Not so long ago, the Maple Leafs wanted to use their fists to lift the franchise back to contention.
They got big, and wanted to be bigger. And truculent. Led the league in fighting.
Oh my, how things have changed.
This weekend’s NHL draft illustrated how differently the organization is thinking under the leadership of Brendan Shanahan, Mark Hunter and Kyle Dubas than it did when Brian Burke and Dave Nonis were in charge.
The Leafs started the draft by going small with London Knights forward Mitch Marner at No. 4 overall, a marvellously skilled youngster who desperately wanted to play for his hometown Leafs. NHL Central Scouting lists him at five-foot-11 and 160 pounds, and that bureau’s boss, Danny Marr, is a stickler for accuracy on such things.
That said, Marner said himself at the end of OHL playoffs he was more like 150 pounds. The Leafs hope he will be Patrick Kane and he might be. Lean and light and shifty.
...
When you combine the selections of Marner and Bracco, highly skilled players who won’t be punching anybody in the face anytime soon, it’s symbolic of the type of thinking that’s suddenly popular in the Leaf front office.
Compare that to the L.A. Kings, a team with two recent sets of Stanley Cup rings, who added yet more heft in winger Milan Lucic from Boston, then picked four prospects who measured 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 and 6-6.
Six of the Leafs’ nine picks, meanwhile, were under six feet. After Marner and Bracco, they added flashy Dmytro Timashov from the Quebec Remparts, who might be even smaller than Bracco.
These, Toronto’s and L.A.’s, are very different approaches.
Right now, we just don’t know exactly where being different will take the Leafs, a team that was the only one at the draft that didn’t have a general manager. Dubas was the point man for trades, and the Leafs made a few, including one to acquire defenceman Martin Marincin from Edmonton, while Hunter made the calls on the draft picks.
It is noteworthy that Marner plays for the Knights, partly owned by Hunter. A cynic might raise a Spockian eyebrow at that potential conflict, which only adds another layer of pressure on Marner to be the star player the Leafs need him to be. The club hasn’t drafted one in a long, long time, not surprising for a team that drafted Luke Richardson ahead of Joe Sakic in 1987. The two best Leaf picks since, Alex Steen and Tuukka Rask, were traded away and turned into top-flight NHLers for other teams, so the need for Marner to be an elite NHL scorer for the Leafs is substantial.
If it doesn’t work, you’ll hear rumbles that Hunter was blinded by his London connections. That just makes it more complicated, just as it always seems a little more complicated in Toronto compared to other places.
Edmonton, meanwhile, moved forward smartly with the drafting of Connor McDavid and the acquisition of defencemen Griffin Reinhart and Eric Gryba, and GM Peter Chiarelli got a new goalie in ex-Ranger Cam Talbot for a reasonable price.
...
And the Leafs? What are their intentions? Well, they’re still clearing payroll, or trying to, and establishing new priorities. The “pain” that Mike Babcock talked about when he was hired is going to be real, and we’re only just starting to see the faint outlines of what this team intends to be three or four years down the road.
Problem is, as the extraordinarily fast shift from muscle to finesse over the past two years demonstrates, change happens quickly with the Leafs, but then is often superseded by more change very soon after.
Sticking to the plan is always the challenge. When you add Marner and Bracco and Timashov to the drafting of five-foot-11 Swedish forward William Nylander eighth overall last year and the presence of five-foot-11 forward Connor Brown as the top prospect on the AHL Marlies, there is clearly a directive in play here.
Six-footers need not apply (just kidding).
But will it last? You have to ask that before you can even ask whether it will work.
