Are John Chayka and Mats Sundin the right answers to Leafs’ management problem?
It’s been over two weeks since the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ season ended, and they’re still trying to figure out what their front office is going to look like for the future.
The team has been trying to figure out a way to bring Hockey Hall of Famer and former Leafs captain Mats Sundin in to help turn the ship around. However, the bigger question is who will fill the hole left behind by Brad Treliving as the Maple Leafs’ new general manager.
There have been a few options that Toronto is reportedly interested in, including former Arizona Coyotes GM John Chayka. While he had a checkered history with the Coyotes and was banned by the NHL for a few years, there are some who honestly believe he deserves a second chance.
On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss if a team of Chayka and Sundin could be the right tandem to push the Leafs in the right direction.
David Pagnotta: From what I’ve always gathered from Mats, there’s no screwing around with him. He’s not coming in here to be a figurehead. He’s not coming in here to be a poster boy. He’s coming in to instill his vision of what this franchise needs to accomplish. A lot of that will revolve off the ice as well, but he’s not just coming in here to shake hands and kiss babies. This was important to him, making sure that message is put across. If this does come to the finish line and he is hired officially, he’ll address that when he speaks with the media.
He’s going to be hands-on with a number of changes that occur. The roster itself, the day-to-day, will be that of the GMs, which is effectively, as of now, believed to be John Chayka. He’s going to bring in other individuals, certainly, to round out his front office and, again, make changes on that front. But this plan, whatever this plan is, it’s going to have to be relayed to the public, to a certain degree…whatever moves are going to have to be made are going to be that of getting this team back to playoff contention next season.
He was put in a difficult situation in Arizona in terms of constructing a roster. They had no cash flow…He gets a lot of shit for what happened with the draft stuff and all of that, and deservedly so at the time. But over the course of the last five, eight years, you’ve got to imagine that, and you would hope, that a lot has been learned from those steps.
26-year-old kid coming in as GM, going to be 37 in June, with all of his business experience, with all of the hockey tactics behind him from an analytical perspective, that’s what Toronto wanted, but they also wanted to marry the data and the eye test.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…