When Brendan Shanahan was hired to run the Maple Leafs 10 years ago, he made a determination to reach out to the “smartest” people in junior hockey to begin building his organization.
It wasn’t the usual approach to front-office recruiting in the NHL.
He reached out to Kyle Dubas in Sault Ste. Marie and hired him in 2014. He identified Mark Hunter in London and hired him three months later. Twice, he tried to hire Kelly McCrimmon from the Brandon Wheat Kings — once by himself, and once with Lou Lamoriello involved — but both times he came up empty.
What a swing and a miss that turned out to be long-term for the Leafs. After an unhappy ending in Toronto, Hunter has returned happily to London and the junior dynasty that is the Knights. Dubas, who was the chosen one as general manager, is about to miss the playoffs in his first season running the Pittsburgh Penguins. McCrimmon is the Bill Torrey-Glen Sather-Harry Sinden of his day, the smartest, brightest, most accomplished, GM in all of hockey with the Vegas Golden Knights and he seems to be proving that year after year.
Vegas is the defending Stanley Cup champion. It won last year’s trade deadline, bringing in Ivan Barbashev for somebody named Zach Dean.
It won the summer trade market in 2022, sending a fourth-round pick to San Jose for goaltender Adin Hill.
Last season, McCrimmon traded for Jack Eichel, who had lost his way in Buffalo. In recent days, all McCrimmon and his staff did was manage to acquire the best scorer available, Tomas Hertl, the best defenceman available, Noah Hanifin, and a solid depth scorer in Anthony Mantha.
All of this coming after the Cup win last year, the brilliant work prior to putting the Vegas expansion team on the map, the free-agent signing of big-time defenceman Alex Pietrangelo, the trading for captain Mark Stone.
The work that elevated McCrimmon to general manager has become the envy of everyone in hockey, with an owner in Bill Foley, who pushes winning over all else. Years ago, through the help of Dave Branch and others in junior hockey, Shanahan identified the right people for the building Maple Leafs front office.
He just came up short on hiring the smartest of them all.
THIS AND THAT
I have a list of nine teams that can win the Stanley Cup. The number goes to 10 if you include the Winnipeg Jets. In my order, the Stanley Cup will be won by one of the Florida Panthers, Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes;, Dallas Stars,; Vancouver Canucks, Vegas, Edmonton Oilers, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. Then Winnipeg. Then Tampa Bay. That’s 11. That puts the Leafs at No. 12 among Stanley Cup contenders. And the reason I rank Tampa ahead of Toronto, despite the standings: They still have Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal, Victor Hedman on defence, big gamer Nikita Kucherov up front and Jon Cooper coaching. By comparison, the Leafs have I don’t know in goal, Morgan Rielly as their best defenceman, Auston Matthews up front (most playoff goals in a season, five) and Sheldon Keefe coaching … Shanahan likes to say he wants to be one of the “eight or so” teams that make the playoffs with a shot at winning the Cup. This season, they will make the playoffs … A former accomplished GM on the Leafs: “I don’t see how you can win long-term in the playoffs with that defence and that goaltending. Too much guessing, I think.” … Playoff teams that can’t win the Cup: Nashville, Detroit, Philadelphia and Los Angeles … A suggestion if the Leafs don’t get out of the first round again. How about a trade of coaches? Mike Sullivan to Toropnto and Keefe to Pittsburgh. Dubas would like that … Not sure where the Sidney Crosby almost frozen, emotional reaction to Jake Guentzel getting traded came from. Crosby has had an incredible season. The Penguins have not. It was obvious for months that Pittsburgh was trading Guentzel. It’s now pretty much obvious that the Penguins won’t be in the post-season. Maybe reality just caught up with Crosby, as athletes tend to be the last people to often live in the real world … Fascinating pickup by Carolina at the deadline: When Washington won the Stanley Cup in 2018, Evgeny Kuznetsov should have won the Conn Smythe Trophy. He outscored Alex Ovechkin 18-12 in the final two rounds. If Kuznetsov is mentally and physically all right at age 31, what a pickup this could be for the Hurricanes. He had 78 points as recently as 2022.
HEAR AND THERE
In playing head-to-head this season, Matthews has been outscored, points wise, by Hart Trophy contenders David Pastrnak, Nathan MacKinnon, Quinn Hughes and Kucherov … A view that confuses me: If Matthews scores 70, he has to win the Hart. What if he gets 69? What if he scores 68? How does that change your mind? … Kucherov has 41 more points than anyone else on Tampa. Pastrnak has 35 more than any other Bruin. MacKinnon has 27 more than Mikko Rantanen and 41 more than Cale Makar, yet Matthews has four fewer points than Leafs’ leading scorer, William Nylander … We take Connor McDavid for granted. He now has 100-points for the seventh time in a nine-year career. That’s one more 100-point season than Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Bryan Trottier, Crosby, Dale Hawerchuk, Jari Kurri produced, and that ties him with Mike Bossy. The only two seasons McDavid didn’t hit 100 weere the shortened season of 2020 and his rookie year in which he missed 37 games to injury. Next year, he should catch Marcel Dionne at eight … What you need most seasons to win the Stanley Cup: 1) Goaltending; 2) Quality coaching; 3) A Norris type defenceman; 4) Depth at centre. It’s a short list of teams that meet all four criteria: The Rangers, Dallas, Vancouver, Vegas, Winnipeg and Tampa. Teams that don’t meet the full criteria, in spite of their overall depth are Carolina, Edmonton, Colorado, and Florida … The story for the Leafs doesn’t really change. They will go as far as Matthews, Nylander and Mitch Marner will carry them. Their top three forwards are equal to, or better than, any top three in hockey. But they will have to do the Bossy-Trottier thing, the once upon a time the Doug Gilmour-Wendel Clark thing for the Leafs to be considered for real when it matters.
