When the document first leaked, it turned some heads around the NHL. Even five years later, as Mike Gillis’ name has surfaced in the conversation about who could take over running the Toronto Maple Leafs, the presentation is still getting passed around with a four-word text.
“Have you seen this?”
The first of 27 pages in Gillis’ pitch deck has a large Pittsburgh Penguins logo at the top, with the text: “This is a confidential document prepared by Michael Gillis for Lemieux Group LP in anticipation of an in-person conversation. The intent of this document is to provide an introduction to Gillis’ leadership principles and management philosophy as well as his plans to collaborate with ownership to make the Pittsburgh Penguins a best-in-class, championship organization on and off the ice.”
In early 2021, when the presentation was prepared and ended up, briefly, online, Gillis was seeking another NHL front office job and the Penguins were seeking a new regime to take over. A month later, they hired Brian Burke as president and Ron Hextall as GM, a tenure that, to put it charitably, did not go well.
Gillis, meanwhile, has continued to search for his next opportunity, preparing similarly detailed outlines for the Minnesota Wild, Ottawa Senators and others over the years, attempting to get back in after he last served as president and GM of the Vancouver Canucks back in 2014. Soon, one imagines, something similar will be sent in the direction of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president Keith Pelley, who is leading the search for a replacement for the recently fired Brad Treliving.
Gillis would be a fascinating choice for the Leafs in that he has always been a bit of an iconoclast. He’s definitely a big personality, one who is not everyone’s cup of tea, but also someone who has many fans given his intelligence and willingness to innovate and think differently.
When he was hired by the Canucks in 2008, it was considered a radical move, as the high-profile player agent had never worked in a team’s front office. Vancouver then had considerable success, winning the Presidents’ Trophy in back-to-back seasons in 2010-11 and 2011-12 and making it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2011.
The Canucks won more games than all but four teams in Gillis’ six seasons there before he was unceremoniously fired. They have since been one of the worst teams in the NHL, including sitting dead last this season after a brutal campaign.
While Gillis’ pitch has evolved over time, the one intended for then-owner Mario Lemieux and the Penguins in 2021 — which The Athletic has obtained and verified as authentic — offers insight into how he would tackle the challenge of taking over the Leafs. It provides, for example, a detailed outline of the structure of a Gillis-led front office, including the interesting wrinkle of having two separate scouting staffs reporting into different executives, as shown here.
Gillis’ presentation includes many references to incorporating analytics, which is relevant given Pelley explicitly stated at Tuesday’s news conference addressing Treliving’s firing that the Leafs’ next management team needed to be “data centric.” It also specifies that Gillis would be seeking a president role, which would potentially allow him to bring in a strong analytical mind who didn’t have prior experience as Leafs GM.
“Based on my age and what I’ve done in the past, president of hockey operations is the most logical step where I can oversee the implementation of process, programs, contracts and strategy,” Gillis writes. “Then procure the right people to go out and make those things happen.”
He then goes on to state he is “committed to innovation,” including leveraging technology to optimize decision making, something that appears to be in line with Pelley’s desire to incorporate artificial intelligence into more of his team’s decision making.
But Gillis also takes a shot at the NHL’s existing orthodoxy, stating that “hockey’s old guard has been rattled, with countless ‘hockey men’ dismissing innovative analytic and human performance techniques out of fear, aversion to change, and, in many cases, an inability or unwillingness to change their worldview and learn new concepts.” It’s not a document aimed, in other words, at making friends with other executives across the league.
Below is the section on analytics in Gillis’ presentation prepared for the Penguins.
Gillis declined to speak about the Leafs opportunity and his previous presentations when reached by The Athletic earlier this week. According to league sources and those who know Gillis well, however, he is on friendly terms with Pelley and is intrigued by the opportunity that attempting to retool the Leafs would present.
With Jim Nill re-signing with the Dallas Stars earlier this week and Doug Armstrong potentially unable to leave the St. Louis Blues, it’s unclear what other experienced candidates could meet Pelley’s criteria for a president’s role with the Leafs. He set a timeline of wanting a new front office in place by the NHL combine, which is set to take place in Buffalo the first week of June, less than two months from today.
Whether or not MLSE will be willing to seriously consider Gillis for their top hockey operations role will be fascinating to watch. Twelve years away from an NHL front office role is a long break, but in that period Gillis has added to his resume, spending time working as a business consultant for the NHLPA.
He was also in the running to be the PA’s executive director before Marty Walsh was chosen in 2023 and has a strong player-side relationship from his years as an agent for stars including Pavel Bure and Markus Naslund. One of his strengths in Vancouver was his relationship with his players and the resulting ability to retain talent. Many former Canucks rave about playing under him.
Gillis also travelled the world to pick up best practices from other sports organizations, including time spent studying the All Blacks rugby team in New Zealand, and has taught sports law courses at the University of Victoria, near his current home.
Gillis would certainly be a departure from a more traditional executive hire (like Treliving was), especially if paired with an up-and-coming GM candidate, such as Florida Panthers assistant GM Sunny Mehta. Given his age (67) and previous pitches to teams in similar situations, it’s not expected Gillis would want to be part of a full rebuild process with the Leafs, which fits with the mandate coming from Pelley and Leafs ownership.
Perhaps that qualifies him as a leading candidate to take on one of the biggest jobs in pro sports, especially after a season as disastrous as 2025-26 has been in Toronto.