LEAFS NOTES: Experiencing a long-distance draft, and a new job for Rick Vaive

National Post

25-06-2025

The Maple Leafs' first 2025 draft pick, whoever he is and which day of the draft he is announced, likely will be 4,000 kilometres away from his new team when chosen.
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But Toronto's hockey department, working out of their Ford Performance Centre office this Friday and Saturday, won't be alone with any separation anxiety in this de-centralized draft. Most other teams will be at home bases, while 100 or so prospects are gathered with commissioner Gary Bettman at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
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While Leafs amateur scouting director Mark Leach told the Toronto Sun last week that things should go smoothly, given 'COVID' drafts in 2020 and 2021 had to be virtual, all teams and the viewing public will have to manage some technical challenges of being scattered across the continent.
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'We thought this would be simpler, and it's actually become way more complicated,' Steve Mayer, league president of content and events, told the Associated Press this week as he monitored the L.A. set. 'Everything has to be spot on. It was so much easier when you can look at (draft) table No. 6 and they were making their pick.'
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The first 32 players will be chosen Friday night. Toronto's first-round pick is owned by Chicago from the Jake McCabe trade two years ago, meaning it won't pick Friday unless trading up, and is currently up 64th at the end of Saturday's second round.
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SAINTLY REVIVAL FOR RICK
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In the 1980s, Rick Vaive and other Leafs were familiar with coach John Brophy's stark description of being sent down the QEW in St. Catharines with the American Hockey League Saints.
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'It's 75 miles to get there and 75,000 miles back,' the late Brophy would direly warn the players, hoping to motivate them to fight harder for jobs with the parent team.
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Now it's the 66-year-old Vaive who will be coaching where Brophy once did in St. Kitts, with the newly created senior Saints of the Allan Cup Hockey League. This will be a more player-friendly, a five-team league with roster ages in the late 20s and early 30s.
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Vaive has been bitten by the coaching bug again. After AHL and ECHL jobs, the one-time Leafs captain last ran a bench in 2001 with the OHL's Mississauga IceDogs.
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'This just came up and I remembered how I loved doing it,' Vaive said. 'I'm starting from scratch, but I still love working with players. They have day jobs and we'll practice just once a week. And it could lead to something else for me, who knows.'
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Vaive was impressed with St. Catharines owner Pat Smith's plans to renovate Bill Burgoyne Arena, which currently holds close to 1,000 spectators, and his plans to recruit local Niagara Peninsula hockey talent at October's training camp. Vaive, who lives in the area, agrees his NHL fame won't hurt in attracting other free agents.