Advertisement

Brendan Shanahan joined TSN1050 to discuss the shock hiring of Lou Lamoriello as the 16th GM in team history.

On the importance of past relationships in what he’s building with his management team in Toronto:
I would say, quite honestly, the relationship part is maybe secondary. I say that not to diminish how important it is to know people in hockey, but it’s maybe to underscore what I thought was more important when I hired Mike Babcock [which] was that he was a great coach. That we had a relationship was a bonus and secondary. When I hired Lou Lamoriello today, I thought that I was hiring somebody that was a great fit for us right now. He was a great fit for us at this point in his career, and I think that we’re a great fit for him at this point in his career as well. When you’re in hockey as long as I’ve been in it, you have a lot of relationships, but to me Mark Hunter I knew a little bit, never really knew him that well, but I thought he was the best in the business that wasn’t currently in the business. Same with Kyle Dubas. I had no met Kyle Dubas until my job interview with him. I knew Brandon Pridham a little bit from my tie with the NHL, but we didn’t have a strong relationship. My goal here, whether it was hiring a coach or hiring a GM, was to hire the person that I thought was the best fit.

On his sales pitch to Lamoriello and past successful sales pitches (Mike Babcock, Casey Bailey, etc):
I don’t know that I’m a salesman so much as I speak passionately about how I feel about this team, and my hope and my vision for it to regain its glory. The fanbase that we have, and what it could mean for us to have the kind of success that this city and this organization deserves. I’ve never really considered myself a salesman or a sales pitch guy. I’m just pretty direct, pretty honest. I think, as Mike Babcock mentioned, I’m pretty relentless. I think without Lou – each person is different. Lou sort of had one foot on the gas and one foot on the break. I understood that. I think you have to see things from other people’s perspectives. Lou was having a very difficult time making a decision in whether or not he would leave the only franchise in the NHL that he knew. I think that it required some patience, and it required allowing Lou to get there himself. 

On the chain of command and level of autonomy for Lou, and generally the level of criticism that surrounds the team:
Yeah, you know, I don’t really listen too much. I think you’re aware, and you can’t completely tune out or be the kind of person to tune out criticism because sometimes criticism is well founded and it can teach you something. I think you also have to recognize, over time and through experience, what is white noise. I made it very clear to Lou, and made it very clear to the hockey world, exactly what I was looking for in a coach and I went out and found one. I made it very clear also what I was looking for in a GM. Now, a lot of cynics said that it would be a very difficult time to find someone that was willing to be a GM for this type of situation, where a coach had already been decided and assistant GMs had already been decided. “You’ve got this President that is hovering over your shoulder”; well, I don’t hover over people’s shoulders, I let people do their jobs. As Lou mentioned today, you can have the greatest, toughest, biggest persona in the world, but we all have bosses and all have to consult with people. Nobody that I know in this business picks up the phone in the middle of the night and makes a trade all by himself without consulting with others in the organization, his boss – whether it’s a President or an owner. I don’t hire Lou Lamoriello without consulting with the MLSE board. I don’t hire Mike Babcock without consulting with people as well, or consulting with some of the people I have around me. I don’t know how other people are going to imagine things are going to go, but I spelled it out and I can’t be more consistent and more clear about how I think this organization can be successful. Lou bought into that. He will certainly be a leader. I’m asking any General Manager to be a leader. He will make decisions, but he will make them with us. He will have a very strong presence. It’s not unlike when Mark Hunter comes to me and says, “I want to draft his player.” I just simply say, “tell me why.” If he gives me a good reason, I say, “great, let’s draft him,” because that’s his expertise and not mine. If Kyle Dubas says, “I want to sign this player,” and we all sit around and we get Brandon Pridham in there, and if it fits in the cap and makes sense, we say, “tell us why” and we have a debate. I think people undersell Lou’s history in New Jersey of consulting with people. Name the last person that quit working for Lou in New Jersey. He runs a good ship and a tight ship, but he’s a very loyal person and people have worked for him for many, many years. If he had shut them out, they wouldn’t have stayed.

