TORONTO

Spoke by spoke, the Maple Leafs are trying to re-invent the Winged Wheel.

After hiring head coach Mike Babcock and some of his former Detroit assistants, then signing former draft pick Shawn Matthias, the Leafs have grabbed one of the key members of the Red Wings’ scouting staff. Not the untouchable Euro bureau chief Hakan Andersson, who has sustained the backbone of the Wings for 25 years with a series of unheralded picks, but one of his top lieutenants.

Toronto announced Monday that Ari Vuori is its new head of European scouting. The 53-year-old should make a strong combination with Leafs’ principal European scout Thommie Bergman, who is apparently going to scale back his workload as he enters his late 60s.

Vuori spent the past seven years working under Andersson, based in Helsinki, Finland, but cross-checking various prospects throughout Europe. Though the Leafs would not comment on Vuori’s arrival, the scouting community gave him a hearty endorsement.

Craig Button, TSN analyst and former NHL executive with Dallas and Calgary, has known Vuori a long time and compared notes on many National Hockey League drafts.

“He’s a high-end guy and a high-end person,” said Button. “He’s a Google maps scout. By that I mean he knows the terrain, knows the people and knows exactly where to tap in for more information on a player.

“It’s one thing to see a player with your eyes and think ‘this guy is great’. But that’s just a snap shot. It’s another thing to know what kind of player he was at 15 or 16 years old. Ari has a wide-lens view of the game. I’d say 99.5% of the hidden gems are found in this league because somebody knew that background on a player. You learn a lot from a little.”

Before Detroit, Vuori spent more than a decade with the Los Angeles Kings, where his influence helped land Anze Kopitar. And while in the hockey operations department of the TPS club in Turku, Finland, he helped develop Jere Lehtinen for Button and the Stars. Lehtinen won the Frank Selke Trophy for best defensive forward three times.

With the Wings, Vuori was a strong asset for Andersson’s staff. Tomas Tatar, Teemu Pulkkinen and Tomas Jurco are some of the talent Vuori would have evaluated. Finnish forward Pulkkinen was rumoured to be on the Leafs’ wish list during trade talks for Dion Phaneuf in March.

Under Andersson, the Wings’ staff have become famous for discovering Swedes, Finns, Russians and Czechs with late picks owing to the team’s playoff success, 24 straight years of qualifying for post-season play. The Wings have won four Cups since Andersson came aboard.

“Ari was Hakan’s No. 2 man in Europe and our main guy in Finland,” said Wings’ senior vice-president Jim Devellano. “I can’t honestly say what Ari’s (specific player suggestions) were at draft time, because Hakan was the man in charge. Everything went through Hakan and if Ari was part of that, it was fine by us.”

In only two drafts since 1991 has Detroit enjoyed picking in the top 20 and no higher than 15th.

“Hakan kept our ship afloat a lot of years with the Zetterbergs, Kronwalls, Nyquists, Tatars and countless others,” Devellano said. “(General manager) Ken Holland and I call him our most valuable player.”

Some of Bergman’s European recommendations at the table for the Leafs could not be faulted. Alex Steen, Tuukka Rask and Jiri Tlusty were all high first-rounders, while Anton Stralman, Nikolai Kulemin, Korbinian Holzer, Viktor Stalberg and Leo Komarov all played for Toronto at different times. But most were traded and found their success elsewhere.

Bergman’s current Leafs crop includes 2014 first-rounder William Nylander and a trio of Swedes: winger Andreas Johnson, and defencemen Viktor Loov and Petter Granberg.

That list could be topped up in a hurry when Vuori settles in with interim GM Mark Hunter and amateur scouting director Dave Morrison in the coming years.