Toronto Maple Leafs: Ranking All 32 NHL General Managers

The 9th Ranked GM – Brian MacLellan (Washington Capitals)

For the last seven years, Brian MacLellan has been the GM of the Capitals. He spent ten years, starting in 2004, as the Director of Player Personnel. MacLellan then worked his way up to add Assistant GM to his portfolio before he traded both those roles to be the General Manager and Vice President of Hockey Operations.

The Good – While everyone was celebrating Alex Ovechkin winning the Stanley Cup for the first time, they may have forgotten all the work that MacLellan did to elevate his team to that point. Let’s not forget how pivotal T.J. Oshie was for that 2018 Cup run.

Oshie was unstoppable in those playoffs. Playing over 20 minutes a night, he finished with 8 goals and 13 helpers for a total of 21 points in 24 games. MacLellan traded Troy Brouwer and Pheonix Copley as well as a third-round pick in order to secure Oshie.

The Bad – General managers need to sometimes take big risks. That’s what MacLellan may have done this past offseason when he extended Nicklas Backstrom. To be clear, keeping Backstrom in Washington was a great decision. The size of the contract that was given to a player on the wrong side of 30 is almost certain to backfire before it expires.

MacLellan signed Backstrom to a five-year $46M contract. That means the center is playing on a $9.2M AAV. That will be Backstrom’s cap hit when he’s 37 in the final year of the deal. Of course, I could be wrong and Backstrom could continue producing at his current pace but it doesn’t seem likely.

The Ugly – Tom Wilson. Enough said.