TEMPE, Arizona — Shane Doan looked Matthew Knies square in the eyes and didn’t waste any time.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were mired in a three-game losing streak in January when Doan pulled Knies aside after a team meeting. The rookie’s game was slipping; his NHL ice time had fallen below 10 minutes for the first time. Doan’s 1,540 games of NHL experience speak for itself and he didn’t feel the need to sugar-coat matters. Doan had been in Knies’ shoes before and gave him the kind of advice he wanted to hear as a player, too.
“Try to get three shots and three hits, try not to focus on scoring,” Knies remembers Doan telling him. “He said he knew he’d have a good game if he hit those statistics.”
In the immediate games afterward, Knies’ ice time increased as he showed a spark with Doan’s message in his head.
There are times when Doan, hired in June as special assistant to general manager Brad Treliving, still feels like a player. And that’s why his voice always hits open ears. In a team that some believe is followed by “demons,” Doan is delivering messages that, even when critical, come in an uplifting tone. They are messages that do not feel like they’re coming from management and need to be dreaded.
“(Doan) is really hard on me, but that’s the kind of thing I need. He’s not scared to tell me the truth after games,” Knies said.
When Doan was hired by the Leafs after three seasons as chief hockey development officer for the Arizona Coyotes, it was worth wondering: Would he simply be Jason Spezza 2.0? A former player learning the ropes while shadowing a current GM and training for an eventual GM job himself?
Or would there be something different to Doan’s role?
Ahead of Doan’s return to Arizona and the Leafs playing the Coyotes on Wednesday, it’s clear his hands-on approach is starting to have a genuine influence on this Leafs team.
“I care about (the Leafs) as people,” Doan told The Athletic. “I want them to be the best hockey players they can be and I think that you can be the best player you can be when you’re the best person you can be.”
From the moment Doan was hired by the Leafs, he was drawn back into an NHL dressing room.
“I’m comfortable with my relationships with players and having the ability to connect with them. For whatever reason, I enjoyed the dressing room and being in the dressing room and helping guys,” Doan said in June.
Doan has long wanted to balance his playing experience with an off-ice role after his retirement in 2017. He served as Canada’s GM at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and assistant GM of the team for the 2021 world championships. Doan always wanted to become more involved in hockey operations in the NHL.
His friend and former assistant GM with the Coyotes, Treliving, provided him an opportunity too good to pass up.
Day to day, Doan could be on the road scouting for future drafts. Even then, he gathers input from players he knows, such as Leafs prospect Fraser Minten. He might set up shop above the ice during morning skates or practices to meet with members of the Leafs organization and management and discuss the progress of players. Doan travels with the team on select road trips. He might even be on the ice, assisting players in development sessions pre-practice, such as when he showed Bobby McMann tips he learned on how to better position himself and then deceive goalies in front of the net to help score goals from in tight.
But it’s around players off the ice that Doan feels at home. When Doan was hired, he stressed he enjoyed “the ability to connect with people, helping people and (putting) them in the best situation possible for them to be successful.”
Around the Leafs, Doan’s Grand Canyon-sized smile is constant. He greets players with the kind of humour that can bring life to even the longest slumps and hollers out loud when he sees players succeeding.
“You know how many games it took me to get a hat trick? Like 1,110,” Doan told McMann the rookie recently scored a surprise hat trick in his 37th NHL game.
Doan doesn’t come at players the way they expect a boss to.
“It feels like he’s still on the team,” former Coyotes teammate Max Domi said of Doan. “Once someone is a teammate, it doesn’t matter what setting it is, it takes you back to when you played together.”
But Toronto is different than Arizona. That’s where Doan’s efforts to alleviate the pressure of being a Leaf come in.
“I appreciate the energy that he brings to our group when he’s around,” Jake McCabe said. “Something as simple as a smile in the morning. If you’ve had a couple losses and you see Doaner, it lightens you up. And that makes a difference.”
Shane Doan after his first career NHL hat trick on Jan. 7, 2012. (Norm Hall / NHLI via Getty Images)
To McCabe, Doan’s role is clear. He can rely on his 21 seasons of experience and gauge the temperature of the dressing without prying, which allows him to be an efficient, and caring, conduit between players and management and the coaching staff.
Simon Benoit recalls not getting in the lineup early in the season. Doan didn’t have to spend time feeling out the defenceman, despite not knowing each other. There were points earlier in his career when Doan, too, thought he should have been in an NHL lineup.
“(Doan) knows I’m pissed off,” Benoit said.
Doan’s job wasn’t to learn about his new teammate but to immediately encourage him: “Keep working, you’ll get there,” was the message Doan would echo.
And Benoit had to believe him. In a world of good cops and bad cops on coaching staffs, Doan has become the sheriff of encouragement in Toronto.
“Coaches have their perspective but (Doan) brings another perspective to the table that could help (coaches) understand us better,” Benoit said. “He’s always optimistic. When you’re going through something and you know he went through the similar thing but he’s optimistic too, that means something.”
Multiple Leafs attest that Doan’s best quality is his ability to deliver news without any spin.
“You know exactly what you’re hearing from him. It’s not like, is this a euphemism for something else?” McMann said.
Earlier this season, Doan confronted a reality head on with McMann: There were players ahead of him in the lineup. It was time to accept that fact. But also accept that there are things he could do to move higher up the depth chart.
McMann left the conversation not feeling defeated. Because, well, Doan is Doan, and the end of the world always feels far away when he’s in the room.
“You can get (news) from one person but it feels a lot different than getting it from another person. Doan has the delivery to make you feel positive about it,” McMann said. “That helps guys that are trying to come into the league, like myself, feel more comfortable.”
And so Doan’s most valuable contribution to the team has come not just in how he’s injected life into the Leafs dressing room, but in how he’s helping young players better understand themselves and preparing them for life in the NHL.
Doan, a devout Christian, has formed a bond with Nick Robertson, who is exploring his own faith. They continue to have conversations about how Doan’s faith helped guide him through his career. The pair have been watching “The Chosen” – a historical drama about the life of Jesus of Nazareth – together. Robertson now feels he has someone to discuss the intersection of faith and his work in a new way.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence Robertson is having his best NHL season to date while also believing in his own possibilities.
Noah Chadwick, a 2023 draft pick and defenceman, was awestruck at how someone with Doan’s experience was always available during this summer’s development camp. Chadwick asked Doan multiple questions one-on-one after a presentation about building trust within an organization.
“We talked about guys coming to the rink in an energetic attitude. That pushes out the negativity and forms a bubble around the team,” Chadwick said.
Minten has benefitted from both Spezza and Doan and sees parallels between the two.
“Both easy guys to talk to, where it doesn’t seem like you’re talking to management, but you really are,” Minten said. “He’s good at being supportive and critical in a way that makes you feel good.”
It might take a few seasons to better understand how Doan’s efforts to inject confidence in the Leafs will pay off. But if the goal is to keep the demons at bay and instill optimism into the dressing room, Doan’s early tenure in Toronto feels like a success. So much so that this is a role that even more long-time players who can’t turn their back on the game might eventually pursue.
“(Doan) understands what you’re going through,” Benoit said. “It’s nice to know that he’s got your back.”
(Top photo of Shane Doan: Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images)