Ranking Dubas' worst transactions - #2

[Mess]

Trading for Bostons 1st rounder when they're 100 points ahead of second place was hilarious.

Trading 23 year of Rasmus Sandin who was drafted with a 1st rounder 29th pick overall in 2018, and then spend 5 years developing him into an NHL and then you turn around and trade him for the #28 overall pick in the 2023 draft just to begin the process all over again serves what purpose exactly?.

You trade the youngest player off your aging roster for a future lottery pick gamble which you know is coming from the President's trophy team bottom 3 selection of the 1st round, which if works out is years away from helping the parent team. So instead of potentially helping your current playoff run, we have to watch an aging 39 year old Giordano run out of steam in the playoffs instead of young legs.

Lucky Dubas was fired because I suspect he was acquiring this pick to help dispose of the Murray contract disaster, just like he used a 1st in 2022 to remove his Mrazek blunder.

 

[FerrisRox]

The fanbase is large enough that every decision has detractors. I can accept that.

But, I can also assure you 27% were not against the Tavares signing at the time.

To be fair, the argument that signing Tavares was going to hurt the team because it blew up the internal pay structure of the team and the high profile RFA's were going to use it as a benchmark for their own salaries was soundly rejected here as being idiotic and there were very vocal members of this community who claim that "wasn't how it worked" and only an idiot would compare an RFA and a UFA.

When that is exactly what happened, those same people then said that there was nothing wrong with the contracts given to Matthews, Marner and Nylander.

There was, absolutely and without doubt, a large and vocal chunk of HFLeafs that were going to say whatever Dubas did was good regardless of what it was.

 

[Mess]

Trades should also be judged on their final results not just expectations.

The ROR and Noel Accairi trade should make the list as all time bad moves.

The Toronto Maple Leafs acquired St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly and forward Noel Acciari in a blockbuster trade also involving the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.

The Blues receive forward prospect Mikhail Abramov, AHL forward Adam Gaudette, Toronto's first-round pick in 2023, Ottawa's third-round pick in 2023 and Toronto's second-round pick in 2024. St. Louis will also eat 50 per cent of O'Reilly's remaining salary. The Wild will retain 25 per cent of O'Reilly's total salary as an intermediary in the trade. In exchange, the Maple Leafs will send Minnesota their own fourth-round pick in 2025.

When you trade 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th round picks and prospect and nearly wipe out an entire draft class and it results in rental players that lead to 11 playoff games and 5 playoff wins total and then gone via free agency and you have nothing left then that kind of long-term damage inflicted on the Leafs organization should be in the top 5 right up there with Foligno trade. IMO

Saying you gambled is one thing, but then not admitting regrettably afterwards the trade failed miserably and was very very costly thereafter is missing the mark on BAD moves if not included on this list.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Thanks for the response.

That stupid promise prevented Dubas from re-balancing the roster. He should have traded Nylander and signed one of the big name UFA defensemen. Instead he kept the friendship circle holding hands.

Proving, in spectacular fashion, that a soft, no hit, top heavy, all offense team can't win in the playoffs.

First, "a verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on", and it really didn't prevent Dubas from trading him if he wanted to.

Second, while Nylander would likely have given a better return than Marner, because he was on a much better value contract, for the same reason he would have been the better choice to keep, if one was to be traded.

Once he had signed Tavares and said "we can and we will" keep all four, his best value contract was Nylander's.

If he hadn't signed Tavares, he would have had $77M instead of $42M to acquire a top defenceman, and we would still have Nylander, the better player, especially now.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

I completely forgot about Lou somehow. You can throw Fletcher into that list too. That Steen trade was a big time stinker from what I remember

Huh? Fletcher is going to be remembered because of a Stempniak acquisition?

He gets no love for the Gilmour/Sundin era? HHoF Builder not good enough? A Cup with CGY?

 

[Mess]

To be fair, the argument that signing Tavares was going to hurt the team because it blew up the internal pay structure of the team and the high profile RFA's were going to use it as a benchmark for their own salaries was soundly rejected here as being idiotic and there were very vocal members of this community who claim that "wasn't how it worked" and only an idiot would compare an RFA and a UFA.

When that is exactly what happened, those same people then said that there was nothing wrong with the contracts given to Matthews, Marner and Nylander.

