Former Maple Leafs Exec. Reuniting with Dubas in Pittsburgh

According to NHL insider Elliotte Friedman, former Toronto assistant GM Brandon Pridham is joining the Pittsburgh Penguins as a Hockey Operations Consultant. Friedman reports, “He will handle the contract, cap management and planning responsibilities formerly held by Vukie Mpofu, who recently departed for Nashville. Pridham will also mentor junior…”

Pridhma left the Maple Leafs when new GM John Chayka took over, amid a series of changes in the organization’s front office.

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Pridham and Dubas Reuniting

Pridham and Dubas actually go all the way back to 2014. He was first hired as a special assistant to the general manager in the same summer that Kyle Dubas was originally hired as assistant general manager under Dave Nonis. He was one of Brendan Shanahan’s first notable hires as team president, overseeing the analytics department through the transition from Nonis to Lou Lamoriello.

When Dubas got promoted to Toronto’s GM job in 2018, he brought Pridham up with him. The two worked closely together for four seasons. Pridham then took over Dubas’s old assistant GM job when Dubas was promoted in 2018, and held that role for the next eight seasons.

Pridham became a major factor in the extensions of Auston Matthews and William Nylander, the signing of John Tavares, and the decision not to extend Mitch Marner — all of which heavily shaped the Leafs’ roster during and after the Dubas and Brad Treliving eras. By the time he left this spring, Pridham was considered one of the last remaining cogs from the Dubas era still in Toronto’s front office. He had become known as a bit of a cap guru, even though some will argue to this day that the Maple Leafs botched the extensions of their core four.

The history between Dubas and Pridhman means that no one should be surprised that Pittsburgh is hiring him. Dubas already knows firsthand how Pridham operates on cap strategy and contract structuring, since he essentially built that partnership himself in Toronto.

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