The easy and convenient thing to do right now is fire Brendan Shanahan as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs.But there’s absolutely no point in letting him go without knowing exactly who the next president will be.
If there will, in fact, be a next president.
Shanahan has been in charge of the Maple Leafs for all these years and all these hockey calamities. This was his best Leafs team with its worst Leafs ending. Symbolically, the great Leafs fan base has been calling for change at the top for many years now, and the finger again is pointed directly at Shanahan.
This is his team, his second-year general manager, his first-year coach, his first-year captain. Change has happened all around except in the president’s office, but what hasn’t changed are the end results.
How can they be repeated year after year?
Shanahan’s Leafs have been to the playoffs nine straight years. In an NHL where half the teams don’t qualify for the post-season, that means more than nothing. But eight of the nine seasons have ended badly. The weakest coming on Sunday night.
Shanahan should be applauded for the nine straight playoff appearances. That’s no foregone conclusion. Just down the QEW, the Buffalo Sabres haven’t been in the playoffs for 14 years. Down the 401, Shanahan’s former linemate, Steve Yzerman, has been trying to get in the playoffs for years in Detroit. Hasn’t got there yet. Not once.
The nine years of playoffs are worth applauding. But not worth applauding are the six Game 7s that the Maple Leafs lost over the past eight years. The cumulative score of those games a rather embarrassing 25-9 against Toronto.
The last two home games the Leafs played against the champion Florida Panthers they lost by a combined score of 12-2.
Losing 2-1 in overtime, the way the Leafs lost in Boston last spring, you can sort of live with. Losing 6-1, 6-1, a tennis score, doesn’t work for hockey.
That’s part of the Shanahan resume that’s difficult to explain. That’s the part he can’t hide from. This has been a team incapable of big moments with all that apparent talent and all that money spent and all the extras the Leafs offer in day-to-day building. Shanahan has spared no expense in trying to build a champion.
But somehow, a man who was built to play the biggest games, to handle the pressure, the intensity, the desperation, has put together hockey teams that didn’t have whatever it was that made him a Hall of Fame player.
As a player, Shanahan intrinsically knew how to win. Somehow, he has never been able to translate that to his team, which came apart at the seams while losing Game 7 to Florida.
Coach Craig Berube, a master of calm all season long, in his first season with the Leafs, lost it on the bench in Game 7. That came on the same night that the likely departing Mitch Marner lost it at his teammates on the bench. And that was all before the rookie captain, Auston Matthews, ended his night by calling out his team in his post-game interview, saying the Leafs had too many passengers in Game 7.
He didn’t indicate whether he was one of them.
If shot attempts are to believed — and some swear by them — Florida had 86 against the Leafs at 5-on-5 Sunday night, 40 of those coming in the one-sided second-period. By any count, those are enormous numbers.
This wasn’t the close game Paul Maurice politely lied about afterwards. This was a blowout. With a series ending, with the Leafs scoring four goals in the final four games against a not exactly on his game Sergei Bobrovsky.
So now what for the Leafs as the next round of the playoffs is about to begin without them?
Keith Pelley is one year on the job in charge of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and Edward Rogers will soon assume control of the company. The determination on Shanahan’s future would normally come from Pelley, who has chosen not to extend the president’s contract throughout this season.
But is it Pelley’s call now on Shanahan? Or does that belong to Rogers?
Nobody is saying.
There are already rumblings that the New York Islanders may have interest in Shanahan should he be let go by the Leafs, but they have yet to ask for any kind of permission to talk to him.
There are also thoughts that the Leafs could eliminate the position of team president, let Shanahan go, have Pelley or one of his upper associates in charge of the team, with Brad Treliving remaining as general manager and Berube remaining as coach.
If Rogers and MLSE feel the need to provide the fans with a head on a platter, the easy chop is Shanahan. But Rogers himself hasn’t gone this route before — he has somehow lived through Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins with the Blue Jays — and when compared to them, Shanahan is part Bill Torrey, part Sam Pollock.
The real challenge for the Leafs is re-arranging their roster, finding the right way to replace Marner, figuring out what if anything to do with John Tavares, signing emerging winger Matthew Knies before anyone else can, maybe finding another defenceman of quality while again deepening the team.
Last summer, Treliving added Chris Tanev on defence, Anthony Stolarz in goal, and signed depth players such as Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Pacioretty and Steven Lorentz. That was before he brought in Scott Laughton and Brandon Carlo at the trade deadline. That’s a large single season haul for any general manager.
How much was Shanahan involved in any of those decisions?
That’s for Pelley and Mr. Rogers to determine.
More than ever before in the Shanahan era, the Leafs are a diminished work in progress. A work that begins at the president’s desk, assuming there still will be a president in the days to come.
ssimmons@postmedia.com
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