from Ryan Pylette of the London Free Press,

On Friday in Sunrise, Fla., it's go time.

"One thing I know in this business -- time tells everything," Hunter said. "I feel confident we've done our work, but you never know what's going to happen in a draft. Someone else could take somebody right ahead of you that you like, so there's a lot of intangibles with this job.

"But this is a winning business and we're here to try to turn this around. No, we've got to go show it."

It's been rather hilarious to hear the 52-year-old Hunter, in the past nine months, referred to as an "NHL rookie" with an experience base largely "limited to the OHL".

Every big-league GM understands what this hire did for Toronto. He is one of the best personnel men in the game.

"I've been doing this for a long time now," the Petrolia native said. "I'm not just going in where I haven't been involved with watching kids from a young age grow from year-to-year. I've seen a lot of them come and go, and you can't replace that experience.

"Hopefully, that will come into use where we don't miss anybody we should get along the way."

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