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Ranking Dubas' worst transactions - #1

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What was Dubas' worst transaction?

  • Matthews contract

    Votes: 6 3.6%

  • Marner contract

    Votes: 27 16.1%

  • Mrazek contract

    Votes: 9 5.4%

  • Tavares contract

    Votes: 46 27.4%

  • Marchment trade

    Votes: 2 1.2%

  • Marleau trade (Seth Jarvis pick)

    Votes: 14 8.3%

  • Murray trade

    Votes: 22 13.1%

  • Kadri trade

    Votes: 28 16.7%

  • Foligno trade

    Votes: 8 4.8%

  • Protecting Holl and Kerfoot over McCann

    Votes: 6 3.6%
  • Total voters
    168
  • Poll closed .
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Mr Bill Waters said:
You can't blame Dubas for Tavares. No one would give up getting an eliet #1C for free, and at a discount. Ya he's slowed down, but he is still a ppg #1C. Do none of you remember when we had the gallant but meager Bozak as our #1C? Really, some fans of this team have short memories. We are in an enviable position: we have the prospect of winning the cup in the next ten years with this core. But here many of you are, complaining about our captain and Dubas. I've never seen a fanbase so eager for blood.
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It's not the Tavares contact itself, it's the timing of the signing.

Leafs were supposed to be building, following the plan. Remember the 5 years of pain promised by Babcock?

JT was a superstar, especially at the time of the signing. $11 million seemed about right for a free agent of that calibre. Number one centres don't grow on trees, and they're almost impossible to acquire via signing- but it wasn't what Toronto needed at the time.
 
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notbias said:
Source? I didn't know Dubas was running the draft. Hunter was considered the draft genius, seems weird they let Dubas run it. I thought I remember hearing Hunter ran it and that Dubas wanted Aho over Dermott. The trade down may have worked out if Dubas was actually running it, they would have ended up with Werenski (although I thought Dubas was rumoured to have wanted Rantanen) and Aho, maybe even kept the late first and drafted Konecny.

My memory is not super up to date on this, so I could be wrong, but I think Jack Han was the one discussing this.
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Here is the CLB draft day video with CLB trying to move up from 8th to 4th. At the same time I didn't get the sense Dubas ran this draft, Hunter based on the interviews he did before and after seemed like he was driving the ship there. Kyle may have been helping out with the phones for trades wheeling and dealing, but Hunter seemed to have had the final say with who to pick, he also announced the pick.

 
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It's got to be the Marner contract.

Tavares, every GM will take it. People are using hindsight to call it his worst move. If we're sitting here with multiple Cups, no one's complaining. Heck, if you told us Tavares would still be an 80 point player at this point, people would take it also.

Marner was bad the moment he signed. Rantanen signed for 1.7M less a week after Marner despite better stats and I believe the Marner contract actually inflated Rantanen's.
 
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socko said:
That absolute pure worst has to be the Foligno trade. That was terrible

But the most damaging, by far, was Tavares.
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I was thinking of the perfect way to say something along the lines of this. But, you beat me to it.

Very well said
 
In terms of franchise crippling decisions, signing Tavares was a stroke of pure genius right up there with Fantasia or the Edsel.

Everything wrong with this team stems from that single stupid decision.

In 2018 Dubas inherited a team loaded with young talent, a whack load of cap space, and a HOF head coach. Fired the coach, blew the cap, and made Captain Boat Anchor a $6.5M upgrade at 2C over Kadri. All while winning a single playoffs round in five years.

Just a stupid, stupid man.

That convinced an even more stupid man he’s not as stupid as everything he says and does indicates. It was just one stupid thing after another. His entire tenure was a constant sequence of franchise crippling mistakes.

With the signing of Tavares the dumbest of all.
 
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We have to be fair.

The Tavares signing looks bad in hindsight but it was widely celebrated here at the time. Most GMs would have brought in a #1 C in his prime at that cap hit. It's not good now but I saw the logic at the time.

For me, his biggest mistakes were everything related to goaltending (funny he's gone and done the same thing in Pittsburgh too) and then how he got manhandled by the core during negotiations.

That's what wrecked his tenure and left him in a bind. Those were mistakes as soon as they happened with Murray being the most ridiculous trade of them all.
 
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ACC1224 said:
Lou never maxed out the cap.
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No, but he overpaid big time for Marleau. I’m not supporting Dubas, I never liked his trades and especially how he handled Matthews’ and Marner’s contracts. Overpaid by a lot and too short a term.
 
The whole point of this thread is hindsight....

Why are people being so weird about it lmao. We've been able to see how these moves panned out, and its clear the Tavares contract is single handedly the worst one. Its what started us down this path and a big reason why were here right now.

I remember when the signing happened I wasn't blindly celebrating it like it was the greatest thing ever. How often does the top UFA signing end up working out in the end for the team signing it? More often then not, it goes poorly and that is for a number of reasons (Ranger fans already want Panarin gone too).

