The worst thing Dubas has done is trade a 1st for Foligno in a year where the Leafs were unanimously favoured to go to at least the conf finals. A year where a fluke injury took out JT (one of the 10+ mil contracts) and even then we still managed to go to 3-1 before the team inexplicably collapsed including 2 OT losses where the team was fully in control of the games.
The GMs job is to reward the team when they do well and put them in the best possible situation to win. Dubas goofed it by trading for Foligno instead of Hall. The other factors that really hurt us were the Muzzin injury in game 5 and Zach Hyman (who was an absolute beast pre-injury) coming back to his stone hands Hyman form.
While some things are not defensible, I don't think any GM would foresee the injuries or the poor play of arguably their most consistent overall player.
On the other hand. Dubas managed to dump Marleau and pay a hefty price but his draft record has been very impressive that even though we are now missing 2 1st round picks, we still have a top 5 prospect pool and the majority of these kids were drafted in the 3rd round or later. He has a very good eye for talent whether it's through the draft or even pursuing international free agents. He's managed to recruit some pretty good names, even though these guys haven't all panned out. But he still lives up to his words and gives his players a chance to play (like trading them to crappier teams, Lehtonen/ Barabanov etc.).
The only other negative I can see that people bitch about is the big contracts but the reality is. Willy is now arguably underpaid or at worst on a team-friendly deal. Auston and Mitch both got paid but both are making market value. Neither of them took a discount and I don't think you can blame them or the team. Auston's been a PPG player since his sophomore season with a 40 G rookie campaign Marner turned in a 90+ point season in his 3rd year in the league and the last year of his ELC. You're not going to get a player on a discount at that production. And quite frankly, outside of the Crosby/ McDavid/ Ovi types, these guys don't have any other players with similar comparisons in their D+3/4 seasons and last years of their ELCs with good scoring pedigree. Even a guy like Draisaitl who people talk about being underpaid, took an 8 million dollar deal while putting up 70 points even though he had a ton of ice time with McDavid but a good yet nowhere near comparable ELC to either Matthews/ Marner. JT was a big-ticket signing and IMO overpaid by at least a mil or two. But that's the price you pay for going after a 1C in the UFA market in his prime.
I don't think anyone is singing Dubas's praise blindly. He's definitely made a few mistakes but the good thing about him is that he's done equally as many good things to help the team out in the long run. For every bad trade he makes, he's bailed himself out by recouping draft picks (like getting Hallander + Amirov) or drafting extremely well ensuring that the Leafs will always have a solid supply of quality ELC players coming up at least throughout the next few years where we don't have a ton of cap space.
Another thing that they've done well is that they've front-loaded every contract signed for every player with heavy signing bonus money and each of JT, Marner, Matthews and Willy are all going to be $6 mil/ year players in real money starting July 2nd of this season. If we really had to do it, we can sell off these guys and recoup a ton of assets. Even the Kerfoot/ Muzz/ Brodie deals have been well structured.
Dubas also had the foresight to find us a cheap goalie in Campbell while he was a relatively unknown asset around the league and whether you like it or not, he was one of the most impactful players on this team this year and will be our #1 going into the next few years. Yes, there are doubts but so far he's been steady. And yes, Dubas has vastly f***ed up covering his ass by not appropriately getting a backup like 2 years ago when we had to run Garrett Sparks, but he learned his lesson this year and our backups were massive and even though Fred was a major let down, we still comfortably sat atop the divison.
