Eight critical questions the Leafs should ask the candidates to be their next GM

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the market for a new GM, and probably a president too. I’m offering my services.

No, not for the jobs themselves. But I’m willing to act as a consultant for the interview process. Specifically, I’ve got a few questions that I’d love to see Keith Pelley and his hiring committee ask potential candidates before making a decision on who’ll lead this franchise into the future.

Normally I’d charge a hefty fee to a corporate client for this sort of insight, but given the critical importance hanging over the coming decisions, I’ll make it a freebie. As my gift to the team that’s brought me so much joy over the years, here’s are the eight questions I wouldn’t let a candidate leave an interview without asking.

I’ll skip the obvious ones, like “Rebuild or reload?” or “What should we do with Auston Matthews?” or “Who’s the coach?” Those are important, but even Pelley doesn’t need my help to come up with them. Let’s dig a little deeper.

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Who to trade, who to fire, and is there any hope? A "Leafs lose" DGB mailbag

It’s the second round of the playoffs, so it must be time for our annual “the Leafs were just eliminated” mailbag. This should be a million laughs, I can’t wait.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.

Based on the one-way parasocial relationship between us as podcaster/listener, I hope you don't find it weird that my only real question is "are you okay?" – Danny B.

I am, thanks. Honestly, this one barely stung at all.

I once wrote a column about how difficult this version of the Leafs is to root for, and that was almost two full seasons ago. It’s fair to say it hasn’t got any easier. This is a talented group, but it’s not an especially likable one, especially when the story always ends the same way.

So yeah, my reaction to Game 7 was a lot closer to a shrug than a tantrum. (And if you don’t believe me, here’s Ian Mendes opening Monday’s podcast with a description of what it was like to watch the game with me.)

Honestly, this is pretty easily the least disappointment I’ve ever felt after a Leafs playoff loss, which is maybe not a great sign. And I’m guessing I’m not the only one, which is worse.

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“We can and we will.” A history of how the Maple Leafs got here, in 12 quotes

“Obviously we’re looked upon as… you know, kind of gods here to be honest.” – Mitch Marner, May 2024

Did you enjoy the Maple Leafs’ final media day of the season, at least for players and coaches? I sure did. Nothing quite like being reminded over and over, by just about every player on the team, that they’re “close”. Always close, with these guys. Close to winning something, close to each other, close to making you throw your remote through the TV screen. So close!

This year, we got a memorable bonus quote from the current whipping boy, who decided this would be a good week to compare the players to deities. He’s not even wrong. The Toronto Maple Leafs players really are gods, in their own way. Then again, so was Oizys.

For the record, I don't think Marner's "gods" quote was especially controversial; I think we can all appreciate what he was going for, even if he might have preferred to have it come out a bit differently. And if Marner's sound bite was a bit awkward, at least it fit with a larger trend in Leafs land, where the team has spent the last few years leaving quote-based sign posts along to the road to wherever this is that they’ve wound up.

So today, as we wait for the implosion to truly start, let’s remember 12 sound bites that this team offered up during the Brendan Shanahan era, and how they ultimately add up to explain the way it all fell apart.

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A radical theory on why the Leafs are losing another series: The Bruins are better

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s the playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t show up on time, they briefly got going with an offensive outburst, and then came the stupid penalties and the defensive miscues and the non-existent big save when it was needed most. Now they’re embarrassed, in disarray and looking over their shoulders at ghosts.

OK, I’ll admit you have heard it before, from me, because that’s almost exactly how I started my column after Game 1 of last year’s a postseason, a 7-2 loss in front of the same fans who just booed them off the ice. So yes, you’ve heard it, from me and everyone else, in some for or another. But I don’t need you to stop me this time, because I’m stopping myself. For one night at least, after a humiliating home loss to the Bruins that put them down 3-1 in the series, I’m going to do the opposite of what you might expect. I’m hitting pause on all those Maple Leafs narratives we’ve all run into the ground over the last few years.

