Confirmed with Link: Maple Leafs & AGM Mark Hunter Part Ways, Effective Immediately

[The CyNick]

That is truly mind blowing logic right there. Lou was never ever going to be the long term GM of this team. It's also pretty clear he wanted no part of sitting on the sidelines so Lou was leaving regardless. Whether the Leafs picked Hunter or Dubas...Lou is looking for a new job so i fail to see how some people are trying to push this on Dubas specifically. Would you be saying the same thing if the Leafs picked Hunter 2 weeks ago and Dubas was already the GM of the Wild now and Lou had just left?

Hunter would have been fine continuing to report to Lou, because he respects Lou. You didn't hear stories about Hunter saying he was leaving if Lou didn't give up his GM spot. Nobody respects the kid, so we've lost top guys in keys positions. Not good.

As for Lou, he wanted to be GM as long as possible. Leafs forced him out because Shanny believes in Dubas above everyone else. All because Dubas talked his ear off for 8 hours over dinner. Troubling times IMO. Let's see where it all goes.

 

[RoadWarrior]

The scouting department made some good moves in his tenure, most all of 2015 (though I've heard Dubas was heavily involved there), Grundstrom, Korshkov, Woll, Rasanen and Gordeev.

Matthews and Liljegren were the hockey gods smiling on us.

But the quest for the hulking defender - Greenway, Mattinen, Middleton, to an extent Rasanen and Gordeev, maybe there's hope for the last two but if the other three were gonna pan out, we would know it by now.

Other picks just didn't work but it happens to everyone.

I think he could do great work as a GM.

I also think the Leafs being successful and exciting, along with the handy ability to print money, means they should be able to find an adequate replacement, if they don't do it internally.

Hunter did seem obesessed with finding the next Chara type defender. Unfortunately guys who are 6’9 that can actually play hockey are in short supply.

They would have done better just drafting pure speed.

At least Hunter got it right in the first rounds.

 

[Brock Radunske]

Twitter

I really didn't think he'd be a sulky baby about this.
Oh well.
NEXT!

 

[ToneDog]

How did he create this mess? Keeping Lou would have resulted in both Dubas and Hunter leaving eventually.

The buck stops at Shanny. It is looking like any move he made would have caused this mess. This crap going down a month before the draft doesn't help. The Wild chose not to rehire Shero and just hired Fenton with a month to go before the draft. Maybe it is not a big deal but it should have been handled better.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Hunter would have been fine continuing to report to Lou, because he respects Lou. You didn't hear stories about Hunter saying he was leaving if Lou didn't give up his GM spot. Nobody respects the kid, so we've lost top guys in keys positions. Not good.

As for Lou, he wanted to be GM as long as possible. Leafs forced him out because Shanny believes in Dubas above everyone else. All because Dubas talked his ear off for 8 hours over dinner. Troubling times IMO. Let's see where it all goes.

Yes it has absolutely nothing to do with the multiple years shanahan has seen of him working for the organization. Definitely was just based off of one dinner 4 years ago. You killed it.

 

[SprDaVE]

Hoffards gone. He’s Hunters right hand guy, and I don’t think Dubas likes those people. Some people may ride out their remaining g contracts, but I’d expect sizeable turnover.

Hopefully Dubas doesn’t turn us into SSM of the NHL and just hire his buddies. If we hire Wes Clark as a head scout I’ll be very pissed. And he’ll prolly hire Carnieo (a SSM scout who is notorious for watching Soccer highlights on his phone at minor midget games) as a scout as he’s been actively promoting him to other teams but Hunter wanted nothing to do with him.

They will replace Hunters role and that person will likely have hire a lot of people he's familiar with... just like Hunter did when he got the job. It's weird that you don't want Dubas or the new director of scouting to do what Hunter did in the first place --- hire people they trust.

Not sure Hofford did himself any favours by getting arrrested for DUI. I didn't even think he'd survive that without being fired.

 

[RoadWarrior]

Hunter would have been fine continuing to report to Lou, because he respects Lou. You didn't hear stories about Hunter saying he was leaving if Lou didn't give up his GM spot. Nobody respects the kid, so we've lost top guys in keys positions. Not good.

As for Lou, he wanted to be GM as long as possible. Leafs forced him out because Shanny believes in Dubas above everyone else. All because Dubas talked his ear off for 8 hours over dinner. Troubling times IMO. Let's see where it all goes.

The leafs had too many cooks in the kitchen and something had to give. Dubas stellar record as GM of the Marlies set him apart as a rising star. Based on the empiracle evidence Shanny made the right choice.

Hunter is a great scout but not without flaws. His drafting record after the second round was poor.

 

[Drew311]

I'm sure both Dubas and Hunter thought they had good shots to become GM. I would imagine Hunter didn't want to answer to an analytical 32 year old GM. Hunter seems like an old school eye test kind of guy, so I have a feeling these two didn't see eye to eye very often.

 

[MyBudJT]

Predictions:

Leafs will hire Ron Francis to be AGM
Leafs will hire Joe Nieuwendyk as Director of Professional Scouting
Leafs will re-assign Morrison back to Director of Amatuer Scouting.

 

[Cor]

The buck stops at Shanny. It is looking like any move he made would have caused this mess. This crap going down a month before the draft doesn't help. The Wild chose not to rehire Shero and just hired Fenton with a month to go before the draft. Maybe it is not a big deal but it should have been handled better.

How?

He notified Lou Lamoriello he was staying with the initial agreement of Lamoriello moving into an advisory role. Something Lou agreed to when he signed his contract.

He the interviewed both Dubas and Hunter, and then notified Hunter he was going with Dubas.

Named Dubas GM.

