Are Chayka, White the best the Maple Leafs can find?<\/p>\n
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Published Apr 26, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 2\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 9 minute read<\/p>\n
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Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n If the reports are true and the Maple Leafs are down to just two names<\/a> for their vacant general manager\u2019s job, then one word comes immediately to mind.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Embarrassing.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The way hiring John Ferguson Jr., was embarrassing.<\/p>\n Really, are John Chayka and Scott White the best the Leafs can find? These are the Toronto Maple Leafs. The biggest and richest team in hockey. The one team the entire hockey world follows from wherever they are.<\/p>\n And these are the two best candidates?<\/p>\n Unsolicited, I received two independent text messages Friday afternoon from prominent people in the NHL. These are people I\u2019ve known and trusted for years, though rarely have I reached out to either of them.<\/p>\n One message was about Chayka. One message was about White. Neither were complimentary.<\/p>\n Both texters were, frankly, stunned that the Leafs, after this much talked-about search to replace Brad Treliving, would end up with candidates such as these.<\/p>\n One text described Chayka as \u201csmooth-talking\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t believe he\u2019s fooling them again.\u201d<\/p>\n In the only GM job he\u2019s had, Chayka was fired in Arizona after being suspended by the NHL for conduct detrimental to the league and, after that, the team was punished with lost draft picks for breaking NHL combine rules.<\/p>\n Your Midday Sun<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n In the past, that alone would disqualify him as a candidate for any position with the Leafs.<\/p>\n White has no similar resume of controversy. He has been Jim Nill\u2019s assistant in Dallas for years. He has learned from one of the best in the business. But those most familiar with the Stars will tell you that Joe McDonnell, the director of amateur scouting, is Nill\u2019s most valuable asset in Dallas, not White.<\/p>\n McDonnell has drafted stars such as Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston, Jake Oettinger, Thomas Harley and Jason Robertson among others in a fabulous run for one of hockey\u2019s best teams.<\/p>\n White has brought in players such as Ilya Lyubushkin and Matt Dumba. Nothing to point to about excellence.<\/p>\n Amd those who know him best say he isn\u2019t suited for a big job like the Toronto job. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t hire him to run a junior team,\u201d the text message read.<\/p>\n Looking back, Ferguson Jr., was a well-regarded assistant GM when the Leafs pursued him in 2003. He was the son of a legendary NHL player and GM, a lawyer, apparently perfectly suited for the market and the job.<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n And then he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n This seems now like history repeating itself. The Leafs chose Ferguson over Neil Smith and Steve Tambellini \u2014 each who had someone inside pushing him \u2014 and quickly proceeded to miss the playoffs seven years in a row.<\/p>\n Do Chayka or White equal Ferguson Jr.?<\/p>\n From this vantage point, it sure looks like it.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t said anything like this since the 1990s. But I\u2019ll say it now. The Montreal Canadiens can win the Stanley Cup. They have that much talent, the right management, the right coaching, that rare combination \u2026 Department of Dumb: Tampa Bay fans chanting \u201cUSA!, USA!\u201d at Lightning games. The Tampa Bay coach is Canadian. Their goalie and best player are Russians. The captain is Swedish. That\u2019s a lot of USA cheering for Jake Guentzel \u2026 The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> aren\u2019t a team right now, they\u2019re a collection of unconnected talent. There is a distinction between the two. Can\u2019t see Connor McDavid ever winning a Stanley Cup with this group. If the Oilers are knocked out by Anaheim in Round 1 of the playoffs, who gets canned for this? Coach Kris Knoblauch? GM Stan Bowman? Team president Jeff Jackson? One of them, two of them or all of them? McDavid has two years left on his Oilers contract. All told, that would be 13 seasons in Edmonton \u2026 The Florida Panthers played 68 playoff games in the past three years. Now they get five months rest before beginning next season. Wonder what that group will look like in October, fully healed. The only old player they have is free-agent goalie Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>, who turns 38 in September and, like a lot of us old folks, wants to stay in Florida \u2026 Being a general manager isn\u2019t just about acquiring players. It\u2019s much more than that. It\u2019s about