Former NHL President’s POV on Leafs’ GM Change | Kyper & Bourne

What do you think of this today? Brendan Shanahan's comments on the step-by-step negotiation from last September to where we are today. I guess I found it quite strange, but first of all, I think there is one thing you need to understand. when you're uh, a guy once told me that when you put your hand in a bucket of water and the hole that's left there when you pull it out is how indispensable you are and when you're a general manager in the NHL and your team just got beat and You go up to the podium and say you're not sure you want work happening in the world and especially one as good as the Toronto Maple Leaf work, so when I heard him say that the other day, it won a while I didn't know if I wanted to come back.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and I understand the pressure of the job I understand how hard it is not to say that when you just got beat in front of your players and everyone in your organization you just don't say it and Brendan basically said today he

change

d his mind when he heard that You know that, so it doesn't surprise me. I mean, what do you say? And then you come. I go back and say no I really want the job and this is what I want as a salary no it doesn't work sorry well actually guys who work for the job yeah well the other part Doug you mentioned the first one part, but I mean, I really want the job was the third part, the second part about presenting a new offer and you know, we said that Brendan thought it would be close to the vest, but he just wanted to clarify all the details from his point of view and it sounded like at that time, when he returned to where he was an agent, he made a representative anyway with a new proposal that that was the day that music really died, yes, 100 percent gratitude to your

president

or your owner, it's a different negotiation and Gordon, you know, you know you're not like a coaching negotiation, it's not like an amateur scouting director negotiation or a player negotiation, they're supposed to be a team and they're supposed to have a good feeling and a good vibe as to what the parameters are and where we're going here and you know he made an offer early and Martin didn't say he made it, they started talking in March, yeah, so to me you don't know, but let me give you a bit. story here 10 years ago I got a call from a friend of mine saying that Kyle Dubis wants to have lunch with me.

I told him right after you found out that when I worked for Sportsnet, Kyle Davis was the general manager in Sault Ste Marie, so you wanted to meet me for lunch because I have lunch with him, so I did. I didn't know the boy had never met him before in my life and he talked to me and said he wanted to talk to me because he felt his owners in Sault Ste Marie were ready to fire him and he wanted advice from me on how to deal with his owners when his job is at stake and he knew I had a lot of experience with that, so I talked to him, I mean, we spent an hour and a half with him.

I spent an hour and a half with him and talked to him about strategies to try to work with his owners and make sure he survived as best he could and that was 10 years ago or a lot, maybe a little more than that and it was Greg Millen, who he was sitting with me in the meeting because they were friends at the time, so you know this isn't this, this isn't just new, this is when you're a GM in the NHL and your team is just you. Do you think your players want to hear that? I'm not sure if I really want to go back.

I know I understand the stress and the pressure and everything that comes with it, but you can't say that to your fan base and your owners and everyone else, you can think about it, you can say it to your boss one on one, but you don't say it on the phone. Press conference. I guarantee he sends the wrong message, so you know what I like, Kyle. I think he's done a decent job, I mean, he's been told for 10 years or less. I guess you can't build a winner when you have $45 million invested in four players. How many times has that been said?

Not good. enough goaltending not a good enough blue line not enough depth guys because it's incredibly difficult to do and that's what he tried to do three different times with a different group and it didn't work out a lot of times because he didn't. didn't have a good enough goalie, we're talking to Doug McLean,

former

NHL

president

, general manager and head coach, Mack Brendan Shanahan, look at him, he's a Hall of Famer, Stanley Cup champion, he hasn't done a lot of things in his life, you know, I have. have gone wrong or sideways, if you go back almost 10 years ago, he goes and finds Kyle dubis Gord articulate before, you know how that relationship started, he's at the beginning of his term as president, he goes out of his way, man, he's a It's a really amazing moment where you would have this guy cold call him, you would hire this guy when no one else would touch him with a 10 foot pole nine years later, come to this, how would Brendan Shanahan feel right now?

Well, you know what I think, I think he would be disappointed because I mean, obviously, he has to respect and like Kyle Doofus a lot and that's what usually happens when you're in the trenches with someone for a long time, yeah, guys are fired but still stay. folks, but I'll tell you what I really believe, the comment at the press conference through Brendan to Luke, like I heard from Kenny Holland the other day, who has a few Stanley Cups and I heard him talk about how devastated he was. losing how devastated his players were to lose and we're going to go hard and try to make this work we're going to work today the players are going to work today I'm going to work today we're going to go and we're going to work hard and try to figure this out, that was their message, it wasn't a message that came out of Toronto, so yeah, Brandon would be disappointed, but Brendan is a guy who's been around the Stanley Cup winners in Detroit. guys who would walk through the wall and want to hear it when they heard those comments the other day.

I can not believe it. I think there's room for a loop. I really believe it. I think it was a factor and today I think it was more of a factor than a negotiation but maybe I'm wrong so maybe I'm wrong okay so Doug the other thing and you know as well as anyone I talked to earlier with Kipper and Sammy about it, okay, we know there are serious ramifications to everything. manipulation, but people know very well what's going on, so, you know, a lot of people talked to Kyle that as an unrestricted free agent, he would basically be a hot commodity, um and um, what do you think about What did your mind feel like?

Although he said he wasn't going to appear anywhere else, he just wanted to stay in Toronto, but the figure he felt he would get somewhere else was that it suddenly occurred to him that I'm going to try to figure this out and get that figure here and it was counterproductive, well, I think I think so, I think so and you know, I mean, listen, I guess you know that maybe Pittsburgh has talked, you know there have been conversations, I don't know. I know Kyle, but I guarantee his agents talk to people. I don't know who he's talked to or, but he certainly has a vibe, but you know, this is the Toronto Maples, this is the best hockey city, one of the best. hockey cities in the world and an organization with a history.

I know they haven't won. I get all this, yeah, but, yeah, but it's still the Toronto Maple Leafs and I mean, yeah, it's exciting if you want to go to Pittsburgh and just do a total 100 rebuild with Malkin, you've got four bigs there but it's 40. 35 a 40. big difference, that's a big rebuild, it's a tough job and you know, maybe he wants to do that, I don't know, but me and You know, no, no, I think he really wanted to stay and get caught. I think he gets hot at the end of the day. I really do.