Toronto Maple Leafs: Timing of Lamoriello’s departure could be haunting

Did the Toronto Maple Leafs make the right decision by promoting Kyle Dubas to general manager and letting Lou Lamoriello go?

It has been over a year since Kyle Dubas took over as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs from Lou Lamoriello. The case could be made the franchise let Lamoriello go too soon.

Dubas’ first big move as the Maple Leafs general manager was the home run signing of hometown boy John Tavares. He couldn’t have gotten off to a better start on the job as fan anticipation was hitting all-time highs in Toronto.

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However, the majority of moves Dubas has made since have left some wondering if Lamoriello would have been better suited to finish the job of capturing a Stanley Cup.

Signing Tavares was easy. He was coming from a losing franchise and his home town team was looking the best it had looked in decades. What came with signing Tavares was a whole other story, as expectations skyrocketed. Suddenly the Maple Leafs entered a five-year window of needing to win immediately given the salary cap.

Given the club’s expectations were as high as they could go, the timing of replacing Lamoriello with Dubas didn’t add up with the short term five-year window the club had entered. Sure, the much younger Dubas made more sense for the long term. But in the short term window of needing to win now, things didn’t add up.

Dubas would have to spend crucial years learning on the job, years the club would need to be doing everything right in order to contend for a Stanley Cup. It made no sense to let a proven winner like Lamoriello walk out the door.

Take a look at the Pittsburgh Penguins for example. They needed to maximize the remaining years of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. In order to do so, they brought in a proven winner in Jim Rutherford, who has helped lead the club to two Stanley Cups in his time with the franchise.

The Maple Leafs did the opposite. Instead of a proven winner in Lamoriello to maximize the years of Tavares and Auston Matthews, they handed the keys over to Dubas to spend more time learning on the job than maximizing the opportunity in front of him.

Just look at one of the first major decisions Dubas made after the Tavares signing. His first true test was handling the backup goaltending position. Dubas chose loyalty in Garret Sparks due to their success in the AHL together over proven NHL backups Curtis McElhinney and Calvin Pickard, both of who Dubas lost on waivers before the 2018-19 season.

Lamoriello always understood the importance of a veteran backup in supporting Martin Brodeur during his time with the New Jersey Devils.

The backup goaltending situation blew up in Dubas’ face, as Sparks struggled mightily all year until he was eventually asked to leave the team. McElhinney would go on to have a fantastic season with the Carolina Hurricanes, helping them clinch a playoff berth.

This one small decision by Dubas cost his team home-ice advantage in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Dubas learned on the job that loyalty doesn’t necessarily result in wins in the standings.

Then there was the handling of the William Nylander situation. The entire world knew Nylander wanted an average annual salary in the $7 million range. Dubas let it be known they wanted Nylander in the $6 million range. With minutes to go before the deadline that’d determine if Nylander would sit out the entire season or not, Dubas caved and gave Nylander an average annual salary of $6.9 million.

Missing over two months would ruin Nylander’s season as he could never find his footing and in a year the Maple Leafs needed all hands on deck to contend, one of their best forwards provided them nothing due to poor negotiations by Dubas.

As poor negotiations continued for Dubas, he signed Matthews to a massive contract worth $11.6 million per season for the next five years. The deal was worth more than the Tavares signing and, has turned into the biggest sticking point in on-going negotiations with Mitch Marner, who believes he’s worth just as much as Matthews given he outscored Matthews last season and has proven to be much more reliable with his health.

Dubas has struggled with learning on the job in his first year, at a time when the Maple Leafs haven’t had a core this close to legitimate Stanley Cup contention in decades. It’d be a shame if the window of opportunity slammed shut on the franchise due to the lack of a veteran presence running the club.

Had Lamoriello been allowed to finish the job, no doubt things in Leaf land would look a lot different. After all, all Lamoriello did since his departure from Toronto was take a team everyone considered doomed in the New York Islanders and helped them advance to the second round of the playoffs. Something the Maple Leafs have failed to accomplish in 15 years.