SIMMONS: One on one with Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan – Toronto Sun

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If his job is on the line, and it might be as he enters his eighth season as president of the Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan doesn’t show it.

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Like fans, like his aging mother, like those who live and die with the Leafs, the new hockey season can’t start soon enough for him. He’s ready and he’s not looking back. This is how he chooses to operate. This is the only way he knows. Going forward, straight ahead, the way he played the game.

He understands the market and the fan base. And he can’t wait to see what comes next.

“I’ve felt pressure from Day 1 on the job,” Shanahan said in a lengthy, wide-ranging interview in his Bay Street office. “I welcome pressure.

“There’s never been a time in any job I’ve ever had where I didn’t feel pressure. I’m attracted to jobs with pressure. I don’t think I’d like to have a job without pressure and urgency. You can look back now, three-four years ago, when we were building things up, you felt that urgency every day. I still feel it. It’s part of the job.”

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This is really unlike any time in Maple Leafs history. This team with talent has yet to experience any kind of playoff success under Shanahan. There have been next to no fans in the Scotiabank Arena in 18 months. The level of angst and anger and cynicism within hockey’s largest and most rabid fan base from afar is at an all-time high, which by itself represents some kind of all-time low. There are questions and then more questions about the Leafs and Shanahan understands the frustration, feels it himself, says his players have never been more determined after the playoff collapse against the Montreal Canadiens.

“We haven’t gotten over the hump and we understand that,” said Shanahan. “And I sympathize with our fans. For the last year and a half, you go into an arena and there are no fans, no positive feedback from people attending games, it’s an empty feeling. You can feed off that sometimes. We only get our feedback through media and social media. And that can be damaging.

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“This is our world. If you want to talk about the Leafs or politics or cooking or gardening or anything, you’re not getting a balanced conversation. It’s difficult not to walk away and feel bad (after that). I think our players are hopeful and optimistic that we will have our fans back. I think everybody feels, whether you’re a player or a fan or an owner or you work in management, it’s something you need right now. The way we’re getting our information, there is just not enough one-on-one contact since the pandemic.

“The feeling the fans have exists within our players and our dressing room. There is an anger, even at themselves, and anger might be the wrong word, but there is a sort of determination to get the job done. That’s what I feel heading into camp.”

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The external pressure isn’t just on Shanahan — it’s on general manager Kyle Dubas as well and on his chosen coach, Sheldon Keefe. Partly by circumstance and partly by the strangling economics of COVID-19, the Leafs have been boxed in salary-wise since the pandemic began. Whatever plans Dubas might have had after signing Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander long-term, the $40 Million Four, were frozen by a stagnant salary cap.

“Right before the league shut down in 2020, there was a general managers’ meeting and the prediction at the time was, the salary cap was going to go up $4-to-$6 million that year and the following year, with a new television contract coming in, the cap was expected to go up even more,” said Shanahan. “Suddenly the pandemic happens and all of us had to make new plans. Every team had to pivot in some way. Every team had to make decisions it probably wouldn’t have had to make had it not happened, but that’s sports. You come up with a plan, things change, you change your plans.

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“We’re happy that (big four) were locked up. We believe in those players. We feel we’re fortunate to have them. I’ve watched the development of the players, Mitch killing penalties, Auston’s two-way game. It’s not just those four guys. I’ve seen our team do a lot of things (since Keefe took over) that historically winning teams need to do.

“We need to improve. The important thing is that those things that Sheldon demanded from them get better. Even though it didn’t get results in Games 5-6-7 against Montreal, those are vital team-building blocks. Look at Mitch. He became an elite defensive player and still finished Top 5 in scoring. Auston led the league in goals and plays a great all-around game. They can be strong players and still be among the top offensive players.

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“What we can’t do is get frustrated now. We can’t discard the plan. We can’t go on our own as individuals. We have to continue on this course and I think the players are absolutely driven to get this done here in Toronto.”

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Of all the players who have taken heat in the off-season, none have been singled out as much as Marner, the first Leaf forward to be voted a first-team all-star since Frank Mahovlich in 1963. He is among the most talented and most ostracized of all Toronto players. And that bothers Shanahan.

“I look at a guy like Mitch, who from the moment he could put on skates, he was saying he wanted to be a Maple Leaf,” said Shanahan. “He’s a great teammate, a great two-way player, is an elite all-star who will likely be an Olympian, and all he wants to do is deliver here in Toronto.

“Yeah, he’s disappointed and frustrated. We all are. That reflects the mood of the entire team.”

If Shanahan was a fan of Dubas when he hired him eight years ago and promoted him to GM three seasons back, he is more of a fan today.

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“I’ve witnessed his growth from the day he got here,” said Shanahan. “I’ve been with him a long time. I’m privy to information every day, watching him grow and evolve, watching how he views the game. In the beginning, people wanted to put him in a certain little box, as someone who only saw the game through numbers, but I can tell you he is as much of a pure hockey guy as you will find.”

There is little indication from the inside that Dubas’ job is on the line this season, which would be the narrative from outside the offices of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.

Shanahan is also a large fan of the work Keefe does as coach. He thinks the public will have a better view of Keefe’s work after watching the upcoming documentary All or Nothing. The indications are that Keefe is one of the stars of the show. “I think people will see what a great young coach he is.”

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So with a great top-heavy roster, a great GM, a great coach, maybe a great team president, how is it the Leafs have yet to win a playoff series under Shanahan, then Dubas, now Keefe. This won’t, necessarily, be an easy season in Toronto. The Leafs return to the Atlantic Division, which includes the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, the perennial contending Boston Bruins, the emerging Florida Panthers and the finalists from Montreal.

“I think that’s something we welcome,” said Shanahan. “If you want to be an elite team, you have to beat elite teams. I don’t think it’s productive to look back (at overtime games) and see what didn’t happen. We can’t do that. We can’t get sucked in or drawn into that. We can’t be excuse-making. But at the same time, we can’t be so emotional.

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“I think emotion is great. I think emotional decisions are not.”

When he talks about the Leafs, Shanahan likes to reference the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs and teams that had historically long runs without championships. One of his daughters was born in Boston during the NHL lockout as the Red Sox were about to win the World Series. The feeling of that time, sporting-wise, has never left him.

“I don’t want to make this about me but I was born in 1969,” he said. “You’ve seen a Stanley Cup here. I haven’t. There’s a whole generation of people who haven’t won here. I get the feeling. I get the angst. I also truly believe in staying focused on the task at hand and not losing your grip on that.

“We know the ultimate judgment for this team will come in the playoffs. But we have to know and understand that the playoffs start with a great off-season, with a great training camp, with a great regular season. If we take our eyes off that today, we will be in trouble in the future.”

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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