This trade deadline is the most important of Kyle Dubas' career
If you've spent as much time as I have playing General Manager on CapFriendly.com's Trade Machine tool, then you'll have an appreciation for just how challenging an NHL General Manager's job can be! So many boxes to tick just to get a trade completed: salary cap, roster size, number of contracts, no-move/no-trade clause constraints and so, so much more. It's exhausting! Such is the daily grind for Toronto Maple Leafs' GM, Kyle Dubas, and his staff. Especially at this time of year and with the season this team is having.
This year's Leafs are on pace to have a record-setting season. The most wins in a single season in the franchise's storied history is 49 and barring a return of Brian Burke's 18-wheeler and the cliff it went off of, that number will likely be in the 50's this season. But that won't be good enough. Not for Dubas. Not for the players. Not for the fans. As a team that hasn't made it past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2003-04, this franchise's 2021-2022 season will be judged solely on their performance in the playoffs.
Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Jack Campbell, Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, Sheldon Keefe. All of them. They will all be painted with the same brush based on this year's post season. Talk about a team game.
None of the aforementioned have more at stake than the GM Dubas. His job is on the line. If the Leafs fail to convert regular season success into playoff success, he's likely looking for work. That's the way it goes in professional sports. With so much at stake, the next 33 days (leading up to the March 21 NHL Trade Deadline) are likely to be the most important in Dubas' career. He and his staff are tasked with doing all that they can to make the roster as good as it can be for this year's pursuit of The Stanley Cup. As we saw with last year's deadline acquisition of Nick Foligno -- which proved to be disastrous -- one bad trade can have a long term, negative, rippling effect on a franchise.
There are two parts to the task at hand for Dubas et al over the next 33 days: 1) identify what the needs are and, 2) try to acquire the players to meet those needs in exchange for current assets. Just as it took fewer words to identify number one than it did two, the latter task is where the real work is, the real challenge.
I know from my Trade Machine experiences on CapFriendly.com and so I can't even begin to imagine the pressure that Dubas and his colleagues will face in the next month or so.
So, what do the Leafs need and who/what does Kyle Dubas have at his disposal to fill those needs? We all have our own ideas on this, here are thoughts from The Athletic's Jonas Siegel:
