It was a transitional year for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their leadership group, at all levels.
When the year began, John Tavares was wearing the ‘C’, Sheldon Keefe was manning the bench, and Brendan Shanahan was calling the shots from the C-suite. As 2024 comes to a close, Auston Matthews is now the captain, Craig Berube is the head coach, and Keith Pelley is the man in charge of the operations.
In some ways, things have remained mostly status quo as the players who have had letters have maintained them over the past 12 months. In other ways, there is a different style of approach on the leadership front that puts the Leafs on a different long-term trajectory.
And that is all fans have been clamouring for: trying something different instead of pushing the same old approach that has led to failure.
John Tavares hands the ‘C’ off to Auston Matthews
When it comes to the captaincy, the Leafs made a calculated gamble by transferring the captaincy from Tavares to Matthews while the former is still under contract. It would have been easy to let Tavares finish out his deal, let him go off to greener pastures, and open up the path for Matthews to take on the role uncontested.
Instead, general manager Brad Treliving and company felt that the right call was to make this change with the two players still together. Their rationale was that this was a natural succession plan and that Matthews was destined to become the captain at some point. Tavares could have let pride get in the way of making this a seamless transition because of the distinction that comes with being the Leafs’ captain, but he showed true leadership by his humility in stepping out of the way and recognizing that the time is right to let the younger superstar get his opportunity donning the ‘C’.
“John took the role very seriously. He loves and loved being the captain of the Maple Leafs. He understood the responsibility and the weight that comes with that,” Treliving said on how Tavares handled giving up the captaincy. “But he is also aware of what Auston is becoming, what he has become, and where he sits within the team. We had lots of conversations about it. It couldn’t have been handled any better from John’s perspective. In these situations, you always say, “It was handled great,” but it was really handled great by John. He recognized where I was coming from.”
Of course, Matthews and Tavares are not the only ones who are providing leadership for the group. Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly have long worn the ‘A’ on their sweaters and have been through all of the highs and lows of this era of the Leafs, while playing at a high level. Players such as William Nylander, Jake McCabe, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson provide their own form of leadership through their actions on the ice and their ability to control the play. Even seasoned veterans like Chris Tanev and Max Pacioretty have seen it all in their careers and bring that calming presence with the wisdom of what they have experienced over the years.
It is a collective effort from the players who bring that leadership to help inspire the role players to pick up the slack and contribute to the cohesive unit. But there is no denying that having Matthews leading the way on the leadership front is in the best interest of the Leafs moving forward especially with him being their MVP. Look no further than how he celebrated after scoring the OT winner against the New Jersey Devils.
The appointment of Berube
The players’ leadership can only take you so far, which is why having a great leader behind the bench plays an important role in the team’s overall success. Suffice it to say that bringing in Berube to replace Keefe has been a breath of fresh air, not just in tactics but also in his coaching style.
Keefe was excellent at getting the Leafs to strong regular-season showings, as evidenced by posting the best winning percentage of any coach in franchise history. To Keefe’s credit, he understood what style was required to get his team to be effective in the playoffs. The issue is that he never adapted to playoff hockey accordingly, and his lack of adjustments resulted in only one series win in his tenure behind the bench.
This is partly why Berube was brought in to take over as head coach: he has preached predictability and getting the Leafs to implement a playstyle that is more successful in the postseason. By all accounts, he has a good sense of which buttons to press and understands when it is appropriate to give his players an earful. Then again, the players should know where they stand because he is a no-nonsense coach who makes it clear what he wants and sets the standard that he expects his players to follow.
It has no doubt taken some time for the players to get comfortable with playing a north-south type of hockey compared to the east-west of Keefe. Some players have made the transition seamless (Tavares), while others have needed some time to get up to speed (Nick Robertson). The ones that can’t hang are put on the outside, and they won’t get back in the mix unless they figure it out.
In essence, it is the exact type of coach that the Leafs need at this stage of their development. The Leafs know they are good enough to make the playoffs and can play effective hockey during the regular season as noted by their superstars putting up superstar numbers. But the core is entering make-or-break territory and the time is now to change their ways to implement a playstyle that is better suited for the postseason.
Berube has begun the process of getting comfortable in tight-checking games which will become the norm in the spring when each mistake gets magnified. While it remains to be seen if this will actually translate into results in the playoffs, there is no denying that Berube is moving this team in the right direction and the early returns are promising.
The dawn of the Keith Pelley era
The leadership at the top of Leafs management saw a major change when Keith Pelley joined the fray as the CEO of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) on April 2.
It was the type of appointment that drew parallels to when Tim Leiweke was brought in 2013, who helped spark major changes across the board including the hiring of Shanahan. While the Leafs’ president has done a lot of good for the team over the years in making them a more consistent team that has had some success, he remains lacking in the playoffs with only one series win in the nine years he has been with the organization.
Bringing in Pelley was seen as a changing of the guard while also putting pressure on everyone to get moving in the right direction or else bigger changes are coming. But it also has led to a moment of symmetry between all layers of the key leadership roles on the team that has not been felt in quite some time. He has noted on numerous occasions the chemistry he is seeing from the Leafs which is why things have gone well for the team so far.
“People ask me how the Leafs are different this year, and I say culture and chemistry is the right ‘Double C.’ It makes a difference,” Pelley said via Sportsnet’s Caroline Cameron at the PrimeTime Sports Management Conference on November 12th. “We, right now, have what I call the perfect triangle [with] the Toronto Maple Leafs. I have no idea what happened over the last 10 years, [but] I know that culture, I know that chemistry is there [now]. That [became clear] when I really observed Brendan Shanahan and Brad Treliving, and I looked at the chemistry they had, and it was phenomenal. The chemistry wasn’t quite there with the previous head coach, so after the season we brought in Craig Berube to that triangle of chemistry.”
The arrival of Pelley was not the only major change in leadership at MLSE, as Rogers bought Bell’s shares of the company back in September to make the telecommunications company the sole owner of the Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, and Toronto Argos. While there have been criticisms of the ownership style they have done with the Toronto Blue Jays, there are certainly benefits of having the teams collectively moving in a singular direction without butting heads in the boardroom.
Going into 2025
As mentioned earlier, there are some ways that the leadership of the Leafs has remained relatively similar at the end of 2024 compared to when the year began. The core group of players have not broken up despite plenty of calls for a shakeup, Shanahan and Treliving are still calling the shots, and Rogers is still an owner of MLSE.
But there have certainly been some notable adjustments that change the way the Leafs are being led. Matthews being the captain is the natural order of growth in his development and it is hard to argue that now wasn’t the right time given how he has handled the new responsibilities. The appointment of Berube has provided a different element in how the players are coached which has led to different expectations of what can be achieved when it matters. The arrival of Pelley and the takeover by Rogers means there is more cohesion at the top which seems to be trickling down the food chain to all aspects of the operations.
There is no way to tell at the time of filing if this is going to lead to success in the spring because that is what fans will judge this new direction on. Rightly or wrongly, this is the reality of a city that has been starving for their hockey club to achieve glory for the first time in nearly six decades. But if they end up being the ones that hoist the Stanley Cup in roughly six months time, one of the reasons will be the adjustments made in the leadership of the Leafs.