You know the ones: The Leafs don’t want it bad enough. The not-so-young-anymore core is overpaid and entitled. The leaders and the coaches don’t have the right message, and if they do then nobody’s listening. You need all-star numbers in January, they’ve got you covered, but if you need the sort of heart-and-soul shift that can tilt a series, look elsewhere. No killer instinct. They don’t show up, they don’t start on time, and they don’t want any part of the big kid hockey that gets played in the postseason.

Sure. Some of that could be true. Maybe even all of it.

But maybe it doesn’t matter, at least not this time. Maybe the Bruins are just better.

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Puck Soup: Don't mess with success

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Maple Leafs extend Sheldon Keefe, because you don't mess with a winning formula
- Bill Peters is back
- Things are getting weird in the KHL
- The US TV schedule is out, and people are mad
- The return of the Best of Seven quiz game

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For the first time in nine years, Brendan Shanahan’s team feels like the bad old Leafs

There it is again, that funny feeling.

If you’re a Toronto Maple Leaf fan that’s old enough, you had it when Punch Imlach was doing Harold Ballard’s dirty work, shuffling Lanny McDonald out of town and antagonizing Darryl Sittler.

You had it on and off but mostly on under Gerry McNamara, and Gord Stellick, and Floyd Smith.

It went away when Ballard died and Cliff Fletcher arrived, and most stayed hidden on the way to the Pat Quinn era. But then it came back with John Ferguson Jr. We thought it was gone when Brian Burke arrived, but it wasn’t, and by the time Dave Nonis was in control, it was almost overwhelming.

And then, under Brendan Shanahan, it went away. Until today.

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Puck Soup: The Devils you say

On this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- New Jersey is good. But how good?
- The Leafs are bad. But how bad?
- The Preds, Blues and Blue Jackets are all struggling too
- John Tortorella drops some truth about the Flyers
- The Mullet era begins and Arizona is feeling defensive about it
- And lots more...

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>> Listen on Spotify

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Stay the course or blow it all up? Debating the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs, with myself

So the Leafs lost. Again.

Another winner-take-all game, another season over. It’s both old hat, because this is what the Leafs do, and brand new, because no team in any sport has ever done this before. We all saw it coming, but we still hoped it wouldn’t. It’s weird to feel stunned by something you knew was inevitable, but that the conflict of being a Leaf fan.

I’m conflicted too, especially when it comes to the most important question: What now? What comes next for a team that’s failed so often but seems so close so success? Do you run it back? Blow it all up? Somewhere in between?

My head says you run it back. My rational side agrees with James and Jonas, who both made convincing cases that now isn’t the time to take a sledgehammer to the organization. Change will come, because this is the NHL and it always does, but firing a GM or a coach or a president who just helped deliver a 115-point team would be an overreaction. Sometimes two very good teams meet in the first round and one has to lose, and that’s it. Be smart, be logical, and keep as much of this crew together as you can.

My heart isn’t convinced. Actually, my heart is kind of sick of these guys. Sick of the excuses. Sick of the promises that next time will be different, always immediately followed by a promise that next time will also be the same because nothing will change. My heart has loved this team since I was a little kid, but can be pretty vindictive about the individual parts. My heart has run out of patience.

So which side is right? I honestly don’t know. So today I’m going to let the two sides fight it out, with a good old-fashioned stream-of-consciousness debate. This might help us get to the right answer. It also might just end up being a therapy session for a long-suffering fan. Either way, I hope you’ll indulge me.

Head vs. heart, with the future of the Maple Leafs on the line. Gentlemen, make your opening statements.

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Emergency Maple Leafs DGB Mailbag: What went wrong, who gets traded, and is this team cursed?

The Maple Leafs blew it like we all knew they would, and their fans are picking through the wreckage yet again. It’s not fun, and part of me was ready to just slam the door shut on the season and move on. But that seemed like a cop out. I’ve been a vocal Leafs homer for a long time, and it didn’t feel right to hide.

So I threw out a question: Would anyone being interested in an emergency mailbag?

Leaf fans only. No outsiders, no media hot takes, no pretense of being objective or rationale. Just a chance to talk this through, or maybe have a big group therapy session.

The response was overwhelming, as I was immediately buried in emails from Leaf fans. I was blown away. And so, cracking a smile for the first time since Monday night, I sat down to work my way through all the different questions you’d all sent.

