Just a couple weeks after removing Lou Lamoriello from the job and placing Lou in an advisory role with the organization, the Toronto Maple Leafs have named Kyle Dubas as their new general manager. The 32-year-old was a front-runner for the job and will take over the highly-touted position as one of the most famous GM’s in all of hockey. He was hired by alternate governor Brendan Shanahan as an assistant GM in 2014 and Shanahan made the announcement on Friday, May 11, 2018, that Dubas was being promoted again.
Brendan Shanahan, President and Alternate Governor of the @MapleLeafs, announced today that Kyle Dubas has been named the 17th General Manager in the Club’s history. #TMLtalk
— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) May 11, 2018
Dubas has been the GM of the Leafs before, but when he first had the job in 2015, it was on a limited basis and lasted only three months. He’ll be an extremely young GM in terms of NHL standards but being a young GM is nothing new to Dubas who was a former GM of the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds at the age of 25.
Dubas has been able to ascend to such heights rapidly because of his background and willingness to adopt hockey analysis and statistics in his work. He was one of the first major hires based almost exclusively off of that track record and this season, the Leafs were a very strong team before being eliminated in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.
Dubas won’t have much time to settle in. With some very big contracts that require extensions and some changes needed on the blue line for the Maple Leafs, he will have his hands full and his first summer as GM is an important one.
The Leafs are always rumored to be big-game hunting as well and it will be interesting to see if the temptation to go after free agents like John Carlson or John Tavares is too much to resist now that Dubas is at the top of the food chain in terms of signings and trades.
