The next Maple Leafs GM: A tiered list of candidates

It’s hockey’s ultimate dream job and nightmare job rolled into one. Virtually every NHL team architect considers the Toronto Maple Leafs GM chair a prestigious position. With each year added to the team’s nearly 60-season Stanley Cup drought, the odds of finally producing a championship team seem to shrink, yet the potential glory of becoming the person to finally do it becomes all the more alluring.

And so, even though the job is among the most pressure-packed and thankless in pro sports, we’ll always have dozens and dozens of candidates in play every time the vacancy appears in The Big Smoke.

Brad Treliving lasted just short of three seasons in the role, with his quest to make a larger, more pugilistic roster producing the team’s deepest playoff run in 23 years last spring but ultimately failing as he diluted the team’s skill far too much and pushed it out of the postseason for the first time in a decade. With MLSE president Keith Pelley announcing last week that the search would zero in on a “data-centric” choice, who are the top candidates for the gig?

Here is a tiered list to consider:

WORST-KEPT SECRETS

Mike Gillis

Gillis is a fascinating candidate. He’s a veteran GM in the sense that he helmed the Vancouver Canucks for a six-season run that was arguably the best in their history, including four 100-point seasons, a Stanley Cup Final appearance, two Presidents’ Trophies, and major individual accolades for Henrik and Daniel Sedin. But that was also Gillis’ only time in an NHL front office; he was a big-ticket player agent before that progressive hire, and he hasn’t worked for an NHL franchise since. Gillis has pitched himself hard to several teams in recent years, selling his cerebral approach to structuring an organization, and has continued to work in sports since the Canucks fired him in 2014, most recently consulting for the NHL Players’ Association. Gillis may field like an old-guy “rehash” hire, but not if you look closely. He’s cut from the Bill Zito cloth and could also warrant consideration for a president of hockey operations position.

Sunny Mehta

The Florida Panthers get an obvious mulligan for their injury-ravaged 2025-26 campaign. Coming off consecutive Stanley Cups the previous two seasons, they’ve set the standard other teams want to copy. Mehta, one of the Panthers’ assistant GMs, checks the “helped build a winner” box but also the analytics box. Coming from a data science background, he was once a professional poker player, and he was part of the first wave of hockey analytics writers hired by NHL teams, working with the Phoenix Coyotes, New Jersey Devils and Washington Capitals before joining the Panthers beginning in 2020. When at full strength, the Panthers regularly grade out as an elite play-driving team, and Mehta has played a crucial role in shaping them into what they are today. Worth noting: Mehta is a client of Neil Glasberg, whose firm, The Coaches Agency, the Leafs have retained to lead their GM search, despite previous pushback around the league on the conflict of interest with Glasberg representing candidates who could be targeted in GM searches. Toronto could have serious competition for Mehta in the form of the Devils, his former team, who just parted ways with GM Tom Fitzgerald.

INTERNAL

Brandon Pridham

Hiring Pridham would allow the Leafs to walk the line between an analytically minded hire, avoiding a retread and giving a respected voice a long-awaited promotion. He is an expert in the collective bargaining agreement and navigating the cap, which were particularly crucial skills for the team during the flat-cap years, and he comes from a scouting background. If the Leafs don’t promote Pridham, they risk losing him, as multiple other NHL teams have GM vacancies at the moment.

Hayley Wickenheiser

Wickenheiser has been part of the Leafs’ front office since 2018 and is reportedly highly regarded by Pelley. While she hasn’t worked as closely as Pridham navigating the cap and contracts, there is precedent for ex-players working their way into GM roles from the player development side, from Don Sweeney to Steve Staios and many more. Fitzgerald went from a director of player development to an assistant GM to a GM. Wickenheiser has so far progressed from a director of player development to an assistant GM. Could the big job be the next step? At the very least, it sounds like she’ll have a larger role in the next front office, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

VETERANS

Marc Bergevin

If the Leafs want the safest, most uninspired, win-now hire, they could kick the tires on Bergevin. He has decades of experience in NHL front offices, including nine-plus seasons as the Montreal Canadiens’ GM. But he was there for a long time, not a good time. He saddled the club with a lot of ugly contracts, and even his one Habs team that made a Cinderella run to the 2020-21 Stanley Cup Final finished with the NHL’s 18^th best record in the regular season, and he was fired the ensuing fall. Bergevin feels like the closest candidate to a complete Treliving repeat.

Dean Lombardi

Lombardi’s Los Angeles Kings were some of the original Corsi Heroes, dominating the 5-on-5 shot-attempt game en route to their Stanley Cup wins in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Overpaying many players from those teams for what they’d done (excel) rather than what they were going to do (decline) proved to be his undoing eventually, but the championships don’t lie, and he had a long run of success with the San Jose Sharks before his L.A. days. Since the Kings dropped him in 2017, he’s worked as a senior advisor with the Philadelphia Flyers, but his resume suggests he warrants another look in a decision-maker role.

