How Dubas' shrewd spending has paid off long-term for Leafs
A sigh of relief went out across the Toronto Maple Leafs fan base today when it saw a certain piece of news hit the wire midway through the afternoon.
At 2 pm ET, the Edmonton Oilers officially announced their decision to waive veteran goaltender Jack Campbell after he’d struggled mightily through the first year and a bit of his five-year contract with the club.
Through five games this season, Campbell has a 1-4-0 record and a .873 save percentage, putting up just a .888 save percentage and a 21-9-4 mark the year prior.
And after Campbell had spent the prior three seasons before joining the Oilers with Toronto, Leafs fans everywhere seemed to have the same thought: at least it wasn’t us.
Toronto had shown some interest in bringing back Campbell into its fold in the summer of 2022 but ultimately hadn’t been willing to commit the $25 million over five years that Ken Holland and the Oilers agreed to give him in free agency.
And while he ended up leaving Toronto in high-profile fashion this past spring, credit is due to former Toronto general manager Kyle Dubas for not being willing to shell out the cash for Campbell.
A year prior, Dubas faced a similar bidding war with the Oilers, where he saw winger Zach Hyman leave his hometown team for a seven-year, $38.5 million deal with Edmonton, while also losing Frederik Andersen to the Carolina Hurricanes on a two-year, $9 million deal.
In both offseasons, Dubas opted to search for other players to fill Toronto’s holes, bringing in Ilya Samsonov and Matt Murray as goaltenders in 2022 while signing Michael Bunting out of Arizona to become the team’s new stopgap top-six forward option.
Bunting left after two seasons with Toronto to join Carolina as well, while Murray’s injury struggles continued in Toronto and he’s currently on long-term injured reserve.
Samsonov, meanwhile, is having his own struggles in net for Toronto in his second year with the team, sporting just a .855 save percentage and a 2-1-2 record in his seven appearances.
The difference, however, is that while Edmonton is looking at a player like Campbell being on its books for the long term in some shape or form even if they buy him out, Toronto at least has plenty of cap flexibility moving forward to navigate any issues it might have in net.
Toronto has just five players signed through 2025-26, with eight players set to hit unrestricted free agency this coming offseason (including Samsonov) and another four more next summer.
Edmonton, meanwhile, has nine players signed through that same date, not exactly the kind of commitment you’d like to see from a team with a 2-8-1 record to start the year. Campbell himself is signed through 2026-27, one year after Edmonton captain Connor McDavid’s deal is set to expire.
Toronto still has its own problems: few of new GM Brad Treliving’s offseason moves seem to be fitting in all that well and it’ll have to sort out how much leash to give Samsonov before considering making its own move in net. And the Leafs might not be world-beaters right now, winning just six of 12 of their games to start the season.
But despite all the team’s issues, there still seems to be quite a bit of cap flexibility in a way that wouldn’t be possible had Dubas spent big on players like Hyman and Campbell.
For that, Dubas deserves a little bit of praise, even some six months on from his firing.
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