Insider reveals something interesting about Jason Spezza and why he might have left the Leafs organization

With it being a long weekend in the US, there wasn't expected to be much news in the hockey world today. However, on today's 32 Thoughts podcast with Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek, they revealed some very surprising information regarding the Leafs.

Many were shocked to see Jason Spezza resign from his position with the Leafs moments before Brendan Shanahan announced Kyle Dubas would not be returning as GM. Marek and Friedman discussed whether or not Spezza would consider moving to Pittsburgh if Dubas took the job with the Pens. Friedman mentioned that while it's possible that Spezza could continue to work with Dubas and learn from him, there's no guarantee that he'd take on a full-time role in Pittsburgh.


The next line of discussion, however, was a pretty juicy one. Friedman revealed that there are some who believe that Spezza's resignation came after he may have been asked to take the reigns on an interim basis with Dubas gone.



That's a wild idea for sure. Spezza has very limited experience as an executives, so to have him take over as GM of the biggest hockey market in the country would have been a pretty unorthodox decision. I'm not sure I necessarily believe that's the case, but if the Leafs wanted to have the best shot at re-signing Auston Matthews and William Nylander, it might make some sense to have someone with an even greater level of trust built with them than they had with Kyle Dubas. Spezza was in the trenches with these guys. He helped them during some of their most important developmental years and helped usher them into their prime years.

As Friedman had stated, it's unlikely that we'll ever know the truth, but there's probably at least some truth to the whispers. Whatever that level of truth is remains to be seen, but now, with Brandon Pridham taking over as the team's interim GM until they can hire a new full-time general manager, we can only wonder what might have been.