SLEEPERS

John Chayka

The Leafs have reportedly already made contact with Chayka. He’s a natural name to associate with Pelley’s analytical mind quest. Chayka’s Arizona Coyotes teams were not too successful during his time as their GM from 2016 through 2019-20; their only playoff appearance came thanks to the COVID bubble play-in when their actual record wouldn’t have earned them a spot under traditional rules. But Chayka would obviously have much more bountiful resources to work with if he were to run the deep-pocketed Leafs in a rising-cap climate. Trying to keep the dying Coyotes afloat might have masked his actual ability.

Laurence Gilman

If the Leafs were to land Gillis as a president of hockey hops, might he bring Gilman along for the GM job? He was Gillis’ No. 2 as assistant GM and VP of hockey ops during that successful Canucks era. Gilman, of course, also worked in the Leafs organization for several years after that, including time as their assistant GM and GM of the Marlies, meaning he has plenty of organizational familiarity. It’s worth noting he was never fired; he and the Leafs mutually parted ways when his contract ended after 2023-24, and he joined the Columbus Blue Jackets as vice-president of hockey ops.

Mark Hunter

Hunter’s scouting expertise came in handy when he was the Leafs’ assistant GM for much of the 2010s and famously pushed for them to take an undersized kid named Mitch Marner fourth overall in 2015, knowing him from their time with the London Knights. Would Hunter really want to leave London again though? He and his brother Dale own the team now on top of serving as its GM and head coach, respectively. They seem awfully comfortable.

Brett Peterson

The other half of Florida’s coveted AGM duo will receive plenty of attention of his own in the coming weeks. Peterson has been with the Panthers since 2020-21, helping them win two Stanley Cups. He fits the Zito/Kent Hughes mold as a former player agent, and Peterson is GM of Team USA’s World Championship team. If the Leafs want Peterson, they’d better hurry, as the Nashville Predators have reportedly interviewed him already.

Jason Spezza

The local boy ended his playing career as a Leaf and spent his first season after retirement learning the ropes as a special assistant to GM Kyle Dubas. Spezza now works under Dubas as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ AGM and as GM of their AHL affiliate. Spezza is clearly working his way toward a GM job in the NHL, but (a) is it too soon? and (b) is he too loyal to Dubas to consider rejoining the franchise that pushed Dubas out as a result of a power struggle with then-president Brendan Shanahan in 2023?

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

Kevyn Adams

Friedman recently name-dropped Adams as a candidate to watch. One school of thought: despite his midseason ousting from the Buffalo Sabres, they have broken out as 2025-26’s biggest success story with the roster Adams built, and all his decisions over the past couple seasons look much wiser in hindsight than they did even a few months ago. On the other hand, while it’s circumstantial, the team he constructed wasn’t winning while he was there, and his media presence as Buffalo’s GM was…squirrelly. Could the man who lamented the lack of palm trees in Buffalo, stopping him from signing free agents, really take the heat of the Toronto job? I’m skeptical.

FAN DRIVEN

Chris Pronger

Pronger’s name started surfacing on social media before the Leafs even fired Treliving. Not only did Pronger have a Hall of Fame playing career as an elite, physically punishing defenseman, but he remains one of hockey’s most colorful, insightful, and outspoken personalities in retirement. In addition to working in the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, Pronger spent a few seasons in the Panthers organization as a senior advisor. Still, his overall experience in NHL front offices is relatively thin. Is he a true candidate? Sources tell Daily Faceoff the Leafs have made no overtures to Pronger, though it remains to be seen if they begin widening their search in the coming weeks.

PIPE DREAM

Doug Armstrong

It’s natural to speculate on Armstrong as a high-profile hire for a franchise that loves paying up for brand names, from Brian Burke to Shanahan to Mike Babcock to Craig Berube. Armstrong crafted a Stanley Cup-winning St. Louis Blues team, guided Canada’s men’s national team to a 4 Nations Face-Off win and 2026 Olympic silver, and is stepping down as Blues GM to hand Alex Steen the reins after this season. But hopping over to Toronto isn’t a likely scenario. As The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford explains, Armstrong is about to commence a three-year contract extension as the Blues’ president of hockey ops and has no out-clause in the contract. The Blues would have to give the Leafs permission to court Armstrong, which is highly unlikely.

Eric Tulsky

Pelley didn’t even hide the fact that he’s searching for a Tulsky archetype as the Leafs’ next GM. Pelley specifically named Tulsky as the type of thinker he admires. Tulsky has done masterful work as the Carolina Hurricanes GM, continuing a fascinating career that traces back to Harvard, naval research, nanotechnology, hockey writing and, finally, NHL front office work. But you’re dreaming if you believe the Leafs could pry Tulsky from Carolina; the Predators reportedly have already tried in their hunt for Barry Trotz’s replacement and were denied access, so we can guess what would happen if Toronto knocked on the door.

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