"Leafing The Old Ways Behind" or "Two Heads Are Better Than One"

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ search for a new General Manager continued today despite the recent announcement by Doug Armstrong that he would be helping out in St. Lou-eey.

 

One can assume they'll continue to line up the necessary interviews and prepare waivers indicating that, if they do [accept the position], they will quickly dispense with any notions of actually doing anything useful without full buy-in from Toronto City Hall.

 

Toronto can never be allowed to win the Stanley Cup. The city fathers, and anyone who’s lived there for a significant period of time, knows that if they did, the ensuing celebration and riot would make Chechnya look like a pizza party.

 

Loyal Leafs fans are so hungry for another cup they would most likely reduce Yonge Street to a 50-block trench of rubble and beer if the Leafs were to go all the way. In fact, there is little doubt in the Mayor’s mind that some residents might actually lose their lives.

 

The good news is, there seems to be a trend sweeping the hockey nation; one that the Leafs may take advantage of. It is the new approach of hiring two GMs to manage a team. This is a stroke of genius that, if it becomes widely practiced, could change the face (and underpants) of professional hockey— for the better.

 

The New York Islanders were almost on to this innovative approach when they instituted the Garth Snow era.

 

While another would concentrate on the business of crafting those long-term contracts, Snow would be the hockey savvy personality who could face the media and defend giving Rick De Pietro a contract longer than a third degree murder sentence. However, they missed the team bus when they reportedly decided to run the operation by committee.

 

Thus, the Islanders floundered in 2007, because no one could agree on a definitive strategy, except for the brilliant hiring of Ted Nolan. (There's a dirty rumor that alleges the Islanders' "brain trust" is still trying to agree on the price of slushies)

 

There's also evidence that the Blues are looking at this  Co-GM tactic, if only as a “What-If,” scenario.

 

The Dallas Stars seem to have stumbled on this approach early by naming Brett Hull and Les Jackson Co-GMs. Whether this "style meets substance" chemistry leads to overall franchise success remains to be seen, but it frees up some time for Hully to throw back a few beers with players and continue promoting “FUN-osity”.

 

The fact that Hull knows more about hockey than the entire state of Texas makes his job of facing the media a tad easier than taking a leak.

 

Hull’s old teammate Joe Nieuwendyk has been rumored to be courting “some position” with the Leafs. Nieuwendyk, a three time Cup winner is, as Wayne Gretzky once called him, “a winner" and sharp enough to be able to face the much more formidable hockey jockeys of Toronto. (Although he'd better stay clear of hockey debates in his home town of Whitby, because those usually end up instigating RCMP involvement.)

 

It’s mere speculation, but Nieuwendyk could handle the PR side like Hull, while a bean counting, corporate nerd “dots the T’s and crosses the I’s.”  

 

No matter whom the Leafs hire, they will not be sanctioned to do anything that could seriously bring them the Stanley Cup. Not without the city being pre-fogged with a megalopolis-sized Valium Bomb.  

 

Until then, they will have to continue ignoring top Toronto-based hockey talent that develops right under their noses, signing deals with players who have had one “lucky” season, and sending their good players to Spadina Street to eat tainted pork.