Hes that silent assassin: Wes Clark is helping Kyle Dubas shape the Leafs

As the 2018 NHL Draft inched closer, Jason Bukala and Wes Clark continued to argue.

Bukala, the Florida Panthers’ director of amateur scouting, and Clark, an amateur scout with the organization, couldn’t agree on whether to select Peterborough Petes forward Semyon Der-Arguchintsev. The forward was skilled but small.

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If he was available beyond the second round, Clark believed they should take him. Bukala disagreed. With other undersized prospects in the system, Bukala didn’t want to add too many of the same body types to their pool.

The Panthers never got the opportunity as Der-Arguchintsev was selected in the third round, 76th overall, by the Maple Leafs.

It was a typical suggestion from Clark, who made a name for himself with the Panthers by looking beyond size and other typical hockey attributes.

“He’s a very deep thinker,” Bukala said. “He digs in on players but he also understands the vision of the organization and the leadership ahead of him and what they’re looking for in players.”

Clark has brought those attributes with him to Toronto, where he works as the Leafs’ assistant director of player personnel and, unofficially, Kyle Dubas’ right-hand advisor. He is unorthodox and influential. And although he was among Craig Custance’s list of the top 40 under 40 shaping the NHL’s future in 2018, he still operated largely behind the scenes. Many Leafs fans would be justified in not knowing his name. The Leafs declined to make Clark available for this story.

But those who know Clark say he is one of the more unique people in professional hockey. As the Leafs continue to forge a path as a progressive, forward-thinking organization, Clark’s influence will likely only continue to grow.

“He thinks so differently from so many people in the hockey world,” said Brandon DeFazio, a longtime friend and recent KHL player. “He appreciates so many different things that often aren’t valued at a high level.”

It was called the “Dungeon.”

Richard Clark’s homemade gym in the basement of his Oakville home didn’t have air conditioning and was stuffed with as much old gym equipment he could find.

“It was archaic,” said Richard Clark, Wes’ father. “But it worked.”

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In the late ’90s and early 2000s, the “Dungeon” was where local athletes found the kind of intense workouts they couldn’t get elsewhere. Richard had tried working out with his son and his son’s friend Matt Moulson at a local YMCA. But Clark didn’t want to be seen around his father, whose workouts were considerably aggressive.

And so they gathered with other local teenage hockey players in the “Dungeon” to push each other.

“‘These guys are crazy,’” DeFazio remembered thinking. “It was an absolute jungle. These guys were tossing weights around, screaming. Sometimes the whole workout would break down because Matt and Wes would wrestle each other because they were so upset if one person did an extra rep.”

“Wes always wanted to lift a single pound more than everyone else,” Moulson said.

Clark might have seemed shy at first, but he developed a desire to push those around him to new limits with personal training.

“That’s something Wes carries with him. Everybody says he’s shy, but he has that deep, competitive nature in him. I saw it,” DeFazio said.

Word soon spread. A neighbourhood kid by the name of John Tavares knocked on Clark’s door without any warning. He wanted to be pushed by older players like Clark, who had been grinding through obstacles from the time he was young.

Clark remembers his son hearing racist taunts during hockey and lacrosse games. Wes’ mother is Chinese.

But Clark never walked away from hockey, even at 14, when he was told he was too small and cut from his AAA team. That experience pushed him to look at players like Der-Arguchintsev beyond their height and weight.

Being raised by a single father also meant that if Clark had an evening hockey game, Richard would take him to his nearby office after the game to catch up on work he may have missed. Clark would finish his homework at a nearby desk in his office.

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Richard tried to instill a simple mantra: If you continue to put the work in, the “power of perseverance” would eventually win out.

In fall 2004, Clark, then 21, arrived at the University of Maine as, according to then-men’s hockey head coach Tim Whitehead, “a coach’s dream.” He took instruction well and impressed Whitehead with the positive influence he had on his teammates in the weight room.

Whitehead remembered hearing Clark saying, “Everyone works hard now, but you have to outsmart them with how you train.”