There was, absolutely and without doubt, a large and vocal chunk of HFLeafs that were going to say whatever Dubas did was good regardless of what it was.

I'd like to allow my own post into evidence from years back, when I stated that very thing, was about to happen upon hearing of the $11 mil Tavares signing (the largest UFA signing in Cap history). I predicted our GM Dubas would now get played by clever player agents when I predicted the outcome of their future contracts and how badly that would impact the Leafs cap and Cup competitiveness.

Dubas fan club members accused me of being ridiculous as RFA and UFA contracts don't work like that, and JT deal would have no impact of Leafs future contracts of the 3 Amigo's.

Strangely now those same detractors then are the biggest defendors & suppports of the Matthews and Marner contracts now.

When Dubas signed JT to his $11 mil contract, I said my Leafs are screwed now because I claimed JT contract would act like a magnet and draw AM and MM contracts up to his, and what I feared most was that veteran seasoned player agents were going to take advantage of our new greenhorn GM when it came the signing of the 3 Amigo's.

My contract prediction (for the 3 Amigos right after JT signing).
Matthews ..... @ $12 mil
Tavares .......... @ $11 mil
Marner ...........@ $10 mil
Nylander ..... @ $7.5 mil
---------------------------------
Total ........ $ 40.5 mil (which would consume = 1/2 Leafs salary Cap)

Actual contracts
Matthews ..... @ $11.634 mil
Tavares .......... @ $11.0 mil
Marner ...........@ $10.893 mil
Nylander ..... @ $6,962 mil
---------------------------------
Total ........ $ 40.489 mil (which does consume = 1/2 Leafs salary Cap)

Difference = -$11,000

So I missed by $11k and now we have confirmation in our player agents poll those very agents voting Dubas as the best GM to get the best deals for their clients = exactly my worst fear realized and now confirmed.

 

[TheScandal89]

Signing Tavares was fine, the follow up moves that were what made it a disaster.

1. When we signed him, we got a free high end Top 6 centre. That gave us 3 at the time (AM and Kadri). That gave us great depth down the middle for the time. The Kadri trade was an absolute disaster, as we got the huge asset in Tavares for free and lost a great asset in Kadri for basically nothing. Terrible asset management by Dubas.

2. Giving a UFA that money is not something unheard of, the market dictates it and as the Toronto Maple Leafs you are able to pull those deals off. The problem with the management afterwards, was you had RFAs in Matthews and Marner who we couldnt keep their contracts under control when we had complete control. Look at Stamkos and Tavares deals after ELC, 6 year 33 million for Tavares and 5 year 37.5 mil for Stamkos. This is where Lou would have come in handy to potentially keep both under 10 million a season.

 

[Dekes For Days]

This thread is only on number 2

And so far, the two worst things that this place think the GM did was sign an elite player in UFA, and re-sign one of the best young players in the cap era.

Wow that's a whole paragraph of you proving you don't understand the difference.

That paragraph shows that I actually do understand the difference. There is no singular "RFA rate" and "UFA rate". Different RFA seasons will have different values, and different UFA seasons will have different values, and age impacts everything, as I mentioned. What exactly do you think is wrong?

The biggest difference you happened to omit is your ability to sign with a single team vs all of them

I mean, there are things like offer sheets, but we also weren't talking about signing restrictions. We were talking about compensation rate throughout different years.

 

[Arzak]

Trades should also be judged on their final results not just expectations.

The ROR and Noel Accairi trade should make the list as all time bad moves.



When you trade 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th round picks and prospect and nearly wipe out an entire draft class and it results in rental players that lead to 11 playoff games and 5 playoff wins total and then gone via free agency and you have nothing left then that kind of long-term damage inflicted on the Leafs organization should be in the top 5 right up there with Foligno trade. IMO

Saying you gambled is one thing, but then not admitting regrettably afterwards the trade failed miserably and was very very costly thereafter is missing the mark on BAD moves if not included on this list.

Repeat this year after year. There was no need to push for it so hard from the get go. We could draft several Knies(s) throughout the years. Hell you can argue keeping your picks the first couple of year could go a long way. Maybe we wouldn't need to trade picks for rental if we kept previous picks . Vicious circle.

JT signing . You can't have aging JT @ 11 and slowly develop the rest. The most expansive UFA signing ever.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Signing Tavares was fine, the follow up moves that were what made it a disaster.

