Leafs brass unfazed by reported rift between coach, star
Brendan Shanahan has been around the NHL block a few times and more or less has seen it all.
So the Toronto Maple Leafs president is not worried there might be something to the idea there is tension in the relationship between coach Mike Babcock and budding superstar Auston Matthews. “No,” Shanahan said. “I think it’s all part of coaching.”
There were whispers of Babcock/Matthews strife when the Leafs were eliminated by the Boston Bruins, and Babcock recently visited Matthews at the latter’s offseason home in Arizona. New Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas doesn’t harbour concern. “I think everyone makes a big deal about the meeting,” Dubas said. “Any time there is a chance for coach and player to meet in the off-season — when it’s not the highpressure every day and coming in and being coached hard — that you can build those personal relationships, those are going to hold the team together through the ups and downs of the season. I like that.”
At 32, Dubas missed Gord Stellick’s record as the youngest Leafs general manager by a year and a bit, but the latter hopes he takes the team further to a title. “I’m thrilled for him,” said Stellick, now an NHL analyst with Sportsnet and Sirius XM Radio. “Even more so four years ago, I thought it was an inspired hiring, as the first guy Brendan Shanahan brought in.”
Stellick also came from within the Leafs house with great intentions in the late 1980s, but after a few years eventually lost his way in the Harold Ballard circus. Stellick believes Dubas’s youth should help him. “(Ex Leafs GM) Jim Gregory used to tell me if you go around telling people you’re the boss, then you’re not really the boss.”