The Maple Leafs never hated to lose like Brendan Shanahan does. They needed a shot of Shanny on the ice

Toronto Star

24-05-2025

The four brawling Shanahan brothers grew up in Mimico raising hell, never turning the other cheek to an insult or declining an invitation to put up their fists.
Brendan Shanahan once told me what advice their feisty Irish mother had imparted to her sons: Never back down from a fight.
It is a wretched irony that the freshly ex-president of the Maple Leafs couldn't ever assemble a team in his own combative image.
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As a player Shanahan literally bled for his teams, a fearless, scrappy and pugnacious power forward who thrilled to the drop of the gloves, from teenager to wizened veteran.
'I hate to lose,'' he has said over and over again.
They didn't hate it enough, these Leafs. Losing, often spectacularly in the short hairs of the playoffs, came far too easily and phlegmatically. It didn't eat at them as it did Shanahan. Which is why, after 11 years at the presidential helm, Shanahan was summoned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley on Thursday afternoon and given his walking papers.
Technically, Shanahan's expiring contract wasn't renewed. In actuality, he was cashiered. Because the can had to be affixed to somebody.
What are you going to do, trade Auston Matthews? Can't. Pack off William Nylander? Can't. Part company with Morgan Rielly? Can't. For some time to come, this Leafs crew will still have Shanahan's fingerprints all over it. More accurately, the DNA injected by former general manager Kyle Dubas, the gospel to which Shanahan, tragically, was an avid convert. Fancy-pants players not like him at all. Cowering players in the crunch.
Are the Leafs a better team for it today? Or when free agency kicks in on July 1 and Mitch Marner probably disappears over the horizon? Or come puck drop on the 2025-26 season?
The braying masses and the keyboard warriors have been appeased. But as Harry Neale used to say: 'If you listen to the fans, you'll end up sitting with them.''
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Over the last three-decades-plus, I've watched marquee hires arrive — big hockey brain people — each with the sterling bona fides to turn this franchise into a Stanley Cup champion again: Cliff Fletcher, Ken Dryden, Brian Burke and Pat Quinn, who didn't have the president title but conducted himself that way.
All banged their heads against the anvil of Maple Leafs futility, though some came closer to the promised land than others, into a conference final. Shanahan never achieved even that much. And I won't reiterate the post-season goobers because you know them.
Nobody wanted it more badly than Shanahan. He dreamed of a Stanley Cup parade. But this was ultimately a fight he couldn't win.
In his time as Leafs supremo, Shanahan fired a whole bunch of people in search of that elixir, that culture shift, that would transform the team from beauties to beasts. He'd been ruthless with his mentor Lou Lamoriello. He'd heeded Dubas over Mark Hunter in the draft. He bought into puck possession and analytics.
If there was a critical mistake in his tenure, it's that Shanahan stuck too long to individuals who actually ill-served the club, from callow Dubas to bully Mike Babcock, to the acquiescent Sheldon Keefe, who was never going to prevail over his intransigent and spoiled rotten stars. It was only stark betrayal and an attempted putsch that caused the scales to drop from Shanahan's eyes with Dubas.
In retrospect — and many said so at the time — Shanahan shouldn't have stayed the course when the Leafs face-planted against the Montreal Canadiens in the opening round of that eerie 2021 post-season when games were played in pandemic-emptied arenas. Choking on a three-games-to-one lead was unforgivable. Yet Shanahan steadfastly maintained that these were cream-of-the-crop players still learning how to win, when what they really demonstrated was that they could find umpteen ways to lose. Run it back and run it back and run it back, plugging holes with budget tatters.
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Teams often taken on the personality of their coaches, so in Craig Berube — Shanahan's choice, in full agreement with GM Brad Treliving — there is hope for the immediate future, especially with cap space opening up; no more cheap pickings on a team where half the money has been invested in five core players. The pity is that Shanahan, always so open with reporters in his decorated playing days, increasingly ducked the gaze, sealing off his own persona, primarily to avoid eclipsing coaches and general managers. The Leafs could have used a shot of Shanny.
Oh, Pelley said all the nice things in his Friday conclave with reporters: 'Yesterday was a difficult and very tough day. Brendan Shanahan is an integral part of Leafs history. In his 11 years here, he accomplished so many incredible things … He's a legend in the hockey world.''
Now get lost.
Most significantly, Pelley — not a hockey guy — looks prepared to go it alone, or with whatever hockey operations hybrid Shanahan has left behind: 'I'm not looking to replace Brendan.''
Masai Ujiri remains in situ as president of the rather lousy Raptors. But, nah, the Leafs don't need a president. Perhaps it's no more complicated than ditching a salary as the leviathan that is Rogers Communications is poised to devour the Leafs.
Or maybe there's nobody who can fill Shanahan's shoes.
Here's looking at you, Brendan.