Then I realized that 90% of them were just about trading Mitch Marner.

Huh. I got my hopes up about the Maple Leafs and ended up disappointed. First time for everything, I guess!

It goes without saying that we’re still doing this. But first, please indulge me in a bit of backstory that I promise will pay off in an observation.

I’ve been writing in a Leaf fan’s voice for a long time now, going back to the old blogpost days with a dozen readers in a good week. Even back then, I’d hear from fellow fans in the comment section or an occasional email, and a year later Twitter came along and opened the floodgates. Since then, I’ve bounced around from Grantland to ESPN to Sportsnet to The Athletic and a bunch of stops in between, and I’ve been hearing from fellow Toronto fans the whole way. You’ve commented, you’ve emailed, you’ve tweeted, you’ve DMed. Some of us have had beers together. You’ve sent me photos of your kids in their first Leaf jerseys. I have email threads with people I’ve never met that date back a dozen years or more, covering all the major Leaf fan moments. From the (occasional) good to the (mostly) bad, I’m honestly not sure there can be too many people out there who’ve heard from more Toronto Maple Leafs fans over the last decade or so than I have.

So I don’t say this lightly: This week feels different.

We’ve been through some bad stuff. I started my blog a few weeks before the Muskoka Five torpedoed the 2008 trade deadline. I was there for Brian Burke and Dave Nonis and the era of the Leafs being the dumbest team in the league and proud of it. I was there for It Was 4-1, and the Clarkson contract, and finishing deal last. I’ve seen the 18-wheeler going off the cliff and the Zamboni driven by the beer league goalie, and all those recent playoff near-misses. I have heard from so many miserable Maple Leaf fans. It’s close to a constant stream with this fan base. It’s who we are.

But not like this. Something has changed, at least temporarily. In all these years, through all the venting and complaining and misery, the one thing I almost never heard was “I’m done”. Instead, I’d hear a lot of variations of “I wish I could be done, but I know that’s never happening”. Not this time. This week, instead, there’s been a whole lot of “I’m really not sure if I can do this anymore”.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s something about this roster, or the coach, or the management. Maybe it’s that this time was the Habs. Maybe this last series was just the straw that broke the long-suffering fan’s back. Part of me suspects it’s not any of that, and that it’s more about the world around us right now, where a lot of us have gone over a year now with so much of the fun sucked out of our lives, and along the way we’ve had two Maple Leaf postseasons that were anything but. I think some fans are just wondering if there’s a better way.

What does it mean? Probably nothing. Most of that “I think I might be out” will almost certainly turn into “I guess I’m back in” by opening night, if not much sooner. It’s just the way sports works. If you stuck it out through the Harold Ballard era, this should be a piece of cake. But I do wonder, just a little, if some small chunk isn’t breaking off that iceberg, because something about this week really did seem different.

On that cheery note, let’s do a mailbag…

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and style.

It seems like a given that Mitch Marner is all but gone from this team. But what teams would have the cap space and need for him, and what type of return would that fetch that would be the best for the Leafs? – Adam S.

So yeah, lots of questions about Marner being traded. I don’t agree with the premise here, that he’s “all but gone”. For one, this is the cap era NHL, where it’s never a bad idea to assume a team won’t make a major move. And I think you could make a strong case for keeping Marner. His contract makes him tough to deal, so you’re starting with a limited marketplace, and you’d be selling low. It’s almost impossible to imagine that you come out of any trade with a better player, and while you can create cap space, you just end up using that space on players who can’t do the things that Marner can.

On the other hand… I mean, you have to move somebody, right? And it has to be some key piece, because shuffling depth players doesn’t seem like it will do much. Anything short of one of the big names being dealt would seem to send the message that what we’ve seen so far is good enough, and that’s a real tough sell right now. You’re not moving Matthews and Tavares can’t go anywhere, so it comes down to yet another round of the Marner vs. Nylander debate, and this time fans seem to be siding with Nylander for once.

