Which general managers have the most on the line after the trade deadline?

The trade deadline has come and gone, and several teams made some big moves to bolster their teams for the playoffs while others made some surprising ones out of left field. There’s always a risk for teams at the deadline, especially with rentals, so the pressure is on the front office for all those moves to pay off.

In the first post-trade deadline edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna ponder which general managers have the most on the line after the deadline.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I think an obvious one would be someone like Don Sweeney in Boston. You give up two first-round picks, you acquire a bunch of rentals. But then I would make the argument that you have Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci making a combined $3.5 million, you’d be stupid not to spend your first-round picks on a year like this with a team that good.

I think it also might be Kyle Dubas who has a case for it. Even if things don’t work out for the Leafs, Dubas can at least sit there and say “I went down swinging.” My answer to the question would be Dubas, do you have a different one?

Mike McKenna: Dubas, to me, is the low-hanging fruit, because all year long the narrative has been that if they can’t get past the first round in Toronto, then Dubas is done, he’s gone, he’s going to lose his job. Well if that happens, somebody’s going to hire him right away.

My point with the Toronto Maple Leafs is what did Dubas not do to help that team? Goaltending’s about the only thing that wasn’t upgraded at the deadline, and I don’t think there was really anything out there to make it better, so it’s kind of like the racing analogy, you run what you brung. I think Samsonov and Murray have both at times this year shown well, but I don’t think he had much choice there. I think Dubas did everything he could. If the team loses out, whatever, he went down swinging like you said.

I look to Ken Holland in Edmonton. I just can’t help but think that as close as that team’s been, for the talent that they have up front in McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, go down the list of those players, are they there yet, and could you have done more? I love picking up Ekholm, I would have liked Ekholm in addition to Tyson Barrie, because now you’re seeing Bouchard play some serious minutes, and he’s going to have to bring it. He had eight minutes of power play time the other night.

And I just think, Ekholm’s been good in the three games he’s been there, he’s +6, but the team’s still allowed 10 goals in the last two games that they’ve played. Is that all on the defense? I don’t know, but I’m just wondering if Ekholm and Bjugstad looks quite the same as a team like Boston that went out and was able to grab Bertuzzi and Orlov and Hathaway, and Toronto jumped through 3,000 salary cap hoops to make their team better, where as Holland really didn’t do a lot of that.

He didn’t get creative, he didn’t find ways to improve that club much beyond typical stuff and old-school transactions. I think he’s got a little bit of a hot seat here, and you being in Edmonton, you might know a little bit more than me, but that’s my pick.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I think if this team doesn’t go on another deep playoff run, then there’s going to be some legit pressure on Ken Holland, and I should say there’s pressure on him to ensure this team goes on that kind of a run. And you’re right, they added two pieces in Bjugstad and Ekholm, but they sacrificed two pieces in Jesse Puljujarvi and Tyson Barrie to do it. So they didn’t add anything, they just upgraded a couple of spots, and they probably were in a situation where they should have been adding.

You mentioned Evan Bouchard, a season high 24:18 in Saturday’s loss to the Winnipeg Jets, he’s going to be relied on to be a legit top four guy for this team. You think about a team potentially going on a run with all these young defensemen, I said they probably should have added another depth guy, even if it was only like a Nick Seeler in Philly or something like that.

Mike McKenna: Yeah, bring in a Nick Holden or someone to shore it up, I agree with you.