Brendan Shanahan the Best Thing to Happen to the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the worst franchises in professional sports, and that is what makes us love them so much.

It wouldn’t be fun to just win all the time and have a ton of success, and the Toronto Maple Leafs know this.  That is why, for 55 years, they’ve teased, tantalized, and disappointed.   Always doing just enough to keep you coming back, but never giving you satisfaction.

The errors of this franchise have long been established.

Harold Ballard was an idiot, and he ruined any chance of post-expansion success, the 70s were bad, but  the eighties were an absolute joke and the team made horrible decision after horrible decision.

It sometimes got better, but just enough to keep you coming back.

After losing out on the chance to have Joe Sakic, Wayne Gretzky, Scott Niedermeyer, Eric Lindros, Robert Luongo, Tukka Rask, Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton, all due to massive, unbelievable incompetency, the Toronto Maple Leafs had enough, and hired Brendan Shanahan.

 Toronto Maple Leafs  : The Brendan Shanahan Era

Outside of two years of Cliff Fletcher in the 90s, and maybe three good Pat Quinn years earlier in the 00s, there is no evidence that the Leafs hired a single non-idiot to run their team until Brendan Shanahan came along.

Remember when they had four GMs and one of them was Ken Dryden for some reason? Remember how John Ferguson Jr. showed that anyone with a pulse could run a pro hockey team?  And let’s not forget Brian Burke who thought he could turn arrogance into a Stanley Cup like some kind of mad alchemist. And try as we might, for some reason we can’t forget his beige assistant Dave Nonis.

This team was absolute garbage for about 90% of the time between the original expansion and the hiring of Brendan Shanahan.  Not a single major individual award, not a single trip to the Finals, and not even a superstar player who could be counted among the best in the world.

(All due respect to Darryl Sitler, Lanny McDonald, Wendel Clark, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin and Phil Kessel,  who are legends in their own right, but who were never “generational” level talents).

But Brendan Shanahan changed all that.

He had the guts to fully tank and get the Toronto Maple Leafs not one, but two franchise players, both of whom will eventually go down as the two best players in this team’s history.

Sure, we haven’t seen the playoff success we want, expect and hope for, but just the fact that this team has a plan and follows it regardless of what the media says is good enough for me.

People constantly ask me why I am so supportive of a GM and President who have won nothing.  They think I’m some kind of sycophant, but I used to rip the Leafs constantly – when I thought they deserved it.

Under Dubas and Shanahan, I have never thought they deserved it.

This team is the best version of the Toronto Maple Leafs I’ve ever seen.  They’ve been among the best teams in the NHL since the day they fired Mike Babcock, and even though they actually haven’t won, they put themselves in a good position to do so.

And that’s all you can ask.

Bounces won’t always go your way.  Luck is a major factor in a short tournament (which is what the playoffs are).

I’m not saying the Leafs only fault is bad luck, but they have been the better team by expected-goals in 16 of their last 19 playoff games.

My point is this: for the better part of 55 years, the Toronto Maple Leafs had the Toronto Media as their co-GM and they hired, fired, and ran players out of town at a whim.

Shanahan put a stop to that, and because he did, the Toronto Media has been vicious and completely biased in their assessment of the Kyle Dubas/Brendan Shanahan Era.  The Old School Media in this city has never quite recovered from their failure to trade William Nylander, but to my mind, the team is in great hands.

Caving to the whims of fans and media for 50 years was a recipe for failure.   Now that the team doesn’t make frivolous, knee-jerk moves, they are much better.  The bad luck in results won’t last forever.

Literally every complaint about Shanahan or Dubas is asking the Leafs to go back to doing things they did for 50 years (run unpopular players out of town, listen to Steve Simmonds, overrate checkers, buy UFAs they don’t need, etc.).

Personally, I think fans of an Original Six team should be sophisticated enough to look beyond results at a process that is clearly working. The Toronto Maple Leafs will enter the 2022-23 season with the best roster in the NHL and as the favorites to win the Stanley Cup.

Do I wish we had already won? Sure I do, but that’s still good enough for now.