Tavares and Marner are over paid
Traded a prospect and pick so they can protect Kerfoot ? Who is 3.5 Mil and is a 4th line player. They needed to give more away to Seattle to keep McCann who is far superior then Kerfoot.
All this would have given them extra 3.5-4 Mill to sign an actual good depth player or good 4th Dman

1. I don't necessarily disagree, but every team has a few overpaid players.

2. I'm not sure why people have trouble with this one. The leafs lost McCann, sure, and he's been great, but McCann never played for the leafs so it's not like we lost him so much as we lost Hallander and a 7th. I would rather lose Hallander then Kerfoot or Holl.

I’d rather have lost Kerfoot and acquire better for 3.5 mill
Kerfoot is not a 3.5 mill player.

Also if you made the move to get McCann give up more to Seattle to take Kerfoot and keep McCann

The leafs didn't really want McCann, it's pretty clear in hindsight that they made that deal because the asking price from Seattle for expansion draft considerations was too high, so instead they made a deal with Pittsburg that served the same purpose. Making lateral move like Switching Kerfoot for someone else don't really help that much. I do think it might have been a slightly better idea to let Kerfoot go to Seattle, and spend Hallender+ on a Kerfoot replacement, but maybe they couldn't find anyone (no, McCann doesn't count, he'd have been claimed by Seattle even if he was on Pittsburg).

When overreacting reaches its limits

Got to love the fanbase facepalm

Not overreacting just stating why they can’t make moves to better their team.

They've added Muzzin and Brodie and turned the worst defense in the league into one that is slightly above average. They've made the team a lot better in the past few years.

Not what I am saying. They do not have very good forward depth due to overpayments.
Average as well unfortunately does not win Cups.

It's early but this year it definitely looks like they have good forward depth.

The leafs d is above average, and though it isn't elite, it's ok, their offence is elite, and would be what would carry them (for the record, I don't think the leafs are winning the cup).

The kerfoot mccann thing shouldnt even be on the list lol.
1) kerfoot is more than a 4th liner
2) so you rather lose a middle 6 guy who actually play playoffs and have nothing?

I'm with you and Saskleaf on this one. Teams like Colorado and Nashville who traded away good players for less than full value because they didn't want to lose them for nothing in the expansion draft forgot that you can only lose one player. They effectively lost two. The Leafs did the opposite. By trading a prospect for somebody they could sacrifice to the Kraken, they didn't lose anybody from their NHL roster. Seems pretty smart to me.

Opinions on Kerfoot vary, but even if you think the Leafs could put his cap hit to better use, I don't think he's a cap dump. There's probably a team out there that would be willing to trade something of value for him if the Leafs decided to get rid of him. Besides, there's no guarantee Seattle would have taken him if the Leafs didn't have McCann. Maybe he's not the one they were trying to avoid losing.

Not sure what that would have cost them, but Seattle didn't make a single trade for "expansion draft considerations". For some reason Francis didn't seem to be interested in making any of those kind of deals. Or maybe it was the other GMs who didn't want to deal with him, after seeing how some of the expansion considerations deals with Vegas worked out.

There is no guarantee but McCann is far superior player than Kerfoot, and would make Leafs a better team.
Therefore giving up another pick or mid prospect to potentially
Have them take Kerfoot and keep McCann may have been smart. Better player with lower Cap.
Yes I understand Francis may not have done that

Keep in mind that you're saying that but McCann is playing alot more in Seattle than he would here in Toronto. That Seattle forward group is not great but here in Toronto, he would be lucky to even get second line minutes.

Truthfully, he would be be consistently on the third line and that means probably not as many opportunities that he's getting right now and capitalizing on.

Ya, people are hung up on McCann but McCann never played for the leafs. They weren't after McCann, they essentially payed Hallender and a 7th to lose nobody at the expansion draft.

Also, I'd like to point out (although still early) McCann has been significantly worse than Kerfoot has been this year, so there is that.
This is from Nov 3rd:

pic.twitter.com/f94TDMl6Wf

— Net Front Nylander (@PlayoffNylander) November 3, 2021

People got to realize Dubas protecting Holl over McCann in the end will be viewed as a smart move . After that offseason where a guy like Poolman made 2.5mill yeah finding a proper replacement would have been next to impossible especially at 2mill. Holl for all his flaws still is a solid Dman and together with Muzzin make for a good top 4.

Then you got the fact next season McCann's QA is 3.38 mill. We were not affording that especially with Rielly and soon Campbell's extension coming up.

Besides if anything McCann might have been looking like how Ritchie is rn and boy would that have been bad.