![\"Julien](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-1273384787-scaled-e1615601177732.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIf the Toronto Maple Leafs could hire anyone to run their hockey club, who would they choose?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the question that Keith Pelley, the president and CEO of Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment, should be asking (if he isn\u2019t already) as he searches for someone(s) to replace Brad Treliving as the Leafs\u2019 head of hockey operations.<\/p>\n
As the most valuable franchise in the NHL, with a 59-year Stanley Cup drought, the Leafs should be pursuing the best and the brightest to steer their ship, and only the best and the brightest \u2014 even if that person happens to be employed by another team.<\/p>\n
Can the Leafs just poach an executive like that? They can try.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s as simple as requesting permission to speak to the intended target.<\/p>\n
Rival teams, and their owners, can simply say no \u2014 though there is a general school of thought that if there\u2019s an opportunity for said executive to earn a promotion and\/or make more money, the team is unlikely to stand in the way.<\/p>\n
With so much at stake in this franchise-defining offseason, the Leafs should shoot their shot.<\/p>\n
The top of their wish list would probably start with 49-year-old Julien BriseBois, the vice president, GM and alternate governor of the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n
Would BriseBois have any interest in leaving the Lightning, where he\u2019s won two Stanley Cups, to join the rival Leafs? Perhaps not. The Leafs could try to sway him anyway by offering to make him the president and GM in Toronto, boosting his title, in other words, while also making him the highest-paid executive in the sport.<\/p>\n
Maybe he still says no. Or maybe the Lightning simply promote him to president when word of the Leafs\u2019 interest comes their way and up his salary along with it.<\/p>\n
If not BriseBois, then the Leafs could look to poach Colorado Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland. Joe Sakic is the president of hockey ops with the Avs. The Leafs could make MacFarland, promoted to GM after Colorado\u2019s Cup in 2022, No. 1 on the call sheet in Toronto, with the money to match.<\/p>\n
If that doesn\u2019t work, why not take a run at Kelly McCrimmon, the GM under president George McPhee with the Vegas Golden Knights? Or what about Eric Tulsky, the GM of the Carolina Hurricanes who Pelley spoke so highly of at that infamous press conference earlier this month?<\/p>\n
Look to the NHL\u2019s most successful teams and try to swipe their top executives, just like the Toronto Raptors did once upon a time with Masai Ujiri, then the NBA\u2019s reigning executive of the year with the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
The dynastic Los Angeles Dodgers really got rolling when they plucked Andrew Friedman out of Tampa Bay in 2014 by reportedly making him the highest-paid exec in Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n
The Leafs have two things, theoretically, working in their favour: The financial muscles to outspend anyone on front-office talent and the opportunity to revive an Original Six franchise in a lengthy championship drought.<\/p>\n
Are the Leafs, cost-cutting in ways big and small these days, prepared to spend like that? They should be if winning is the priority.<\/p>\n
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\n Julien BriseBois is arguably the NHL\u2019s top executive. (Andy Devlin \/ NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n