The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired four new faces to their hockey operations department. Most notably, retired NHL defenseman Mark Giordano will join the AHL’s Toronto Marlies as a coaching advisor. Additionally, the club has hired longtime NHL skaters Steve Reinprecht and Eric Lacroix as pro scouts, and the Finnish-based Mikael Kotkaniemi as a European amateur scout.
This news officially marks a return to Toronto for Giordano, who hung up his skates as a member of the club after the 2023-24 season. Giordano was long expected to join the Maple Leafs’ staff, with general manager Brad Treliving announcing an undisclosed role for the Hall-of-Fame-hopeful in mid-September. Giordano went on to support the Leafs’ training camp and work directly with players, all the while manning a role that wasn’t yet certain. On the heels of camp, Toronto will make that distinction now, and assign Giordano to continue mentoring their prospects in the minor-leagues.
To say Giordano brings hefty experience with him would be an understatement. He played in 1,148 NHL games between 2005 and 2024 – and even had teams expressing interesting in signing him to a professional try-out at last season’s training camps. Instead, the former Calgary Flames captain opted to take a year away from a formal role in the sport. Now, he’ll return to paid roles, working under the same NHL GM that left him exposed to the Seattle Kraken in the 2021 NHL expansion draft. The Kraken acted quickly to snatch up the veteran defender, and even named him as the first captain in franchise history after he wore the ’C’ for eight years in Calgary. Giordano wouldn’t even stick in Seattle for a full season, though, getting moved to his hometown of Toronto at the 2022 Trade Deadline in what would be the start of a two-and-a-half year tenure with the Leafs.
Toronto continues the experienced additions with Reinprecht and Lacroix. Reinprecht played through 663 NHL games between 1999 and 2011, and even won the 2001 Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. He was never drafted, but earned an NHL contract after a breakout senior year at the University of Wisconsin, marked by 66 points in 37 games. That spark was enough to keep Reinprecht at the NHL level through the first 11 years of his career. He was a routine scoring option out of the middle-six, playing through three years in Colorado and four in Phoenix. As his NHL production began to taper, Reinprecht made the decision to move to Germany’s DEL in 2010, and would play through six more seasons with the Nuernberg Ice Tigers before retiring in 2016.
Lacroix was drafted – hearing his name called by Toronto in the seventh-round of the 1990 NHL Draft, back when the draft was 12-rounds long. He joined the AHL’s St. John’s Maple Leafs two years later, and quickly stood out as a productive winger in both scoring and penalty minutes. By the end of his third year in the minors, Lacroix had totaled 81 points and 161 penalty minutes in 161 games. That production didn’t translate directly to the NHL, though, with Lacroix’s career-years coming in 1995-96 and 1996-97. Those seasons were marked by 32 points and 110 penalty minutes in 72 games, and 36 points and 26 penalty minutes in 81 games, respectively. He continued his career as a depth bruiser until the 2000-01 season, when he retired with 137 points and 361 penalty minutes in 472 games.
Kotkaniemi never played at the NHL level – instead riding out a 12-year pro career in Finland, Denmark, and Germany – but he’s certainly gotten an intimate look at the league. His youngest son, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, was drafted third-overall by the Montreal Canadiens in 2018. Since then, Jesperi has played through a lofty 476 games in the NHL, with 194 points and 234 penalty minutes to show for it. Meanwhile, father Mikael has spent the last five years coaching in Finland’s U20 league, or with the country’s U17 and U18 international clubs. Before that, he had spent eight years coaching in Finland’s top two pro leagues. He’s a key member of Scandinavian hockey and should provide Toronto with an in-depth look at the next suite of Finnish and Swedish stars.