Major acquisitions reshape Maple Leafs franchise off the ice

There was not much to showcase where Kyle Dubas was standing, in an empty hallway across from the dressing room, inside an arena overrun with livestock for a week each hockey season. The ice was gone, too, as were the boards and team benches.

“Everything here is really first-class, and done well,” the assistant general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs said. “I don’t think there’s anything Sheldon will need that he won’t have here.”

Sheldon Keefe coached the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds to the best regular season record in the Ontario Hockey League this season. And moments earlier on Monday, he had been introduced as the new head coach of the Marlies, the AHL affiliate of a non-playoff team, based in an arena that elbows hockey aside for the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair every November.

“There’s a lot of resources around here,” Keefe said. “There’s been a lot of work put in, in the last year here, to make some changes. I’m going to learn from that, and be able to use those resources to make myself better as a coach and, ultimately, offer the players more.”

The Leafs have not had much to showcase lately, but only on the ice. Off the ice the team has been plowing energy into an array of expansive — and sometimes, expensive — new resources.

Last week, the team named a director of sports science and performance, hiring from the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets. A year ago, the team established a brand new department tasked with pulling the organization into the arms race of the advanced analytics movement.

And now, it appears the franchise is in the process of hiring every junior hockey mind not physically tied down to his team. The Leafs lured Mark Hunter from a comfortable home in the OHL, with the London Knights, to lead the scouting department.

Lindsay Hofford (London) and Jim Paliafito (Saginaw Spirit) have also been hired. It has been reported the team is also pursuing Kelly McCrimmon, the longtime Brandon Wheat Kings general manager.

Then, the most expensive resource: Mike Babcock, who last month signed an eightyear contract worth US$50 million to become the coach in Toronto. The signing was so pricey it was raised in a news conference with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman: “Mike Babcock decided this was a good thing for both of them to do, that’s their decision.”

“I think that gets said a lot, that we have revenue and we can throw that at whatever,” Dubas said on Monday. “But the way that I look at it is, we’ve had resources, but we need to be resourceful.”

The franchise is trying to become the most resourceful, he said.

“We’re a long way from being there,” he said. “We’re behind a lot of teams, and we’ve got a long way to go. And then we’ve got to play catch-up with other sports, as well, but our aim is to one day get there.”

And Dubas said they would look for help beyond the Canadian Hockey League.

“We’re trying to find any avenue we can to improve the way that we develop players,” he said. “We don’t discount any of the leagues … we’re not good enough to be prejudiced against any league, whatsoever.”

Keefe, 34, is a familiar commodity, having spent the better part of two years with Dubas, who was general manager in Sault Ste. Marie before the Leafs called him last year. Dubas said Keefe will have to develop and evolve as a coach at the AHL level, but said that, once he gets comfortable, he will become part of the process to mould prospects for life in the NHL. Dubas said the aim is to hatch a “thorough and united front across our whole organization” when it came to a plan on how to develop players.

“We want to have the best people, the best up-and-coming people,” he said. “We’re not going to stop until we’re satisfied with what’s there, and that’s why Sheldon’s here.”