Leafs Nearly Landed Laviolette Before the Whirlwind

Elliotte Friedman says Toronto got a lot closer to Peter Laviolette than most fans realized, which is exactly the kind of thing that fuels a week of boardroom second-guessing. The Maple Leafs have spent years chasing the right button to push, and this is another reminder that the coaching search rarely stays on the clean, polite version of the story. The real intrigue is not just who got the job, but how close Toronto came to a different kind of bench voice before the decision settled elsewhere.