Go back a few days, maybe weeks, and we were all busy with the draft and it may have slipped by unnoticed that the Leafs Vice President of Media Relations left the team. He'd been there for a long time. They've been doing fine though, running smooth media availabilities, using zoom when necessary. It all looked good.

However, yesterday was a communications failure, and I am on record as very not into the weird social media habit of meta-analysis of PR strategies of various corporations. But this one failed.

It all trickled out in reports. That Darryl Metcalf was gone, that the analytics department would be revamped, that the scouting department was losing its head, and look, all of this is okay. That's the thing. This team has failed in a multifaceted way, and the new management is new with a capital N. There should be some changes. Not least because the fading days of the Dubas era saw a ballooning of the executive ranks and Treliving added, never subtracting.

But get out there and be upfront with people. Take, for example, a lesson from the Ottawa Senators. You don't want to find yourself, John Chayka, being told that, but here you are. When Daniel Alfredsson was going to leave they did the whole thing correctly. They let him interview, they didn't leak anything, and they said friendly and sensible things when the hiring was announced.

You know who is big in hockey like Alfie is big, like Mats is big? Haley Wickenheiser, that's who. So, no, you don't want a meaningless statement released to the press because they've got some of the names of people who are moving out.

Only to be followed by Wickenheiser announcing her own departure. This is not a serious professional approach.

And then the silent website update.

Now it's a free-for-all of rumours about more changes.

And the coverage isn't very favourable: Maple Leafs fire Hayley Wickenheiser amid front office purge

The serious revamp began with the hiring of Judd Brackett, who was heading up the scouting prior to the draft. In his post-draft discussion with the media, he makes some interesting remarks. While he says he was welcomed warmly by everyone, he also mentions "challenging conversations" at least twice.

Now Dave Morrison and Mark Leach are gone from the scouting department. Brad Treliving hired Leach when Kyle Dubas poached Wes Clark, the co-architect of the Dubas drafting years.

Last year's draft vs this year's is interesting to compare, though, more in terms of perception than any massive change in ideology. The 2025 draft had no picks above the third round, and this year's had six second and third rounders taken. That alone will make it feel different.

And we, of course, can't know who decided what between Brad Treliving, John Chayka, Mark Leach and Judd Brackett in these two drafts. Playing the game of assigning a draft a good/bad label and hanging it on one person is a time honoured pastime, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously.

There is, however, a difference in the very late-round picks. Last year featured four fifth- to seventh-round selections: William Belle, a player coming late to hockey whose chief attribute is size, a wasted pick on Matthew Hlacar, along with two "upside" picks in Harry Nansi and Rylan Fellinger. This year featured a data and scouting driven pick in Yaroslav Fedoseyev, a guy who needs to develop more physically in Cooper Williams and Brody Pepoy, one of the "weasels" who doesn't act tough like Hlacar, he merely plays hard.

How much difference will that really make down the road? Well the choice of Belle as a project has looked less interesting than he did on draft day with a fun backstory, but Nansi has done the rapid improvement he needed to do – an insight given to us by Wickenheiser. Judging the most recent draftees is an exercise for August, but there are just so many more prospects this year taken higher up and Gavin McKenna will cast a warm glow on everything. It's not really possible to know if these are good moves or not. Which is likely why we'll all be left to judge how poorly done it all was and is.

It's more likely these changes around scouting and development are about more closely integrating data and evidence-based decision making into the scouting process. No one wants to re-fight their fundamental philosophy in every meeting. I am reminded of Chris MacFarland, who is busy renovating the Nashville front office now, saying that he likes it best when the analytics and the scouts disagree because when they work together to discover the truth, they all make better decisions. The working together has to be there. Maybe it wasn't.

But when the entire analytics department is gone – or nearly – there is either a massive hiring spree to come or they're contracting out. So yes, there has to be more to come.

The Leafs already have slid back to the silly old method of announcing player contracts with notices full of no useful information so we wait 15 minutes to learn the AAV and the clauses. Give out the facts, simply, directly and clearly. Before it's on Insta.

Like this:

Speaking of PR and things of that nature:

In other news, the AHL has released their schedule. Remember that AHL hockey is now exclusively on FloHockey if you want to watch next season not in person.

That is it for today. Or until the next revelation.

From The Branches