At this point, it's become natural for Dubas to win trades at this point...

lmao Dubas loses more than he wins

List all the trades that Dubas has lost since he's been GM then (ROR trade doesn't count due to how recent it is and I, personally think that it was a win-win for the Leafs/Blues

Here are the list of trades where the Leafs have won (not counting win-wins either):
Timmins trade
Murray trade
Lubushkin trade
Clifford trade (NHL games for nothing)
Joey Anderson trade (cap dump for NHL production but not on a consistent basis)
Niemela trade
Kapenen trade
Campbell trade
Zaistev trade

These are trades that Dubas blatantly won

Matt Murray isn't a win. 4.6 Million for a goalie who can't stay healthy and is wildly inconsistent. Not good for a Cup Contender.
Ilya Lyubushkin isn't a win. 2nd round pick for a 3rd pairing defender isn't good value (not even including that he walked)
Niemela isn't a win. He hasn't even came to NA yet.
Campbell trade is a fair trade. Kings got an above .5 PPG player in return + futures.

I'm not a fan of taking trades into hindsight. because of that I'm not going to do draft pick trades (Konecny trade ETC) and because you included barely win trades like Clifford I'm definitely going to use these.

Leivo trade to Vancouver
Durzi + 1st for Muzzin trade to Los Angeles
Marleau + 1st for FC (lmao) to Carolina
Kadri for Barrie + Kerfoot to Colorado
Marchment for Malgin to Florida
Foligno for 1st + 2 4ths
Barabanov for scraps to San Jose
Ritchie + 2nd for Lyubushkin to Arizona (Leafs 100% lost this trade, it's not even close)
Giordano for 2 2nds + 3rd to Seattle


Not going to say anything about the Zaitsev trade. That's a terrible contract, but Toronto also acquired ****ty ass Ceci and traded away Connor Brown in that trade. That's a fair trade IMO

Dubas barely ever wins, and when he does it's slight wins.

Murray trade is a win and it's not close, they got assets for a goalie with .911 save percentage and would have still been healthy if Nylander didn't;t hurt him at practice (also, doesn't hurt the Leafs to have a guy who won back-to-back SCs). Lyubushkin is a huge win. IDK if you remember but he was playing 1rst pairing w Rielly and out there when the game mattered the most, not bad for (at the time) a cap dump and a second.
Niemela is a win, him and Hirvonen are 2 of the top prospects in the Leafs system for someone who (I don't think at least) is even in Ott's system.
Campbell was an all-star in TO and one of the only goalies in NHL history to have played in at least 20 and win all of them. Leafs won this trade by far.

I'm not going to do hindsight either (Niemela trade counts bc it was draft day and both Dorion and Dubas knew whom they were drafting with those selections but:
Muzzin trade is win-win especially at the time; Toronto gets good defensemen with cup rings and with big hits, LA gets assets for rebuild. Muzzin even stayed around
Fair for Marleau trade (contract that Lou signed)
Not a big fan of Kadri at all. Barrie provided solid value at the time and Kerfoot was/is playing PP/PK and was in a middle 6 position with playoff production. Without Kadri, the TVs still win the cup and maybe win before then too (kadri got suspended almost every playoffs)
Fair for Marchment/Foligno trade
IDK who Barabonov is so no comment
Already discussed Lyubushkin trade
Gio is providing value on/off the ice, can take on big minutes when needed and is a leader and is staying for 2 more seasons.

RN, it would cost the Sens a second to get rid of Zaistev, Ceci provided value and is off the hook now.

I'm not a huge fan of Dubas but I am willing to admit when he makes good moves and he's made some very good ones

I'm sorry, but there's no way you can tell me paying a goalie 4.6 Million to be your backup goalie and then also be injured at the same time is good. It's a terrible situation for a team that has Stanley cup aspirations.

Ilya was playing 16 minutes a night, that's 3rd pairing minutes. He most definitely wasn't worth a 2nd round pick.

You can't call prospect wins until they come into at least NA. He's having a down year on top of it. It's just standard Leaf prospect bias (Montreal has the same thing).

Campbell had a very good start and then plummeted. There's a reason Toronto didn't even try to resign him, they knew what they had. His last 29 he wasn't even .500.

Muzzin hasn't played 75% of a season since coming to Toronto, he's injury prone and overpaid on top of that. Leafs definitely overpaid for him.

Toronto traded a 2nd line center for Barrie who was a tirefire on Toronto and Kerfoot who's currently making 3.5 Million and struggles to crack 30 points. Bad trade for Toronto

Dubas has made good moves, but he's made more bad than good. Leafs have THE best system in the NHL so there's no doubt Dubas is very good at drafting/developing. However he seriously lacks at trades and asset management.

You cannot give Murray the benefit of the doubt with injuries by saying his teammate hurt him in practice. He has such a long injury history, and the book on him in both Pittsburgh and Ottawa was always that constant injuries were an issue.

There is no way to call this trade a win. The 3rd+7th are negligible assets. Especially when Toronto paid to move Mrazek. Not only that, Murray came with opportunity cost. Both through his cap hit and because it meant they pursued him instead of a different goalie.

It was a bad gamble for Toronto to take, and it's amazing Ottawa got out of most of that contract for as little as they did.

Murray still has term beyond this season, which is the worst part of the entire thing.

