Toronto Maple Leafs: Why No New GM Yet?

The Toronto Maple Leafs need a new GM.

With the unsurprising announcement on Tuesday that the Leafs were moving Lou Lamoriello into an advisory role , the search for a new GM is on.

But will there even be a search? The biggest surprise about yesterday’s announcement was that it wasn’t followed up with the immediate announcement of Kyle Dubas’ hiring.

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As everyone who could possibly be interested probably already knows, Kyle Dubas has been the ‘GM in waiting’ for several years now. Last year the Leafs blocked the Colorado Avalanche from hiring him as their general manager, and just about everyone assumes that they wouldn’t have done that unless they were planning on promoting him themselves.

This is pretty good logic, since it’s extremely rare for an NHL GM job to open up, and there are dozens of qualified candidates for each one that does. To deny Dubas the opportunity to get his own team and then refuse to promote him would be an unjust betrayal.

Seeming how Shanahan seems to be a decent sort, I’d bet huge dollars that Dubas does in fact get the job.

If So, Then Why No Announcement?

The most interesting thing about the non-announcement of Dubas as the Leafs new GM was the speculation as to why there was no coinciding hiring to Lamoriello’s un-hiring.

Some speculated that they didn’t want to disrespect Lamoriello (though they already told him they don’t want him to be the GM anymore, so I’m not sure this too logical, since they are obviously going to hire a replacement eventually).

Other’s thought the Leafs would wait until the end of the AHL Playoffs – but why would that matter when the GM’s job is pretty much done come playoff time?

There were actually ton’s of guesses, but almost all of them were implausible. My guess would be that it’s difficult – even with full autonomy – to convince the board of a multi-billion dollar company to entrust their operation to someone you can still call a kid.

Or maybe it’s because they haven’t decided if they want to bring in someone from outside the organization.

Or maybe it’s because they really haven’t decided. Who knows? The Hurricanes recently flushed their team down the toilet and hired ancient good hockey men Don Waddel and Rick Dudley to lead them further into obscurity, and the NHL is a copy cat league. Maybe Shanahan saw this atrocity and decided that maybe instead of Kyle Dubas, he should look into the recently available Charles “Chuck” Fletcher, and Brian Burke.

Next: Disappointment or Success?

I mean, I certainly hope not, but we’ll never know. Meanwhile, we await the announcement of Kyle Dubas as the new general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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