Leafs’s major challenge will be sticking to plan
TORONTO — After about 20 minutes, Brendan Shanahan smiled.
The Toronto Maple Leafs president, speaking two days after the season mercifully ended and one day after he cleaned house and fired the general manager, the coaching staff and most of the scouting department, had just outlined his vision for the future and what it means for fans of the hockey team.
The rebuild was going to be painful, he said. It could take three, four, five years or maybe longer and it was going to require a cast iron stomach to endure. And then someone asked what happens if the Leafs win the upcoming NHL draft lottery, for which there is a 9.5 per cent chance, and suddenly Shanahan’s face lit up.
“It would certainly speed things up,” he said to a room full of laughter. Someone else asked another question, but Shanahan was still lost in thought. “I’m sorry, I’m still smiling at that last one.”
Yes, the opportunity to draft Connor McDavid with the No. 1 pick could certainly change things in a hurry. Barring that, however, the overall aching feeling Leafs fans experienced for most of this season is something that they should get used to.
Now, there is a purpose to losing; there is the semblance of a plan offered for public consumption, although for now that plan is mostly to exercise patience.
“The challenge here in Toronto is not to come up with the plan,” Shanahan said. “The challenge in Toronto is to stick to it. That is the hard part. As far as having the patience to do what needed to be done? Yeah, you have to have a stomach in order to get through it in a place with this much passion. “I have that stomach.” Leafs management and its fans need to endure. The volume of changes the team needs to make will not happen all at once. When asked when the Leafs would become competitive again, Shanahan said, “It takes as long as it takes,” a message he has already delivered to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment’s board of directors, which they blessed.