Put me down as someone who has some empathy for Shanahan's arc here. He came in and almost completely cleaned house throughout the organization, committed to a full tear-down and traditional rebuild--something so many Leaf fans were begging for for years. It was so refreshing and exciting!
I liked his vision of bringing in an up-and-coming hockey mind (Dubas) and pairing him with a living legend (Lou).
I was even on board with his plan to give Dubas the keys when it looked like we might lose him to another organization. Having a young GM with a vision to match our young skilled core made sense to me and felt like a bold stroke by Shanahan.
Obviously time and reality have shown Dubas to be a hack and I wish that we had tried a more traditional approach coming out of our rebuild. But I can understand what Shanahan was trying to do and I can appreciate it, because I was on board at the time too. And his approach to building didn't seem based in the kind of stodgy by-the-book thinking that kept this franchise in a state of perpetual mediocrity or worse. It felt like he was trying to push us to somewhere special.
I can even, to some extent, understand his commitment to "patience," as he kept calling it, with the core after multiple playoff failures. Even when it felt like changes were needed, I was willing to buy the thinking that we were close, that we had a uniquely talented core, and that massive changes were just as likely to lead to a step back.
But even for someone willing to cut Shanahan some slack, Friday's press conference was not encouraging. I feel like he came in armed with his catchphrase of "there is a time for patience and there is a time to look at making changes..." and seemed surprised and unprepared when people expected more and more specific answers than that.
I would feel more comfortable if Treliving is the one to guide meaningful on-ice changes going forward.