1. When we signed him, we got a free high end Top 6 centre. That gave us 3 at the time (AM and Kadri). That gave us great depth down the middle for the time. The Kadri trade was an absolute disaster, as we got the huge asset in Tavares for free and lost a great asset in Kadri for basically nothing. Terrible asset management by Dubas.

2. Giving a UFA that money is not something unheard of, the market dictates it and as the Toronto Maple Leafs you are able to pull those deals off. The problem with the management afterwards, was you had RFAs in Matthews and Marner who we couldnt keep their contracts under control when we had complete control. Look at Stamkos and Tavares deals after ELC, 6 year 33 million for Tavares and 5 year 37.5 mil for Stamkos. This is where Lou would have come in handy to potentially keep both under 10 million a season.

Signing a 2C for $11M when we already had a 2C at $4.5M, and what we needed was defence and goaltending, was anything but "fine".

 

[ULF_55]

The NHL Network (owned by the NHL) just put out their recent prospect rankings that placed the Leafs 25th out of 32 teams for Dubas body of work for selections and the damage inflicted on Leafs future by spending future capital to try and win now which produced 5 wins in a single playoff season over 5 years of draft pick abuse.

View attachment 730653

Our poor Leafs team haven't even faced the full impact of this yet as Dubas has traded away high picks like 1st and 2nd rounders years into the future.

No team in the NHL made less entry draft selections than Toronto past 3 years.

Islanders?

Wow, that's bad especially with how bad their team is.

 

[FerrisRox]

Leafs fans talked about getting Barrie for a few years. Who knew he was so terrible defensively.

Literally anybody that was even remotely familiar with him as a player.

(Except Dekes, who claims he was coming off an amazing playoff when he was acquired.)

Signing a 2C for $11M when we already had a 2C at $4.5M, and what we needed was defence and goaltending, was anything but "fine".

Before Tavares was signed, when the rumours were swirling, I said I thought it was an illogical move because the Leafs didn't require a second line center.

I was told by many - and I'm not kidding - that the Leafs biggest need was a third line center, and this move addressed that by bumping Kadri down into that slot.

That was the level of defence that Dubas was given here.

 

[Dekes For Days]

To be fair, the argument that signing Tavares was going to hurt the team because it blew up the internal pay structure of the team and the high profile RFA's were going to use it as a benchmark for their own salaries was soundly rejected here as being idiotic and there were very vocal members of this community who claim that "wasn't how it worked" and only an idiot would compare an RFA and a UFA.

The fact that that's not how contracts work remains true. Matthews and Marner being two of the best players in the entire cap era and earning the contracts they got that are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts had nothing to do with Tavares' UFA contract.

Literally anybody that was even remotely familiar with him as a player.
(Except Dekes, who claims he was coming off an amazing playoff when he was acquired.)

Everybody knew that defense wasn't his strength, but everybody also knew that he was a good player and coming off an excellent playoffs, where he played 5 minutes more per game than any other Colorado defenseman, and was one of Colorado's best players. That's why the trade was widely viewed as a win for the Leafs when it happened.

 

[Mess]

Repeat this year after year. There was no need to push for it so hard from the get go. We could draft several Knies(s) throughout the years. Hell you can argue keeping your picks the first couple of year could go a long way. Maybe we wouldn't need to trade picks for rental if we kept previous picks . Vicious circle.

JT signing . You can't have aging JT @ 11 and slowly develop the rest. The most expansive UFA signing ever.

I'd argue that IF your going to pay your stars players well above market to keep them in the fold, that comes at a steep Cup competitive cost attached.

The absolute best way to offset this is from excellent drafting and developing and so you annually have young players on ELC cheap contracts but can contribute at high levels is the key to success.

Management, scouts, trainers and player development etc don't have a Salary Cap so you could spend as much as possible to make good draft selections with many draft picks and then internally develop them to become NHLers.

Dubas did the exact opposite and used draft picks to fuel his failure in the present ,while mortgaging the future away at a heavy cost with no NHL team making less picks then the Leafs the past 3 years. In fact of the 3 X drafts X 7 rounds of picks = 21 potential selections the Leafs made only 11 total picks barely 50%. Dubas already spent Leafs 2nd and 3rd round picks in 2024, Leafs 1st, 2nd and 4th in 2025, and their 2nd in 2025 (3 years into the future).

