Hunter and the huntsmen
Shanahan hands Dubas clean sheet to draft Leaf future
Brendan Shanahan doesn’t think the way most people in hockey do, but then he never did. When he was a player he read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and took classes on Shakespeare in the summer. He instinctively under- stood the vagaries of luck in hockey, before they became the subject of hockey’s analytics-vs.-guts holy wars. He was never wired like everyone else in the game.
Which helps explain where the Toronto Maple Leafs stand today. When Shanahan named the 32-year-old Kyle Dubas as the team’s 17th general manager earlier this month, he was making more than one decision. Lou Lamoriello held the job and wanted to keep it, rather than being shuffled into the daydream obscurity of a senior adviser. Mark Hunter, a fellow assistant GM, didn’t want to be passed over for someone more than two decades his junior, whose resume paled in comparison. Shanahan says he knew he was likely to lose them.
He made the call anyway, and Tuesday the dominos fell. Lamoriello took the long-rumoured job running the New York Islanders, a strange semi-vagrant kingdom in the greater New York City area, so that should feel familiar for him. And Hunter, after a meeting with Shanahan and Dubas, made it clear he was unwilling to stay. On Tuesday, things really changed.
“Well, I certainly thought that both were likely outcomes, and still I have to make whatever decision I feel is best for the future of the club,” said Shanahan in a phone interview. “I was prepared for (this). And certainly Lou has got a great job with the Islanders, and we talked to Mark over the last little while and everyone just sort of came to the conclusion that it was probably time to move on.”
And like that, it’s really Dubas’s team now. Hunter made clear he wanted out, but offered to stay through the draft.
Shanahan and Dubas decided that wouldn’t work, and Hunter’s non-compete clause extends into July. The Islanders, meanwhile, called about Lou as soon as Toronto’s season ended; permission to talk was granted after Shanahan informed a surprised Lamoriello that he would not continue as GM.
Again, it’s Shanahan’s biggest bet yet: he is betting Kyle Dubas is ready. Shanahan believed he could manage the team of rivals among Lamoriello, Hunter, Dubas and head coach Mike Babcock; there were clashes, waxing and waning relationships, but for the most part it worked.
Still, this organization has only been part-progressive. They have invested in a serious analytics department and sports science, and game the draft and European free agents. But they were also chiefly in the hands of the septuagenarian Lamoriello.
And now they have invested in Dubas, whose background is unlike any other general manager in the league. Since pure analytics graduate John Chayka was hired by Arizona at age 26, the league’s new GMs have almost entirely been ex-players (hall of fame player turned executive Rob Blake in Los Angeles, and Jason Botterill — who became an assistant GM in Pittsburgh — in Buffalo), and ex-GMs (George McPhee in Vegas, Don Waddell in Carolina and Dale Tallon in Florida, where he helped build another championship contender, if not in his own city).
The one who resembles Dubas’s profile is Paul Fenton, who went from Nashville to GM in Minnesota. Like Dubas, he was an assistant general manager who was also in charge of their AHL affiliate. Like Dubas, he is a rookie GM. He’s 58.
Well, if Dubas is going to be in charge of a franchise that is trying to find smarter, more creative ways of using its elite financial resources, may as well give him as blank a slate as possible. Shanahan is betting on a mind, and a vision, because it’s the closest one to his.
“Certainly I believe in Kyle’s ability, and I believe in his ability to use a lot of the other assets that we have in the organization, that people might not know all of their names,” said Shanahan. “Four years ago I was in the position to bring people in from other places based on what I had seen them do in other organizations. I’ve seen enough big things and small things with Kyle to believe in him enough, to have this kind of faith in him.
“I’m comfortable with Kyle having people around him that support his vision. I think that his vision, for our team and for the game of hockey, is most reflective of the direction we’ve been going from day one.”
Dubas will bring in his own people. An experienced hand would help. He has been connected to ex-Carolina GM Ron Francis, who is also a Sault Ste. Marie product. He has ties to the Sloan Analytics Conference crowd, too. He has his OHL background.
But it’s his now. Dubas and Lamoriello’s relationship didn’t last long, and Dubas said, “Lou’s always said to me: When it comes your time, you can’t imitate me and be successful. You have to be yourself, and you have to have your own way of doing it.”
Here he goes. Shanahan once told me the Leafs winning a Stanley Cup would mean more to him than anything he ever did as a player. He wants this so badly. He is making a big bet here, and following his own instincts. The Leafs are going to be different, and they will change. It may even be for the better.