How Kyle Dubas Has Made The Other 31 GM's Look Foolish
Photo Credit: Brandon Zeman, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Drafting The Best Player Every Time
In order to understand the Toronto Maple Leafs draft strategy, it is important first to recognize the underlying roster construction principles that guides the teams drafting philosophy.
The Toronto Maple Leafs operate under the assumption that hockey is a strong link game, meaning a few elite star players are primarily responsible in driving results.
As forwards have more impact on the game than defensemen, the Leafs built their roster in a top heavy "Studs'n'Duds" model approach, which primarily relies upon four stud forwards for team success and who, collectively, account for 50% of the salary cap.
Given how successful the Leafs have been in recent years, outside of a few unlucky first round playoff losses, I agree this is the best way to build a roster.
The results speak for themselves.
Toronto Maple Leafs Draft Strategy
One of the pillars of the Studs’n’Duds model is having an influx of cheap talent by way of players on ELC’s outperforming their contracts to relieve cap pressure caused by mid-range talent salary inflation.
As fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs are all too aware good players, like Zach Hyman and Ilya Mikheyev, are lost to free agency each summer and need to be replaced.
Since becoming GM in 2018 Kyle Dubas, who is currently operating as a lame duck GM, has struggled to backfill the roster with the prospects he inherited and has had to rely on league minimum mercenaries every year.
Until now.
Toronto Maple Leafs Draft Success Since 2018
The Toronto Maple Leafs draft strategy under Kyle Dubas to focus on skill and hockey IQ over size and other intangibles finally appears to be paying off.
With four players (Pontus Holmberg, Filip Kral, Mac Hollowell, Semyon Der-Arguchintsev) from the 2018 draft, Kyle Dubas' first as GM, making the leap to the big leagues this year and contributing to the teams success, that makes a total of six players from that year alone having played at least one NHL game.
Two of those players, Rasmus Sandin and Sean Durzi (traded to LA as part of the Muzzin package) are regulars in an NHL lineup on a nightly basis.
But the success doesn't end there.
Two players from the 2019 draft have also already made NHL appearances, with Nick Robertson looking like he will be a regular on the team once he returns from his most recent injury.
Hitting A Homerun
The Toronto Maple Leafs emphasis under Kyle Dubas of drafting the best player available, with a focus on scoring forwards in the early rounds, defense and goaltending in the middle rounds, while having a strategy to target specific player types (undersized, European, overagers) in later rounds in order to increase the odds of finding a late round gem is cleary the right one and the results prove it.
While other GM's continue to foolishly waste their picks on big bodied players they hope can be bottom six duds one day, Kyle Dubas continues to outsmart the other 31 GM's in the NHL by drafting players that have a higher ceiling and potential, players who may even be stars in their own right.
It is the correct strategy, the smart strategy, and a successful strategy.
The results speak for themselves.