Toronto Maple Leafs make organizational 180°, firing Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle and hiring progressive executive Kyle Dubas

For years, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been the NHL’s last greatest bastion against the slow infiltration of hockey analytics. Under first Brian Burke and more recently Dave Nonis, the team has made it abundantly clear through both word and action that it has no time or use for numbers in making decisions.

The team’s record under this strategy has not furthered that cause.

So on Tuesday the Toronto Maple Leafs decided to try something different. Assistant general managers Claude Loiselle and Dave Poulin were both shown the door. Hired in place of one was 28-year-old Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds general manager Kyle Dubas:

#TMLtalk news: #Leafs name Kyle Dubas Assistant General Manager http://t.co/vhx3SMquSG #NHL

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) July 22, 2014

The #Leafs also announce the departures of Dave Poulin and Claude Loiselle. #TMLtalk

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) July 22, 2014

The Maple Leafs’ official press release gives a thumbnail sketch of how such a young executive now finds himself in a senior role with the NHL’s flagship franchise:

The 28-year old Dubas, a native of Sault Ste. Marie, learned the ins and outs of the hockey business through his hometown Greyhounds, first as a hockey operations assistant at the age of 14 after his playing career ended, and then later as a scout for the club while enrolled at Brock University’s Sports Management Program… Upon graduation, Dubas became the youngest player agent certified by the National Hockey League Players’ Association with Uptown Sports Management and was actively involved in recruiting and advising players at the major junior, collegiate and pro level while representing players in their contract negotiations with NHL and AHL clubs.

It’s an incredible track record, one virtually unparalleled in hockey circles.

Dubas has been the general manager of the Greyhounds for three seasons. When he took over the team in the summer of 2011, it had bottomed out with 56 points. The club has progressively improved, jumping from 56 to 64 to 78 and finally last season to 95 points. It’s been a remarkable turnaround.

Dubas was praised by Nonis in the Leafs’ release for his work ethic and character, and certainly nobody could have accomplished what he has so quickly without those traits. He’s also demonstrated old fashioned courage in some of his decisions; notably in bringing aboard Sheldon Keefe as Sault Ste. Marie’s head coach. But he’s also embraced analytics as an OHL manager, and embraces hockey’s new statistics in a way that is distinctly out of character for many major league executives, let alone for someone in a senior position in Toronto’s front office.

That’s in stark contrast to his predecessors. Loiselle and Poulin, while clearly respected in hockey circles (to the degree that both names have often been associated with vacant G.M. positions) clearly had a different management philosophy. For example, from our profile of Poulin in May:

[I]t’s clear that he doesn’t understand score effects, which is a pretty basic concept that anyone who works in an NHL front office should get. There is a long track record of Poulin saying interesting things on the radio, but the best example of Poulin’s comments not making a lot of sense is probably that Brownscombe interview linked above. Poulin (inaccurately) asserted in that piece that there is a big difference between scoring chances and shot totals, (problematically) praised the chemistry of Tyler Bozak and Phil Kessel, downplayed the strength of the Western Conference (the West won 55 percent of its games against the East in 2013-14) and just for good measure mentioned that he expected David Clarkson and Dave Bolland to help the Leafs with their possession problems but that Mikhail Grabovski wasn’t a good fit for the team.

It’s hard not to see the fingerprints of new Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan on this move. It’s been a summer of sweeping change behind the scenes in Toronto, first with significant alterations made to the team’s coaching staff and now with the front office overhaul. To date, G.M. Nonis and head coach Randy Carlyle have survived these changes, but it’s difficult to imagine that they are the parties instigating them.

It’s a bold new direction being plotted by Shanahan, and it’s going to make the Leafs a fascinating team to watch in coming seasons.