Yeah, that was the biggest thing, taking such a gamble on Murray and Samsonov. At least get one semi-reliable guy in there.
- Hockey66
Which guy was available last year that wanted to be in Toronto who was semi reliable? Campbell lost his starting job in Edmonton. Keumper didn't want to go to Toronto. Talbot shat the bed in Ottawa. I think Husso was available but he went 3.11 gaa and under .900 sv%.
Samsonov played 42 games and had 2.33 and .919. He was reliable enough. Murray was fine too except he's a walking band aid.
I think Dubas will find a soft spot to land at some point and do quite well wherever he goes. He doesn't get enough recognition for how he treats people in his organization. He turned Toronto into a place agents would tell their players to goto, especially if they wanted to re-ignite their career or man, just have a great health staff to check out your injuries and see how to get them better. As much as it's a high pressure job in Pitts if they want to win with the star players getting older he could possibly do it. I mean, he improved the leafs every year he was GM to be a record setting Toronto team in the regular season. Playoffs became something else.
The story coming out is he wanted autonomy and clearly Shanahan did not. It's rumoured Shanahan had more say in things being done or not done than anyone originally thought. I doubt the leafs cared about money. They are paying 6 million to Babcock to not coach for them, they took Horton's uninsured contract for 7 million to get rid of Clarkson. No way they cared about an extra 2 million.