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Interesting. I don't need the actual info (thanks for the offer though), but how does this (and other information/moves) make you feel about the Leafs management? Both in its current form and prospects for the future (will potential GMs be scared of by an overreaching President? Will Dubas jump ship if he is being ignored? Was Dubas out of line for sharing information that wasn't vetted by his boss?)

Okay, here's my overall, big picture, unbiased take on why the leafs have sucked for almost 50 years. I've thought about this a lot, and talked it out with a bunch of different people. Not saying it's right, just saying it's the one theory that kinda makes sense to me.

 

Despite being pretty awful as an on ice product for a very long time, there is absolutely no question that MLSE is the gold standard for ownership and management. Everybody wants to work for the leafs. And I'm not talking about video coaches, I'm talking the high end, upper management positions. Board of governors, president, GM, asst GM, etc. And much like working for Apple or Nike, the nature of the prestige of those jobs attracts the most driven and successful individuals. The board of governors is made up of a who's who of Toronto business. The leafs never hire an ex-commentator or something of the sort to be team president. The GM's are usually highly pedigreed hockey people. But the one thing they all have in common is they are uber successful, and very driven.

So you have an upper management that is very used to running their own show, and not having their decisions questioned. Richard Peddie didn't have to answer to very many people in his business career, nor did Steve Stavros or Harold Ballard. They were also dynamic go getters that made things happen.

With an upper management filled with those types, the type of people that were used to getting what they wanted and not being questioned, there is one problem: the media. And while the media is often blamed for putting pressure on the players, I've always been of the opinion that it really doesn't matter that much to the players in general. To the top 2 or 3 players on the team, sure. They were going to have to put up with a more intense spotlight, and a sometimes unfair and unbalanced op ed media that would often look for the glass to be half empty. But I think the really detrimental effect that the media has is on those upper management types. The type of guy that's attached to the high profile job in Toronto is also the type of guy that is used to succeeding, and used to doing it on their own terms. So when a Harold Ballard picked up the paper and read how bad his team was, his gut reaction was to do something about it. Fix the problem. And with almost all of them, the fix had to be right now. Not in two years. NOW.

And that percolates from top to bottom. So at almost every crossroads the leafs have reached in the past 50 years, the decision making process has been to make the fix immediate. You can't point to a decision in recent memory that said anyone was thinking about anything further than a year down road.

The other issue with the leaf management is that very few of them are used to having to work with anyone else. Especially in the major decision area. Sure, they have advisors in their business world, but at the end of the day, they're all the alpha dogs and most have gone with their own instincts.

So, is this the reason? I think it is. How often, through MANY different CEOs, Presidents, owners, and boards, have we heard through the grapevine that a GM's decision was vetoed by the board of governors? How often have we seen or heard that the owners were interfering in day to day operations? How often has a player been offered a long term contract that a year later is deemed to be a disaster? How often is a GM or coach extended on their contract and then fired shortly thereafter (Carlyle being the latest and most obvious). Those are indicative of short term thinking at it's worst.

So that brings us to today: in regards to Shanahan vetoing the triumvirate of Dubas, Hunter, and Babcock on a decision, a group that he has publicly stated that he has faith in, that, to me, is just typical of the mindset of the upper echelon, and in the end, it would appear to be trouble.

I'm not going to get into whether or not I think Shanahan is doing a good job or not. For the purpose of this discussion, it's not relevant.He seems dedicated to rebuilding, and that's probably good. But he also made a decision based on a personal bias that overruled the people he had charged with making those decisions. Symptomatic of that sort of power trip that's been the long term pervasive problem here.

One last point: now is a unique time for something good long term to be done with the team. The reason for that is that the board is at war with one another. Rogers vs Bell has been a disaster. They can't work together at ALL. So essentially they are infighting on every decision. And that's probably actually good because they're too busy trying to kill one another to actually actively interfere with the team. If Shanahan and company ARE the right people to rebuild the team (and I really don't know one way or another if they are, but I like what they've done so far), then they may have a vacuum to operate in that will allow them more leeway than most others have had to plough ahead, since rogers and bell are too busy fighting.

So that's my very long winded opinion as to why the leafs have failed so badly over the years.

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For the most part, I would agree. The problem with the Leafs has always been the quick fix mentality. It seems like the decisions that were made were mostly based on business rather than hockey.

 

As for Kessel, he's a good hockey player. The things he does well are next to impossible to teach. Scoring ability is not an easily acquired skill. There's an argument to be made for trading him and for keeping him. It's hard to say right now whether they got enough for him, but I don't know what offers they received. Maybe it would've been better to keep him a little longer and hope his value increased. Hard to say.

If I'm a Leafs fan I don't mind the trade because they acquired some quality pieces and made some cap room. While some may think it would've been better to hold onto him the decision to trade him isn't based on the quick fix mentality.

Plus, personally, I think the move will be better for Phil Kessel in the long run. The Leafs don't need a Phil Kessel right now. It would be a different story if they could freeze him and thaw him out in a few years, but this isn't Disneyworld. The Leafs are banking on one of the assets they have acquired or will acquire turn into a player with Kessel's scoring ability.

