The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Lou Lamoriello's Time With The Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs hired longtime and legendary, hall of fame general manager of the New Jersey Devils, Lou Lamoriello nine years ago this week. 

He had a relatively short tenure when all is said and done, being in charge from July 23rd, 2015 until May 1st 2018. Even to this day, the reign of Lamoriello is very divisive.

The process was unorthodox with Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan already having hired the head coach Mike Babcock.

Along with him the team already had the front office specifically hand picked with Mark Hunter and Kyle Dubas sharing the GM duties up until this point.

At the time, it felt like the final puzzle piece was put in place from the front office down to the coaching staff.

All the team needed was a proper rebuild to commence and the team would be back to cup contention.

The plan worked, as the Leafs have been a competitive team ever since. Bad luck, circumstances and some managerial errors (By Lamoriello, Dubas and Treliving) prevented the Leafs from winning it all so far, but it can't be ignored that they have had, and are still in the midst of, the longerst streak of icing competitive teams in the history of a 100+ year-old franchise.

Although the team has found great regular season success, things have not come together in the postseason. I decided now is a good time to look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly of Lou Lamoriello's tenure with the Leafs.

The Good

When Lou was hired, he was revered around the league and signing him was seen as a giant leap forward for a team that had been mired in incompetence for decades. This was a major turning point for the organization and there was of course a lot of good that he did.

Culture Changes

Although Lou is known for being on the far end of the spectrum in terms of the borderline authoritarian culture that he fosters within his organizations; It can be quite effective. There are some strange and ridiculous rules that he puts in place like no facial hair/hair length restrictions and his near refusal to give high draft picks contract bonuses.

However, his hardcore policies against leaking inside information to the media makes sense. By and large, most people seem to have felt that he is respectful and he seems to have garnered the reverence of the hockey world for a reason. He is no Mike Babcock or Mike Keenan, thankfully. So, his strict rules can mostly be tolerated.

Although, some of the effects that he has is overblown with some insinuating that he would have gotten the “big three” under contract sooner and with much more team friendly terms. His history does not seem to indicate this is the case and given he allowed William Nylander to play out his contract and with other deals he handed out that I will touch on later. Regardless, I do feel that he made a positive impact on the team’s culture.

Kadri & Rielly Extensions

In April 2016, Nazem Kadri and Morgan Rielly were signed to contract extensions. Even at the time, everybody knew that these signings would look like steals a few years down the line. He signed Kadri to a team friendly six-year deal carrying a $4.5 million AAV, buying multiple UFA years in the process. He also locked up the Leafs future number one defender, Rielly to a similar six-year $5 million AAV deal. 

This locked up two valuable members of the team’s core moving forward for less than $10 million a year combined. Although Kadri is long gone, he was a high-end second line center in his prime and although Rielly is probably miscast as a number one defender, he is one of the better offensive defensemen in the league and could retire as the highest scoring Maple Leaf of all-time at his position.

Cap Creativity

Although it was brought up before, the Leafs under Lou were ruthless in the way they handled players by placing them on LTIR with no regard. Stephane Robidas is the most notable example but there was also; Joffrey Lupul, Jared Cowan, and Milan Michalek who were all essentially pushed out from the team by being placed on LTIR. This was one of the many ways that Lou got creative with the team's salary cap situation.

Another way that Lou was able to get creative with the salary cap was by leveraging the team's available cap space to acquire less desirable contracts. His first move with the Leafs was a trade where they traded five players to the Islanders in exchange for Michael Grabner and his caphit.

The Bad

As with every GM, “you can’t win ‘em all” as the saying goes. There will inevitably be a bad trade or signing but sometimes there can be strange philosophical moves. That was definitely the case with Lamoriello.

Inconsistent Moves

Despite just getting the first overall pick, Lou Lamoriello quickly declared the rebuild over, without actually saying it. The same day that the Leafs selected Auston Matthews, they then traded away a first and second round pick for goaltender Frederik Andersen.

This wasn’t a bad trade in and of itself but it is the perfect encapsulation of how this regime would operate here on out. On one hand, the team won the ultimate prize of their rebuild in getting the first overall pick. Although this may signal the end of the rebuild, it would seem to be hasty to make a big “win-now” type trade that same exact day.

That trade was ultimately a win as Andersen proved himself to be a flawed but mostly consistent top-10 goaltender throughout his tenure. However, he struggled mightily when it mattered most; in the playoffs but specifically in elimination games. In 2017-18 and 2018-19 the Leafs lost in seven games to the Boston Bruins with Andersen playing his worst hockey of those respective years.

Outside of the Andersen trade, in both 2017 and 2018, Lamoriello traded second round picks (along with depth players/prospects) for fourth-line center rentals. These trades did not destroy the team by any means but trading draft capital in this way harmed the depth and the team's ability to surround their core in future years for marginal gains.

There was also the issue of the team not going far enough with their win-now moves. They would make those trades at the deadline but fail to make tangible upgrades in areas of weakness instead opting to throw away assets on players that won't log much more than 10 minutes a game. If they focused more resources on shaping up their D-core and supporting cast, the team could have reached new heights much quicker.