While we were getting a great player, I was still skeptical of the move and wanted to see how it played out before fully judging it. Being the gm, you have to think of every way how this contract can play out poorly. What does it do to the people you already currently have? What will it mean for you cap structure going forward? How will he age with his below average skating? If you sign JT for 11m and AM is already better than him, how can you argue paying him less?

These are all legitimate questions that you need to be thinking before committing to the signing.

I always laugh at the "you dont turn down getting this type of asset for free". Did we really get him for free? Is he still considered an asset in this league today? We had to give up 11m on the cap to get him. Cap space is an extremely valuable asset in this league and we just pissed it away like it was nothing. Look at all the assets we had to lose because of this contract. Signing JT is the furthest thing from getting a player for free. We've been bleeding assets ever since with next to no success to show for it.
 
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Shanwhatplan said:
No, but he overpaid big time for Marleau. I’m not supporting Dubas, I never liked his trades and especially how he handled Matthews’ and Marner’s contracts. Overpaid by a lot and too short a term.
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Yes he was overpaid and then Dubas compounded the problem. The way things WERE it could have easily been ridden out.
 
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TMLBlueandWhite said:
In terms of franchise crippling decisions, signing Tavares was a stroke of pure genius right up there with Fantasia or the Edsel.

Everything wrong with this team stems from that single stupid decision.

In 2018 Dubas inherited a team loaded with young talent, a whack load of cap space, and a HOF head coach. Fired the coach, blew the cap, and made Captain Boat Anchor a $6.5M upgrade at 2C over Kadri. All while winning a single playoffs round in five years.

Just a stupid, stupid man.

That convinced an even more stupid man he’s not as stupid as everything he says and does indicates. It was just one stupid thing after another. His entire tenure was a constant sequence of franchise crippling mistakes.

With the signing of Tavares the dumbest of all.
Click to expand...

I get so pissed seeing people say this. It’s all hindsight. This was the place Tavares wanted to be. It didn’t matter who the GM was, he was signing here.

The funniest part about this whole shit is, if he didn’t sign Tavares, we probably still don’t have playoff success, this thread still exists and people would be blaming Dubas for his ability not to sign a marquee free agent in Tavares.

Additionally if you think Tavares was a Dubas decision alone get real. That mandate came straight from the board and Shanny.

Signing Tavares wasn’t the issue. Allowing all the RFA’s to be grossly overpaid was the issue. They should have been firm on them.
 
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TMLBlueandWhite said:
In terms of franchise crippling decisions, signing Tavares was a stroke of pure genius right up there with Fantasia or the Edsel.

Everything wrong with this team stems from that single stupid decision.

In 2018 Dubas inherited a team loaded with young talent, a whack load of cap space, and a HOF head coach. Fired the coach, blew the cap, and made Captain Boat Anchor a $6.5M upgrade at 2C over Kadri. All while winning a single playoffs round in five years.

Just a stupid, stupid man.

That convinced an even more stupid man he’s not as stupid as everything he says and does indicates. It was just one stupid thing after another. His entire tenure was a constant sequence of franchise crippling mistakes.

With the signing of Tavares the dumbest of all.
Click to expand...
He put together a pretty damn good team for being so stupid. Improved it every season.
 
Divine said:
It's got to be the Marner contract.

Tavares, every GM will take it. People are using hindsight to call it his worst move. If we're sitting here with multiple Cups, no one's complaining. Heck, if you told us Tavares would still be an 80 point player at this point, people would take it also.

Marner was bad the moment he signed. Rantanen signed for 1.7M less a week after Marner despite better stats and I believe the Marner contract actually inflated Rantanen's.
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There were only a few that called it at the time. It’s not like it was an obvious bad signing , a la, Simmonds x2, Malgin, Thornton, Galchenyuk, Murray, Mrazak, etc., so in hindsight, those that said they’d be exactly where they are, we’re right.
 
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For the record, I didn't mind Dubas during his tenure here, and I thought it was the right move to give him a shot over Lou.

Unfortunately, we stagnated, and in hindsight, his overall impact was not great. I don't think we will look back on his tenure as being anything special either way.

I am very glad to have moved on, especially seeing those Jarry and Graves contracts. 10m on a weak 1B and a 3rd pairing dman.
 
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I voted Marner. It was clearly an egregious overpay and is symbolic of a culture on the team and Dubas' philosophy on management of leaning too heavily on top heavy, soft skilled players without a balanced lineup.

I get the argument for JT but have to disagree. JT has produced at a good pace, it may have been the wrong direction for the team but he's still a good player. And just because he got $X didn't mean Dubas' had to cave to on other deals.

To be fair from a hockey trade point of view probably the worst deals were Murray, Foligno, Marchment. They bled us out on talent or cap space for literally nothing.
 
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