Hopefully, the charities and organizations that will miss him can find others to fill the void too.

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Very interesting Chris, and I appreciate you taking the time to share.

 

I generally agree, though I don't think I relate the type of person who has generally been in the high-up positions to be necessarily drawn to short-term thinking. I do think there is a fine line between someone who has been successful running large corporations over the long-term and someone who had success with a start-up. Studies have always shown that the person who starts your business should generally not be the person still running as it matures - you need different personalities. I won't pretend to know the background of the people in charge over the last 50 years, but many of them sound more like the enterpreneur type (which would explain why they had time/interest in taking a new job in a completely new field later in life).

 

To me, the simplest explanation might be the best. It is a corporate-owned team. It hasn't always been, though it seems like previous owners were either very corporate in nature, or maybe just completely incompetent. A corporate-owned team tries to be profitable, with winning only being important if/when it contributes to that. Another nature of corporate-owned teams is to avoid significant risks - rebuilding is a risk. Trading valuable assets is a risk. The media represents a lot of risks, which I think relates to why the media in the Toronto hockey world seems to operate with more independence (good and bad) than in other markets. All those behaviours easily go down the line - if the Board doesn't want risk, the GM won't make risky trades or risky picks, the coach won't try new things, the scouts won't try new markets. Mediocrity becomes acceptable and the players know they only have to try 'hard enough'.

 

 

I like what Shanahan has done, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Vetoing your very smart front office is not usually a good idea, as you laid out. But he is also the boss, and part of the boss' job is to take input from all the smart people and make high-level decisions that might be more long-term in nature than you've directed your people to consider. So maybe Shanahan hears Dubas saying that they shouldn't do the deal because they aren't getting enough value, but he accepts "losing" the trade in total value because he's ok with 'extra' losses in the early years for even marginal gains in later years, and he knows from talking to other GMs that this offer is the absolute best he'll get. That's an oversimplification of course, and probably gives more benefit of the doubt to Shanny than he deserves (and I'm sure it gives not enough credit to the complexity of what the other guys do).

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Very interesting Chris, and I appreciate you taking the time to share.

 

I generally agree, though I don't think I relate the type of person who has generally been in the high-up positions to be necessarily drawn to short-term thinking. I do think there is a fine line between someone who has been successful running large corporations over the long-term and someone who had success with a start-up. Studies have always shown that the person who starts your business should generally not be the person still running as it matures - you need different personalities. I won't pretend to know the background of the people in charge over the last 50 years, but many of them sound more like the enterpreneur type (which would explain why they had time/interest in taking a new job in a completely new field later in life).

 

To me, the simplest explanation might be the best. It is a corporate-owned team. It hasn't always been, though it seems like previous owners were either very corporate in nature, or maybe just completely incompetent. A corporate-owned team tries to be profitable, with winning only being important if/when it contributes to that. Another nature of corporate-owned teams is to avoid significant risks - rebuilding is a risk. Trading valuable assets is a risk. The media represents a lot of risks, which I think relates to why the media in the Toronto hockey world seems to operate with more independence (good and bad) than in other markets. All those behaviours easily go down the line - if the Board doesn't want risk, the GM won't make risky trades or risky picks, the coach won't try new things, the scouts won't try new markets. Mediocrity becomes acceptable and the players know they only have to try 'hard enough'.

 

 

I like what Shanahan has done, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Vetoing your very smart front office is not usually a good idea, as you laid out. But he is also the boss, and part of the boss' job is to take input from all the smart people and make high-level decisions that might be more long-term in nature than you've directed your people to consider. So maybe Shanahan hears Dubas saying that they shouldn't do the deal because they aren't getting enough value, but he accepts "losing" the trade in total value because he's ok with 'extra' losses in the early years for even marginal gains in later years, and he knows from talking to other GMs that this offer is the absolute best he'll get. That's an oversimplification of course, and probably gives more benefit of the doubt to Shanny than he deserves (and I'm sure it gives not enough credit to the complexity of what the other guys do).

I agree with your lens on it too, Danny, and I think it actually works into my theory as well. I think that the corporate front office guys are used to understanding what they are doing in business, and having a keen grasp on whatever their field is. But in hockey, they don't. They are fans, like the rest of us, and have opinions that are uneducated at best. But they still have decision making power. So, instead of saying, 'I need to increase the production in my factory, so I'm going to look at a new type of automation that will increase speed by 14% and cut labour costs by 9%', they don't have that expertise. So they hold a board meeting, and tell the GM 'do SOMETHING'. The GM has a tough spot to stand up to the board and say no, so they often do something just for the sake of doing it. And then someone has to undo it.

Just look at the past 5 years.

Clarkson. Signed, and effectively bought out.

Phaneuf: signed last year to a 7 year deal and the team attempted to move him at the deadline in the same year they signed him

Kessel: signed to an 8 yr deal and moved after 1 year.

Carlyle: signed to an extension and then fired a couple of months later.

