The Toronto Maple Leafs need someone new to lead the front office and it really seems like they have narrowed in on one candidate.
Mike Gillis has been rumoured to be a frontrunner to land some sort of job with the Maple Leafs -- most likely as a president of hockey operations, rather than a general manager -- but now it is truly more than just whispers and assumptions.
Mike Gillis appears to be frontrunner for Maple Leafs front office role
While almost every single hockey media member and fan made the connection between Gillis and the Leafs as soon as MLSE CEO Keith Pelley mentioned they want someone forward-thinking for the role, we now see that there have been talks and interest from both sides.
Chris Johnston confirmed on a recent podcast that Toronto has already talked to Gillis about joining the organization, and apparently there might be a second meeting soon.
“ The talk about Mike Gillis is real. The Leafs have interest in him,” Johnston said during an episode of The Chris Johnston Show last week. “ I believe there’s already been a conversation between Gillis and Pelley. I think there’s another one that’s coming up here. ”
Gillis served as the Canucks general manager during their hey day, while they were winning back-to-back President's Trophies and making the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. And not really by fluke. He was one of the more progressive minds in an NHL front office at the time, looking at every single facet of the game for a competitive advantage -- famously, hired someone to manage his players' sleep schedule to maximize rest and recovery.
But, there are some concerns, as Johnston continued.
“ The perceived negatives would be that he hasn’t worked in the league in 12 years," Johnston said. " I think that’s obviously a fair point, but you know, he was a long-time agent, knows a lot of people in the game, those relationships persist. He had experience building the Canucks up from a place where they were adrift to where they got within one win of the Stanley Cup in 2011. He has worked in a market like Toronto. He has made the kind of decisions a GM would make. I think he makes sense.”
While Gillis has not been in an official front office role since he was fired by Vancouver in 2014, he has stayed involved, as Johnston mentioned. Just a few years ago, he was a major consultant for the NHLPA and obviously, has kept up with his connections around the hockey world and that could be invaluable to a team like the Leafs trying to turn this whole thing around fairly quickly.
Hiring Gillis as a president of hockey operations would certainly be a good start to revamp this Toronto front office and should make a feasible difference.