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This is the second organization Keefe and Dubas have worked together in after the OHL Soo Greyhounds, but Lamoriello put the kibosh on the whole subject Thursday when asked if he expected other teams to approach him to recruit either man or if such contact has already been made.

“I put that subject in the same category as trades,” Lamoriello said firmly. “It’s not something I comment on.”

Lance Hornby, Postmedia Network[/np_storybar]

Lou Lamoriello knows his easy, early-season decisions with the Maple Leafs made life harder on his general manager and coach with the Marlies.

So, Toronto’s hockey supremo was not going to get hypercritical of how the farm team’s fortunes vacillated so much in the playoffs, a trip that seemed so unlikely in mid-season and ended with a blown lead and Game 7 heartbreak on Wednesday in Syracuse.

“You never want to lose, but here you can dwell on the positives,” Lamoriello said in the wake of the 6-3 setback that ended an eventful season. “You have to give tremendous credit to those two (GM Kyle Dubas and coach Sheldon Keefe).

“We’d made trades (in 2015-16) in which we had to take players back,” he said, notably Milan Michalek, Brooks Laich, Colin Greening, “some of whom we thought would play in the NHL. But what transpired were young players (Mitch Marner, Connor Brown, William Nylander, Zach Hyman) were better than expected.”

That left Dubas and Keefe trying to mollify disgruntled, demoted NHLers — some who were long-term Marlies and also trying to get back in The Show. They were all vying for the five spots per game night allocated to veterans per American Hockey League rules. In December and January, the Marlies were in last place, not a healthy environment for their kids such as defencemen Travis Dermott, Andrew Nielsen, Rinat Valiev and forward Kasperi Kapanen.