The Toronto Maple Leafs Make Extremely Strong Front Office Hire

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost a big part of their front-office a couple of weeks ago when Wes Clark exited the organization to join ex-General Manager Kyle Dubas with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Toronto Maple Leafs replaced Clark today with an extremely strong hire in former Dallas Stars scout Mark Leach who will be the team's new Director of Amateur Scouting.

The Leafs have had a middling summer, adding only a defensive defenseman their roster and, so far, avoiding/resisting the change hinted at in a post-season press conference.

However, hiring Mark Leach is nothing but good news, so congratulations are in order to the Leafs who replaced Wes Clark with an equally strong hire.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Make Extremely Strong Front Office Hire

Wes Clark was a great scout who helped the Leafs by making such excellent draft picks as Easton Cowan, Matthew Knies and Nick Robertson.

But Mark Leach, who has been in Dallas for 11 years (according to TSN) has been an integral part to one of the best drafting teams in hockey.

Basically, anyone associated with the recent Dallas Stars scouting department would be a welcome addition to anyone's staff so its hard to imagine the Leafs doing any better with Clark's replacement.

Recent Dallas Stars draft picks include Jason Robertson, Mikko Heiskanen and Joel Oettinger who, amazingly, all come from the same draft.

The Stars have also hit on Wyatt Johnson and Logan Stankovan more recently, and for a contender have a very decent farm system.

It will be interesting to see how the Leafs operate under Leach. Under Clark they have had a lot of success finding quality NHL players by focusing on intelligence and work ethic, but there has been criticism that they don't shoot for players with higher ceilings.

Easton Cowan is just a great pick, but both Fraser Minten and recent draft pick Ben Danford have limited NHL ceilings as far as their ability to play at the top of lineups goes.

I don't really know a ton about the Dallas Stars drafting Philosophy, but I do hope that Leach will bring to the Leafs a little more tolerance for risk because I think star players are what matter the most and every first round pick should at least have that much upside.

Time will tell, but hopefully this move will lead to a few more moves before the summer is over.