Is Lou Lamoriello as good as Maple Leafs fans remember? – Hockey Writer – Maple Leafs History

*Originally published following the 2019-20 season

With the Toronto Maple Leafs once again out of the playoff picture, it's the analysts' job to review the season with and for the fans. One way to address fans' concerns is to invite them to respond or vent about the events of the 2019-20 season. I read these “mailbag” articles with great interest.

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There is a group of Maple Leafs fans who strongly dislike the path that president Brendan Shanahan, former general manager Kyle Dubas and head coach Sheldon Keefe have taken for the franchise. Those fans were critical of management's philosophy of building a team for Canada's largest city and one of Canada's largest hockey markets. I don’t know how big this group is, but I do know they are speaking out (via Mailbag: Fire Shanahan? Fire Dubas? Trade Nylander? Readers have all the answers on how to fix the Maple Leafs, toronto star, August 21, 2020).

A redundant criticism is that the team's management is second-rate compared to former general manager Lou Lamoriello. In this article, I will consider Lamoriello's career with the team and see if they are correct.

Two things: First, I didn't follow Lamoriello's tenure with the team very closely, certainly not as closely as I do now, who write about the Maple Leafs almost every day. Secondly, I am a fan of Dubas and like the concept of team building. I found hockey exciting and logistically it made sense to me.

With those caveats in mind, I'm going to look back at the history of iconic general managers of the New Jersey Devils, Maple Leafs, and now the New York Islanders. He’s an older guy, about my age – which I like – and he’s been around hockey for a long time.

Lamoriello's time with the New Jersey Devils

Lamoriello became the Devils' general manager in 1987 and held the position until 2015. (30 seasons as general manager of the Maple Leafs) and Art Rose (30 seasons as general manager of the Boston Bruins) have longer tenures

When Lamoriello took over the Devils, the team was never competitive. They were the Colorado Rockies and before that the Kansas City Scouts before moving to New Jersey for the 1982-83 season. Over time, Lamoriello turned the Devils into one of the most successful teams in the NHL.

Starting in 1988, the Devils regularly made the Stanley Cup playoffs. In fact, from 1988 to 2012, they made the playoffs in all but three seasons. In those five Finals, they won the Stanley Cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003. Serves as team president) and becomes the 16th general manager of the Maple Leafs.

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During his time in New Jersey, Lamoriello developed a reputation for identifying talent, keeping the team financially sound and encouraging player loyalty. He found Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur's 20^th Drafted in the first round of the 1990 NHL Draft with No. 51, Patrik Elias^Yingshi Overall pick in the 1994 NHL Draft.

Broad (except for seven games with the St. Louis Blues in 2014-15) and Elias have remained with the Devils their entire careers. We know Broad's career path, and he often signed below-market deals with the Devils. Elias spent 20 NHL seasons with the Devils and was the team leader in points, goals, assists, single-season highs (96 points) and game-winning goals (79). After the great Jaromir Jagr, he is the second-leading Czech player in career NHL scoring.

Lamoriello’s time with the Maple Leafs

In 2014, Hockey Hall of Famer Shanahan was named Chairman and Alternate Governor of the Maple Leafs. He and Lamoriello have a history. Lamoriello drafts Shanahan 2^ND overall pick in the 1987 NHL Draft. Shanahan played four seasons with the Devils before signing a four-year deal with the Blues as a restricted free agent in 1991. Compensation for losing Shanahan.

Shanahan apparently remembers Lamoriello well enough that he invited him to join the Toronto staff when the longtime Devils general manager was “cut” in New Jersey. In 2015, one year after Shanahan started with the Maple Leafs, Lamoriello joined him as general manager. The work continued until the Maple Leafs were defeated by the Boston Bruins in the 2018 playoffs in April.

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At the time, Shanahan announced that Lamoriello would not return as general manager but would remain with the team as a senior advisor, and that when Lamoriello was hired in 2015, the plan was to make him the general manager. Three years. Shanahan decided to stick with the plan.

During his time with the Maple Leafs, Lamoriello helped Shanahan rebuild a team that made the playoffs in a decade. In his final two seasons as general manager, the team made the playoffs twice. Hiring and then firing Lamoriello showed that Shanahan could be just as mentally tough as Lamoriello. This is the only position in Lamoriello's tenure as an NHL executive in which he did not have the final say over hockey operations.

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At the end of May 2018, the New York Islanders hired him as president of hockey operations. By June, he fired former general manager Garth Snow and then-head coach Doug Weight. He named himself general manager and hired Barry Trotz, fresh off a Stanley Cup win, as head coach of the Washington Capitals.

The rest is history. The Maple Leafs lost in the qualifying round for this year's playoffs, while the Islanders are still alive. There's no question that the Islanders' on-ice product has improved since Lamoriello became the Islanders' general manager.

What do you think of Lamoriello’s time with the Maple Leafs?

You either love Lamoriello or you don’t. His time with the Maple Leafs was tumultuous. Known as a savvy salary negotiator in New Jersey, he signed Nikita Zaitsev to a long-term contract worth $4.5 million that runs through the 2023-24 season. The Maple Leafs traded that contract to the Ottawa Senators and had to accept a similar $4.5 million contract for Cody Sage, which is now expiring. That trade also cost Connor Brown, who had a great year with the Senators.

Lamoriello also signed Patrick Marleau for $6.25 million. In June 2019, Dubas gave up the contract with the Carolina Hurricanes and lost a first-round draft pick as a result.

Many also believe he could have negotiated with Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and William Nylander, who might have had lower deals at the time. He also gave Matthews the bonus he denied Marner. I wonder if Marner's unwillingness to sign anyone less than Matthews is a result of this differential treatment. One can never know these things, but logic supports the idea.

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Finally, Lamoriello signed winger Matt Martin for $2.5 million per season for four seasons, and Martin had never had a 20-point season in his career. He's a great player, but is he worth his contract? He didn't stay with the team long.

In fact, many of the salary cap issues the Maple Leafs are facing now stem from the contract Lamoriello signed. You could argue he was a great general manager over his long career, but it's hard to argue he was great in Toronto.

The verdict? Lamoriello turned around the Maple Leafs franchise. However, some of the problems the team is facing now are the result of his poor decisions. At this point, he's probably like many other NHL general managers.