leadership. It\u2019s about presence. It\u2019s about management style. It\u2019s about respect and understanding culture. Anyone who would hire Kevyn Adams as a GM in the NHL doesn\u2019t understand that \u2026 Tom Dundon may not like to waste money, his money, as owner of both the NHL Carolina Hurricanes and NBA Portland Trail Blazers. But in Raleigh, he has at least made the right purchase year after year \u2014 and that was keeping Rod Brind\u2019Amour as coach. He\u2019s like having Jon Cooper. He should be coach of the year every year, but the award doesn\u2019t work that way \u2026 Never mind what didn\u2019t happen in New Jersey, I would hire Tom Fitzgerald to be GM of the Nashville Predators. Fitzgerald has that \u2018it\u2019 factor you don\u2019t find in many hockey people \u2026 Doug Armstrong would probably admit it now. The biggest mistake he made in putting Team Canada\u2019s roster together for the Olympics in Milan was leaving off teenaged defenceman Matthew Schaefer<\/a>. In retrospect, the kid might have been the difference between silver and gold.<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n What do you do with Max Scherzer?<\/a> He has made five starts for the Blue Jays this season. Two of them were OK. Three of them amounted to 6.2 total innings pitched and 17 earned runs. Not OK. If the Jays didn\u2019t have Trey Yesavage<\/a>, Jose Berrios, Shane Bieber and Cody Ponce all out, the decision would be easy: You\u2019d shut down Scherzer. For now, it just gets uncomfortable with Mad Max. You don\u2019t want a Hall of Famer embarrassing himself in his final days in baseball \u2026 As bad as April has been for the Jays, there can be some solace in this: Heading into Saturday\u2019s schedule, they\u2019re only 2.5 games out of a wild-card position in a rather wonky American League \u2026 The longer Tom Henke has been gone, the more he should be appreciated. He had 217 saves for the Jays in 7 1\/2 seasons. He had an 88% success rate closing games. The Jays won nothing before he took over the closer\u2019s role in 1985. He should have been honoured already on the team\u2019s Level of Excellence \u2026 Jeff Hoffman mercifully had the plug pulled on him this week as the Jays closer. Never mind the home run he gave up to Miguel Rojas in the World Series \u2014 still don\u2019t get that one \u2014 but he did save 36 of 46 attempts, regular season. This year, it\u2019s been three saves or three blown saves. The new bullpen by committee should mean Louis Varland closing most of the time \u2026 In this 50th season, the Blue Jays are trying hard to respect their history. They\u2019re just not very good at it. On May 11, they\u2019re giving out Legendary Home Run T-shirts to fans. Ed Sprague, who hit the pinch-hit home run in Game 2 of the 1992 World Series, is not pictured on the T-shirt. A little history: Jays lost Game 1 of that series to the great-pitching Atlanta Braves. Sprague won Game 2 with his homer. Had there been no homer and the Jays lost that night, there would have been no championship in \u201992 and quite possibly no follow-up championship in \u201993. The Sprague home run was a seminal moment in Jays history, just like the Roberto Alomar home run in Oakland that year. But Alomar has been written out of the Jays history. Sprague hasn\u2019t been, and shouldn\u2019t be ignored.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Young puck-moving defencemen are all the rage in hockey these days. From 18-year-old game-changer Schaefer to 22-year-old Lane Hutson scoring a fabulous overtime winner, to playoff stalwarts Jackson LaCombe in Anaheim, Owen Power in Buffalo, Brock Faber in Minnesota, Jake Sanderson in Ottawa, J.J. Moser in Tampa and Jamie Drysdale in Philadelphia; and non-playoff youngsters such as Luke Hughes in Jersey and Moritz Seider in Detroit. All of them are 25 and under. The Maple Leafs defence has Chris Tanev, 36; Oliver Ekman-Larsson, 34; Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe, both 32; and Brandon Carlo, 30. None of them great puck-movers. None of them with side-to-side dexterity \u2026 Whatever Darren Raddysh wants in free agency, assuming he gets to free agency, the Leafs have to be willing to pay it. Bring the kid with the big slap shot home. His mom would love that \u2026 And it\u2019s the same story with Alex Tuch, the free-agent power forward in Buffalo. Unlike Raddysh, he\u2019s not from the Toronto area, but the Leafs have to be willing to overpay for Tuch if he\u2019s available on July 1. A Leafs team with Auston Matthews<\/a>, William Nylander, Matthew Knies and Tuch up front can be credible. Plus, a Leafs team with a booming shot on the power play with Raddysh is significantly stronger than anything they currently have \u2026 What the Leafs don\u2019t have \u2014 and you can see now while watching Philadelphia, Utah, Montreal, Anaheim or Carolina \u2014 is team speed and natural quickness. You don\u2019t always have to skate fast to play fast in the NHL. But the Leafs did neither in this dreadful season, which is why Craig Berube has to go as coach \u2026 It\u2019s been hard to watch Sidney Crosby in the first three playoff games against the Flyers. So not Crosby-like \u2026 More than one agent has told me that the New York Rangers are the worst-run team in the NHL \u2026 Congratulations to the National Newspaper Award people who seem to annually recognize sports writers who don\u2019t regularly cover sports for Canadian papers. Among those who have never won the NNA for sports: Milt Dunnell, Stephen Brunt, Bob Elliott, Steve Buffery, Bruce Arthur, Rob Longley, James Lawton, Jim Taylor, Cathal Kelly, Dave Perkins, Doug Smith, Rosie DiManno, Cam Cole, Ed Willes, Terry Jones, Steve Milton, Al Maki, David Shoalts and Eric Duhatschek. And I know I\u2019m missing a bunch who are also deserving.