On whether Lou was always the target:
There were other really qualified people that were interesting as well. I think that, in spite of the fact that I think I’m lucky to have guys like Kyle Dubas and Mark Hunter and Brandon Pridham, I do believe that my first choice, if you’d say there was a tiebreaker between two people — I would hire who I thought was the best qualified person, number one. But if there was a tiebreaker, it would be someone that had NHL experience as a GM. Lou brings a wealth of that. That’s where I think he complements our group. In some ways, like I said to Lou, this youthful, energetic group of young, smart guys that are here – I’m not calling myself one of them – but guys like Mark and Kyle and Brandon are a good fit for Lou and will complement Lou as well.

On whether having an experienced voice like a Lamoriello would’ve been of value going through the trade process with Kessel:
It couldn’t have hurt. I think that, as proud of the guys and work we did, I thought that Kyle and Mark did a fantastic job at the draft in turning a late first round pick into essentially three picks, and still getting the player we wanted. I think the guys did a great job, but there’s one guy I’m forgetting that I have had around, and we had him around during the Phil Kessel trade, and that’s Cliff Fletcher. He’s not here all the time, but we did lean on Cliff as far as experience and certain things like that. Cliff is not full time here in Toronto, but I valued his experience, so certainly having a guy like Lou and his experience just adds something else to the group as well.

On his work since April, 2014:
I think it’s still in the early stages. As much as we’ve done here, the biggest change we’ve done is reassembled the way that we think as an organization, and the thinkers and the decision makers. One thing that hasn’t gotten a lot of notoriety: We’ve built what I think is one of the best sports science departments in the NHL so that our athletes, our current Leafs and our up and coming Leafs, are going to get all the best advantages in training and nutrition. That’s happening with other teams; the NHL is starting to catch up, as a matter of fact North America is starting to catch up to Europe, which as sort of been way ahead of us in that department. Before you really build a house, you’ve got to really build a plan. You’ve got to get good architects and good builders. I think that I was excited at what I saw at this year’s prospect camp, at some of the young talented players that we got through Mark Hunter. For once since I’ve been here, we are not pressing our noses up against the ceiling of the cap – we have some flexibility and cap space. There’s a lot of work to do. I’m really excited and interested to see once Mike Babcock has his hands on some of these things and getting on the ice. I’m not foolish enough to think we don’t have difficult days on the ice ahead of us. This is a long process that we’re embarking on, but we’re committed to it.

On the stealthy “big” moves being made in a cone of silence:
I think this is something I learned in my time in New Jersey, myself as a young player in my time in the NHL. I’m not a big fan of leaks or things like that. I just think it’s not a good way to do business. In Toronto it’s really hard because the level of interest is so high. Even sometimes things that we don’t want to get out, when you involve other teams or involve other people – whether it’s agents or whomever – sometimes things get out. There’s a very talented group of reporters in this city that will sometimes look for information. If they don’t get it from you, they say, “okay, I know somebody else.” They somehow go get it somewhere else. I just think that, since I’ve been here, if you look at the David Clarkson announcement or even the Mike Babcock announcement – as much as attention as Babcock Watch was getting – for whatever reason people had taken their eyes off of us until the last hour. It was the same with Lou. I don’t think there’s any need to be telling people our business. It’s just about going about our business and doing the work. I don’t manage or lead from behind a camera. Some people didn’t like that last year. Some people were like, “where is he? We want to see him more. What is he doing?” The way I’m going to do this is I’m going to do the work. I’m not necessarily going to get in front of a camera or a microphone every day.

Previous articleMike Babcock on the hiring of Lou Lamoriello as GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs
Next articleLou Lamoriello Introductory Press Conference – Full Transcript
Founded in 2008, Maple Leafs Hotstove (MLHS) has grown to be the most visited independent team-focused hockey website online (Quantcast). Independently owned and operated, MLHS provides thorough and wide-ranging content, varying from news, opinion and analysis, to pre-game and long-form game reviews, and a weekly feature piece entitled "Leafs Notebook." MLHS has been cited by: ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBC News, USA Today, Fox Sports, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, TSN, Sportsnet, Grantland, CTV News, CBSSports, The Globe & Mail, The National Post, The Toronto Star, The Toronto Sun, Global News, Huffington Post, and many more.