A lot of that is just recency bias kicking in, but not all of it. I think it’s fair to say that two things can be true about Mitch Marner: He’s a wonderfully talented player, one of the very best the Leafs have had in the last few decades, and also his contract looks like a disaster. Both statements can be true. When Kyle Dubas caved in to the Marner camp and gave him megastar money after one season with more than 70 points, there were three scenarios where it could have worked out. The first was Marner would take a few more big steps forward and become the sort of difference-maker who regularly shows up on Hart ballots, and that hasn’t happened yet. The second was that the cap would go way up and make the deal more digestible; that’s obviously off the table, although you can hardly blame the Leafs for not seeing that coming. And the third was that his deal would reset the marketplace, and guys like Mikko Rantanen and Brayden Point and Mathew Barzal would follow along with their own eight-figure deals. Nope. The Leafs got way out in front of the crowd, and nobody followed.

So now what? I’d love to see him stick around and come through the other side of this. He’s a local kid and he obviously cares – maybe too much, because it’s getting painful to watch him struggle through the playoffs looking like he’s fighting back tears between every shift. But yeah, you have to at least be open to moving him. Those conversations have to happen, wherever they lead.

As far as what you’d get in return…

Any chance at all Buffalo moves Eichel in division? – Kristopher B.

A lot of you wanted to know if there’s a deal to be found around Marner and Jack Eichel...

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What’s wrong with the Maple Leafs? Exploring eight theories

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but with their season on the line, the Toronto Maple Leafs came up small. Sunday’s Game 5 loss to the Blue Jackets marked the third straight year the Leafs have lost a winner-take-all game, and the fourth straight that they’ve lost in the first round they played. Four years into the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner/William Nylander era, the Leafs have won as many postseason rounds as they did during the dark decade before. As in, none.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Leafs were the favourite against Columbus, if only marginally. The talent on the roster seems undeniable. They’ve been a roughly 100-point team for four years now. When you look at what normally goes into a successful rebuild, the Leafs have checked most of the boxes. And yet here we are again, in the aftermath of another game that was supposed to be their chance to Change The Narrative, and it all played out the same way it always does.

Auston Matthews says it's "embarrassing" getting booted from the first round again considering talent on Leafs roster.

— luke fox (@lukefoxjukebox) August 12, 2020

So what’s wrong? And how can they fix it?

The roster has its holes, like any roster in a hard cap league will. There’s always room for improvement. But with the Shanahan-era Leafs, that’s not what we’ve come to mean when we ask what’s wrong. No, we mean: What’s wrong? What’s the fundamental flaw, the big problem, the overarching defect that’s keeping them from achieving the success that, on paper, they should have already had?

That’s what everyone’s trying to figure out these days. That includes the Leafs themselves, who spent yesterday’s season-ending Zoom sessions answering variations of the same question: What’s wrong with you guys?

Let’s look at eight theories you’ll hear come up about this team, and see which ones might be on to something.

Theory: The whole philosophy behind the roster is flawed

The theory: By now, the Brendan Shanahan/Kyle Dubas model is fairly well-established. Load up on skill, control the puck, trust your goaltending, and win the game by playing in the other team’s zone, where you do your best work. Toughness is fine, as is veteran grit, but that’s not the priority in today’s game. You pay top dollar for speed and skill, and fill in as much of the rest as you can afford around the edges.

It makes a lot of sense, right up until the postseason arrives, the game clogs up, and you’re getting outworked by a team with less skill but more jam, and your high-priced superstars can’t find room to operate.

Why it fits: It sure seems to pass the eye test. And losing to a hard-working team like the Blue Jackets will only reinforce it.

Except…: It’s not like skill teams aren’t having any success around the league. Last year’s Blues were a heavy team, but the Big Bad Bruins haven’t been all that big or bad in years, and they seem to do fine. The Penguins won back-to-back Cups without intimidating anyone. And if you can’t advance without size and muscle, how come smaller teams like Montreal, Calgary and Arizona could find a way to win last week?

Where that leaves us: A variation on this theme is the old: “They’re built for the regular season, not the playoffs” curse. And there’s truth to that. This Leafs team isn’t one that’s designed to go hard to the net and score dirty goals, and sometimes those end up being the difference in the playoffs. But while there may be something here, all those counterexamples suggest that this can’t be the entire problem. Let’s keep looking.

