The Toronto Maple Leafs are tearing up their front office, and Ryan Hardy just landed a bigger job because of it.
According to a report on Monday, the Leafs pushed through a wave of hockey operations changes across scouting, medical staff and player personnel.
Hardy moves from Assistant General Manager of Minor League Ops and GM of the Toronto Marlies into a full Assistant General Manager role overseeing Front Office and Hockey Operations.
Reid Mitchell gets bumped to Senior Director, Hockey Operations, while Will Sibley shifts into Assistant Director, Player Personnel.
The scouting department got the biggest injection of new blood. Brad Rossen joins as Vice President of Research and Development, with Dan Palango added as Director of Amateur Scouting.
JP Perpich comes in as Director of U.S. Scouting, and Doug Gasper takes over as Head of Canada West Amateur Scouting.
Paul Mara joins as a pro scout. Darren Ritchie, an amateur scout, is out.
Leafs also overhaul medical staff and Marlies pipeline
On the medical side, Dr. Noah Forman is removed as Medical Director and Head Team Physician. Dr. David Lawrence steps in as Primary Care Sports Medicine Physician.
Diana Raposo gets promoted to Senior Manager, Hockey Operations and Office Operations. Adam Bears, the team's technology lead, is gone.
Down on the Marlies, Chris Bourque moves from Assistant General Manager into Head of College Recruitment while staying on as Assistant General Manager for the farm team. Denver Manderson goes from Marlies assistant coach to Director of Minor League Development, keeping his bench role too.
This is what a bad season looks like when it finally catches up to an organization. Toronto finished 32-36-14 for 78 points, good for 28th overall, and closed the year on a seven-game slide.
A goal differential of minus-46 doesn't happen by accident. It happens when the infrastructure behind the bench stops matching the ambition in front of it.
New head coach Jim Hiller was hired back on June 17. Now he's inheriting a completely restructured operations staff before he's coached a single game.
Is this a hockey department fixing itself, or a front office throwing bodies at a problem it hasn't diagnosed? Toronto fans have been asking that question for years.
-
Nobody in this league gets a rebuild handed to them with a bow on it. The Leafs just bet an entire department can be rebuilt faster than a roster can.
Will this front office overhaul actually fix the Maple Leafs, or is it just noise?
Also read on Markerzone.com:
Maple Leafs bring back a forward familiar to the organization on a PTO