They actually got paid to take him... 21st in GAA and T-22nd in save percentage. They upgraded on Goaltending and got the 2 of the best option on the trade market. So yes, this is a blatant win for Dubas.

Ilya's lineman during the playoffs was Morgan Rielly (you know, like the Leafs #1 defensemen) that's 1rst pairing minutes.

My point with the Niemela trade is that Dubas got 2 assets whom right now are more valuable than the one he gave up (I'm know that I do have a Leafs trade bias but you can admit that Hirvonen and Niemela>Kleven). That's a win in my books.

Campbell was still an all-star, which is more than what they gave up for him. He also had a streak of like 20+ games in a row in the bubble.

Muzzin has provided more value to the Leafs than Durzi and the 1rst would have given.

We all forget, at the time of the trade, Kadri was a 3rd line centre and known for getting suspensions when it mattered most (and did after) Barrie didn't work under Babcock's system but blossomed when Keefe came in. '3.5 Million dollars and struggles to crack 30' per 82 every season, Kerfoot comfortably gets 30 every season and even got 52 last season but because of Covid, he wasn't able to do that in 2 seasons. The other were easily 40+ points.

You could argue Detroit has a better one but the Leafs are def. at the top for developing but aside from a few trades, Dubas' asset management has been pretty good IMO considering his cap structure

Matt Murray, the Leafs missing piece. Sitting out on LTIR as everyone predicted. Ppl here amaze me

You love to talk about Toronto don't you.

21st in GAA and T-22nd in save percentage (fringe starter) would be nice if he wasn't injured half of the time. Leaf's don't have the cap space to run two starting caliber goalies because Murray can't stay healthy. The picks Toronto got back were both "meh" picks so it wasn't a win. They most definitely weren't the two best options. They easily could've signed Darcy Kuemper or Ville Husso. These goalies aren't goalies you win the cup win, just stopgap options which is unacceptable during an "All In" year.

Ilya played an average of 13:55 TOI a night while playing for Toronto in the playoffs. That's 7th defensemen ice time. You can say whatever you want, but there's no facts to back up that Ilya was a top pairing defender..

Yes they are more hyped than Klevin, but I don't accept that as a win because they have had 0 impact for the Leafs on the Ice. Perhaps if Leafs traded them as the prime assets were could chalk it up as a win, but they haven't done so.

I mean All-Star means **** all in the modern NHL. It's a glorified money grab, he deserved to be there as much as Suzuki this year deserved to be there. L. I'd rather have Trevor Moore on my team than Jack Campbell (especially last year where he put up 48 Points and then 5 in the playoffs). I'll say it's a fair trade, but it's not a Toronto win.

Sean Durzi is currently a very good #4 defensemen and he's having a down year compared to last year. Toronto had the edge for the first few years because Durzi was a prospect and Muzzin was playing 2nd pairing time, but Durzi has turned into the better defender, Grundstrom has turned into an efficient 4th liner, and Bjornfot is a bubble NHL defender at 21. This is hands down an LA Kings win. If you want to argue fair because of the early trade off for Toronto, sure.

Kadri was a 2nd line center on Toronto. He was a consistent 50-60 Point guy, everyone knew he was a 2nd line center. Toronto traded him because Center was a position of strength and they badly needed a top 4 defender. Kadri was always a 2nd line center. Barrie was a #4 defender on Toronto (a (-) player) and then walked for nothing because he wasn't useful on Toronto. Kerfoot was a 3rd line center on Colorado and is a 3rd line center on Toronto. Again, we can call this a fair trade if you'd like, but I definitely don't think it's a Toronto win.

I’m not sure Ottawa would have gone for more retention at any price. They’re going to be up against the cap next year and can’t afford to spend over $3M on a goalie who’s playing for somebody else. If Toronto wouldn’t take him, they probably would have traded him to a team who didn’t need more retention. It might have cost them a higher draft pick, but that would be better than not being able to sign DeBrincat or bring in a defenseman.

That's fair.

The Senators weren't going to retain more on Murray.

Keeping in mind that the Senators are still a budget team this season, Cam Talbot cost 3M in salary. Murray's salary for this season was 7M. Therefore, the net cost of keeping Murray would have been 4M since they would not have traded for Talbot.

With no Matt Murray trade, they likely need to push harder to find a place to dump Zaitsev's 2.5M base salary. If there was a deal on the table to move him at a similar cost to what they paid at the trade deadline, that would put leave the Senators 1.5M above where they ended up budget wise.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Murray was traded a day before the QO deadline. The Senators big depth splurge internally was signing Mathieu Joseph to a 4 year contract to play in their top 9. If they were unable to dump Murray, maybe they wouldn't have qualified him. Which doesn't mean they would walk away from him. They might have been able to still retain him on a 1 year contract if the market for him wasn't strong.

That would have lead to a 2023 buyout. In terms of cap, that would have meant a dead cap hit of about 900k in year 1, and 2.66M in year 2. They could have also bought him out rather than trading him, but they might not have wanted 4 years of dead cap on the books, and Murray might have claimed he was not eligible for a buyout due to injury.

Ultimately, there wasn't much reason for the Senators to retain more than they did, but there also wasn't much reason for Toronto to acquire him at the cap hit they did. I can sympathize with the position Dubas was in because it was a really bad market for goalies. It was a swing for the fences type move that didn't pay off (so far).