In a year or two, or three, the face of the franchise could be William Nylander, or Morgan Rielly, or Mitch Marner.

But without a true NHL star now, the Maple Leafs are a team defined by its suits and their promises, not its players and their talent. That’s just where this organization is at the moment, without graceful veterans like the Sedins, or a burgeoning superstar like Connor McDavid, or a Norris Trophy candidate like Mark Giordano, or a player who might be the best in the game, like Carey Price.

That’s just where this team is.

The suits, of course, are the men with the plan, or the men charged with executing the plan, and that means Brendan Shanahan, Lou Lamoriello and $50 million coach Mike Babcock are the people to watch on this team this season.

That point was underlined on Monday when the Twitterverse was in a tizzy over Shanahan stepping on the ice in streetclothes to pass on some of his 656-goal wisdom to Brad Boyes after a team practice.

If Trevor Linden does that in Vancouver, or Dale Tallon in Florida, nobody says a thing. But in Toronto, where Shanahan had almost as spectacular a summer as the baseball Blue Jays, this caused discussion and debate. Why was he on the ice? Should he be on the ice? Did Babcock and Lamoriello approve of Shanahan giving out tips?

And until this team gets some stars to attract the attention, that’s the way it’s going to be.

Babcock, of course, will be the day-to-day voice of the team, while the 72-year-old Lamoriello has already made news by booting the club’s broadcasters – and the usual crew of sponsors and friends, it should be noted – off the team charter. Why? Because it’s an extension of the dressing room, to his way of thinking, and because the team has expanded it’s sports medicine group and needs the seats.

Beyond that, Lamoriello – who cancelled a planned trip to Tuscany with his brother this summer to get acclimatized quickly to his new position – has also made it clear to all members of the club’s front office and scouting staff that he’ll be doing the talking for everyone, save Shanahan and Babcock, of course.

How this highly unusual dynamic – Shanahan was drafted by Lamoriello, coached by Babcock, but now is the boss of both – works will be fascinating to watch. Even the fact Lamoriello didn’t hire his coach and, really, can’t fire him, makes this hierarchy a little difficult to understand from the outside.

So far, it should be said, the three seem to be having a blast working together, and enjoying listening to the hockey world speculate about them. Both Babcock and Lamoriello, you should know, took great delight in giving the gears to Shanahan after TV cameras caught him on the ice. Lamoriello keeps saying how he finds it energizing to be around Babcock.

They’ll have their disagreements, just like Babcock and Kenny Holland used to differ on this or that. But they share the common ground of wanting to build something special in Toronto, something that isn’t the Red Wings or the Devils, but something that is distinctly the Leafs.

They have much work to do.

Player-wise, this year’s Leafs begin the season with most of the key veterans still in place, except, of course, winger Phil Kessel, who was shipped off to Pittsburgh at the draft and will likely get to skate with Sidney Crosby this season after years of making do with Tyler Bozak as his centreman.

Adding Frank Corrado off waivers Tuesday, and putting Richard Panik on waivers, didn’t alter the balance of the team much, although it brought another Toronto-area lad to town, something the Mimico-born Shanahan seems to value. The fact that Kessel often said he wanted to be a Leaf but then didn’t behave as if he wanted to be a Leaf bothered Shanahan, and targeting Toronto-area youngsters who might be drawn to returning home is one way of addressing the need to find athletes who want to be Leafs.

In theory, the strength of this team should start in goal with two experienced netminders, but neither Jonathan Bernier nor James Reimer asserted themselves with particular vigour in the pre-season. Bernier will start the first two games, but that’s it.

In Dion Phaneuf, Rielly and Jake Gardiner, there is talent without reliability on the back end. To be fair, these are defenders who have been forced to play without being able to trust their forwards for consistent support. The thinking from Babcock and his staff is that if the Leaf defence is more part of a five-man unit and hung out to dry less, it can be a solid group.

With Stephane Robidas on IR and Roman Polak seemingly fading out of favour, players like Corrado and Scott Harrington, both 22, and Martin Marincin, 23, will get a chance to add the youth component many Leaf fans are hoping to see. Harrington, of course, was part of the Kessel trade with the Penguins, and as such gets the first opportunity to show the Leafs did well in that deal.

Up front, Tyler Bozak and James van Riemsdyk, along with Kessel, were hockey’s hottest line before Christmas last season, then went stone cold. There is some surprise that Bozak, not to mention Joffrey Lupul, are still Leafs. Either the Leaf management team prior to the hiring of Lamoriello couldn’t find appropriate deals, or a decision was made to retain these players to see if they can be productive under Babcock.

If they can, those players, along with centre Nazem Kadri, winger P.A. Parenteau and free agent addition Brad Boyes might help the Leafs produce sufficient offence. But that’s as much a hope as an expectation. Assistant coach Jim Hiller specializes in offence and the power play, and a big part of his job will be to wring as many goals as he can from this group, starting with the daunting challenge of finding a way to get pucks past Price in the home opener Wednesday night.

The reality, however, is to win games the Leafs may need the likes of Shawn Matthias, Daniel Winnik, Leo Komarov and Nick Spaling to make them a grinding, defence-first club, the very opposite of what this team was under Randy Carlyle. If the goaltending comes around, this has a greater chance of happening.

The sense is this may not be very pretty early, but should get better by Christmas as the club gets used to doing things Babcock’s way. There will be no aggressive roster changes if the season goes south, at least ones that require moving futures for help now, as Leaf management understands another good draft awaits next summer.

For now, with Marner in junior and Nylander in the minors, this is a team that will play in the shadows of the three famous suits charged with finding a way to erase the memories of a decade of mostly bad hockey.

A Stanley Cup? Sure, that’s the ultimate goal. But a return to respectability built on structure, discipline and possession hockey will have to come first.