Kyle Dubas isn’t waiting around. The Toronto Maple Leafs new GM announced yesterday that Brandon Pridham had been promoted to Assistant General Manager, and today added another AGM to the front office. The Maple Leafs have hired Laurence Gilman, who will take over Dubas’ old duties as GM of the Toronto Marlies and managing the organization’s player development. Dubas had this to say about his newest hire:
Laurence provides terrific experience to our management team. His 20-plus years in the NHL have seen him manage nearly every type of department in professional hockey and have success doing so. Adding Laurence to our front office and having him work alongside Brandon Pridham as an Assistant General Manager gives our program great depth and breadth of knowledge across all areas of hockey operations. We feel very fortunate to have both Brandon and Laurence as key parts of our executive team.
Gilman was expected by many to become the next commissioner of the ECHL, but will instead join the Maple Leafs and bring with him a wealth of hockey knowledge. A former AGM with the Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes organizations, the last few years he’s spent consulting in various ways around the league. Just last year he was part of the committee that developed the expansion draft rules, and then–as Scott Wheeler of The Athletic points out–helped the Vegas Golden Knights hone their draft strategy in both the expansion and entry events.
Along with Pridham, the Maple Leafs now employ two of the people who may know the Collective Bargaining Agreement best. Both executives helped design the latest agreement, and should be extremely helpful to Dubas as he takes over as one of the youngest GMs in history. While there is still not exact replacement for Mark Hunter as a “scouting guru,” there is plenty of hockey experience in the Maple Leafs’ front office.
hopefully the leafs can convince the league they are an expansion club and Gilman can help them get further in the playoffs lol