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Friedman: Maple Leafs eying Mike Gillis as potential candidate to be next GM
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Apr 1, 2026, 06:00 EDTUpdated: Mar 31, 2026, 19:48 EDT
The Toronto Maple Leafs are reportedly eyeing Mike Gillis as a potential candidate to be the team’s next GM, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
“One of the names that is kind of floating around because they’re interested in what he did in his past job I think potentially is Mike Gillis,” Friedman said during an appearance on The Fan Hockey Show on Tuesday. “That’s a name that they have kind of looked at and I can see why. He took a team that was really struggling and took them to the edge of the Stanley Cup Final. I don’t know that it’s gonna be Mike Gillis, but I think that he is the kind of person that they’ve been looking at so far.”
Friedman went on to say that while it remains to be seen who else will shake loose to put themselves in the running for the position, he expects that a lot of people will be lining up to try and land this job. This comes in the wake of the Leafs’ decision to fire GM Brad Treliving on Monday.
Gillis was the Canucks general manager for six seasons from 2008 to 2014. During that span, they had a 261-146-51 record, good enough for a .626 points percentage that was the sixth-best in the league at that time. The Canucks also had a 28-28 record in the playoffs during Gillis’ tenure, along with five playoff series wins, highlighted by their trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 2011 against the Boston Bruins, which they eventually lost in seven games.
During Gillis’ tenure, the Canucks also won back-to-back Presidents’ Trophies in 2010-11 and 2011-12 during Gillis’ tenure along with him winning the General Manager of the Year award in 2010-11. He even had players win one Hart Trophy, two Art Ross Trophies, one Frank J. Selke Trophy, one Ted Lindsay Award, and one William M. Jennings Trophy, all coming in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons.
“They have to be data-centric. They have to really understand the importance of data and where data is moving,” MLSE CEO Keith Pelley said on Tuesday about what he is looking for in the Leafs’ next GM. “We have just completed a complete rebuild of TFC, all using date combined with cultural checks. That’s what we will do and every single decision we make will be evidence based. Evidence-based decisions are never wrong, and that’s not to say there’s not room for the heart, not to say there’s no room to check culture, but it’s all evidence-based.”
It would certainly be an interesting choice if the Leafs went with Gillis, given that he has not worked as a GM in the 12 years since he was let go by the Canucks. At the same time, it goes to show how vast this candidate pool will end up being, as Friedman alludes to in his report.
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