“Winning if necessary, but not necessarily winning.”
That was the sarcastic, mock motto thrown at the Maple Leaf organization in the early part of this century as Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment morphed from the Team That Ballard Wrecked/Carlton St. Cashbox into a multi-tentacled operation that seemed as focussed on profits and selling condos as it was on winning Stanley Cups.
WATCH LIVE: Leafs to introduce Lou Lamoriello at 2 p.m. EST
Well, that smart aleck phrase is officially dead, as of today. Nobody can say the Leafs aren’t desperately trying to win.
In Lou Lamoriello, the Leafs have hired the ultimate winning-comes-first hockey executive, a low-key, buttoned down manager who might in some ways be the antithesis of Brian Burke, but at the same time was at one point one of Burke’s mentors. Lamoriello has fundamentally been focussed on winning ahead of revenue streams and even attendance for almost three decades while running the New Jersey Devils, and now in the twilight of his brilliant career he will attempt to assert that mindset on the Leafs and their 48-year championship drought.
After going through the spring, entry draft and free agency without a GM in place, allowing Shanahan, Kyle Dubas and Mark Hunter to operate the team and make key decisions like hiring Mike Babcock, drafting Mitch Marner and trading away Phil Kessel, the 72-year-old Lamoriello now arrives to be the GM for the foreseeable future.
Let’s be clear; this is a short-term hire, and Lamoriello isn’t taking over the Leaf organization. He will be reporting to Shanahan, a kid he drafted 25 years ago. He had to accept that before this surprise hiring could become reality.
It’s a similar move to one Pittsburgh made last year in hiring Jim Rutherford after he departed the Carolina Hurricanes, seemingly in a peaceful parting with that team. Lamoriello said all the right things earlier this year when he was bumped upstairs and Ray Shero was hired as New Jersey’s new GM, but it was clear Jersey’s ownership had a lot to do with that decision and that Lamoriello wasn’t done as a hockey man.
“Age is a state of mind,” he told me at the draft in Florida.
It’s also similar but different to the time the Leafs hired Cliff Fletcher as GM in the early 1990s. Fletcher was a younger man, but he was regarded as one of the most respected executives in the game, as is Lamoriello. The difference, and this will be interesting to watch, is that in Babcock, Dubas, Hunter and others, Lamoriello is inheriting a hockey organization, rather than building one in Toronto.
Indeed, Babcock with his $50 million contract presents Lamoriello with something he’s never before had: a head coach he can’t fire.
There were many names floated about as candidates for the Leaf GM job, from L.A. assistant GM Mike Futa to Tampa Bay assistant GM Julien Brisebois. Former Washington GM George McPhee was mentioned as a possible experienced hand who could join the organization and work with Dubas and Hunter, two men who Shanahan clearly believes are quality executives for the future.
Nobody mentioned Lamoriello, because it seemed as though he would serve out of the final days of his exceptional career working alongside Shero. Instead, Shanahan made a pitch to the GM who joined the Devils organization at the same time he did back in 1987. Lamoriello brought Shanahan back to New Jersey for a final season in 2008, and since Shanahan was hired by the Leafs as team president, Lamoriello has continued to be one of the NHL hockey people he has turned to for guidance.
Shanahan shocked the hockey world by convincing Babcock to join the Leafs, and now he’s done the same by hiring Lamoriello.
The Babcock hiring, and the trading of Kessel, demonstrated Shanahan was no lightweight, and now adding Lamoriello suggests he doesn’t want to run the Leafs himself and is comfortable bringing in powerful personalities to help develop a contending team. He asked the Devils for permission to talk to Lamoriello in early July, and sewed up the deal yesterday.
How all those personalities will mesh will be fascinating to watch. You’ve got the junior hockey geniuses in Dubas and Hunter, Babcock and his Detroit philosophies, and now Lamoriello and his no-nonsense, the-crest-comes-first approach. Few seemed to believe Babcock when he said he only wanted to coach, but the hiring of Lamoriello now suggests that’s all he will do.
Tim Leiweke, the CEO of MLSE, believed Shanahan was the person who could make these kinds of dynamic changes and hirings when he tabbed the Mimico lad as president of the Leafs, and that’s been proven correct. Despite a disastrous season last year, the Leafs have gone from a team that believes in fighting and size to a organization focussed on analytics and skill, all in a remarkably short period of time.
Shanahan has turned into the stealth exec, making aggressive decisions quietly and without leaks in a way Lamoriello, a guy who likes to spring surprises on the hockey world, would be proud.
They’ve talked in Toronto about the need for a culture change for a long, long time. Well, if Babcock didn’t represent enough culture change on his own, Lamoriello surely does.
The Leafs, finally, are all about trying to win.