Undrafted after four years of NCAA hockey, Clark’s professional career stalled after one ECHL season. He found work as an intern at the Uptown Hockey agency, where some players who trained at his father’s gym were represented. His duties included recruitment and establishing player comparables in contract negotiations.

Agent Todd Reynolds recalled being struck by Clark’s loyalty.

“He wasn’t anything but all in with us,” Reynolds said.

Clark often returned to his father’s home talking about one of his Uptown colleagues: then-agent Kyle Dubas.

Dubas and Clark were voracious readers eager to soak up new information but with little experience in the game. The two bonded over what was then a novel way of looking at the game. They believed in skill and in players who found ways to overcome obstacles.

“They have real acute hockey minds,” Richard said.

They quickly developed a close friendship.

“Mutt and Jeff,” Richard said.

“They’re deep in thought, those two,” said DeFazio, who Dubas represented at Uptown. “They think before they speak. They don’t just say things that aren’t well-thought-out opinions.”

When Dubas left Uptown to become general manager of the Soo Greyhounds in 2011, he gave Clark his first paid job in hockey: director of player development. Every dreamer needs a sounding board grounded in reality. For Dubas, that person was Clark.

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“(Clark) was always someone that was kind of making sure that we were questioning what we were doing and not in a bad way, but just in a way that we’re challenging the staff to make sure that we’re making the right decisions,” said Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis, who worked with Clark for one season in the Soo.

Clark sought creative players who had a skill set the organization could build on. He dissected players, getting to the root of why they were either performing well or underperforming. That helped him find overlooked value.

“You want to get out of that kind of typical talk. You want to make sure you’re articulate and not just saying, ‘Hey, this player is a bad skater,’ but asking ‘Why is he bad? Can we improve it? What’s wrong with his stride?’ and not just saying ‘This kid sucks, he can’t skate, move on,’” Raftis said.

Beyond challenging Dubas, Clark learned to take risks.

“If you’re a people person like Wes, and intelligent like Wes, you’re going to be able to create. You’re not just going to do the same thing you did 10 years ago. You’re going to stay on the cutting edge,” Whitehead said.

In his first season, the Greyhounds missed the playoffs. Clark and Dubas faced pressure from Greyhounds ownership to right the ship. Late in 2012, Dubas and Clark were considering moving on from then-head coach Mike Stapleton.

Clark consulted his father. He said if the Greyhounds kept underperforming, Clark and Dubas could get fired. Richard pushed his son: If they make the change and it doesn’t go well, what would happen? They’d probably get fired all the same.

“When you’re in the middle of a minefield, you don’t stand still,” Richard remembered telling his son.

On Dec. 3, 2012, the Greyhounds hired Sheldon Keefe as their new head coach. Keefe had no OHL coaching experience but he guided the Greyhounds to the playoffs that season and the following two seasons.

Three months after the Leafs hired Dubas as assistant general manager in 2014, Clark was hired by them to work in player evaluation.

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Dubas was surprised when then-Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello chose not to renew Clark’s contract after the 2015-16 season. On the 2016 NHL Draft floor, Dubas told Bukala that Clark would soon be available.

One month later, Clark was hired as an amateur scout for the Panthers. His two-year tenure in Florida didn’t just prepare him to return to the Leafs. It also helped him make a name for himself.

“I’m going to be perfectly blunt: I learned how to think outside the box on player attributes and think a little bit differently on players,” Bukala said. “And I credit him for some of my own professional development.”

Clark began as an Ontario-based scout. But when Bukala noticed how well Clark identified elements of a player beyond the obvious, Bukala designated Clark as his “special assignments guy.”

“When you get to know Wes Clark, you know pretty quickly that you’ve got to utilize his skill set in a broader landscape,” Bukala said. “You can’t pigeonhole that. You’ve got to let that grow.”

It was in scouting meetings that Clark began to show his influence.

Bukala used traditional terms like hockey sense, on-ice awareness and vision to describe players. But Clark pushed him one step further.

He would ask how players find “quiet ice in the pocket” to exploit defensive structure and then create scoring chances. Even if some furrowed their brows around the table, Clark was trying to determine how catch-all terms would benefit the Panthers. While some spoke vaguely, Clark challenged those around him to be specific with their observations.

