The Toronto Maple Leafs will have to get along without Mark Hunter.
Just one day after it was announced that Lou Lamoriello was not taking his senior advisor post, and was in fact leaving to join the New York Islanders (in a role as of yet undefined), Mark Hunter has also elected to leave the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The team is calling it a ‘mutual parting of the ways.’
The Assistant General Manager since 2016, Hunter has been with the since 2014. He is considered one of the game’s most likely to become a GM in the near future.
Once the Leafs hired Kyle Dubas to become the new GM, it was thought that Hunter, who was also up for the job, would move on. And now he has.
Where will he go? Will he follow Lou Lamoriello to the Island? Will another team put him in a role with a clear path to being a GM? I guess we’ll soon see.
No Big Deal
The Leafs can’t begrudge Hunter this move. He has worked for years to become an NHL GM and the path to that with the Leafs is closed. Kyle Dubas is going to the be general manager of the Leafs for a long, long time. The odds of Hunter getting that job with Toronto were roughly zero. By the time there’s an opening, Hunter is going to be as old as Lou is now.
So you can’t be mad that the guy wanted to go work somewhere were there was a chance that he’d eventually get his dream job. This is a good move for Hunter, but it’s also a good move for the Leafs.
You can’t have a rookie GM working with the guy who was passed over for the rookie’s job. Especially if that guy is about 15 years older and, based on almost all precedent, the more qualified candidate. (By hockey’s old-school standards, that is).
Unless Hunter is a total saint, the situation would have been untenable.
And for whatever slight advantage Hunter offers over the other 2500 people who could be the assistant GM, it could very easily be negated by having a guy with one foot out the door. Because no matter what Hunter was bringing to the Leafs, he wanted to be a GM somewhere and thus would always be looking to move on. You can’t work with that.
With Lou gone, and Hunter gone, this is Dubas’ team and the Leafs are better for it. If Lamoriello and Hunter stayed, Dubas would have to contend with two guys who aren’t used to deferring to him. This is a best case scenario for the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s hard enough to be an NHL GM, let alone in Toronto with all the pressure, let alone trying to put your out-of-the-box ideas over three old-school hardliners. (Including Babcock).
This is really no big deal. Shanahan knew that if he made Dubas the GM both Lamoriello and Hunter would leave, and now they have. Of course the old media will rip this job, and bad TV analysis will lament about all the Leafs are losing, but they’re just protecting their way of doing things. Clearly the “NHL” move would have been to stick with the Sensei and the Old School Grinder-Turned-Scouting Master. I for one am glad the Leafs are smarter than the status quo.
Next: Sparks Has Earned an NHL Job
Mark Hunter was probably good at his job. (I’ll let you know in five years when his draft picks can be judged). But this is the best thing for both him and the Leafs.