Advertisement

(Not a joke)

The Shanaplan works in mysterious ways.

From the club:

Brendan Shanahan, President and Alternate Governor of the Toronto Maple Leafs, announced today that Lou Lamoriello has been named the 16th General Manager in the Club’s history. Lamoriello joins the Leafs after previously spending the last 28 years in the New Jersey Devils organization.

Lamoriello first joined the Devils as President and General Manager in 1987. Under his leadership, New Jersey went to the Stanley Cup Playoffs 21 times, won nine division titles, went to the Stanley Cup Final five times and won the Cup on three occasions (1995, 2000 and 2003). The Devils also made 13 consecutive post-season berths from 1997-2010 and finished with a winning record every season from 1992-93 through 2009-10.

Lamoriello also served as Interim Head Coach during three different seasons – most recently the 2014-15 season as he served as co-coach alongside Scott Stevens and Adam Oates for the final 46 games of the regular season (20-19-7). On May 4, 2015, Ray Shero was introduced as the Devils’ new General Manager while Lamoriello remained in his role as President of Hockey Operations. He finished as the longest serving General Manager of any one team in the history of the NHL at 28 years (1987-2015).

In 1996, Lamoriello served as General Manager for Team USA as they won the World Cup of Hockey. He was also General Manager of Team USA at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. His many accomplishments have earned him a number of prestigious awards, including induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the Builder Category in 2009 and into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012.

This is a crazy one to process.

There is so much to sort through with this hire, but anyone remotely familiar with Lou Lamoriello is aware of the narrative that, throughout his professional life, it’s been Lou Lamoriello’s way or the highway, and he doesn’t always play nice. Shanahan, who was originally drafted by Lamiorello way back in 1987, must feel Lou’s at a point where he is fit to mesh into a front office that’s already got a direction, a President with final authority on decisions in Shanahan, and two empowered assistant general managers in Hunter and Dubas (and a big-name coach with a voice at the table).

With Lamoriello now 73, what seems most likely is that the Leafs have filled the GM’s seat with an immensely experienced “bridge” manager (on a relatively short three-year deal) until one of Hunter or Dubas has the on the job experience to take it over, and what better mentor in terms of learning the ins and outs of the NHL?

Lamoriello, of course, is also often joked about for his mob boss persona and getting exactly what he wants by any means necessary – his past of rule bending, loophole finding, unpunished cap circumventing, and his deep connections around the League paired with the Leafs infinite resources might lead to some interesting developments. The board room credibility of the Leafs just skyrocketed, let alone his take-no-crap attitude with the media, which almost makes this hire worth it alone.

His time is winding down, but Lamoriello is hockey royalty. From Greg Wyshynski:

Lou Lamoreillo was Devils hockey.
His roster, his rules, his finger on the trigger for every coach he hired. His philosophy permeated every level, office and locker in the organization, from the way Devils employees wore their facial hair to the way they interacted with the public to the system the players executed on the ice. His fingers were on every facet of the organization, from player personnel (frequently briliant) to team marketing (or lack thereof). At least once in my career covering the team, he stopped me in the bowels of the arena to check my credential status — president, GM, bouncer, perhaps.

Lamoriello, for obvious reasons, isn’t going to be able to permeate the Leafs organization and its culture to the same extent (although he should certainly help), but to say the Leafs are (in part) now run by Lamoriello and Babcock is both unbelievable and befitting of the team at the center of the hockey universe. At a certain point, you have to look at the names in the management group the Leafs have assembled and ask yourselves, “if this doesn’t work, what will?”

Like with the Mike Babcock hire, it feels whiney to voice concerns about hiring one of the top front office minds in the history of the game. But there are a few question marks worth considering.

There are now a lot of big personalities – they just added a really strong one, to go along with other strong personalities in Babcock, Hunter, Shanny – in that Leaf front office. Lamoriello meshing into the fold, providing connections, relationships and experience, is a lot different than Lou grabbing the reigns and steering the ship. Again, this is a big personality with an intimidating resume, and you never know how that might change the dynamics and (thus far encouraging) direction under Shanahan, Hunter and Dubas as it plays out over time. Some will no doubt question how snug of a fit Lou — who carries the reputation of a control freak — is for a collaborative decision-making structure in which he’s just another voice at the table.

