Toronto Maple Leafs: Hiring An Experienced GM Is a Stupid Idea

Hiring an experienced general manager will not fix the Toronto Maple Leafs problems.

Reports indicate that the Toronto Maple Leafs core will unlikely be moved, despite the team bringing in a brand new general manager.

After nine years with Brendan Shanahan running hockey operations and five years of Kyle Dubas as GM, the team decided to move on from Dubas, citing that an experienced GM was necessary. So if you’re bringing in a new GM with “experience”, why are you stopping them from not trading any of the core right now?

How can you put a leash on an experienced manager that quickly without them evaluating the team and understanding what they think is best for the club?

Toronto Maple Leafs: Hiring An Experienced GM Is a Stupid Idea

That’s the problem I’m currently having with the Leafs and where they want this team to go. Shanahan was an amazing NHL, but as an executive, he’s just getting in the way.

When you take a second to evaluate, the Leafs roster was very good, but they happened to run into the hottest team in hockey. After going down 3-1 to the Boston Bruins, the Panthers have now won 10 of their past 11 games and are one win away from the Stanley Cup Finals.

Sergei Bobrovsky has turned into the greatest goalie in the world and there’s not much stopping this team right now.

Do I think the Leafs need a shake-up? Yes, it would be beneficial, in my opinion, to move one of the core pieces, fire the coach and see what happens, but I would have done that with the trust of Kyle Dubas.

Dubas took a chance by signing four monster contracts, with expectations of the salary-cap rising, yet the pandemic stopped that. By now, the Leafs should have easily been able to sign another player worth $4-6M to add to the roster, but that hasn’t been the case due to the salary cap staying stagnant.

Now that Dubas is out, the Leafs want experience, but did the last nine years not count? Dubas was the Assistant GM, helping the Toronto Marlies win the Calder Cup and then guided the Leafs to their best regular season records in franchise history.

Do those seasons just not count anymore? Just to name a couple, but almost every other team who’s hired a GM recently, hired someone with much less experience than Dubas.

Craig Conroy, Daniel Briere, Chris MacFarland, Mike Grier, Patrik Allvin, Kyle Davidson and Chris Drury all came with zero experience, yet those franchises thought it was a good idea to hire them.

In terms of experience, any team that hires Dubas will cite his last nine years of experience, including a fantastic resume in the OHL, AHL and now NHL.

All I’m trying to say is that Shanahan’s opinion for an “experienced GM” is B.S. It’s a power-move by him to crap on Dubas because he’s still young, yet he’s one of the most savvy and experienced managers who’s available to sign right now.

Instead of having someone with modern-thinking and a new approach to the game, let’s stick with the old-school thinking hockey executive who will not help bring change, but instead will stay in the past.

This idea will backfire on the Toronto Maple Leafs immediately and it’s a terrible decision by the club to go down this route.