Kyle Dubas reaveals multiple teams were in on Ritchie; why he chose to deal with Arizona
The Nick Ritchie era in Toronto has officially come to an end, but while his tenure with the Leafs was both brief and a disappointment, the return that he brought back from Arizona was quite solid, so I suppose we should thank him for that.
Ritchie was shipped off to the Coyotes, along with a conditional draft pick (3rd in 2023 or 2nd in 2025, Arizona's choice) in exchange for defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin and forward Ryan Dzingel.
Leafs GM Kyle Dubas met with the media on Sunday to discuss a wide range of topics, including the trade, prospect Dmitri Ovchinnikov coming to North America, the stellar play of Nick Robertson in the AHL and more. One of the most interesting things that Dubas brought up was the fact that he had multiple teams interested in Ritchie and how the trade materialized between the Leafs and Arizona.
"It wasn't going to be the end of the world for us to keep [Ritchie] and have him as our own depth - basically the purpose that we hope Dzingel will serve now, if that works out. So what we were trying to do in the end was make a good deal for us where we could add something... where both teams would come out of it with what they wanted.
"There was a number of other teams that were interested, but they would have involved retention and other items that we just weren't interested in and Arizona had the cap space and then they also had a couple of players that we were interested in and we were able to meet their objectives in the deal as well.
For us, we didn't really focus on anything else, because this was the one that we honed in on, feeling that with Lyubushkin and Dzingel, it met some of our own internal objectives."
"There was a number of other teams that were interested, but they would have involved retention and other items that we just weren't interested in and Arizona had the cap space and then they also had a couple of players that we were interested in and we were able to meet their objectives in the deal as well.
For us, we didn't really focus on anything else, because this was the one that we honed in on, feeling that with Lyubushkin and Dzingel, it met some of our own internal objectives."
-Kyle Dubas on choosing to deal with Arizona over other teams who were interested in Nick Ritchie.
Ritchie ended his run in Toronto with just 2 goals and 9 points in 33 games - a far cry from the production he generated for the Boston Bruins in 2020-21. Best of luck to Ritchie in Arizona.
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