Pierre LeBrun

I think it's pretty clear that we're headed for multiple hires, which is noteworthy.

Keith Pelley referred to head of hockey ops pretty often as opposed to just saying GM, which I think probably means we're heading for a president of hockey ops and a GM.

Not 100%, but when I asked him that, he was certainly ready for me.

He broke down how many teams in the league only had a GM versus president of hockey and GM versus the two different gigs.

He had all the data right in front of him when I asked him about the potential structure of the Leafs.

I still think when you listened to him today, it sounded to me like multiple hires, which, frankly, is the way to go.

I mean, I think it was a mistake not to replace Brendan Shanahan last year.

Yeah, I mean, oh, I mean, I would say this.

I mean, he certainly doesn't seem to want to close any doors, which is what you want.

I mean, you don't want someone to go into this with preconceived notions of what he needs specifically.

Like, I think it sounds to me like this is going to be quite a wide net being thrown here, that he wants to talk to a lot of different people before making up his mind.

Yeah, how many people are capable of doing this job?

But...

Well, no, this is it.

I mean, so the last time that the Leafs hired a GM, they didn't talk to that many people.

I mean, Brad Treliving was hired.

Brandon Shannon also talked to Mark Bergevin, among a few others, but it's a pretty tight circle.

This sounds like it's going to be a lot more people than that that have discussions with MLSC, and ultimately we'll see where they end up on the other side of that in terms of a two-person approach or multiple hires, like I said.

And at the end of the day, the retool versus rebuild question is going to be answered by Austin Matthews more than anyone else.

Let's be real.