It’s worth noting the last several years of Lamoriello’s tenure was more about hanging onto past success and patching up an eroding foundation than rebuilding the team for sustainable success through draft and development — and New Jersey’s success at the draft declined heavily later on in Lou’s tenure (it’s been a long time since NJ has drafted a high impact forward, for instance). But it seems the Leafs already have the draft well covered with the brain trust already in place, and it would seem Lou’s best value is in who he knows and in knowing how to get stuff done, which was the one element the front office lacked — that kind of operational experience. Lou’s free agent signings (Clowe, Cammalleri) were also less than inspiring in recent seasons, although he was dealing with a financial situation that seemed to dictate a need to make the playoffs.

Lamoriello has said he has full autonomy, but also that he answers to President Brendan Shanahan. Shanahan has repeatedly said the decision making process is collaborative and consists of healthy debate among the group. A little bit of you starts to wonder what happens if Brendan Shanahan sides with Kyle Dubas’ or Mark Hunter’s viewpoint on an issue over Lou Lamoriello.

There will also be questions as to how “old school” Lou will match with a progressive Leafs management team that includes Kyle Dubas and his analytics department, but that appears to be unfounded. Remember that Lamoriello installed professional poker player and options trader Sunny Mehta as the Director of Hockey Analytics while with the Devils. It’s pretty hard to achieve the level of success Lou has over his career by being close minded and never innovating or adapting. It’s also easy to mistake strong leadership with dictatorship, although Lamoriello’s takeover of the bench after firing Claude Julien just before the playoffs in 2006-07 (with the Devils in second place) will always be etched in the memories of hockey fans. Among other stories

Mike Babcock, meanwhile, is programmed to win now. That’s great, of course; you wouldn’t want a coach behind the bench handling your assets while actively trying to lose. But Babcock’s never really been regarded as a youth-movement kind of coach, nor has Lamoriello, who has never really had to oversee a rebuild of any kind since the early Devils days. Does the pair combine to push the vision for the team in a new direction?

There’s absolutely nothing to indicate that will happen as of right now — and the buck stops with Shanahan, who has done nothing but preach patience and the importance of doing things the right way — but it’s early days. The idea of the entire group healthily debating decisions sounds great in the summer, but that’s before the team starts playing and presumably losing more than they win, before competitive people with big-time egos start getting frustrated and the media sharks start circling. You’ve got Mike Babcock tucking in for the long haul on an eight-year commitment, but what happens if Lou, with his unprecedentedly quick coach-firing trigger finger (historically speaking), gets sick of the “process” if it means more losing?

Lamoriello filling in the blanks for the management group with his vast experience with managing people, his understanding of how a successful hockey organization acts and behaves in terms of its culture and leadership, and his relationships and connections that predate Dubas’ birth, all sounds peachy on paper. How it plays out in practice may be as interesting as anything that takes place on the ice this season in Leafland.

Lots more to come.

Update:

It goes without saying these picks are pretty easy to recoup by flipping assets at the deadline.

Previous articleA Look at Jonathan Bernier’s Arbitration Case
Next articleLou Lamoriello on TSN Radio
Alec Brownscombe is the founder and editor of MapleLeafsHotStove.com, where he has written daily about the Leafs since September of 2008. He's published five magazines on the team entitled "The Maple Leafs Annual" with distribution in Chapters and newsstands across the country. He also co-hosted "The Battle of the Atlantic," a weekly show on TSN1200 that covered the Leafs and the NHL in-depth. Alec is a graduate of Trent University and Algonquin College with his diploma in Journalism. In 2014, he was awarded Canada's Best Hockey Blogger honours by Molson Canadian. You can contact him at alec.brownscombe@mapleleafshotstove.com.