What'd you guys think of this issue?

I got a notification so idk if you tagged me and edited or what but I'll say Cizikas was never leaving the Isles. His reported ask to do so was $5m AAV. Was never going to get that. Lou had that deal in his desk drawer for a while.

Dubas is an analytics nerd who chases trends instead of being ahead of the curve. Reminds me of Darcy Reiger, always a year too late or a move too short

Every team passed on a lot of talent. Carter Verhaeghe couldn't sign on 30 teams.

i don't get the Verhaeghe stuff bc that's all "what if" type thinking. but I really think the Leafs whiffed on not trading for Weegar. Muzzin - Weegar, Rielly - Brodie is one of the best top 4s in the league

A few of these are realistic gripes. Most of them are just things out of Dubas/ the Leafs control; quite literally not everything is about the leafs. Like they never ever ever ever ever ever ever were coming close to Cizikas. They never woulda got Carter V.

McCann was a miss tho. I understand why they didn’t want to move Holl but tbh McCann was a huge impact piece they coulda used. Don’t sign some of the guys the gambles and have a a guy who would probably be much better player to keep.

The Panthers were the ones who didn't pull the trigger on the Weegar trade, Dubas was all in

If anyone wants to search my AGM post history they'll find where I advocated for offer sheeting verhaeghe the summer before his breakout season

His first year he scored well and drove play a bunch

His huge rise was just lots more TOI + Barkov

These things can almost always be predicted

Just keeping track of numbers it's no big

This is a hard topic to talk about, because who knows who you guys would’ve signed after those trades, and how good you would’ve been. That Weeger trade was rumoured, but I don’t think they would’ve accepted it. Weeger is a good player, and he will be on Florida for a while. They would be fools to trade him. Niku does have potential, but I don’t know if the leafs passed on him when he got picked up on waivers. Also, he’s a headache. I would not want him on my team, just because he is annoying. He won’t be anything more than a 6th, or 7th defence man in the future. The point of trading for McCann is to keep Kerfoot and keep your defence intact. They like Holl, and McCann is just a guy to get picked so they can keep their players. Obviously they didn’t think McCann was going to be this good, or they would’ve protected him instead of Holl. Like @joshelkin said, Cizikas would never come to Toronto. He wanted to stay. This post is hard to talk on, because who knows how good the team would be, and if they would’ve done those signings as well.

Niku sucks and Biega is a good #7.

Hall would be a pure rental and was a locker room cancer and no guarantee he would do what he did for Boston. If Foligno could have stayed healthy he would have been a solid addition to our team.

The Weegar trade rumor was proven false by Panthers reporters

Sheary before going to Washington was worse than Simmonds

McCann would be a rental as if Dubas wanted to keep him beyond this year you then lose Kerfoot so in the end we lose 2 players to keep 1.

and Verhegae didnt want to join a Canadian team. Plus that extension is not affordable.

so yeah it wasnt that we passed on them there are other factors you need to consider. No guarantee player A will do good on team X vs Y.

Hall wanted to play for Boston and basically forced Buffalo to trade him there. I don't think Toronto was ever an option.

yep it hurts. I've been saying all of this.

Dont think Verhaeghe wanted to leave Florida area for Canada tbh.

exposing McCann was definitely a bad move, I also think going after Cizikas instead Ritchie was a better idea

One handy ACGM to sum up every dumb Leaf fan theory all in one place.

Thanks!

Again the author fails to grasp the concept of "UFA". Players can sign with any team, and just because the Leafs offer the same money or even more, the payer doesn't have to sign with the Leafs.
Taylor Hall, apparently his M NTC gave him a choice....though I do agree, Leafs wasted picks on Foligno.

And you say my posts are nonsense.

Pot meet kettle.

Wow this is a pretty rational discussion for Cap friendly. Imo you have gotten good feedback from most of the posters and I tend to agree with them.

To sum it up. I don't think Dubas didn't want the players in question, more of the players wanted something else more. Except your McCann point, that was a pretty space brain type move.

yeah but toronto gets those great clicks!!!

McCann was traded for for the sole puprpose of Seattle taking him so Leafs in essence lost nobody off the roster.

Every Bruins fan could have told you about Ritchie, some of us did. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m still pissed B’s did not trade for Weegar, they were in on him too.

Agree with some, these players would not have gone to Toronto just because they were available and may not have developed as they have in toronto.

Dubas is more uneven with more losses as a GM than some acknowledge, but ultimately you have to look at how the team is constructed to see why the results aren;t there.

If you have 4 forwards eating half the cap, that leaves very little for the other 9-10 forwards. The coach plays the team similar to the salary structure: the 40mil 4 forwards get 19+ minutes a night, 2 guys might get 15 minutes, and generally the rest are around 13 minutes. Thats not 4 lines thats a line and a half and then 2 and a half 4th lines. Who's the last rookie forward in toronto, the last ELC to play in toronto? The droppoff in talent (and not just scoring talent but even in role players) matches the salaries.

They acquire overage guys like bunting, engvall, mikheyev, semyonov, or flawed/risky types like Kase/ricthie/simmonds and give them 13 minutes a night and then wonder where the secondary scoring or team defense is?

Any forward over 1.25 mil but making less than nylander's almost 7mil is generally trade bait or gone, (trade bait: kerfoot, ritchie, mikheyev, gone: brown, kapanen, johnsson), what other team has this out of skew salary structure and subsequent icetime/talent discrepency?

Why would somebody like Verhaeghe want to join the Leafs and probably get that type of 3rd line time?

This isn;t all Dubas's making, but the flaws are evident to see and the results are pretty static now. The McCann move was pure loss, the Brodie deal was good, the Campbell deal was good, the overage acquisitions of Lehtonen or Semyonov mixed AT BEST, Bunting good, Kase bad (id rather have a youngster there than an injury concern), Mrazek bad. Its like buying a 38$ dollar steak and then spending 2$ on the entire rest of the meal.

Liljegren and Sandin developing and arriving, have saved the defense, but I'm still not sold its a good defense.

And the cap will be tighter next year, I'm just not sure this team is the draw to players, some think it is. I'm not sure the Leafs management is as good or smart as some wish. I'm not sure the team can get better results with the salary and icetime structure they currently have.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah it would’ve been tough to sign Cizikas but I just wanted to show someone with a similar cap hit. Plus Cizikas was on my radar before he signed with NYI.

Some of his moves are analytical but the moves that backfired aren’t.

Obviously there’s no guarantee the Leafs could’ve got Verhaeghe but they could’ve at least made an offer. They signed Vesey & Simmonds on the first day so they pretty much didn’t have any more cap space to add another forward.

If that is true, then I would still argue that the Leafs passed on many other good defencemen available to keep Holl like Toews.

Exactly TBL didn’t even qualify him, so TOR could’ve got him for free.