Maple Leafs Team President Brendan Shanahan and GM David Nonis hinted prior to the start of the regular season that they would add another piece to their management group. On Tuesday, they did just that with the addition of Mark Hunter as the club’s Director of Player Personnel.
The 51-year-old Hunter played in the NHL from 1981 to 1993 with Montreal, Calgary, St. Louis, Hartford and Washington, had previous connection with the Leafs organization, as head coach of their AHL affiliate in St. John’s for the 1996-97 season and has been part owner(with brother Dale) GM and part of the coaching staff of the OHL’s London Knights the last 12 years.
“I am very excited about joining the Toronto Maple Leafs organization,” Hunter said in a Leafs press release. “I am grateful for the opportunity that has been given to me by Brendan Shanahan, David Nonis and the entire management team. I would like to thank the London Knights organization for 12 great years. I am looking forward to the start of a new chapter in Toronto.”
Over the summer, the Leafs hired former Soo Greyhounds GM Kyle Dubas and capologist Brandon Pridham after firing assistants Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle. Dubas has been put in charge of the club’s new analytics department and of the AHL Toronto Marlies. Hunter appears to be replacing Poulin as the overseer of pro scouting, amateur scouting and player evaluation departments.
There are plenty of connections between Toronto and the Knights, with Shanahan as an alumnus(as well as current players Nazem Kadri and minor leaguer Ryan Rupert) and the Leafs holding three of their last four rookie tournaments in London.
Hunter taking an NHL job feeds into speculation that the family may soon be selling the very profitable OHL franchise and that Dale(who coached the Washington Capitals for most of the 2011-12 season) may have NHL aspirations as well.
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The Leafs take on the NY Islanders at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on Tuesday. Toronto's first visit to Long Island is the first of a pair of road games on back-to-back nights, as the club will play in Ottawa against the division rival Senators on Wednesday.
There are not expected to be any lineup changes from the group that played on Saturday, as Jonathan Bernier will get his second straight start in goal and rookie defenseman Stuart Percy will be a healthy scratch.
The Isles suffered a 3-1 loss of the season to Pittsburgh on Saturday, ending a four game win streak to begin the year. Ex-Leaf Nikolay Kulemin will play against his former team for the first time after signing a free agent deal with New York over the summer, but linemate Mikhail Grabovski will not be available due to concussion issues after being floored by San Jose's John Scott last week.
The game will also feature former junior teammates and Nazem Kadri and John Tavares. The 24-year-olds played on the same line with the OHL's London Knights in 2009 before being selected in the top 10 of the NHL Draft(Tavares 1st overall, Kadri six picks later).
Tavares is considered among the best forwards in the game and has successfully recovered from a knee injury suffered in the Sochi Olympics to lead his club to a 4-1 record, while Kadri continues to struggle with consistency after the lockout shortened 2013 season which he scored at near a point-per-game pace.
In spite of their being a wide gulf between the career tracks of the two forwards, the Leafs center believes that he has it within him to achieve the career heights of his former line mate.
“I think talent-wise there’s not too much difference, to be honest,” Kadri said to Sportsnet's
Michael Grange . “Johnny’s a guy that works hard and that’s something he’s learned from Day 1, so I’m getting my work ethic going and doing everything I can to be one of those players.”
Tavares is tied for the NHL scoring lead with nine points early in the season, while Kadri has two goals in six games, saw 2:19 TOI in the third period of Friday night's 4-1 loss to Detroit after being on the ice for two Wings goals in the first 40 minutes.
“I would say (Nazem)’s got areas in which he can improve on.” Leafs coach Randy Carlyle said in reference to his young center. “He’s a young player who has to play a little bit more of a North-South game versus an East-West game, but his skills do allow him to create time and space by himself, so you can’t take that away from him. He’s a tremendously confident young man.”
It's admirable and perhaps necessary for professional athletes to possess a higher level of confidence in their abilities, but at a certain point they must back it up with results.
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