The Toronto Maple Leafs are keen on having Mike Gillis for a head office role and he is reportedly set to have a second meeting with MLSE CEO Keith Pelley, according to SDPN’s Chris Johnston.

“ The talk about Mike Gillis is real. The Leafs have interest in him,” he said during Thursday’s edition of The Chris Johnston Show. “ I believe there’s already been a conversation between Gillis and Pelley. I think there’s another one that’s coming up here. ”

Johnston is the latest to report the connection between Gillis and the Leafs for a front office role. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on March 31 that the Leafs were interested in Gillis based on the work he did during his six years with the Vancouver Canucks. The Athletic’s James Mirtle reported on April 2 that league sources and people who know Gillis well stated that he is on friendly terms with Pelley and intrigued by the opportunity that he would get by retooling the Leafs.

It is worth noting that the last time Gillis was a legitimate candidate to return to an NHL front office was back in 2021 when he vied for a role with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Reports at the time indicated he was only interested in being in a president’s role and those feelings appear to have not changed five years later. Combine this with Pelley being focused on a ‘data-centric‘ and open-minded to all types of front office structures, and it helps explain why momentum has quickly built for Gillis potentially ending up in Toronto.

“ The perceived negatives would be that he hasn’t worked in the league in 12 years.  I think that’s obviously a fair point, but you know, he was a long-time agent, knows a lot of people in the game, those relationships persist,” Johnston continued. “ He had experience building the Canucks up from a place where they were adrift to where they got within one win of the Stanley Cup in 2011. He has worked in a market like Toronto. He has made the kind of decisions a GM would make. I think he makes sense.”

Johnston went on to list some other veteran executives who could be considered for the Leafs’ head of hockey operations role, including Dean Lombardi, Peter Chiarelli, Ron Francis, and Bob Gainey among others. The fact that these types of people are potentially in the running could suggest that the Leafs may be looking to finally fill the void left behind by Brendan Shanahan after his contract was not renewed in the summer of 2025.

While Pelley did suggest that he was aiming to have his front office roles sorted out by mid-May at the earliest, there has certainly been traction gained on some candidates who have emerged as frontrunners. In addition to Gillis, the Leafs also have their eyes on Florida Panthers AGM Sunny Mehta to replace the recently departed GM Brad Treliving. The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported on Thursday that the Leafs and New Jersey Devils have been granted permission by the Panthers to conduct an interview with Mehta. It is worth noting that he is a client of Neil Glasberg and The Coaches Agency, the search agency that the Leafs have hired to assist in their hire for a head of hockey operations.

Nothing is officially set in stone at the time of filing, but the noise surrounding the Leafs’ connections to both Gillis and Mehta to be part of their front office has only grown louder in volume.