Mark Hunter heads home, takes over as GM of London Knights

After losing out on the throne to Kyle Dubas, Mark Hunter has, as expected, found a general manager position to call his own following his departure from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Only he’s chosen it in a league that maybe some wouldn’t have expected, however familiar it might be.

The Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights, to which Hunter co-owns, announced Friday that the ace scout will return to run hockey operations for the junior hockey giants, bumping incumbent Rob Simpson down into an associate role.

“I am very happy to be back in London,” Hunter said, through team release. “We have a strong group within our organization and I look forward to returning to work with everyone to develop an even stronger team for our fans and for our city and the community.”

Hunter ran hockey operations in London for 14 highly successful seasons before leaving to join the Maple Leafs as a scout in 2014. He served as a key draft resource in Toronto, which selected Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews in consecutive lotteries before his promotion to assistant general manager in August of 2016.

He spent the next two seasons working beside Dubas and under Brendan Shanahan and Lou Lamoriello until Shanahan chose his counterpart to succeed Lamoriello at the end of the veteran’s three-year tenure.

Lamoriello was hired to run hockey ops with the New York Islanders shortly after Dubas’s promotion, while Hunter departed without securing an NHL job.

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