“You all think I have one way of going about things and that it’s never changing,” said Leafs GM Kyle Dubas. “The vision for me is always changing.”

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) August 12, 2020

Theory: The philosophy works, but the current roster doesn’t

The theory: You can win with lots of skill, supplemented by some depth and grit. The approach wouldn’t have worked in the 80s or 90s, but in the modern NHL it absolutely can. But the Leafs have the wrong guys in the wrong roles. That’s why it’s not working.

Why it fits: There’s at least some recent evidence to support this idea too. Start with the blue line. No, you don’t need six Chris Prongers to win a playoff round. But you also don’t want Cody Ceci playing top-four minutes, and for some reason, the Leafs insisted on that pretty much all season long. We all knew they needed a right-handed defenceman last year, but the guy they went out and got, Tyson Barrie, was a disaster.

You can keep going. They’re paying Mitch Marner like he’s an elite, Hart-caliber difference-maker that he might not be. John Tavares is very good, but should he be one of the highest-paid players in the league? We’ve gone around in circles on William Nylander for years. And while Freddie Andersen has generally been good, what’s the deal with those back-breaking goals and constant collapses in deciding games?

Except…: Even if there’s some truth here, I’m not sure how helpful it is. When you’re building an NHL team, you don’t get to choose the exact guys you want for every role. You take what’s available. Tavares was the best free agent on the market. Marner was (probably) the best guy they could draft in that spot. No team, including the ones that win Cups, get their ideal guy in every spot. They do the best they can, then they figure out how to make it work.

Where that leaves us: There’s a lot of overlap between the first two theories, and they boil down to the same thing: The roster needs an overhaul, or at least some significant changes that go beyond tinkering. How do you do that when you’re capped out and most of your key pieces are on long-term deals?

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Weekend rankings: Who’ll be the next coach to be fired?

We had our first coaching change on the 2019-20 season last week. You may have missed it since it came in Toronto and that team tends to fly under the radar. But with Mike Babcock handed his walking papers and Sheldon Keefe installed behind the Leafs’ bench, we can now settle those “first coach fired” bets from October.

Great. So who’s going to be second?

It’s kind of a macabre question – we’re talking about people losing their jobs, after all – but it’s unavoidable in a league where midseason changes are taking on increased importance. This time last year, we’d already had four, including one by the eventual Cup winners. The Babcock firing came one year and one day after the Blues replaced Mike Yeo with Craig Berube, en route to becoming the fourth team in a decade to fire their coach and win a Cup in the same year.

The Leafs hope they can pull off the same sort of turnaround. But history tells us that they won’t be the only candidate. We’ll probably see another coach sent packing before long. But who is the most likely candidate?

It’s a tricky question, and perceptions can shift quickly. Go back even a few weeks, and the odds-on favorite was clear: Dallas coach Jim Montgomery, whose Cup-worthy roster was spinning its wheels. But the Stars have been on fire lately, so Montgomery suddenly seems as safe as can be. At least until the next losing streak.

A few of his Central division colleagues may not be so lucky. Bruce Boudreau’s Wild continue to flounder, and with an expiring coaching contract and a new GM in place who didn’t hire him, there’s little reason to think he’ll be Bill Guerin’s long-term answer. It feels like more of a when-not-if situation in Minnesota, so the question might be whether somebody else beats them to the punch.

Another Central candidate: the Predators, whose recent losing streak dropped them all the way out of a playoff spot. Adam Vingan explored the question of Peter Laviolette’s job security last week, and the coach doesn’t seem overly worried. But as the league’s third longest-serving coach, and with a veteran roster that’s built to win it all right now, he probably should be.

The only other two coaches with longer tenures may have worries of their own, although Paul Maurice has his Jets hanging around the wildcard race. Jon Cooper and the Lightning have been underwhelming, but he feels like a guy who’d be in danger after another first-round exit, not during the season. Then again, we all said that about Babcock too.

The Pacific offers up a few candidates, with Peter DeBoer’s Sharks and Bill Peters’ Flames both underachieving. San Jose is at least trending in the right direction, and you’d think Peters would get the benefit of the doubt after last year’s turnaround. But six straight losses were starting to feel like a crisis, so somebody getting fired in Calgary no longer feels impossible. The question might be who.

