Friday's FTB: Two Potential Leafs Hires

The Leafs lost last night! Shocking! Such an indictment of the coaching and all the things. Luke Haymes got an assist on a goal actually scored by an Islanders' player on his own net, though. There is no lesson here in these games. Nothing to learn, nothing to understand.

If you're looking at the playing roster right now and doing anything but laughing, you are seriously doing it wrong.

Now, the newsish things, and then I did a quick look at the two names in circulation for the Leafs yet to be named job opening.

Insider Trading: Leafs, Devils get permission to speak to Mehta

Gino Reda is joined by TSN Hockey Insiders Pierre LeBrun and Darren Dreger to discuss the competition surrounding GM jobs between the Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, and Nashville Predators, the status of the front office in Vancouver and Detroit, and more on Insider Trading.

TSNTSN.ca Staff

Manny Malhotra, the head coach of the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks, is NHL-ready. So, we could see a coaching change in the off-season in Vancouver.

But again, no decisions have been made by the brass of the Canucks. They’re just continuing to evaluate.

Five notes for the Maple Leafs’ next front office

Everybody has a plan for how to fix the Toronto Maple Leafs, but not all of them are good. Justin Bourne writes about five things Toronto’s next front office should keep in mind when it comes to taking this organization into its next era.

Sportsnet.caJustin Bourne

And now a couple of profiles on prospective hires.

Sunny Mehta

Since we have reporting from Pierre LeBrun that the Leafs and the Devils have asked for and been given permission to talk to Panther's AGM Sunny Mehta, it's a good time for a quick rundown on who he is.

Mehta is 47, and was born in Michigan but grew up in New Jersey. He has a complex and diverse educational background, and after high school, where he played hockey, he went to the University of Miami to study music, and then he moved to New Orleans to play jazz guitar which naturaly led to his transition to a derivatives trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.

Checking again, yes, he's just 47. In between those career poles, he turned his interest in poker into a sojourn in Vegas as a professional player where he met two partners who collaborated on two best-selling books on poker.

His interest in hockey statistics and analysis of game play started as a hobby that involved publishing articles and contributing to the blogsphere of the day. He worked with the Coyotes in 2010 and joined the Devils in 2014 as an analyst for what Wikipedia names the first full time analytics department in the NHL. He worked for the Devils for four seasons.

In 2020, Mehta joined the Panthers as Vice President of Hockey Strategy and Intelligence. Three years later, he was promoted to his current AGM role. He also holds the title of Director of Analytics.

A few things about this resumé stand out to me. First, it's clear that Mehta plays an aggressive game, and he isn't shy about driving the net or going to the dirty areas to get what he wants. But also throughout his career where numbers intersect playing, he's been moved to explain all this, to communicate it, to collaborate with others who want to communicate what they understand.

And the other thing that stands out is that if Mehta wants another try at bringing the Cup to his hometown team, the Leafs don't stand a chance.

I wonder if somewhere there is a blog under some pseudonym where the talks about music?

Mike Gillis

Did you know Adam Pelech is his nephew? Me neither.

LeBrun is also reporting that Mike Gillis is definitely on the list of people the Leafs are talking too. Gillis is 67, from Sudbury, but he played junior hockey in Kingston. He was drafted fifth overall in 1978 by the Colorado Rockies, and he had a six-year NHL career in Colorado and Boston, with some AHL time mixed in. He retired at age 26.

After hockey he coached at Queen's University, where he also went on to get a law degree. In 1990, he became a player agent working alone and largely out of his home in Kingston. Gillis successfully sued the NHLPA's corrupt head Alan Eagleson for stealing part of his disability insurance. We know today the full extent of Eagleson's crimes, but when Gillis sued, he was taking a bold and unprecedented step that got him counter-sued by Eagleson, and made no friends of the NHL establishment.

This, from 2012, is a fantastic look at who Gillis was at the mid-point of his job in Vancouver.

Inside the Mind of Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis - Vancouver Magazine

Like Billy Beane of Moneyball fame, Canucks GM Mike Gillis has taken an unconventional approach to creating a model sports franchise

Vancouver MagazineBruce Dowbiggin

He instituted a host of player-focused reforms in Vancouver, and also changed the focus on finding players – looking for undrafted talent – and emphasizing skill. All of these things, down to the money spent outside the salary cap on the environment the players work and train in are the things we now consider the strengths of the Leafs.

In 2014, just as the Canucks failed to make the playoffs, Gillis was fired.

Gillis signed a contract extension after the 2011-12 season. There were indications last week he and first-year head coach John Tortorella weren't communicating. Gillis seemed to criticize Tortorella's style in a radio interview, saying he wanted the team to get back to the type of game that got it to the 2011 Cup finals.

"I want us to play upbeat, puck possession, move the puck quickly, force teams into mistakes, high-transition game," Gillis said in an interview with the Team 1040. "I think we have the personnel to do it. If we don't have the personnel to do it, they'll be changed.

"That's my vision, that's how I believe you are going to win in the Western Conference and the National Hockey League. If you look at the top teams in the West, there isn't a lot that separates any of the teams in the West, but the top teams play that way. That's the way we played."

What people will remember is that he hired John Tortorella and traded Roberto Luongo and his massive contract while much controversy surrounded both of those situations.

Gillis was consulting with the NHLPA and was in the running to become the new head when current head Marty Walsh was ultimately hired. Gillis left the PA in December of 2023 when his contract was up.

So what stands out to me about Gillis is that he has had an excitingly varied career, even if all of it, or most of it, revolves around hockey. In many ways, he's been defined by the curveballs life has dealt him starting with his early exit from hockey. But he rolled with it, and that's very impressive.

The description of what Gillis was doing to modernize and professionalize the Canucks in 2012 is precisely what Brendan Shanahan brought to the Leafs two years later. I see a lot of similarities between those two men – hockey guys with some maverick traits. Gillis, though, has that reputation as the guy on the wrong side of the argument that hangs over player agents. Right down to claims he caused the 2005 lockout (personally!) because of the contract he negotiated for Bobby Holik.

LeBrun reports that Gillis has said in the past, he wouldn't want a GM job, more of a president's role. Brendan Shanahan's old job, in other words. I don't think that's where this is headed. I did at first, I thought we'd get a Hockey Man - Nerd Man - Hybrid Coach sort of arrangement, but now I'm not so sure that's a given.

Gillis is a guy who is open to change, to new ways of thinking, and will always be a player-first thinker.

And that's all the speculation we have on potential hires so far. There will be more, that seems certain.

Later today is more superficial (aka me being angry) take on Ways of Thinking. And tomorrow is the last HNIC game of the season.