Leafs Front Office 2026-27
- Thread starter herman
- Start date
herman
Well-known member
I hate this team.
Nice to hear Morgan's thoughts since he was the go-to (only?) media guy covering the Coyotes during that time. If people want to debate Chayka's track record as a GM in regards to picks and trades and whatnot that's fine, but I still maintain that the other controversies around him were largely overblown in hindsight and Morgan seems to agree.
Sure, all teams have some data info and scouts/advisors who weigh in. I posted about the Leafs data on this site about 20 years ago because I got to see some of it and how it was collected. But someone has to take all that in and make the final decision in the heat of the trade deadline. If the GM knows little about all the players involved and has to rely totally on data, opinions and scouting reports - from staff/advisors he doesn't know well, etc, then the scouts, AGM and staff probably should be making the decision - or knowledgeable posters on the internet might be better
. A guy out of the league for 17 years isn't going to know his adversaries very well either. All of that is hard enough to assimilate for a GM who has bee around for the last 17 yearsThe notion of Sundin being a GM out the gate was crazy talk.
herman
Well-known member
Yeah. A lot of it sounds like smear because he didn’t kowtow to the NHL elders properly. At the same time, if the name is instantly disrespected by peers right out of the gate, how is that profitable for MLSE?
I get it but I mean this is going to be a hard spin job. I think this is going to kill any lingering feeling of goodwill the fans have if Chayka is hired and Sundin is automatically VPOHO while being largely absent from the team and league for a very long time.
Their first move, presumably deciding Berube's fate, will really set the tone.
mr grieves
Well-known member
That’s exactly what should be debated here, no? I don’t like that the controversial stuff seems to be getting in the way of a full vetting of his actual track record as a GM. I don’t much care if his departure from the Coyotes was overblown or not if he’s a mediocre manager.
I'm a little taken aback that this is the best they could do (if this is in fact what they're doing). That might be a little unfair to Chayka as maybe he has learned from his mistakes or they were overblown or whatever. But as Burke put it, this is "the Vatican" -> they should be able to attract great candidates with fewer blemishes or question marks on their resume. I suppose 32 teams dilute the management talent available.
I'm a fan so I'll be pulling for whoever gets picked.
We are not a party to this so we have no way of knowing what the actual facts are.
One option a manager always has is to do nothing or something related or different from the obvious. For example: maybe Pridham-Hardy remain interim for a while with Sundin as POHO. Or maybe Chayka's interim. If they can't find the right candidate to commit to now, maybe they test drive something to mark time rather than hand out the 5 year pass to a GM they're not 100% sold on. With the crossroads they are at with Matthews, that might make the most sense. Put a short term team together to get them the playoff revenue for Matthews last season they seem to want in a short term retooling effort and then hand the reins off later to someone for the rebuild (that I sincerely doubt Matthews will want to hang around for).
Yeah I think everyone kind of feels this way and that's probably warranted. But even prior to this process starting none of the names being thrown around in the media for potential GMs seemed like slam dunk certain things. I look at all the names being interviewed/considered for the other openings around the league (Vancouver and Nashville right now) and none of them seem all that appealing either. Mehta was probably the brightest name available and him going to New Jersey was unfortunately a sure thing basically. Mike Gillis was my "star" candidate for two Leafs openings now but that's hardly an opinion shared widely.
I know people are just going to say "it's the Leafs they should just poach another GM", well the Athletic reported that they requested and were denied access to at least one current NHL GM (my guess Tulsky). So I don't really think that route is as easy as people think/hope.
You're probably right about 32 teams dilluting talent a little bit. Especially since it's not just 32 GMs out there: there's multiple Presidents, every team has 2-3-4 assistant GMs doing their own things. So I mean the answer to "is this the best they could do" might just simply be: yeah. Again it's not like there's a universally considered star GM candidate just waiting around that the Leafs haven't considered.
edit: it's crazy for me to say this but Kevyn Adams seemingly not being given much thought is probably the biggest miss