 

[TheScandal89]

Signing a 2C for $11M when we already had a 2C at $4.5M, and what we needed was defence and goaltending, was anything but "fine".

Yeah but then you have a 2C for 11 million who scored 47 goals and a 2C at 4.5 that should have been traded for a legit Dman. If Kadri got traded 1 for 1 for a legit D man then it would have been fine, but he got traded for one of the worst defensive defenseman in Barrie and a bottom 6 plug in Kerfoot.

Regardless who was GM, Tavares was coming home anyway. Nobody can claim your saying no to him as a FA at the time, be realistic. The follow up moves were done horribly.

 

[socko]

Tavares would have benefitted by playing in the dead puck era. This modern game of lots of skating just doesn't fit him.

 

[Mike C]

Bending over and giving Matthews 8 year term AAV on a 5 year contract. That’s led to Matthews expecting the same sort of preferential treatment this time around with Marner and Nylander asking themselves “why not me as well?”

Or maybe they ask themselves "why not me instead"

 

[NinjaKick]

trading Sandin and not addressing the LW position at the deadline

 

[Byron Bitz]

And so far, the two worst things that this place think the GM did was sign an elite player in UFA, and re-sign one of the best young players in the cap

Marner didnt deserve a dime over Mikko Rantanen.

 

[socko]

Rantanen waited out Marner as its no secret around the league that Dubas is the worst salary negotiator in NHL history. Who knows how much that added to Rantanen's salary, but clearly it didn't convince Colorado that Rantanen should be paid in the $11 million range.

 

[FerrisRox]

The fact that that's not how contracts work remains true. Matthews and Marner being two of the best players in the entire cap era and earning the contracts they got that are consistent with the history of post-ELC contracts had nothing to do with Tavares' UFA contract.

Are you seriously going to pretend that the contract given to John Tavares didn't directly affect the subsequent contracts that Dubas handed out?

You really don't think that the agents for Matthews and Marner didn't point to the contract the General Manager had just given John Tavares and then pointed to their clients performance compared to him as the rationale for the money they were asking for?

You can't be serious. Many people predicted, the moment that contract was signed, that it was going to have a negative effect on the future contracts as a pay scale was established.

At the time, you were certainly one of the loud voices claiming that RFA's and UFA's weren't comparable.

You're sticking with that absurd stance now?

Everybody knew that defense wasn't his strength, but everybody also knew that he was a good player and coming off an excellent playoffs, where he played 5 minutes more per game than any other Colorado defenseman, and was one of Colorado's best players. That's why the trade was widely viewed as a win for the Leafs when it happened.

Yes, he was such an important and valued part of the Avalanche defence that spring that the ate some of his salary in order to trade him away and replaced him with nobody. That certainly makes sense.

 

[socko]

There is most definitely a difference betweeen RFA and UFA IMO. The leverage is night and day. Offer sheet/holdout vs I can sign with the highest bidder. That's huge. My issue with Tavares isn't really the contract, $11 is what it was going to cost to bring him in, unless he really did take a discount, which he was never going to do. I do think he gave up the extra year the Islanders could have gave him, which obviously he'll never get back. It's just that he's so overrated, it should have been a huge pass.

 

[hurdemz]

You're all dumb thinking jt was the worst thing to happen. Leafs fan base is a joke. I'm embarrassed to be affiliated with the majority of you people

 

[AllDay28]

I truly hope my life isnt so miserable that i gotta make a "bad transaction of our former gm" poll in the middle of the summer.

go see the Barbie movie. you'll feel better.

 

[DarkKnight]

Leafs fans talked about getting Barrie for a few years. When Leafs got him, it was a win, because the Leafs right side of D was complete trash. Who knew he was so terrible defensively.

Sandin trade should be up there too. Still think he was too young to give up on.

We all knew he was trash defensively and said so at the time, what are you talking about? And which fans wanted Barrie because I recall exactly nobody here clamouring for a d like him that off-season, in fact it was all about a defensive minded D man, not some redundancy on the PP when we had Reilly. Everyone knew he was a defensively liability when he got here, the fact he was biblically bad doesn’t distract from he was exactly as advertised, a ”rover”. Literally the last thing anybody here or following the team had on their checklist for offseason needs.