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2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

Bender said:
Dubas' and most GM's issue isn't selling - it's buying, and he made enough questionable trades, and I'm sure he learned a thing or two during his time here to be better equipped to be the Pens GM. I'm not saying we're better off now, but my god the bar has to be higher than what we've seen over the last 10yrs and especially from 2019 onward.
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Sure but I'd say he did more good trades than bad and I don't see any franchise altering trades in his repertoire. What I also appreciated is that he didn't hesitate to pivot on a fuck up.

Look he wasn't perfect but he was definitely better than the period between Quinn and Lou.

I really don't think lamoriello gets enough credit for the really poor job he did as leafs GM.

Every GM has terrible moves in their history, the good ones tend to adapt. I saw that in Dubas. As opposed to say, burke or lamoriello. Some GMs are just terrible, ie JFJ or Floyd Smith. Treliving right now is somewhere between Burke and JFJ.
 
Guilt Trip said:
So true. Funny thing tho, the goalies he signed, minus Mrazek were all very good their 1st years here. Both Campbell and Sammy were excellent their 1st years here. I remember everyone saying he needed to extend Campbell "because the price is going up everyday" and he didn't. Strangely enough Dubas is responsible for 3 of our top 4 goalies. He was the guy that signed injury plagued Woll instead of walking away. He was the GM that drafted Hildeby, Artur, Peska.

As for Keefe. Yup he was outcoached at times during the playoffs. But he was also victim to some suspect goaltending when it mattered. He shouldn't have been fired after they lost to Boston in GM7 OT. If there was ever a series where you had an excuse as to why, that was it. Nylander missed the first 3 games. Matthews gets hurt in GM4 I beleive and missed the remainder in that one and GMs5 and 6. Woll got hurt and couldn't play GM7.

Oh well, it is what it is. I still think, and many disagree because of what happened, that if you wanted to make a coaching change, coach Q was the guy to hire. He was without question the best coach available.
As for the GM they had choices but were deadset on Tre for whatever reason. Should have just given Dubas the autonomy and we're not in this current mess.
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Maybe not as bad, but I don't think anyone thought the Leafs should be 30pts worse year over year. I also think it's fallacious to assume that the team wouldn't be in a completely dissimilar situation. Maybe there would be a Marner trade, but maybe not and just assuming everything would go right with Dubas compared to what's occurred, if only he had complete control, seems so disingenuous to me.
 
Joe S. said:
Sure but I'd say he did more good trades than bad and I don't see any franchise altering trades in his repertoire. What I also appreciated is that he didn't hesitate to pivot on a fuck up.

Look he wasn't perfect but he was definitely better than the period between Quinn and Lou.

I really don't think lamoriello gets enough credit for the really poor job he did as leafs GM.

Every GM has terrible moves in their history, the good ones tend to adapt. I saw that in Dubas. As opposed to say, burke or lamoriello. Some GMs are just terrible, ie JFJ or Floyd Smith. Treliving right now is somewhere between Burke and JFJ.
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I mean he repeatedly pivoted in goaltenders that didn't work out. That part was complete lunacy.
 
Bender said:
I mean he repeatedly pivoted in goaltenders that didn't work out. That part was complete lunacy.
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He pivoted on Mrazek and by moving down in the draft and got Minten. What other goalie did he pivot on? There's no other goalie he signed, traded for that he needed to get away from.
 
ZBBM said:
MLHS with some on-point analysis this morning. What a comedy of errors.
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This comment from the article about summed it all up perfectly

In the meantime, this is about as unenviable a situation as can be. The GM making the decisions, short of having the week of his career, has no leg to stand on to be the GM of this team — or likely any other NHL team — ever again. The head coach should have been gone months ago, yet he is still actively making every player on the team look worse. The group of players appears to have essentially quit on the coach. You could stomach all of it with the promise of a first-round pick on the horizon, but the Leafs don’t own theirs, and the idea that they will slip into the bottom five is really hard to picture, knowing the bottom five teams are so bad and will also sell off pieces this week.

This is a difficult situation for even the most savvy management group to navigate, let alone the one currently occupying the Leafs’ front office.
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I particularly agree with the notion that Treliving has no business managing another NHL team.

But what I'm finding annoying is why are the leafs where GMs come to die. JFJ, Burke, Fletcher, Nonis and soon Treliving. So many come to the leafs, fuck up the team, and then never get another GM job.
 
Bender said:
Two things cannot be true at the same time? I think at times Keefe's style really exposed goaltenders, even if they were good (how many 2 on 1s??). Unfortunately, Dubas' goaltender selection also generally wasn't very good.
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Yes, two things can be true at the same time. When a coach loses, he certainly carries some responsibility.

"identifying quality NHL goaltenders" That seems like a crazy task these days in the NHL.

The two seasons with the best save% over a bunch of games during his time here: Campbell & Samsonov.
Both are out of the NHL and North American hockey. I can't hang that all on Keefe
And their D talent was not the greatest either during Keefe's time here. Can't hang that all on Keefe either.

Keefe's coaching had his talented forwards like Matthews & Marner helping defensively to help make up for it.
They had to be more conservative in the playoffs because with their D & goaltending they could get lit up while scoring is tight.
Some of their scoring got hurt by a lack of good D and goaltending and a lack of depth which allowed opponents to focus on the core 4.
Again, I can't put that all on the coach. Lots of blame to go around.
 
mapleleafshotstove.com

Craig Berube on Easton Cowan's team-low 8:23 in ice time vs. Philly: "It's about where he's slotted right now... It is what it is"

Craig Berube addressed the media after his team’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, which dropped the Maple Leafs’ record to 27-24-10. On the team’s performance: Good battle by our group tonight. Really good second period. We had a lot of opportunities. We didn’t capitalize on them...
mapleleafshotstove.com mapleleafshotstove.com

Thank goodness he's putting so much thought and coaching into how to get the best out of his young players.

It is what it is.
 
Bill_Berg said:
I know the trades likely won't happen till Friday, to maximize the return, but I am impatient.
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I'd be more antsy if there was a flurry of activity and the Leafs were sitting on the sidelines, but, it's been pretty slow so far. Not a lot of movement since the Olympics ended.
 
The Leafs are still sitting in a good spot. They have their cap retention slots and very few teams are truly out of the race. If they don't make 4-5 trades at the deadline this has to be viewed as a disaster deadline.
 
rdowdall said:
I am more impatient because I am not sure they are going to do the right thing.
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Yes also a concern. Some of the talk is crazy. Hopefully it's just rumour and guesswork. I mean Knies, Cowan and a first for Rob Thomas? How is a singer/songwriter even going to help!?
 
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