 

The list goes on and on. But it all points to overreactions in every direction. do SOMETHING. So something gets done.

 

And I agree with you on shanahan. If he overruled on the basis of 'we are going to stay the course on this rebuild no matter what' then that's probably a good thing in the long run. But from a strictly human resources perspective, better he makes his position on something as major as breaking up your core crystal clear to his employees, rather than telling them publicly and privately that he trusts their decisions... and then doesn't.

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It's kind of funny, because Corporate guys generally have a good understanding of long-term planning and strategy. Not often the case with hockey guys. And yet, when you put a corporate guy in charge of a hockey team, he almost throws out so much of what made him a good corporate guy. Like you said, they become a fan. Or, put another way, they think running a hockey team is somehow different than running a busines, probably because the performance of such a small number of employees is so incredibly critical, and because anyone that age has grown up in era where athletes were thought to have all these magical powers to influence results that more often than not, boil down to randomness, or very precise abilities/knowledge that allowed certain geniuses to win consistently despite tiny (or no) edges in ability.

 

Without looking at much evidence at all, I think sports franchises with owners that are involved as little as possible in the decision making process have significantly more success in the long run. You need to let people who understand the game run the team, just like you need to let people who understand business run the business side. Having a board of businesspeople have more than cursory input into the hockey decisions of a team is absurd for the same reason none of these businessmen have Sidney Crosby or Brendan Shanahan or Brian Burke on their goddamn board of directors.

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I agree with a lot of Chris s comments but when the argument is brought up there is a bit of flaw. I have an issue with when we lump in all failures together since 67.

 

There have been a lot of lean years like the 80s and the last 10 years. However this team was fairly successful in the 90s and early 2000s. Making a few deep runs in playoffs.

 

But lot of points are valid that aren't exclusive to Toronto.

 

My theory has always been there has been one constant in Toronto. That's the pressure and the fishbowl. Some players like Gilmour , Sundin thrive in it. Others when pressured have trouble I have seen it time and time again.

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Fwiw I think having an owner like Mario Lemieux can be more cumbersome then having owners that don't understand hockey. It's worked ok with Pittsburgh

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MY opinion has changed and brought me to this point of view (generally speaking):

 

In Fish Bowl markets (Toronto, NY), you need to find the type of player who can handle the media/fans pressure. Toronto is so different from even a town like Boston. I think it is important for a team like Toronto to have a management in place that can encompass this in there management and player personal decisions. You guys know Toronto better than me, but maybe Kessell and company wore down over time to the constant media/fan pressure. They weren't the right type of player for the market. How you determine whether someone is or is not capable is a hard thing to do, I imagine until they actually experience the scrutiny, you can only make a best guess judgement based on there history (not an easy thing to do)

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MY opinion has changed and brought me to this point of view (generally speaking):

 

In Fish Bowl markets (Toronto, NY), you need to find the type of player who can handle the media/fans pressure. Toronto is so different from even a town like Boston. I think it is important for a team like Toronto to have a management in place that can encompass this in there management and player personal decisions. You guys know Toronto better than me, but maybe Kessell and company wore down over time to the constant media/fan pressure. They weren't the right type of player for the market. How you determine whether someone is or is not capable is a hard thing to do, I imagine until they actually experience the scrutiny, you can only make a best guess judgement based on there history (not an easy thing to do)

 

This is bang on. I know players say they ignore papers, radio. But that last year had to take its toll on Kessel. He is human, so much garbage was thrown at him.

 

In my time as a Leaf fan there have been two " successful " teams. Those two were led by two special individuals. Gilmour and Sundin.

 

 

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This is bang on. I know players say they ignore papers, radio. But that last year had to take its toll on Kessel. He is human, so much garbage was thrown at him.

 

In my time as a Leaf fan there have been two " successful " teams. Those two were led by two special individuals. Gilmour and Sundin.

The guy who took it the hardest by far was Phaneuf.
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The guy who took it the hardest by far was Phaneuf.

 

I can imagine. He is the captain and he got shit on the most.

 

 

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Lots of agreement in this thread, though I feel like the organization/management itself has to take a lot of responsibility for what players in their market have to go through. Maybe that means more media training, maybe it means less press availability or better PR, maybe it means a guy like Keasel shouldn't have to sue an idiot like Simmons personally, but have his employer (at the time) have his back. You aren't going to make Toronto not a fishbowl, but I don't see much awareness or help from the org

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ROR arrested

http://thehockeywriters.com/sabres-center-ryan-oreilly-arrested/

 

"Cake and bake shop" lolol

 

 

http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=773017

Yeah! Really excited to take on a leadership role.

 

I have no respect for people who drink and drive. I have been hit twice by drunk drivers. My neck has never been the same plus the memories of what happen I will always remember especially if I get dementia

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Drinking and driving is always a bad decision.

 

I was pretty disappointed when he was traded since he was the best 2 way player on the team. I'm still going to root for him unlike other AVS fans who are currently enjoying the schadenfreude from this DUI.

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