Kyle Dubas Reveals His Biggest Mistake as Maple Leafs' GM
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Travis NeilJune 24, 2023 (5:21 PM)
Former General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs Kyle Dubas said he sees buyouts as a "last resort" due in part to former General Manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins Jim Rutherford.
The Phil Kessel Trade
Jim Rutherford and the Toronto Maple Leafs made a deal back in 2015 involving star forward Phil Kessel where the Leafs agreed to retain 15% of Kessel's eight-year, $8 million AAV salary.
The Leafs were paying $1.2 million when Dubas took over in 2018 and had 4 years remaining.
That cap hit came critical for the Leafs as William Nylander, Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner take up over $40 million in salary.
The Leafs were in a cap crunch and allocating $1.2 million to player not on the roster hurt the team, it shows why Dubas is against buying a player out.
«We had that situation in Toronto, on a retention trade to Pittsburgh,» Dubas said. «You're looking at it, seven years down the road, and you still have that space, in a hard salary cap environment, limiting you.»
The Penguins have one candidate for buyout, Mikhail Granlund who had a very underwhelming season and still has two more years at $5 million.
The buyout would cost the Penguins for 4 more years with the first year be under $1 million but the spike up to almost $2 million for the next three seasons.
As seen on Pensburgh Kyle Dubas names Phil Kessel trade as reason to avoid buyouts
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