The Maple Leafs, one of hockey’s wealthiest teams, promoted a bright young executive and signed an NHL superstar.
The New York Islanders, a vagabond organization without a permanent home, landed one of the great team builders in NHL history and set out to build a team.
Those events happened over a period of about seven weeks in the spring of 2018, and have largely defined the path of the Leafs and Isles ever since.
Just not in the way most expected.
The Leafs chose whiz kid Kyle Dubas, then 32, over 75-year-old Lou Lamoriello to be their general manager in mid-May 2018, a difficult decision for team president Brendan Shanahan. Lamoriello, a Hall of Fame executive, was quickly snapped up by the Islanders, and weeks later he hired head coach Barry Trotz, who had guided the Washington Capitals to the 2018 Stanley Cup but had been unable to reach an agreement on a pay raise.
On July 1 of that year, the Leafs lured centre John Tavares away from the Isles as a free agent for $77 million (U.S.). At the time, Toronto seemed to be on the rise, while the loss of Tavares and the struggles of the Islanders to locate a permanent home rink indicated they were Eastern Conference clubs heading in very different directions. Long Island seemed like the NHL’s hinterland.
The Leafs, with elite prospects such as Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, had solid reasons to believe they had the brighter future. Instead, they have regressed and been unable to win a playoff series under Dubas, while the hard-nosed Islanders suddenly appear to be a serious Stanley Cup threat.
Lamoriello’s team, which had missed the playoffs two straight seasons before he arrived, won only its second playoff series in 25 years by sweeping Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins last year. This summer, the Isles eliminated Florida in the qualifying series and now are on the verge of eliminating Trotz’s old team, the Capitals.
Mathew Barzal scored a gorgeous overtime winner on Sunday to give the Isles a 2-1 victory and a 3-0 series lead. The Isles, with ex-Leafs Leo Komarov and Matt Martin in the lineup, can eliminate Alexander Ovechkin and the Capitals on Tuesday.
Comparing the Leafs and Islanders since Lamoriello’s departure is a compelling example of how experience and a belief in team over individuals can still provide a template for winning in the NHL’s salary-cap era. The highest-paid Islander is winger Anders Lee, who makes $7 million per season and took over as captain after Tavares bolted for Toronto. The Leafs have four forwards making more than Lee.
Lamoriello, disappointed when he couldn’t convince Tavares to stay, has done what he did in New Jersey for years: preach that the name on the front of the jersey is more important than the one on the back while developing a purposeful, no-excuses, defence-minded team capable of winning in the playoffs.
In Toronto, Lamoriello didn’t quite seem to be on the same wave length at all times with head coach Mike Babcock, who had been hired by Shanahan and came from Detroit with his own beliefs about how a winning team should play. But with complete authority on Long Island, and with a veteran coach in Trotz who shares his philosophies, Lamoriello has produced a physical team that resembles his former Devils a lot more than the Leafs ever did.
In Game 1 against the Capitals, Lee knocked Nicklas Backstrom out of the series with a questionable hit, then answered the bell later in the game by fighting defenceman John Carlson and feared Washington heavyweight Tom Wilson. Lee lost that fight, but the Isles won the game and set the kind of physical tone that many Leaf fans have been demanding for several seasons and again this spring when the team was eliminated by Columbus.
It’s an ongoing debate in Toronto, whether Shanahan erred in choosing Dubas over Lamoriello and embracing an unorthodox style that preaches puck possession, offence and an almost complete absence of physical play. Dubas also made Tavares captain despite a lack of a proven playoff track record, fired Babcock, made a poor trade that sent Nazem Kadri to Colorado and brought in a rookie coach, Sheldon Keefe, to guide a very inexperienced team.
Shanahan believed Dubas’s youth meant the Leafs had to choose him over Lamoriello or risk losing him to another team. It was, in essence, a long-term decision. The short-term gain, however, has been mostly realized by the Islanders, who are on the verge of making it to the second round for the second straight season with some excellent young players in Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier, a sturdy blue line and recycled goaltender Semyon Varlamov.
Loading…
Loading…Loading…Loading…Loading…Loading…
There’s a spirit and industriousness about the Islanders, reminiscent in some ways of the resourceful Nashville teams coached by Trotz for many years. The team has broken ground on a new home in Belmont Park, set to open for the 2021-22 season, and has more stability as an organization than they’ve had in years.
Trotz is poised to taste sweet victory over the Caps, while Lamoriello — treated as yesterday’s man by the Devils and the Leafs — enjoys the pure, sublime satisfaction that personal vindication brings.
