Maple Leafs give New York Islanders permission to talk to Brendan Shanahan
Toronto's team president is out of contract at the end of June
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Some 11 years ago, three days after he was hired to be the president of the Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan didn’t stick out his chest and make a bold guarantee.
“I’m not here today for big speeches, big words, big proclamations,” Shanahan said on April 14, 2014, at his introductory news conference. “None of that matters. Wins do.”
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Maple Leafs give New York Islanders permission to talk to Brendan Shanahan Back to video
The wins never happened in Toronto. Just 31 in the playoffs on Shanahan’s watch, to be exact.
That’s in the past tense because not only have the New York Islanders have asked MLSE for permission to talk to Shanahan about a front-office job, they’ve been granted that opportunity.
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Shanahan’s contract, an extension he signed in 2019, expires at the end of June.
The Islanders don’t want to interview Shanahan to kick tires. It’s because they think he can be the guy to run their hockey operations.
Regarding those 31 post-season wins with the Leafs, if you’re waking up from a decade-long slumber and that number doesn’t strike you as unreasonable, here’s a reminder that 16 wins in one spring are required to win the Stanley Cup.
The Islanders conversation should bring an end to the speculation regarding Shanahan’s future with the Leafs. If the organization was serious about keeping him, it wouldn’t have given the Isles the green light.
As for Shanahan’s rule in Toronto, the Leafs simply haven’t approached the kind of success that he figured the team would when he was hired.
Furthermore, and we suppose it depends how each person measures it, there hasn’t been the kind of stability that one what might have expected with a person of Shanahan’s experience in charge for 11 years. There have been five head coaches — though Peter Horachek ran the bench only on an interim basis in 2015. There have been four general managers.
Shanahan has been praised for his recognition of the history of the team and his strengthening of the links to the past. He should be lauded for that.
The joke is made every so often that there is no salary cap impacting what kind of money that MLSE can spend in other areas of the organization. Shanahan took advantage of that in the front office and in hockey operations. The Leafs have five assistant general managers, for example, and more than enough advisors in various areas.
A large development staff works with not only the Leafs, but the Toronto Marlies, on a daily basis. Every player with the National Hockey League team and with the American Hockey League affiliate has everything he needs to give him the best chance to excel at his fingertips.
Yet Shanahan — and we suppose he won’t have to do this now — would still have to explain to the MLSE board how it is that the Leafs, despite every seeming advantage at their disposal, advanced past the first round just twice in 11 years.
More to come …
X: @koshtorontosun
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