<\/p>\n Advertisement 7<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n How cool is this? My pal Kenny Albert is about to pass Dick Stockton for most major-league games called \u2014 that\u2019s NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB combined \u2014 on television \u2026 Collin Murray-Boyles reminds me of a more athletic version of Wes Unseld. Too small to play as a big, but physical enough to get it done. He\u2019s going to be around the Raptors for a long time \u2026 Admit it, you\u2019d never heard of Jamison Battle<\/a>, as he was knocking down shot after shot for the Raptors on Thursday night. He wasn\u2019t drafted in the NBA. He played for three colleges in his last four years. He averaged three points a game this season but had 14 points in just 16 minutes in Game 3 versus the Cavs \u2026 By my count, I\u2019ve been to 54 Raptors playoff games in Toronto. Can\u2019t remember Scotiabank Arena as quiet as it was for the first three quarters of Game 3. Then it exploded in the fourth. Nice to see there\u2019s still that energy around the Raptors when necessary\u2026 What a time for the family: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander about to be named MVP for the second straight year and already named clutch player of the year. And his cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker named NBA\u2019s most improved player. All of this happening as fellow Canadian Rowan Barrett Jr., better known as RJ Barrett, has been lighting it up with the Raptors \u2026. The Leafs could have had Joel Quenneville as their coach when they hired Berube. GM Brad Treliving had some interest, as did the former Blackhawks coach in the Leafs. But above Treliving, there wasn\u2019t much appetite to entertain Quenneville as coach. Quenneville has the second-most wins in NHL history behind Scotty Bowman. Berube ranks 51st in career wins, just behind Gerard Gallant and ahead of Bob Pulford \u2026 Happy birthday to Aaron Judge (34), Vladislav Tretiak (74), Tim Duncan (50), Joe Buck (57), Kirill Kaprizov (29), Rich Clune (39), Glenn Goldup (73), Satou Sabally (28), Bill Wennington (63), Art Schlichter (66), wrestler Kane (59), Cody Ponce (32) and Al Pacino (86) \u2026 And hey, whatever became of Andreas Johnsson?<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n SIMMONS SAYS: Leafs took too long trying to get Mats Sundin involved again<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0426gmcandidates-e1777162889772.jpg\")
Former Arizona Coyotes general manager John Chayka (left) and current Dallas Stars assistant GM Scott White (right) are believed to be in the running to become the next general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Photo by Christian Petersen and Dallas Stars \/Getty Images and Dallas StarsArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/21.0.2\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tsun.svg\"){kind=logo}
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Montreaal Canadiens Jayden Struble, left rear, Alexandre Carrier, Kaiden Guhle, and Jake Evans mob Lane Hutson after his game-winning goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning during overtime of Game 3 of their NHL playoff series in Montreal on April 24, 2026. Photo by John Mahoney \/Postmedia NetworkTHIS AND THAT<\/p>\n![\"Max](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0425madmaxsmall-e1777082677218.jpg\")
Max Scherzer of the Toronto Blue Jays speaks to umpire Ramon De Jesus while pitching in the first inning during the game against the Cleveland Guardians at Rogers Centre on April 24, 2025 in Toronto. Photo by Vaughn Ridley \/Getty ImagesHEAR AND THERE<\/p>\n![\"Jackson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0426lacombe-scaled-e1777164323104.jpg\")
Jackson LaCombe of the Anaheim Ducks. Photo by Sean M. Haffey \/Getty ImagesSCENE AND HEARD<\/p>\n![\"Collin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0426cmbsmall-e1777165072527.jpg\")
Collin Murray-Boyles of the Toronto Raptors celebrates a basket against the Cleveland Cavaliers during an NBA playoff basketball game in Toronto on April 23, 2026. Photo by Frank Gunn \/The Canadian PressAND ANOTHER THING<\/p>\n![\"Mats](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777210520_720_0419matssundinsmall-e1776556222566.jpg\")
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