What to think of Kyle Dubas’ murky future with the Maple Leafs

The negatives of Kyle Dubas’ tenure

Dubas’ perception goes with the team; if the team succeeds, he becomes celebrated. However, his team has not won in the playoffs. How much of that can be attributed to Dubas?

For starters, his spending and money allocation come to mind. Signing Tavares certainly raised the team’s ceiling, but he essentially paid $11 million to a second-line center. If this team did not have that $11 million tied up in Tavares, would the team have more quality depth?

The Tavares problem highlights the general problem with Dubas’ tenure – he tied so much of the team’s cap in their forwards. Matthews makes more than $11 million, Marner makes just under $11 million annually, and William Nylander makes around $7 million. These players deserved these contracts, but the lack of team success remains frustrating when the team prioritized retaining these talented scorers over having a complete team.

Over the past couple of years, the negative repercussions of this prioritization showed, as the Leafs experienced inconsistencies with their defensemen and goaltending.

Speaking of the goaltending, Kyle Dubas lost both starting goalies in the past two years in Freddie Andersen and Jack Campbell to free agency and decided to roll the dice on Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov for this season. With his job on the line and the Leafs’ questionable defense fronting two inconsistent goalies, this gamble may not work.

Dubas also lost some trades that negatively impacted the team, such as trading Nazem Kadri for Alexander Kerfoot and Tyson Barrie. Hindsight does not help Dubas in this particular trade, but Kadri becoming a fantastic second-line center in Colorado does not help his case.

Dubas generally makes smart moves to keep the team competitive while working with his team’s limited cap space, but he put himself in this position. As long as his team fails to get past the first round in the playoffs, his inability to create a complete team to surround his expensive wingers will lead to him losing his job.