SCENE AND HEARD
The most overrated trade pieces in hockey: First- and second-round picks in the back half of the round. An early first-round pick is money. A late first-round pick — after 20th — is a guess. Too many teams and too many fan bases, Calgary being the latest, get all excited by accumulating picks. From 2010-19 — a 10-year look at the draft — fewer than 10 stars were drafted in the second half of the first round. You have three times the chance of getting a bust with a late first-round pick than you do getting a first line player … The odds get worse in the second half of the second round. In that same 10-year period, there was one star player selected in the second half of the second round. But 48 players of those chosen would be considered draft busts in retrospect … Next time your favourite team trades for a first- or second-round pick, before you celebrate or congratulate anyone, find out what number that pick happens to be in the draft … I’m a bit of an NHL Network nut, so happy to see Kathryn Tappen back. It really is a shame that Canadian audiences can’t see this network regularly. It is that good. There is a lot fine of hockey talk by people such as Mike Kelly, Kevin Weekes, E.J. Hradek and Mike Rupp among others on the network … A question asked the other day: Why doesn’t Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky get much Vezina Trophy love? He has been among the best goalies in hockey this season. Yes, the trophy may be Connor Hellebuyck’s or Thatcher Demko’s to win, but Bob should get more attention … Is this it for Phil Kessel as an NHL player? He didn’t catch on with the Vancouver Canucks, even with his old GM, Jimmy Rutherford, in Vancouver and his old coach, Rick Tocchet, there. Kessel has played 1,236 NHL games and owns three Stanley Cup rings. He did lead terrible Leafs teams in scoring for six straight seasons … The nickname for Leafs defenceman Simon Benoit: The Milk Man. No relation to the original Leafs milk man, Claire Alexander.
AND ANOTHER THING
It’s hard to feel good about the first weeks of spring training for the Blue Jays with Alek Manoah fighting for survival and Kevin Gausman unsure of his status to start the season. Go back to the playoffs of 2022. The Game was 1 starter was Manoah. Game 2 starter Gausman … Hope that Joey Votto gets a legitimate shot to make the Jays. The story is edible: The greatest Toronto-born hitter in history coming home to finish his career … I see that Ben Simmons is out for the season. I didn’t know he was ‘on’ for the season … The NBA should stop fining coaches who complain about egregious officiating calls. What they need is better officiating, especially late in games … A quick entertainment pick for Oscar Sunday: The best movie I saw this past year was The Holdovers. The best actor was the former baseball commissioner’s son, Paul Giamatti. We now return to your regularly scheduled sports commentary … The NBA playoffs are coming. Nikola Jokic has taken his game to another level. Denver has won seven of its past eight games, including wins over Golden State, the Lakers and Boston … Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a machine. Okie City is 7-2 since the all-star break and SGA is averaging 32 points per game … One area oin which Joel Edmundson should help the Leafs is on the penalty-kill. Montreal was 91.8% in the playoffs with Edmundson playing regularly in 2021, getting to the Cup final. The Leafs were 73.3% and 78.8% in the past two playoffs, the kind of numbers that get you eliminated early … Nothing is more aggravating than watching sports panels on television that don’t occasionally indentify the person who happens to be talking. I don’t need a font when Mark Messier or Wayne Gretzky are talking, but I could sure use one for Luke Gadzic or those we don’t naturally recognize … RJ Barrett has scored more points per game with the Raptors, shooting better from three, rebounding more, assisting more, than he did in his years with the New York Knicks … That must have been a heartbreaking element for Oilers president Jeff Jackson to have to waive Sam Gagner this week. Jackson is very close to Gagner’s dad, Dave Gagner … I seem to be in the minority on this, but I still believe Connor Brown can be a solid NHL player … What a nice starting point for Vladimir Tarasenko in Florida. At least on paper. He begins with the Panthers on a line with Sasha Barkov and Sam Reinhart. Reinhart, by the way, leads the NHL with 25 power-play goals, the same number as the entire team in Columbus and one fewer than all of the Philly Flyers this season … The Dallas Stars had a monster draft in 2017, selecting Miro Heiskanen, Jake Oettinger and Jason Robertson with their first three picks. They’ve followed that up in 2021 taking Wyatt Johnston in the first round and Logan Stankoven, with five goals in his first seven NHL games, in the second round … Third-line centres can often be playoff difference-makers: I fully expect Edmonton to move newly acquired Adam Henrique to centre where he can compete against Vegas’ William Karlsson, Pierre Luc Dubois or Philip Danault of Los Angeles, Johnston in Dallas, Adam Lowry in Winnipeg; Ross Colton in Colorado or Elias Lindholm in Vancouver. The top seven teams in the West are as deep and strong as I can remember … Happy birthday to Morgan Rielly (30), Marlene Stewart Street (90), Mike Timlin (58), Tuukka Rask (37), Harry Neale (87), Paul MacLean (66), Phil Housley (60), Aaron Boone (51), Rod Woodson (59), Justin Herbert (26) and Mike Kiselak (57) .. And hey, whatever became of Ben Bishop?
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