Quoting: JhonnyCanuck5
I’ll never understand the Dubas hate. Dude was aggressive and did everything he could in Toronto. Sure, some of his moves didn’t work out, but he made big moves(JT, Murray, ROR, Samsonov, Giordano). Again, yeah some haven’t worked out but at the time, those guys were good.
Dumbas came in and traded the Leafs first to dump 1 year of Marleau. Nobody had used a first round pick to dump a 1 year contract prior to this. He was afraid of a Marner offer-sheet but you can go over the cap by 10% in the off-season. He then proceeded to sign Marner to more money than Eichel got and a term that took him straight to UFA 2 years sooner.
Dumbas also signed Matthews to another new precedent — a five year deal that walked him straight to UFA. McDavid, MacKinnon etc. etc. didn’t get these type of deals.
Dumbas traded a 1st and multiple picks — pretty much an entire draft — for Nick Foligno and spare parts at the TDL. None of the spare parts suited up for Toronto in the playoffs. Foligno player 4 games in the playoffs and had 1 assist — he played 4th line center in game 7. An entire draft for a 4th line center?
Dumbas refused a sign and trade with Hyman that would have had no impact on the Leafs bottom line but would have given him a 4th and 6th round pick. He was upset because he had given up high picks in similar deals.
Dumbas traded Ritchie and a second to get rid of the contract. Dumbas traded down from the first round to get out of the Mrazek deal. Trading first round picks to fix your mistakes is bad management.
Dumbas traded Sandin at the TDL for a first when the Leafs could have used Sandin in the playoffs. If he still wanted to trade him, he could have made that deal at the deadline.
The biggest problem with Dumbas is that he inherited Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and Reilly. Tavares was dropped on his lap and he had no influence on JT coming home. In his 5 years as GM he added exactly ZERO players to this core, but he did lose/trade Kadri, Hyman, Anderson and others.
He was a rookie GM learning on the job. Making huge mistakes with a multi-billion dollar franchise. Responsible for peoples jobs and livelihoods. Have a look at all his trades, all the assets that he sent out and what is left on the Leaf roster from those deals. Effectively he has only McCabe, Timmins and Lafferty left in return for a pile of picks and assets.
This is the sum total of Dumbas’ trades — not very impressive — squandering years of picks for UFA’s. He’s traded top picks from the 2023, 24, 25 drafts that will haunt the Leafs for years.
Out (Players still in the NHL)
Rasmus Sandin
Pierre Engvall
Filip Hållander
Travis Dermott
Matt Martin
Josh Leivo
Nazim Kadri
Carl Grundström
Sean Durzi
Connor Brown
Dakota Joshua
Trevor Moore
Mason Marchment
Calle Rosén
Kasperi Kapanen
Joey Anderson
Alexander Barabanov
2019 1st round pick
2020 1st round pick
2020 3rd round pick
2020 3rd round pick
2021 3rd round pick
2021 1st round pick
2021 4th round pick
2022 1st round pick
2022 3rd round pick
2022 4th round pick
2022 5th round pick
2022 7th round pick
2023 1st round pick
2023 3rd round pick
2023 3rd round pick
2023 7th round pick
2024 2nd round pick
2025 1st round pick Conditional*
2025 2nd round pick
2025 4th round pick
2026 2nd round pick
In (players still with the Leafs)
Jake McCabe
Sam Lafferty
Connor Timmins
2023 1st round pick
2024 3rd round pick
2024 7th round pick
All this and he added ZERO to the core. He handcuffed the team by spending most of the cap on 4 guys and has left the team with very few picks and won nothing. Good ridance.