It's so funny that the reaction to Kerfoot now was the reaction to Kadri when he was that age and I wonder if it's just going to be the same process over again 😐

Cause Keefe being here a few months earlier was going to stop Dubas from making that terrible trade? Sorry but no. The responsibility lies on Dubas.

lol kerfoot has been good for us, he was one of the better players in the playoffs, he's a penalty killing centre. Rather than getting suspended twice in a row, he drew some penalties, blocked some shots, was tied with Hyman and Tavares in terms of their point production (only 3, but still more than Spezza, Kappy, and Soup)

People wanna dump all over Kerfoot when really, Kadri was useless for us bc he kept getting suspended. At least Kerfoot doesn't lose his temper and cost his team a playoff series (twice) lmao

For all the hype, Kadri's only seasons where he had over 16-20 goals was when he played with Marner. Trading him for a replacement centre and a fkn 60 point dman was a wizard trade, it just so happens that our coach ran them into the ground and didn't deploy them properly. Barrie was on a 60 point pace after keefe took over. Again, he wasn't the right fit, bc he's more a powerplay guy, but he was a better option than Zaitsev, Hainsey, Polak etc., i.e. all our previous RD guys

Brodie was Dubas' first choice, and now we've got him anyway, and we can hold on to Kerfoot who's still a decent player at a more fitting cap hit for a 3C

"Delusional Leafs Fan" Spot on bud, spot on!

Kadri's a good player, but like, let's not pretend he didn't get suspended two playoffs in a row and literally cost his team the series

Add on the fact he's a career 15-20 goal guy and is kind of expendable with Tavares/Matthews, we don't need that on the team. Kerfoot is way better defensively and is cheaper. Kadri adds sandpaper, but what good did all that 'sandpaper' give us against boston? He got himself suspended lmao

We got a better defensive 3C back for him, younger and cheaper, and a 60 point defenceman. However poorly Barrie fit in, who else would you have wanted in that spot? Marincin? The leafs had no depth because lou screwed the team with terrible contracts that we had to dump

I would say Freddie’s 0-8 record in series clinching games with. Sub .900 sv% and 3 gaa has a big part to do with it, probably more than kadri suspensions

maybe, but at least he stole some games for us to get us there. Guy posts a .918SV% all season being the most overworked goalie in the league, steals a couple games and registers a .915SV%, .922SV% and a .936SV% this year, it's hard to pin it on him. His one outlier was when he was garbage in the 17-18 playoffs, so you could pin that year on him (we were also without our #2 centre though, we had Plekanec playing top shutdown minutes LOL)

The inaccurate revisionist history about this trade has gotten way outta had. The trade was good at the time that favoured the leafs, and remains a good trade even with the poor deployment and down years barrie and Kerfoot had. Not to mention the delusion around kadri, with people acting like he’s some dynamo now even tho Barrie still outscored him as a dman in a down year. Might get ripped on for this take but it’s the truth

Quoted the wrong comment but you get my point

Haha how did he litterally cost them the playoffs 2 years in a row? You had kadri, Matthew's, marner, nylander, Reilly. Are you saying that kadri is the lynchpin that holds your team together? Or is it more that Toronto wasnt as good of a team compared to the bruins and the better team won in the best of 7 games?

because in year 1 we had our #2 shutdown centre out of the series, instead forcing us to play Tomas Plekanec/Bozak more, we had no centre depth. The next year, same thing, Kadri went down and suddenly our shutdown centre was Gauthier who we basically had to double shift between the third and 4th lines.

Not to mention, both years he extinguished any chance of the team coming back to win by taking 5 minute major penalties in the third period in both of those early games in each series

Sounds like that's dubas' issue for not providing your team with the depth needed.
Tampa won with no stamkos

Well, we didn't have a lot of flexibility given lou left us with Zaitsev (RD) / Marleau (LW) / Hainsey (RD) / Gardiner (LD) who ranged from barely passable to outright disasters on the ice for a combined 23% of the salary cap

Dubas was pretty hand cuffed in those first few seasons with a bunch of god awful contracts

By comparison, Dubas has allocated that same cap hit ($18M) to Thornton (C), Spezza (C), Brodie (RD), Bogosian (RD), Vesey (LW), Lehtonen (LD), Muzzin (LD) , Simmonds (RW), Kerfoot (C), and Barabanov (LW) for $19M.

Leafs prob have better depth now than they ever had in the last 15 years

Maybe but dubas also allocated 40mill to 4 players which is difficult to create depth when they have to keep bringing guys in on barging basement contracts. Which in my opinion gives you less flexibility
Example wanting to trade freddy andersen because you wont be able to afford his new contract next year.

40 mill to 4 players is something people say 24/7 but they don't actually mention who those players are. The two centres happen to be #2 in even strength scoring and #4 in even strength scoring respectively over the last 2 years. If we include powerplay time, they are #4 and #10 in goals scored.

The wingers we're paying for, one of them is 6th in primary assists since entering the league (4th at 5v5), 15th in points totals since entering the league. The only guy with more primary assists than marner over the last two seasons was McDavid, and in terms of points he's 10th (all situations, not counting 5v5 only)

The other winger is Willy Nylander who over his last 82 games is within 3 points of Barzal, Aho, Rantanen, and Pettersson, and he's scored MORE than Laine and Barzal. 5v5 It's even crazier, he's scored more than Eichel, Tkachuk, Pettersson, Aho, Laine, and Rantanen - and he's a lower cap hit with similar term to all those guys

The idea that somehow spending lots of money on some of the best forwards playing in the sport was a bad idea is amusing to me lol

Yes buying up all a young players rfa years and 1-2 ufa years walking them straight to UFA with the leagues second highest aav at the time and 700k less to marner after they've won you zero playoff rounds and no cups severely handcuffing your teams window to win buy years.. it's a wonder more gms dont do that

signing players to deals that walk them to UFA is bad? You know we're gonna be able to ... resign them, right? Crosby and Malkin signed 5 year deals for absurd cap hits, then resigned. This is a common thing some teams do

How were we supposed to lowball the highest goal scoring player in the entire league and a top 5 playmaker? They got paid because they played like it. Round wins don't matter, those will come lmao. Tampa signed their stars after 1 third round appearance only to promptly miss two years in a row and get swept in the third year. If players are good, they get paid, regardless of playoff success

If guys score more goals than player x, they are gonna want equal or similar money to player x.