Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan "wasted little time cleaning house" after the NHL season ended, firing both GM Dave Nonis and interim coach Peter Horachek yesterday, according to Rob Longley of the TORONTO SUN. Leafs Assistant GM Kyle Dubas and Dir of Player Personnel Mark Hunter, both of whom were Shanahan-era hires, "will share the GM duties on an interim basis." Shanahan has "essentially cleaned house of all management attached to the Brian Burke regime, which will only add to what is expected to be a wild off-season of change." The Leafs later yesterday afternoon also "announced the dismissal" of Dir of Pro Scouting Steve Kasper and Dir of Player Development Jim Hughes. Shanahan is "expected to address the media" today at 2:00pm ET (TORONTO SUN, 4/13). The CBC's Doug Harrison noted Nonis, who originally joined the club in December '08 as Senior VP/Hockey Operations, "departs with three years remaining on his contract and a 94-97-21 record" as Leafs GM. Nonis "made some questionable moves" after replacing Burke in January '13 (CBC.ca, 4/12). In Toronto, Bruce Arthur writes Shanahan yesterday "took a flamethrower to the scouting department." The architects "of this recent era of failure -- part of an era of failure that is approaching 50 years -- are all gone." The Leafs have "demonstrated clearly smarter thinking on Shanahan’s watch." This is his "first try at running a team, and the only criticism that’s fair is that he didn’t move with lightning speed to clean out all the stables" (TORONTO STAR, 4/13).
MAKE LIKE A TREE...: The GLOBE & MAIL's James Mirtle reports a total of "more than 20 Leafs staffers lost their jobs." The leading candidates to replace Nonis are Kings Assistant GM Rob Blake, who also "worked with Shanahan at the league front office," and Coyotes goaltending coach Sean Burke, who is "being pursued by several teams around the league." Shanahan has "consistently stressed drafting and development will be the new pillars of the organization." Nonis' successor "will have a key impact there, as the Leafs front office currently lacks much experience at the NHL level and they will need to be creative in order to get value for what are clearly diminished assets after such a poor finish to the season" (GLOBE & MAIL, 4/13). The NATIONAL POST's Scott Stinson notes only the Shanahan hires "remain for the most part," including Dubas and Hunter. Shanahan after a year on the job "has stripped bare the hockey organization he took over." Why he did not do this last April "remains a mystery: Shanahan must have known that he wasn’t brought in because Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment thought the Nonis regime was doing a bang-up job" (NATIONAL POST, 4/13). The GLOBE & MAIL's Mirtle writes Shanahan last year "inherited a bloated, underachieving staff that was a patchwork of hirings from failed GMs past." For a new exec, one "without any experience in an NHL front office, making sense of how to proceed -- a little more than two months before the draft and free agency -- was a considerable undertaking" (GLOBE & MAIL, 4/13).
THE CRYSTAL BALL: In Edmonton, Jim Matheson wrote it is "a circus" in Toronto, "maybe even more than normal." Shanahan "might want" Blake as the Leafs' next GM, and there are two experienced former NHL GMs "looking to get back in" with Ray Shero and George McPhee. Matheson: "But, do they really want to go to work in Toronto where Shanahan has the ultimate power?" (EDMONTONJOURNAL.com, 4/12). TSN's Bob McKenzie wrote the next Leafs GM's vision "must align with not only Shanahan's but, to varying degrees, analytics whiz kid Dubas, scouting maven Hunter" and Assistant to the GM Brandon Pridham, a "number-crunching capologist." The new Leafs GM "will arrive not to build a managerial team around or below him, but to join an existing one with a well-established philosophy and vision of where the Leafs want to get to and how best to get there." McKenzie: "It may not be for everyone. For some experienced GMs, used to having final authority on all hockey decisions as long as ownership approved, it may not be autonomous enough" (TSN.ca, 4/12). In Toronto, Steve Buffery writes Shanahan's "future with the Leafs -- and his future as an NHL team big wig -- depends on who he brings in now as GM and coach in Toronto." The length of Shanahan’s contract "doesn’t matter." If he hires the "wrong GM and (to a lesser degree) the wrong head coach, his own career as an NHL front-office leader is probably over." This is the "pivotal moment in his career" (TORONTO SUN, 4/13).
A REAL FIXER-UPPER: In Toronto, Rosie DiManno wrote nobody is "even talking about the Leafs anymore as the Chronicles of the Doomed have drifted further and further towards the rear of newspaper sports sections, in a city where historically no Leaf passing of wind has gone undocumented." On the sporting landscape, they "have become irrelevant, piquing interest only in episodes of scandal and exceptionally poor behavior" (TORONTO STAR, 4/12). The STAR's Arthur wrote the Leafs have "had rotting floorboards and leaking roofs for years, and this year it all gave way." The '14-15 campaign "was a season for the ages in all the wrong ways: a manic, fevered, sad, deadening disaster that just rolled into irrelevance" (TORONTO STAR, 4/12).
