Keith Pelley’s decision to let go of Brad Treliving likely wasn’t born of one move or one signing. You could make a case for the Brandon Carlo trade being enough to get to him fired but it wasn’t Carlo vs. Fraser Minten alone that made the difference in why the Maple Leafs went from top in their division to missing the playoffs. It was a combination of numerous bad decisions, and that’s why the Leafs are now looking for a new GM.

It’s not likely that the Leafs GM will be the person setting the vision for what the Leafs are anymore. There will likely be a President of Hockey Operations and the same way Brendan Shanahan would pull the strings and directly hold Kyle Dubas accountable, a similar relationship seems inevitable. In the new era of vision setting PoHOs, having an operationally proficient GM takes precidence over vision and that best candidate might be Brandon Pridham.

Pridham comes with expertise in negotiations, cap management, the CBA, as well as a background in scouting. The Dubas era has likely provided him with plenty of time working with analytics and evidence based decision making, and most importantly, he carries the organizational knowledge that doesn’t stymie the Maple Leafs with a prolonged evaluation period, a skill set that serves them equally well in either a rebuild or a quick turnaround. We don’t know who is a Pridham type player yet, we don’t know what type of team he’ll build when sitting in the big office, and how he’ll fare in a trade remains an unknown, but he’s in house, can start tomorrow, and if MLSE is worried about paying too many GMs (and Coaches) to not work for them, an internal promotion might be a cost saving measure as well. If the plan is to bring in a new PoHO, having a GM who has been around the Leafs seems like a win.

The flipside to the argument is that Pridham has been around the Maple Leafs for a while now. He’s received a lot of praise when the Leafs have pulled off creative salary cap moves or built creative looking contracts. Anything around the dollars and cents of the team, Pridham has received his flowers for, but at this moment in time the salary cap is not the priority it has been in the past and Pridham has played a big role in building underachieving teams. Putting him in charge might be viewed as an endorsement of the status quo (for what it’s worth, I don’t believe that is true), and the MLSE board as well as Keith Pelley might not view Pridham as a change in direction, and ultimately how he works with them matters whether fans like it or not. Disconnect equals dysfunction and there has been a disconnect between the Board, CEO, President, and GM throughout the past decade.

If Pridham isn’t the guy, come July 1st the Maple Leafs should be open to letting him find better opportunities around the league. Pridham has been a rising star and is seemingly ready for his next challenge. And while Pridham still having a place in the Hockey Operations office is understandably a benefit for the Maple Leafs, having Pridham managing a team and having a strong understanding of what Maple Leafs players he’d like to work with again as Toronto undergoes a teardown could also bring value.

We’ll have to wait and see what comes next. There is value in a quick GM search as having someone in place at the end of the season to meet with players before they depart for the summer is advantageous, but the position is also too important to just appoint the guy the next office over from Brad Treliving. Pelley putting in work here will be encouraging, but the Leafs could do worse than going in house with their hire.

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