Quoting: Hammerwise
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. I don’t necessarily have issue with the usage of our forwards, we have a good defensive line (Engvall-Kampf-Kase) so I think they can get more minutes and tougher matchups to give some relief to the top guys. Our defence and 3C situation looks bad cuz the Leafs committed to incapable players like Holl, Dermott & Ritchie instead of letting them go for a legitimate upgrade. Getting rid of those guys would be 6 million.