Brendan Shanahan blocked trades that Kyle Dubas wanted to make

When a team has a formula involving a president of field hockey operations and a GM, it opens the door to friction. After all, one is above the other.

In Montreal, for example- ah no: officially, Jeff Gorton is a VP, not a president.

Anyway, the point is this. All this to say that at the Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan is the president and Kyle Dubas was the GM. He was, in fact, the fourth GM to work under Shanahan.

And clearly, Shanahan was getting away with it. After all, as you can read on The Athletic, the Maple Leafs president sometimes blocked trades his GM wanted to make.

And it could have changed the club’s playoff run.

According to some sources, he also imposed certain transactions on his GM in order, in his opinion, to move the club forward. Dubas didn’t always agree with his boss, of course.

What’s interesting in all this is that Shanahan liked the format in the first place. After all, he’s the boss, and he was the one who decided what was going on in broad strokes.

But you’d have to think Dubas wasn’t comfortable – and that justified his hesitation at this week’s press conference.

Because he had to take the blame for his boss

‘

s calls . Because he probably felt a little taken. Because he probably didn’t like being told what to do

.

There’s a rumor that Dubas was asking for carte blanche on his next contract – in addition to the money. It makes sense considering the facts we’ve just discussed… and it forces us to wonder if he’ll want to be the #1 field hockey operations guy in a future job.

Remember that it was this week that Shanahan decided to change direction and fire the team. Did this happen in response to Dubas’ demands? Logically, yes.

We’ll probably never know what really justified the change.

ProlongationIt

forces me to wonder about what’s going to happen next. Why do you wonder? Because Shanahan said that an experienced GM would probably be prioritized next.

Will a veteran want to be vetted? The question arises.