Leafs change direction with Dubas hiring

TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs have been known as one of the most stubborn teams in hockey.

As the league got smaller and quicker, Brian Burke preached size and pugnacity. Even after the former general manager was fired, coach Randy Carlyle continued to use lumbering fighters on his third and fourth lines. Burke’s replacement, Dave Nonis, chose to buy out the contract of the shifty Mikhail Grabovski in large part to sign imposing winger David Clarkson last summer.

Even when the Maple Leafs hired Brendan Shanahan as the team’ president, change did not come immediately. Nonis and Carlyle were retained and the roster was not severely altered.

On Tuesday, the Leafs fired a pair of Nonis’ assistants, Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle, and hired 28-year-old Kyle Dubas. If Shanahan likes the philosophy Dubas has to offer, then it flies in the face of a lot of what has been extolled in the past.

“I think every organization, rightly or wrongly, changes every day,” Dubas, who spent the last three years as general manager of his hometown Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, said Tuesday.

While Dubas is known for his use of statistics to complement traditional hockey scouting, the new hire emphasized he is going to have to adapt to the Leafs as much as they are going to have to adapt to him. Shanahan mentioned there are people in the organization who can be “positively influenced” by Dubas. It is not hard to read between the lines and find the name of Carlyle, criticized so harshly for his team’s failure to maintain possession of the puck.