Maple Leafs need a GM decisive enough to act fast

If there was a nail in the coffin of the Shanahan and Dubas era, it was their unwavering loyalty to the core that they built. The duo swept into the MLSE office and was unapologetic about the 45+ years of Stanley Cup futility and boldly dealt players away with little regard for their place in the organization. These were the good times. The trap of loyalty would follow. No loyalty to Nazem Kadri, no loyalty to Zach Hyman, but a loyalty to their top four forwards, Morgan Rielly, and a vision that with the right complementary pieces, this set of players which occupied over half of their salary cap would bring them to the promise land. That was their shortcoming.

Brad Treliving’s indecisiveness would be his undoing. The events leading to Dubas’ dismissal and the overlap with Brendan Shanahan might have tied his hands, but there were undeniably missteps in his early days that would set his tenure up for failure. Treliving would come in with the grenades of a decision on whether trading Mitch Marner before his no movement clause set in, a decision to make on whether Sheldon Keefe should return as head Coach, and an expiring contract for David Kampf.

Whomever is stepping into the General Manager’s office and/or the President of Hockey Operations office needs to meet the moment. They need to come with a firm belief on every key part of the organization and if that person is the best person for the job they hold, and if there is someone they think can do better at it, be prepared to move on from them.

Craig Berube is the easy example in this. An incoming GM shouldn’t have to spend time understanding what Berube does well at his job and what he needs to improve on. The question is simple, is Berube the best coach for the Toronto Maple Leafs or even the best available? If the answer is no, there shouldn’t be any hesitation about moving on.

The example gets trickier when you talk about Auston Matthews, who despite not having his best season and his trade value potentially being down slightly, the Leafs will never have this amount of trade leverage with Matthews as they do this summer. If an incoming GM doesn’t think Matthews will re-sign or doesn’t think that Matthews will be the player the Leafs need beyond his current contract, or even that his continued presence anchors the club too much in a failed past, there needs to be an immediate effort to move on.

To his credit, Keith Pelley’s press conference hinted at moving quickly so the incoming General Manager and possibly, President of Hockey Operations, will be able to take the reins and start acting. Pelley’s interest in a data driven and evidence based approach to decision making fits with a colder, more direct approach to looking at the team that eliminates the wait and see approach. There is two years of data on the Maple Leafs under Berube, there is nearly a decade of Matthews, Nylander, Tavares, and Rielly to look at and anyone coming into the Maple Leafs is going to understand better than most that players don’t age like fine wine and with a core that at best will be able to run back their previous season’s outputs, not improve upon them is not how a team gets better.

Pelley laid out some pretty clear expectations around the Maple Leafs getting young both in his desire for first round picks, and through highlighting skilled prospects both from other divisional opponents, but singling out Vinny Borgesi as a Maple Leafs prospect, he’s excited about as well. The opportunity is there to be decisive as well.

The impacts of decisiveness could have an adverse effect when it comes to the organization’s culture (different than the locker room’s culture), and while Pelley has asserted that it needs to improve, it will need to take an initial hit. Treliving’s departure has already created an uncertainty across the organization and that tends not to breed a positive environment. Moving quickly and bringing the off ice changes to a close, might help, but culture takes time and any CEO or President who thinks they have the answer that can come from anything beyond winning, needs to write that book yesterday.

Part of what derailed Brad Treliving when he came in was Shanahan’s loyalty to his core, but also an inability on Treliving’s side to tap into the organizational knowledge that was already in place. While someone like Brandon Pridham is worth considering for the GM position, his knowledge, as well as the knowledge of Hardy, Wickenheiser, and Metcalf can help the Maple Leafs not lose an important summer.

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