Shifting to the East, the bottom of the standings reveals a few candidates. Jeff Blashill’s been showing up on hot seat lists for a few years now, and while we thought he’d received a vote of confidence last year in the form of an extension, that was under a different GM. Furthermore, the extension reportedly includes a club option, so he isn’t as secure as it looked. The question in Detroit might be whether Steve Yzerman would bother with a midseason change, rather than waiting out a rebuilding year, banking some high lottery odds and then making a change in the offseason.

David Quinn’s Rangers are underachieving in what was supposed to be a transition year back to contention, although he’s only in Year 2. John Tortorella’s Blue Jackets are outside of the playoff picture, although most of us expected that after their offseason exodus. And then there’s John Hynes, who is somehow the fifth longest-serving coach in the league now. His Devils continue to be inconsistent at best, and while he can’t strap on the pads and play goal, you get the sense that patience is running out in New Jersey.

Did we miss anyone? I’m not counting any first-year coaches, on the assumption that nobody’s going to get Sparky Allison’ed. We’ll assume that anyone whose team is overachieving or securely in a playoff spot is safe for now, although two bad weeks can change that. And while his team is playing below expectations, I can’t imagine Gerard Gallant being in any danger, so we won’t call a cab for him anytime soon.

Who’s the favorite? Of all the candidates, Hynes stands out – he’s been around forever, his team looks awful and there’s pressure to win right now thanks to the looming Taylor Hall decision. But Babcock’s availability could shift some equations; we’ve seen teams make surprise moves to grab recently fired coaches before, and Babcock speculation is already popping up around some of the teams on our list. A veteran, win-now team like the Sharks or Predators could make sense if he wanted to jump right back into the mix. And if he doesn’t, a Maple Leafs turnaround after making a switch will just ramp up the pressure on anyone else who seems to be on the fence.

We’re at that time of year. It’s officially no longer early. And as the Blues showed us last year, a big move at the right time can save a season. One team’s already taken the plunge; let’s see who’s next.

Road to the Cup

The five teams that look like they’re headed towards a summer of keg stands and fountain pool parties.

Under Babcock, the Leafs had won just two games over teams currently holding a playoff spot, and neither of those had come in regulation. Under Keefe so far, the Leafs are 2-0-0, with impressive road wins over the Coyotes and Avalanche. Thursday’s win over the Coyotes was a strong 60-minute performance, while Saturday’s victory against the Avs was more of an up-and-down affair. Still, the two wins snap a six-game losing streak, and combined with Keefe’s strategic shifts, they offer some hope that the season can be salvaged, or maybe more than that.

Is that enough for a top-five spot? Well …

5. Toronto Maple Leafs (11-10-4, -3 true goals differential*) – I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Calm down everyone. The Leafs aren’t in the top five based on two games. I’m not that much of a homer, come on.

(But check back next week.)

5. Tampa Bay Lightning (11-7-2, +8 true goals differential*) – They’ve won two straight and five of seven, and looked at least a little like their old selves while rolling over the Ducks on Saturday. They’ve played the fewest games in the entire league, with just 20 on the books, so the point total isn’t impressive. But in terms of points percentage, they’ve already climbed back into an Eastern playoff spot. In fact, they’ve passed by the wildcards and are sitting in third in the Atlantic.

4. St. Louis Blues (14-5-5, +8) – How did you celebrate Mike Yeo Anniversary week? The Blues recognized the occasion with home wins against last year’s top two regular-season teams, as they beat the Lightning and Flames. Then they lost to the Predators on Saturday; they’ll get a rematch tonight.

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Puck Soup: The Babcock firing

In this week's episode of the Puck Soup podcast:
- The Mike Babcock firing, and his potential next stops, where the Leafs go from here
- Garnet Hathaway's three-game suspension for spitting
- Does the NHL need to change the rules after the scary Matt Calvert incident
- Some final thoughts on the Hall of Fame, including predictions for next year's class
- We play "Hell Yes or B.S." with the Islanders, Senators, and David Pastrnak's goal-scoring
- Baby Yoda
- And lots more...

>> Stream it now:

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