Over the past nine seasons or so, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been led either by a group that valued analytics — as in Kyle Dubas and Brendan Shanahan — or by something closer to old-school, gut-feel hockey thinking under Brad Treliving and coach Craig Berube.
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And now, as the team moves forward, there’s a sense they’re also looking backward a bit as they try to sort out what actually works. With Keith Pelley’s media presser the other day, it feels like the pendulum might be swinging back toward a more analytics-driven approach.
There’s a Lot of Simplistic Thinking About How Good Decisions Are Made
That’s what made something I read yesterday morning on FanSided catch my eye.
It tried to sum up the situation a little too neatly, if you ask me. Hockey decisions aren’t that clean. In my own life, both in academic research and otherwise, I’ve learned that the best outcomes usually come from partnerships — two heads working together, each seeing what the other might miss.
It’s not because they agree on everything, but because they trust each other enough to challenge things when needed. That’s the piece of the thinking that often gets lost.
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Anyway, here’s the quote:
“That flip-flopping (between new-school analytics and old-school intuition) could ultimately do more harm than good. The organization can’t try something different every couple of years. The team needs to commit to a direction and make it work.”
That Thinking Sounds Decisive and Confident, But It’s Wrong
Now, I get the appeal of that idea. It sounds decisive. You can almost hear it being read off in a press conference. But the more you sit with it, the more it feels like a bumper sticker. It’s short, confident, and a little too simple to be useful.
Because commitment isn’t the same thing as stubbornness. And that’s really where this whole thing starts to wobble. A team should absolutely have a direction. No argument there. But that direction has to be flexible enough to respond to evidence. Otherwise, you’re not being disciplined; you’re just being rigid.
And what looks like “flip-flopping” from the outside? That’s often something else entirely. It can be poor execution. It can be a lack of communication between departments. Or it can be leadership mistaking personal preference for actual strategy.
Looking at the Maple Leafs Recent History
Which brings us back to the Maple Leafs. Because if you lay it out in simple terms, the story almost tells itself. They moved on from the analytics-first Dubas, brought in Treliving with a more traditional lean, didn’t get the playoff results they were hoping for, and now seem to be circling back toward data again.
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Nice, clean narrative. But it’s too clean. The temptation is to frame it as a choice: analytics or gut. One worked, one didn’t. Try the other.
But hockey doesn’t really work like that. It’s not a fork in the road where you have to pick a lane and stay in it. If anything, the real lesson is the opposite. To be successful, you need both working together.
Analytics Points Toward Patterns, Scouting Fills in the Spaces
Analytics can point you toward patterns you’d never catch otherwise. Who’s actually driving play, which contracts are giving you value in a cap system, and where will small tactical changes make a difference?
But that’s only part of the picture. The old-school side — scouting, experience, instinct — fills in what the numbers can’t quite reach. Who competes when things get messy? Who fits in a room? Who can handle a role when the pressure ramps up?
(Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)
Lean too hard on either one, and you start missing things. And this is where execution really matters.
Because when a team looks like it’s bouncing back and forth between philosophies, it’s usually not because the ideas themselves are flawed. It’s because the connection between them isn’t working.
The Decision Makers Must Trust and Respect Each Other
You can have all the data in the world, but if the coaches don’t trust it or the scouts aren’t part of the conversation, it just sits there. On the flip side, if you rely only on instinct, you risk paying for reputation instead of results.
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So the real challenge isn’t choosing one approach. It’s getting them to talk to each other. That’s the part that’s harder to see from the outside — and probably harder to build inside the organization too.
A healthier version of this, at least in theory, starts with analytics identifying possibilities — players, trends, problems. Then scouting steps in to test those ideas in context. Coaches weigh in on how it actually fits on the ice. And ideally, all of that happens together, not in silos.
It’s less about agreement and more about the kind of trust where people can push back without the whole thing falling apart. That’s how good decisions usually get made. Slowly. A bit messily. But with more confidence behind them.
Pick a Direction and Stick With It Remains Guesswork
Which is why the idea that you simply “pick a direction and stick with it” feels off. That’s not really commitment. It’s closer to guesswork with conviction.
(Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)
Real commitment is sticking with a process — one that allows you to adjust, refine, and improve without throwing everything out every couple of years. And maybe that’s where the Maple Leafs have struggled most. Not in choosing between analytics and instinct, but in actually blending them into something coherent.
Because in the end, it’s not about picking a side. It’s about building something where both sides make each other better.
The Bottom Line for the Maple Leafs
Hockey writers and insiders can spin all the narratives they want — like that drifting bag in American Beauty. But the team actually has to get it right. The key isn’t choosing between old-school go-with-the-gut thinking or new-school focus on the analytics. It’s not one philosophy over another.
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Success comes from blending the analytical with the instinctual, trusting both data and experience, and getting them to work together.
