Sine being hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brendan Shanahan has rebuilt the organization by making sure that the Leafs have the best analytics department in the NHL, salary cap experts, and one of the brightest general managers in professional sports, in Kyle Dubas.
The key to the success of the Shanahan era has been open mindedness to new ideas, embracing of analytics, hiring people with different views and backgrounds, and making decisions using math and game theory, not guessing, (as is the traditional way to do things in the NHL).
The current Toronto Maple Leafs might not have won anything yet, but it shouldn’t take a genius to see that they are one of the league’s youngest teams, one of the league’s best teams, and one of the league’s best run teams.