The Ugly

Like the last category, in most cases GM’s are bound to have some real stinkers. Unfortunately for Lou, there were a few mistakes throughout his time in Toronto that stick out like a sore thumb. 

Drafts

Although technically Mark Hunter was the man in charge of drafting and scouting during this time, Lou had the ultimate decision making power (aside from Brendan Shanahan/MLSE board).

The drafts under Lamoriello were, to put it nicely, awful. He was in charge of arguably the two most important drafts in 2016 and 2017, making a total of 18 selections in that time. In the first round they drafted both Auston Matthews and Timothy Liljegren, which have turned out to be great selections in both cases.

It is outside of them where the issues lie with a combined 319 NHL games played between five different players picked outside of the first round. None of those games come from the 2017 draft and the only players of consequence are Joseph Woll, who looks to be the Leafs starter going forward and Carl Grundstrom, who is a bottom-six winger for the LA Kings. 

To only hit on seven out of 18 players in crucial rebuild years is nowhere near good enough, especially when two of those players are top-20 picks.

In order for these drafts to be considered successes, they did not even have to grab a Brayden Point or Jesper Bratt type steal, although it would have been nice. Had they been able to get even a decent NHL contributor like Ross Colton or Brandon Hagel it would be a much better haul.

As I have highlighted in my draft retrospective series, the Leafs draft philosophy over these years was baffling. Opting to go for many oversized defensemen and overage, low scoring players just as the former was going out of style. 

Patrick Marleau signing

The Marleau contract landed on my top-5 worst free agent signings of all time and that is why it is here now. Marleau in his prime was an elite scoring winger, consistently potting 30-40 goals and hovering around point-per-game numbers.

However, he would be 38 by the time the season started and Lou signed him for three years and $6.25 million per season. There were some reasonable reservations at the time which proved to be true.

He played relatively well his first season amassing 47 points in 82 games his first season but by the end of the second season, the team was forced to package Marleau with a first round pick in order to get out from under Lou's mistake.

The Ugly (Continued)

Nikita Zaitsev Extension

Signing top KHL Free Agent, RHD Nikita Zaitsev to a one-year entry-level contract was symbolic in many ways.

It was a shift in the way the Maple Leafs were perceived. Before, rumors were always circulating about the Leafs being contenders to get big name free agents and trade targets.

There was Jeff Carter, Brad Richards, Roberto Luongo, Steven Stamkos, and more who had all evaded the franchise. Now, the team was able to persuade a marquee target to come and play for them. 

He came over to Toronto and was good in his rookie season, playing consistent top-four minutes and was a staple on the powerplay. He was able to produce four goals and 36 points in 2016-17, which earned him a $4.5 million contract over seven years.

The problem was that Zaitsev had some major flaws, he was not particularly great defensively and even on the offensive side of the game his underlying numbers indicated that his performance would not be very repeatable.

This was especially true given that the only reason he received so much powerplay time was because head coach Mike Babcock was purposefully not giving Morgan Rielly a lot of powerplay time in order to get him to focus on his defensive game. 

Many were weary of the signing when it happened but understandably the Leafs did not want to lose him for nothing.

So, they settled on paying him at market rate which was well above his actual on-ice value. So, the following season(s) when Rielly was back on the powerplay, Zaitsev’s production plummeted and so did most of his value. He never came close to his rookie totals again, in fact he never even hit 20 points again.

When GM Kyle Dubas took over, he unfortunately had to package Zaitsev with Connor Brown and take on Cody Ceci and his $4.5 million contract for one season in order to facilitate a trade.

This undoubtedly was a road block for the team but was made necessary given the anvil of a contract that Zaitsev had.

Conclusion

There is a healthy mix of good, bad, and ugly things that transpired over Lou Lamoriello’s tenure in Toronto.

It can’t be understated how he was able to turn the Leafs into a respectable team. Though Dubas and Shanahan started the tank job, traded for Hyman and made the Kessel Trade that allowed the Leafs to draft Auston Matthews, Lamoriello was hired in May of 2015 and oversaw the summer and final season of the tank job, which was ultimately very successful.

I would say that his biggest flaw was his asset management between handing out some poor contracts and immediately pivoting to buying players by using the assets they were supposed to build their foundation with.

Given his draft record though, I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference anyway, again playing into asset management.

The team’s philosophy at the draft table was very outdated and left many scratching their heads.

Rather than swing for upside in many cases they seemed to go for low-ceiling high-floor players but even then whiffed way too many times. His allocation of capspace was strange as well, he squeezed the young players like Mitch Marner into taking no performance bonuses which is fairly unprecedented and came back to bite the team.

He also attempted to do the same with Matthews but ultimately was forced to give in. He then signed veteran players like Patrick Marleau and Matt Martin to bad contracts and gave way too much money to Nikita Zaitsev. 

Overall, his tenure was successful but deeply flawed and arguably set the team back with his contracts and poor draft record.