In July 2015, Lou Lamoriello signed on as the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ general manager, the Hall of Famer joining Mike Babcock and Brendan Shanahan to form a franchise-altering triumvirate in the club’s front office.
The trio helped push the team towards back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in 14 years, and guided the young Leafs to a franchise-best 49 wins in 2017-18. Toronto’s three-headed braintrust was split up in early May, however, when Shanahan announced Lamoriello would move out of the GM role as per their original timeline, with former assistant GM Kyle Dubas taking over the top job.
For many among the Leafs faithful, the move was seen as more than simply an administrative one. Rather, it signified a changing of the guard, taking the reins out of the hands of one of the game’s best old-school thinkers and handing them to the club’s wunderkind.
But according to Leafs top-liner Zach Hyman, the players don’t expect much about the way they operate to change with Lamoriello out of the picture, despite his immense impact.
“Lou is someone who’s been there since I’ve been around the organization, for as long as I’ve been here. So that’s really all I know, is Lou’s management and what Lou’s done,” Hyman told Jeff Blair and Stephen Brunt on Prime Time Sports Wednesday. “Lou’s created a culture for us and for our team that I don’t think is really going to change much, because of how well it was created. We’re thankful for everything he’s done for our team and our organization, because he’s helped our team in so many ways.”
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Hyman also quelled concerns that Dubas is walking into an unknown environment in moving from a secondary role to the top job.
“Kyle’s been in this situation before with the Marlies,” Hyman said. “He has experience with that, and a lot of the guys who are on the Leafs now played for Kyle [on] the Marlies. … So, I think that it’s going to stay relatively the same. Obviously, Kyle will have his own imprint on the team and everything like that, but from our perspective as players, we just go out there and we’re doing the same thing that we’ve been doing for the past couple years.”
The Leafs have a key off-season ahead of them after taking the next step over the past few seasons only to find themselves still barred from the playoffs’ deeper rounds. Dubas will have his hands full in his first few months on the job, with key free-agent decisions to make, a young core to lock up, and a blue line to upgrade.
But while it’ll be Dubas making those calls instead of Lamoriello, Hyman and his teammates aren’t rushing to upend the old-school rules the veteran manager put in place — like, for example, the one that disallowed them from growing facial hair during the season.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to test it right now,” Hyman told Blair and Brunt with a laugh. “I’m clean shaven right now — I think we’re all status quo until we hear otherwise. I mean, I think it’s just part of the culture, so I think the culture’s just going to stay the same.”
Watch Hyman’s full interview on Prime Time Sports at the top of this post as he discusses his new children’s book, the Vegas Golden Knights, and his training mindset during the off-season.