Allowed Lamoriello to leave for a promotion. (Lou is now essentially doing what Shanny does with the Leafs)

Parted ways with Mark Hunter now, rather than after the draft, to avoid the ongoing speculation and having someone in the front office that didn’t want to be here.


One can say what they will about preferring Hunter as our GM or preferred if Lamoriello stayed as GM, however, this being the road Shanahan went down, it was handled about as good as you can do it.

Dubas and the rest of the team can focus on bringing in another AGM, if not 2, and move forward and run the draft their way.

 

[mikey24]

Big mistake putting Dubas in as GM especially if it cost them Mark Hunter who is a scouting genius. Toronto is the hockey mecca and their GM role is the most important post in hockey (iron throne?. Dubas might have a lot of potential but it's still a huge risk putting in an unproven rookie as GM especially after they've come so far.

Mark Hunter is a HUGE loss and is not replaceable.

 

[deletethis]

I don't like the immediacy of the departure, it almost confirms acrimony, but if that's the way it was going to be with Hunter than bye-bye.

Personally I've been in this hired-as-a-back-up-for-promotion position that Hunter thinks he was in. After the primary choice gets the promotion, it's just human nature that the primary choice makes life for the back up miserable. I tried hard to make it work by being only supportive to the new boss/ex-peer but it just didn't work in the long run. I outlasted the entire department who all left like rats off a sinking ship but in the end couldn't make it work. Best thing anyways, in hindsight that promotion would have killed me.

 

[93LEAFS]

They will replace Hunters role and that person will likely have hire a lot of people he's familiar with... just like Hunter did when he got the job. It's weird that you don't want Dubas or the new director of scouting to do what Hunter did in the first place --- hire people they trust.

Because I think Wes Clark and the SSM people are extremely overrated. With the budget of an NHL team we should be hiring cream of the crop. Not guys who are either hired by bad teams (Wes Clark who we wouldn’t put on the scouting staff two years ago) and Raftis and Carneiro have had no NHL interest what so ever.

I think if these are Dubas’s guys it shows how limited his NHL network is.

 

[4thline]

Up or out, same thing as with our prospects. It would have been nice if he stuck around for another year, but this is the inevitable result of attracting top rising talent- there's not enough room for advancement and team personnel that you've supported and grown attached to will move on to other organizations and succeed. It's the cost of being a topflight organization.

 

[Cor]

Mark Hunter is a HUGE loss and is not replaceable.

Everyone is replaceable.

 

[TheMadHatTrick]

What's Al Murray's contract situation? He's one of the best in the business.

 

[Rob Brown]

Certainly not as early as I did. Yes, once I post something, it tends to get repeated in various circles. So that's why you may think "everyone" saw it coming.

Good month for me.

Yeah the whole world is following you. Are you on TSN yet?

 

[Pi]

Cya later Hunter. It's early to judge his drafts but I haven't really been all that impressed with their picks outside of the obvious ones.

Best pick that was a tough one is probably Travis Dermott.

 

[Brock Radunske]

It'll be interesting to see where he ends up, whether it's London or pursuing another NHL job.

Currently there are no vacant NHL GM jobs so it's likely London while he sits by the phone hoping it will ring.
Not a smart decision IMO. He'd be better off running the Marlies and get noticed within the NHL circles.

 

[kindalaidback]

well, color me surprised.

i think hunter leaving was inevitable, even though i'm not quite sure yet whether it's the right move for this team. we gotta wait and see.

 

[deletethis]

Predictions:

Leafs will hire Ron Francis to be AGM
Leafs will hire Joe Nieuwendyk as Director of Professional Scouting
Leafs will re-assign Morrison back to Director of Amatuer Scouting.

Morrison is like a radiation resistant roach.

 

[The CyNick]

We have 5 different director of scouting for different regions. Pro, US, EU, East and West. I'm not going to pretend to know how those meetings and evaluations work, but I think we'll be just fine in terms of putting things in a sheet and making sure they are well organized and ranked.

Jim Paliafito is still around and his Player Evaluation title is still there. He might get a promotion there.

Its chaos if you don't have one guy making final calls who has a strong background in scouting and a track record of identifying talent in that age group. Hunter had that in spades. Now you'll have each region trying to convince Shanny that their list is superior. I would be tempted to trade every pick we have this year.

 

[Rob Brown]

The buck stops at Shanny. It is looking like any move he made would have caused this mess. This crap going down a month before the draft doesn't help. The Wild chose not to rehire Shero and just hired Fenton with a month to go before the draft. Maybe it is not a big deal but it should have been handled better.

The best thing he could have done is wait until the draft to change anything, but we don't know what kind of internal communication or politics there were. Maybe Dubas had an offer to leave and they had to act quick?

 

[Liminality]

Hunter would have been fine continuing to report to Lou, because he respects Lou. You didn't hear stories about Hunter saying he was leaving if Lou didn't give up his GM spot. Nobody respects the kid, so we've lost top guys in keys positions. Not good.

As for Lou, he wanted to be GM as long as possible. Leafs forced him out because Shanny believes in Dubas above everyone else. All because Dubas talked his ear off for 8 hours over dinner. Troubling times IMO. Let's see where it all goes.

Do you have a thing against younger people? It seems like that's your only go to for hating on Dubas. You have posted no facts yet you talk as if you're Hunter himself.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Because I think Wes Clark and the SSM people are extremely overrated. With the budget of an NHL team we should be hiring cream of the crop. Not guys who are either hired by bad teams (Wes Clark who we wouldn’t put on the scouting staff two years ago) and Raftis and Carneiro have had no NHL interest what so ever.

I think if these are Dubas’s guys it shows how limited his NHL network is.

I think it is silly and honestly a waste of time to get upset about the idea that he might hire people that you personally don't like. Maybe just take a step back and wait to criticize his hires until 1) they actually happen and 2) they actually do anything tangible to criticize.