When Brendan Shanahan became the National Hockey League's vice-president of player safety, everybody agreed: He had taken an awful job. Brian Burke had done it - the title was different, but the gig was the same - and he always made it sound like going to war. Colin Campbell did it for 13 years, and you could see the wear and tear; he looked so tired at the end, a man surrounded by alarm clocks that could blare at any second.
Even Gary Bettman, Shanahan's new boss, said it was probably 'the worst and most thankless job in hockey.' He knew. He'd seen what was required.
Well, it appears Shanahan is a sucker for the hardest parts of the ice. On Thursday evening it broke that the Toronto native will leave the NHL to serve as president of the Maple Leafs, as first reported by The Toronto Star. It appeared Shanahan would be handed the keys, as Trevor Linden was in Vancouver. It is a major task to fix the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Many have tried. Burke came to Toronto accompanied by martial trumpets and a Stanley Cup ring; the job battered him, and the Stanley Cup drought is now at 46 years and counting. If it's not the worst job in hockey, trying to fix the Toronto Maple Leafs has to be on the list. As Sean McIndoe of Grantland.com wrote on Twitter, 'From now on, Brendan Shanahan won't have to suspend anything besides his sense of hope.'
And whenever people in hockey talked about Shanahan moving to a front-office job, they said he will need help, because like Linden, the new Canucks president, he's never done this job before. He has never negotiated a player contract that wasn't his own; he has never run a scouting department; he has never had to manage the league's salary cap. He has succeeded everywhere he's gone, but he was sure to require good lieutenants.
And that is where it got strange. Sportsnet's Chris Johnston reported late Thursday that current general manager Dave Nonis, who served as the lieutenant for Burke in Vancouver and Toronto, was expected to remain in place and retain control over hockey operations. Shanahan would be brought in to provide leadership, and work on the business side, marketing, and league matters. It is a stretch to declare that leadership, as opposed to decision-making, is the problem in Toronto.
Leiweke has apparently been courting Shanahan for a while, surely with Bettman's blessing and perhaps urging. But for this? Maybe Leiweke isn't willing to cut bait with Nonis so soon after extending Nonis's contract last summer after one 48-game playoff season, which seems all the more aggressive in retrospect. Leiweke began his tenure by saying he believed the Leafs had been fixed. As ever, in Toronto, it was a premature expression of faith.
But if you're going to bring Shanahan in to lead, then hand him all the keys, because that's the only way this is going to fix anything. With the Los Angeles Kings, Luc Robitaille is the president, and runs the business; Dean Lombardi runs the hockey side. That recipe worked well enough to win a Cup, and build a monster. Here, the business all but runs itself, and why waste Shanahan's hockey mind on selling sponsorships and serving as an alternate governor? If he has ambitions to run his own shop, which seems inevitable, you have a recipe for a mess, sooner or later. You build an organization with your people. That's how it works.
And if he doesn't, then ... why this? Leiweke was not available for comment Thursday night, but he knows how organizations should work. He hired Masai Ujiri to run the Raptors last season, and only pushed incumbent general manager Bryan Colangelo into a limited president's position to appease a vocal slice of ownership; the job was designed to keep Colangelo away from basketball decisions, and he quickly grew frustrated and left. Leiweke had a plan, there. He must have a plan now.
Whatever it is, he'll need to explain it, because there are huge hockey decisions ahead for this franchise. This is a franchise with a roster whose core has been involved in three consecutive season-ending collapses, that has never reached the playoffs in a full 82-game season, and whose defensive work was so incoherent this year that a team with scoring, goaltending and a power play managed to miss the playoffs. The 18-wheeler two seasons ago, Game 7 in Boston last year, the free fall this season, the insane shot differentials that have prompted a still-raucous war over analytics in hockey: this is a mountain at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
The Leafs are weak up the middle, and a mess at the back end. A sensible list of necessary pieces probably includes Phil Kessel, Jonathan Bernier, James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Rielly, maybe Jake Gardiner and even Nazem Kadri. After that, coaching included, let the floodwaters rise.
And into this steps Shanahan. He has built a department, has helped re-imagine the game - he led the group that loosened the bonds of obstruction after the 2004-05 lockout - and has spent the last three years developing a thick skin, which he did not always carry with him during his playing career. People who know him say he's got a sharp mind, and is relentless.
That's a fine start, and now comes the work. Whoever is in charge of the final decisions must navigate a league where unearthing a true superstar is so difficult, unless you draft one; where there are 29 other men in charge, most whom start with better players. Whoever is in charge should really get to work figuring out how much to believe in hockey analytics, which are in the early days of deciphering the game.
And whoever is in charge, MLSE has almost run out of ways to make money that don't involve winning, so the pressure is on. Leiweke pushes every day: it's the only way he can truly grow the business outside of BMO field, unless the NFL is coming. He has cleared out two of his three franchises already; this is his first crack at fixing the Leafs. We'll let him explain. Either way, on Monday Shanahan will step into a dangerous blue sea that, for two years longer than he has been alive, has swallowed every man who came before. Now we see how well he swims.
Post By http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/04/10/brendan-shanahan-will-need-help-fixing-the-toronto-maple-leafs/
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