With teams interested in Doan and the history between the former and Coyotes star and Chayka, this was inevitable.
Shane Doan and the Toronto Maple Leafs have parted ways, per TSN’s Pierre LeBrun.
With John Chayka and Mats Sundin now at the top of the hockey operations structure in Toronto, further front office changes were expected. Doan’s contract, as is standard with NHL front office agreements of any variety, was set to expire June 30, and it will not be renewed.
Doan joined the Maple Leafs as a special advisor to the general manager in 2023, coming aboard as Toronto moved on from Kyle Dubas and brought in Brad Treliving to run the hockey operations department. During Doan’s time with the club, the Maple Leafs made the playoffs in 2024, and 2025 before missing the postseason in 2026, a collapse that prompted sweeping changes across the organization.
Those changes began in March, when the Leafs parted ways with Treliving following a disastrous season that saw the club finish 32-36-14 with a -46 goal differential and miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade. A club that finished with 78 points and dropped seven straight to close the year can't sell patience easily in this market. It comes as no surprise that Doan is parting ways following Treliving departing the organization.
John Chayka was named the new Maple Leafs general manager earlier this month, returning to the NHL for the first time since his turbulent exit from the Arizona Coyotes in 2020. Chayka became the Coyotes GM back in 2016 at just 26 years old, billed as an analytics wunderkind, the new wave, the future of hockey management.
Doan, a former Arizona Coyotes superstar, was unhappy with how his storied tenure with that organization unceremoniously ended early in Chayka's time leading the Yotes' front office. The most infamous chapter came in June 2017, when Chayka invited Doan to breakfast at a Scottsdale restaurant — a meeting Doan understood to be a conversation about leadership, direction, and perhaps his future with the club. Instead, it was effectively the end. At 40 years old, one of the most decorated and respected captains in franchise history was shown the door without ceremony, without a proper sendoff, without the kind of closure a career like his deserved.
Doan’s name has also surfaced in connection with the Vancouver Canucks, suggesting there is organizational interest elsewhere in the league for his services. That should come as no surprise. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in the hockey world who doesn’t like or respect Doan, a two-time All-Star who won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy in 2010 and the Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2012. His credentials as a builder of culture and identity are legitimate. His exit from Arizona was a stain on that organization, not on him. His time in Toronto, serving under Treliving, was earnest and well-regarded around him.
It’s expected that more changes could be coming as Chayka looks to build out his staff in what shapes up to be a busy offseason in Toronto.