Fortunately everyone plays with the same amount of cap space and there is more to a team than 4 or 5 players. Leafs are a better team and both operating with the same amount of cap. Seems to me like Kyle Dubas has done a good job

never forget that the oilers are paying nurse 9 millions.

I've said for years, the Leafs (Dubas and the other Leafs executives) have been very poor in contract negotiations.
No way Matthews should have got 11.6m, the second highest paid player on just a five year contract
Marner and Aho of Carolina had identical stats for two straight year before they signed the same deals that summer. Aho 8.5m X 5, Marner 11m X 6.
Nylander I believe was too high at the time. The Leafs were on a 120 point pace without him and he signed two months into the season. Should have let him sit or offer a one year deal.
Tavares...right or wrong 11m was the gong rate. Just maybe hey shouldn't have signed him, and spread out the money elsewhere

Aho signed an offer sheet, did the Hurricanes a favour

Such a lazy and weak argument.
Oil got lucky that Draisaital signed for way less than he was worth - Chiarelli was GM then; are you going to tell me he was a great GM or was that nothing more than blind luck combined with a bad agent?
Leafs are a better team with a better record so Dubas’ strategy is working to some extent. If Leafs played in the weakcific - playoffs would be considerably easier (not easy, but unquestionably an easier route to conf finals)

Not sure how you can look back and say that any of our players were overpaid. Despite marner and nylander falling short of expectations at times, i'd say the past two seasons have proven that they are easily worth both, and nylander is certainly worth more. For Matthews, you give him whatever he wants. The guy will be the best goal-scorer in the league for years to come and he certainly has been up to this point. As for Tavares, it's easy to say that in hindsight, but I think in general, most GM's would make the same decision if given the same opportunity to sign one of the best forwards in the entire league at the time.

No one could question the value of any of those contracts now, with exception of Tavares but no one was against signing the premium FA at the time. What killed the Leafs (& Dubas) was Covid - all these contracts were signed just before outbreak; no one could have predicted a global pandemic which would flatten the cap for 4+ years.
Plus Hyman deal looks great now, talk to me in 3-4 years. Kane is a pariah - they got him relatively cheap b/c most other teams wouldn’t take in a nutcase like that; the wheels will come of before that contract expires.

True, but that was going rate...which signed for . A six year contract was that Marner got should have been 9m X 6. Interesting reports came out that the previous summer, Marner proposed an extension to the Leafs and was turned down. 8m X 8 years. And apparently Matthews a year before his extension had offered the Leafs 12m X 8 years....turned down by the Leafs.

Marner had more points than Aho and when u factored in Rantenen signed a 9.5mill x 6 year when Marner had more points he was gonna get paid more

The oilers have advanced beyond the 1st round. If you're saying Leafs are a better team, what is the evidence? Regular season?

Dubas misses as much as he hits, in contract negotiation/UFAs.

Even this year, his tinkering hasn;t produced much/ or been hit/miss: Murray, Hunt, Malgin for examples, and the team has the same doubts/weaknesses as it did 2-3 years ago.

Murray has been great most of the year, little bit of injury woes as of late, but his play has been good. Couple that with the fact the leafs were paid to take him. Are you saying malgin and hunt are bad contracts? They make a buriable amount of money…

Yes as evidence by the regular season. I don’t think Edmonton gets passed the first round or possibly even makes the playoffs if they are in the Atlantic

Ultimately this post could have just been titled “draisaitl doesn’t get paid enough” lol

If you think taking Ottawa's 4.7mil cap dump and saying hes been great most of the year when hes playing less than a 1/3 of the games, and on IR again, you must be a Mrazek fan or pay no attention to Murray who's been like this for years. But hey, if 4.7mil for the next 2 years is a good investment for a backup, oft injured goalie, then maybe Im crazy.

I didnt say Malgin, Hunt were bad contracts, (not like Ritchie/Mrazek), I said its the usual aimless "tinkering", making moves that make no real difference, acquiring guys that have no value, because inevitably they wind up AND clear on waivers or make no impact (Clifford, Mete, Hunt, Simmonds for example) same with the various callups of young guys from the AHL. Every team has guys they pick up momentarily, who make no real impact, but Dubas, and maybe this is the toronto effect, seems to do it aimlessly/more often.

But the "proof is in the pudding" and after so many seasons with an immense offense they have not progressed beyond the 1st round (or lost in qualifying), so to say theyre "a better team" than a team that has made it past the first round, they haven;t been so far, unless you're counting regular season points.

Part of a GM's job is to help the team improve and address weaknesses, and he really hasn;t done that, so to say hes done a good job? Hes been okay, but as I said, hes had some good, some bad, but ultimately has not progressed the team and IMO fixed whats not worked in the past in his capacity, and likely to be the 1st/2nd one out the door if they dont make hay this year.

Draisaitl's contract was significantly more than Pastrnak's, arguably his closest comp at the time. He didn't sign for less than he was worth, that's false. He just broke everyone's expectations of what he could become.

Check out the comments here: https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/87401

I think both teams have either had bad or just average GMs, that either composed the wrong mix, tinkered on uniimportant areas, but didn;t improve the team or address the weaknesses, and sometimes you have to take a step back to do so. And not pick on them, but the leafs have blamed the coaching, the goaltending, team depth, lack of "grit" or just a better opponent in the previous 4-5 years, but I cant honestly say their coaching, goaltending, team depth, "grit" (whatever you believe that to be) is better.

Oilers did well with Hyman, Ceci, Kane - but did poorly with Nurse, Campbell
Toronto did well with Bunting, Giordano, Kampf - but did poorly with mrazek, ritchie, reilly

They shouldn;t be compared. However, Oilers did find a way to progress in the playoffs last year, and thats something the Leafs haven;t been able to do.

Ultimately, Oilers and Leaf GMs have done a average to poor job with drafting, development, addressing weaknesses. While they both have two generational talents, all they've done is move the deck chairs around the Titanic as it approaches the iceberg. Anyone can get hot, get favourable matchups in playoffs and progress, so all is not lost.

But I truly believe that both GMs are nearing being fired for the simple reason that they are only maintaining the status quo in results and dont seem to have an idea on how to improve the team.

Agree with most of this. However the Oilers currently are doing very well in the development of prospects.

Personally I think you are being harsh on Dubas; his misses have been relatively minor (not core pieces). As I mentioned Covid impacted every team’s cap strategy but the Leafs more than most since they signed their guys just before outbreak.
No matter the reason Draisaital signed that deal, hard to give the GM too much credit - and it was Chiarelli who I think most agree was one of the worst gms ever.
Leafs play in the much tougher division; doesn’t excuse their failure to win a first round matchup but no question oilers have much easier route out of their division.