When Brendan Shanahan took over the Toronto Maple Leafs he started the motions on a franchise-altering course that brought in some of the brightest minds, young and old, in the game.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were Shanahan’s team from the start, that was made very clear by the desolation of the (almost) entire staff.
The Toronto Maple Leafs opened their minds to the ever-growing analytics portion of the game, a movement that will only continue to grow as the days pass – just look at Major League Baseball and the NBA.
They also brought in one of the most highly regarded talent finders in the game, as well as the most sought after head coach of the modern era.
Then they brought in the most veteran general manager, the GM godfather if you will, of the National Hockey League.
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Four great minds in addition to a progressive President with the intention on tearing the organization down to it’s core and rebuilding in a slow, definitive way.
After one full season with the entire five-man group in tact, where do we stand?
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a much better team now than the day that Brendan Shanahan torched the offices of MLSE, that’s for certain. The prospect pool is full of young, excellent talent. The core pieces are beginning to be locked up long-term on team friendly deals. The plan is in full swing, and it’s working well.
The initial theory was that this was going to be a collective group, each adding a different angle to the rebuild and each with a voice in the operation and direction of this team.
After one full season, I’m not so sure each member of the front office has an equal voice in discussions anymore.
There’s a clear leading voice in that front office, and it’s the 71 year old Lou Lamoriello.
The prospect department clearly remains in sole possession of Mark Hunter, that’s evident by the selections made at the 2016 NHL Draft, but the free agency this year was much different than last year.
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Last off-season – the pre-Lamoriello era from July 1st-July23rd – was full of analytic moves designed to take players from the island of misfit toys that were underappreciated and functional hockey players and turn them into assets later in the season.
That plan panned out as Nick Spaling, Daniel Winnik and Shawn Matthias were flipped in trades that saw the Toronto Maple Leafs acquire three second round picks, Colin Smith and Connor Carrick as future assets. If P.A. Parenteau hadn’t had injury concerns at the deadline he most certainly would have been dealt.
This year’s free agency has seen nothing reminiscent of last year.
Matt Martin and Roman Polak were brought in, moves that are the opposite of what happened in the 2015 off-season. Neither signings are cap-crippling, nor will they have a long-term effect on the overall rebuild of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but that doesn’t mean they make sense based on what the Shanahan-led front office had done until that point.
I’d wager that Kyle Dubas’ voice in the room would have been opposed to signing a fourth line player to a $10M contract, as well as a defender like Roman Polak. Neither fit the system that Mike Babcock runs, either. Matt Martin is not Justin Abdelkader, and will surely disappoint if overcast in the same manner than Abdelkader is in Detroit.
There’s a growing trend of moves that seem to be more on the Lamoriello side of things, rather than a collective group discussion. Now, he’s the General Manager and he’s certainly a decorated one, but I have my doubts on how open the process is right now for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are better off as a collective thinking group of great hockey minds that include Shanahan, Lamoriello, Babcock, Hunter and Dubas. As a group they form one of the strongest front offices in the entire NHL, separately they become less elite.
As I said earlier, there’s nothing wrong with the Martin or Polak signings in the grand scheme of things; however, icing those two players come October is going to change the way the Toronto Maple Leafs play hockey compared to the period of 2015-2016 from the trade deadline to the end of the season.
I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t enjoy seeing the youth movement in March and April. It was probably the most entertaining the Toronto Maple Leafs have been in years. They still hit the opposition but relied on skill and speed to entertain Leafs fans around the world – and they did all of that while only having one fighting major after February 29th. Polak and Martin will cost two young players, ready for a longer look, a roster spot this year.