Brandon Pridham Could Be Toronto Maple Leafs Biggest Loss

The Toronto Maple Leafs salary cap wizard and assistant general manager may be on the move soon.

Reports indicate that the Calgary Flames have requested permission to interview Toronto Maple Leafs AGM Brandon Pridham, who has been an underrated piece to team success over the past few years.

If you’re unaware of Pridham, he’s been behind the scenes since 2015, helping manage the Leafs salary cap. Prior to working in Toronto, Pridham worked in the NHL as a salary-cap enforcer, so his previous experience was vital to helping Toronto maximize their talent.

As we all know, the NHL has a hard salary-cap and a detailed CBA, where you can find ways to maneuver and manipulate the cap. Whether it wass sending players down, having emergency call-up’s or burying contracts on long-term injured reserve, Pridham has known every rule and every way to make this happen over his tenure in Toronto and he’s been an important piece to the puzzle.

If it wasn’t for him, maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t sign John Tavares, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews to long-term deals and maybe the team doesn’t have as much regular season success as they did.

Toronto Maple Leafs Assistant GM Could Become Calgary Flames Newest GM

For as long as the NHL has a hard salary-cap, Pridham will be valuable and he’ll be a desirable piece that the Leafs shouldn’t want to lose.

However, there may not be much that they can do about it at this point. Although I’m sure Kyle Dubas would love to keep Pridham, he wouldn’t be a guy to stop him from becoming one of 32 NHL GM’s in the world.

I mean, it’s never a bad idea to have a buddy as another NHL GM, as that makes for easier business sometimes, but at the same time, you always want to do best for your employee. You never want to let an employee go for nothing, but if you know they’re going to find a better job, then you have to let them free.

Even if the Toronto Maple Leafs offer Pridham more money than Calgary, it probably won’t stop him from making the leap.

The only way where the Toronto Maple Leafs could keep him would be to promote him within and then promote Kyle Dubas to President of Hockey Operations, which would be a similar move to what the Toronto Raptors did. A few years ago, the team never wanted to let Bobby Webster leave, so they promoted Webster to GM, moved Masai Ujuri to President and everything worked out with an NBA Championship.

Ujuri is still the face of the team and does a ton of the press, so the same could happen in Toronto if the team valued Pridham as high as the Raptors valued Webster.

Regardless of what happens, Toronto may have to find another cap-wizard to help maneuver the books, as the salary-cap doesn’t look to be moving up crazy high anytime soon.