“It was enlightening,” Bukala said. “We might have been talking the same language and trying to go down the same road. But the way he described it opened my eyes a little bit more.”

In 2017, the Panthers had the 10th pick. Clark wanted them to use it on highly skilled and highly divisive winger Owen Tippett if he was available. Clark believed in what Tippett could become. Tippett has spoken publicly about how he was bullied as a young player and had a contentious relationship with his father.

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Despite higher-rated centre Gabriel Vilardi being available when the Panthers picked, they chose Tippett. Clark was the first person from the Panthers to take the draft stage, ahead of general manager Dale Tallon. It was perhaps symbolic, but it was also hard not to see just how quickly Clark’s stock had risen.

Clark stood beside Tippett and awkwardly held his hands together as the ceremonial photo was taken onstage. His obvious discomfort before the cameras was no surprise to those who know him. The following spring, Clark declined when Bukala asked him to be the Panthers representative at the 2018 NHL Draft Lottery in Toronto.

“He doesn’t want to be in the limelight,” Bukala said. “He doesn’t want people having full access to him. That’s not his shtick.”

Don’t be fooled by that reluctance, though.

“He’s not going to be the guy that stands out in the room,” Bukala said. “He’s that silent assassin. He carries clout, but you’d never know it.”

Two months after he was promoted to GM of the Leafs, Dubas repatriated Clark to Toronto. Clark didn’t care what his title was; he just wanted to help fuel Dubas’ vision for the game, one of skill and puck possession, by finding players who fit that mold.

If Clark’s background is any indication, there is more to playing for the Leafs under Dubas than simply having skill. Under Clark, new Leafs players must outwork their competitors.

In March, after DeFazio told his old friend he wanted to work in hockey, Clark invited him on a scouting trip to Barrie to watch the OHL’s Colts play the Sudbury Wolves.

DeFazio was immediately drawn to three players who scored two or more goals in that game. He pointed out their skill. Clark wanted him to dig beyond their obvious skill.

“There were some intangibles I missed with the players I was looking at,” DeFazio said. “And he wasn’t shy to tell me that he was seeing different things. He’d say, ‘Look at his back check. Look at how he hops over the bench.'”

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Clark was looking for intensity beyond the scoresheet.

And he got it midway through the second period when Leafs prospect and then-Wolves defenceman Kalle Loponen, upset with some liberties that had been taken with him, dropped the gloves with Colts left winger Nicolas Porco.

Clark was impressed by Loponen’s drive.

“That went a long way with Wes,” DeFazio said. “It was a willingness to step outside of (Loponen’s) comfort zone.”

Now, as the Leafs continue to face a salary cap crunch, they will have to think outside the box to unearth otherwise overlooked players.

Clark will be central to that, flying across the world to get firsthand analysis of possible signings and draft picks before delivering his reports to Dubas, despite having far less experience in professional hockey than many other Leafs senior management figures.

“He’s going to be that right-hand guy that successful organizations need to have,” Bukala said. “In that market, (Dubas) needs guys like that.”

But he won’t just provide his feedback. He’ll let Dubas know if he believes a player is ready to go the extra mile with his training, and just how the Leafs can then make that player better.

Dubas isn’t the only prominent person among the Leafs who regularly seeks out Clark’s opinion. Tavares still talks with Clark following games to get his close friend’s thoughts on his performance.

“He’s always been there for me. He’s always continued to help me grow as a player and as a person,” Tavares said. “He always challenged me, telling me what I needed to hear, not what I wanted to hear.”

“He sees ways that players can benefit and how things can be specifically adapted to their skill set,” Moulson said.

Moulson, who played 650 NHL games, recalled being given a hard time by teams about his skating. But few asked why he was skating the way he was.

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“He’s always asking questions,” Moulson said. “As a player, that’s a huge thing. When you ask those questions, it’s a lot easier to understand a player on the ice and as an individual as well.”

(Top photo of John Tavares, Wes Clark and Matt Moulson: Courtesy of Richard Clark)

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