letter grade on this day.


  • Total voters
    527
  • Poll closed .
After seeing what D went for today, I think the Seattle/Pens dealing made sense.

He overpaid Marner and Matthews, but the flat cap isn’t really on him.
I still don't understand why assets were given up to protect (lol) Kerfoot from getting selected. But I always agreed with the 4-4-1 in order to protect Holl. I think Holl is very underrated around here. Especially at his very low cap hit.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DANTHEMAN1967
Leafs are worse today than end of year last year. For this reason alone I can't reward above a C.

As this decline was somewhat expected (which is why the stars needed to produce against the Habs), the objective should be to find difficult players to play against. They may also need to explore the possibly of a lineup in which Kerfoot is up in the top six.

I still have to believe that a trade makes more sense than trying to solely hunt down bargains. You've tied your own hands. Untie them somewhat and trade to find a different look, and/or free up space.
 
  • Like
Reactions: supermann_98
The team got worse heading into next year. That tells you all you need to know.

Big fat F for Dubass
I agree that the team got worse compared to last years regularly season but we got better than last seasons playoffs with Tavares coming back
 
After seeing what D went for today, I think the Seattle/Pens dealing made sense.

He overpaid Marner and Matthews, but the flat cap isn’t really on him.

Yeah but the flat cap means that our 11 million dollar players won't be taking up a lesser percentage of the cap as the years go by which was obviously the expectation so ... it's not his fault that there is a flat cap, but it is 100% on him that he stubbornly refuses to adjust to this new reality.

For that reason, he gets an F(ail) from me because no matter how much he shuffles around the bit parts, the big picture remains flawed.
 
Why no E Grade? ;)

It's unfair to really decide this as we're half a day into free agency and Dubas has 2 months to continue this years plan. I fully expect him to address the gapping hole in the top 6 LW
 
Also Brayden Point quietly extended for 8 x 9.5. So they got 3 years of 6.75 and then 3 years of 9.5 in the same time we get 6 years of Marner x 10.8

It’s a difference of 16 million over 6 years
Or 2.6 per year
Pretty hard to compare just about anyone to Tampa. They have an advantage.
 
Also Brayden Point quietly extended for 8 x 9.5. So they got 3 years of 6.75 and then 3 years of 9.5 in the same time we get 6 years of Marner x 10.8

It’s a difference of 16 million over 6 years
Or 2.6 per year

Florida has the advantage and it will always be a Canadian liability. Lower taxes, and I imagine a lower cost of living.

Throw in sunshine and general anonymity means teams in Florida have a bright future for a long time. It would be fairly easy for a GM to sell the benefits of living in Florida compared to almost any city in Canada.
 
I think people are more disappointed with what we DIDNT do, than what we did do.

Mrazek was a top goalie for us to target and we got him, and given some of the other goalie contracts handed out, it made sense to do that deal. (Reimer getting 2.25, Bernier over 4, Ullmark’s deal, Driedger getting 3.5M)

Bunting is a worthwhile gamble. As I said in another thread, He’s fun when he was going to be ONE of the additions, not THE addition like it appears he is now, though will change.

Kampf I was really sour on at first. Since then I’ve done some educating myself on him, and I’ve come around to being “okay” with it. Don’t love it, still don’t kinda like it, but he fits the type of player we can use, and I’m willing to be open minded.

Everyone else are just depth guys.


Nothing to be upset about there.


However, as I said, it’s about what we didn’t do.

I am concerned as of now, but need to hope there’s some trades or further signings coming.
 
I didn’t expect much and they delivered, not sure how to grade that. I’m more inclined to decide on what I think of the roster on opening night. I’m hopeful it’s still a work in progress.
 
I can’t help but think that if Tavares/Foligno stayed Healthy we go to round two.
The yellowness and choke from Matthews/Marner on the other hand is disgusting.
The softness in the bottom 6 was just as disgusting.

The fancy players stop in the the botton six and its nastiness,brawls and a damn gladiator show or you lose as its proven every playoff.

Dubas made his bed. Not our problem when it takes him down
 
Without moving one of the big 4 or a guy like Rielly (which Dubas made clear he wasn't doing) there was pretty much nothing Dubas could do with UFAs to actually make a meaningful change bar trading Kerfoot too.
 
I gave a C. No major issues, but nothing that’s going to move the needle much. I like that he waited out the frenzy and left some cap left.

I’d look to move kerfoot, sign a LW in the $2M range and see if we can get a 3C for around $5M from a team looking to shake things up.
 
Ovechkin re-signs for 9.5, Point re-signs for 9.5, Landeskog re-signs for 7… Meanwhile we have Marner making basically 11… What a disaster. Anyways, that’s a topic for another thread.

I’ve given Dubas a C. Adding Mrazek was a solid addition to form a pretty good tandem with Campbell. At first I thought 3.8 per was a little on the higher end but after seeing what some other goalies received, it turned out pretty good.

Adding Bunting was a nice addition as well, but he’s only got what 26 NHL games under his belt? He won’t move the needle very much.

Kampf is another low key solid addition. It will allow Kerfoot to play more on the left wing.

The rest of the UFA signings I don’t really care much about, they’ll probably just add a little competition in training camp and see themselves playing for the Marlies.

The only thing stopping Dubas from getting a better grade is that we lost Hyman without replacing him in our top six. We desperately need a left winger to play in our top six.
 
B so far. Got a goalie at a good price based on the league. Bunting adds solid depth in the lineup. Kampf is just wierd but not awful.
Need a top 6er though and then will change it.
 
We all knew the team was going to get worse, the wheels were set in motion a long time ago.
 
Also Brayden Point quietly extended for 8 x 9.5. So they got 3 years of 6.75 and then 3 years of 9.5 in the same time we get 6 years of Marner x 10.8

It’s a difference of 16 million over 6 years
Or 2.6 per year

Illustrates perfectly what a brain dead move it was to give Marner all that dough. He should have been told that if you're turning down the same deal Tavares got then it'll be a bridge deal for you. And it would have been completely risk free because there was no way Marner would become a top 5 player in the NHL during the bridge deal which he'd basically have to get even more money than he was given.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Brown Dog
D we regressed as a team, I don't see how losing Hyman, Bogosian, etc for nothing can be considered anything but bad but at least we didn't get a terrible long term deal.

Bunting seems like a desperate plea, and Mrazek like a average signing.
 
I didn’t expect much and they delivered, not sure how to grade that. I’m more inclined to decide on what I think of the roster on opening night. I’m hopeful it’s still a work in progress.

I doubt you'll see any meaningful changes. The defence is good, not awesome but overall very solid. The goalies are who knows, they could be great or they could much less than great, no way to know for sure. The forwards are top heavy, 4 really good players and a bunch of spare parts.

And that's it. Unless they move Rielly in which case we'll probably end up with one more good forward between the top 4 and the spare parts, like we'll have one Kerfoot level player instead of two but the defence won't be as good. You have seasons tickets so you'll probably see them win their share of games and probably make the playoffs. After that though they'll be in tough to win even one round and it's hard to see them going any further than that.
 

Ad

Ad