SIMMONS: Are the Maple Leafs actually better off with Brendan Shanahan gone?
The voice and guidance of Shanahan, however successful he may have been, is gone from the Leafs.
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There is nothing to indicate that the Maple Leafs are better off today than they were yesterday.
There is nothing to indicate that the Leafs are in any way improved without Brendan Shanahan as president — without anyone as president — than they were with him in charge.
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SIMMONS: Are the Maple Leafs actually better off with Brendan Shanahan gone? Back to video
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This is the built-in difficulty and challenge for Keith Pelley, CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, who made the decision not to retain Shanahan as president of the Leafs and got approval from the MLSE board to let him walk.
The decision may be right or wrong — you can argue both sides — but here’s what you can’t argue:
On Thursday, the Leafs had a career hockey man, a Hall of Fame player and a well-regarded voice in the league in charge of their apparent world-class franchise.
On Friday, that baton passes to Pelley — not a hockey person, a sports business person.
Keith Pelley, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment addresses media at Scotiabank Arena. Shanahan was twice an Olympian playing for Team Canada. Pelley was an Olympian, broadcasting numerous Games over the years.
Their skill sets are different. The future needs to be as well.
The voice and guidance of Shanahan, however successful he may have been, is gone from the Leafs.
Now, when general manager Brad Treliving has an issue, a question, a hockey matter to debate and discuss — and this is how a lot of sports franchises operate — he will have to consult his own handpicked staff. There is no Paul Beeston to his Pat Gillick.
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And he will have to consult with and get approval from Pelley on almost all moves of consequence — and Pelley’s background is sports production and broadcasting and business and marketing and sales.
He can be charming as hell to be around — few people I know are more delightful — but if you ask him about a Harley, he’d likely reference a motorcycle before referencing a defenceman with the Dallas Stars.
Pelley will tell you he is not, per se, a hockey person. A hockey lover, yes. A hockey person, no.
And that may or may not be exactly what the Maple Leafs require right now.
Pelley’s first real day as spokesman for the Leafs didn’t go particularly well. He’s a far better communicator in person than he was in public on the podium Friday.
He didn’t really explain why Shanahan wasn’t replaced. He wouldn’t get into hockey decisions of any kind. He didn’t win any fans over by speaking optimistically about the his 13th-place Toronto FC soccer club.
He never did mention the CFL champion Argos on the podium, yet year after year they’re the best of MLSE’s teams.
The Leafs do have a quality general manager in Treliving and a quality coach in Craig Berube, and he did say that.
You need that to win in the NHL. Dallas has Jim Nill as GM, Peter DeBoer as coach. You can’t do much better than that. Florida has Bill Zito as GM, Paul Maurice as coach. That’s Dallas-like at the top. Carolina has an upper-echelon coach in Rod Brind’Amour and Edmonton has a multi-time Stanley Cup winner in Stan Bowman as GM and an emerging Kris Knoblauch as coach.
Pelley does know enough to understand what he has in his GM and his coach. In just the past 12 months, with little financial flexibility, Treliving brought in Anthony Stolarz to play goal, Chris Tanev to anchor the Leafs defence, Brandon Carlo to quiet down Morgan Rielly’s game, Oliver Ekman-Larsson to bring a sense of stability to the bottom end of the Toronto defence, signed Max Pacioretty to see if anything was left and traded probably too much for Scott Laughton to supply a playoff edge and lineup flexibility. Before that, he got Simon Benoit for next to nothing and Steven Lorentz for next to nothing. He also fired Sheldon Keefe as coach and hired Berube to replace him.
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That’s a very deep haul in a relatively short term.
Now Treliving has big moves to make and no Shanahan on his wing to pass to. He has to decide what, if anything, to do with Mitch Marner and how to spend all that money if Marner doesn’t return to the Leafs.
It’s similar but different with former captain John Tavares, who wants to stay in Toronto and Treliving has to decide what the price of keeping Tavares is and what’s the price of letting him walk.
That’s where I would feel more comfortable with Treliving talking to Shanahan rather than Treliving going for final approval from Pelley.
I think back to Joe Nieuwendyk being traded from the Calgary Flames to Dallas some 30 years ago. Nieuwendyk was a big-time star back then. The Flames traded him for a player hardly anyone knew.
Can you imagine trying to tell ownership or your president that you were trading one of your best players for somebody named Jarome Iginla?
And you have to get them to sign off on the decision?
Dallas went on to win a Stanley Cup with NIeuwendyk. Calgary should have won a Cup with Iginla, who like Nieuwendyk is now in the Hall of Fame.
Treliving knows what it’s like to answer to ownership. He played that game in Calgary. Now ownership is changing with the Leafs and Pelley is the point man on every power play for MLSE.
How the two work together, come to agreements, meet regularly, will all need to be established now.
Shanahan was everywhere the Leafs were the past 11 years. He didn’t miss games or practices or meetings.
This is now a new day for the hockey club. A day with some trepidation, some optimism, but absolutely no certainty of what comes next.
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