The Leafs are waking up this morning, after another loss, with an eight point gulf between them and the final wild card spot. It’s over for the season. They won’t recover from the home stand that everybody called their most important stretch of hockey this season. Five games in which records that vary from 4-1, 3-0-2, 3-1-1 would have been acceptable to stay in the playoff race. Two divisional rivals and a couple of heavy hitters from out West were on the docket. Those four teams, as well as the return of Mitch Marner, had people yelling across Leafs Nation that the team would have to wake up and play with heart in order to come away with the appropriate number of points. Instead they went 0-4-1. One point out of a possible ten were secured and the overtime loss was littered with questionable coaching decisions. The last of those decisions, to play rookie Easton Cowan in overtime while some of your high end veterans were rested and ready, cost them the game.
They showed, once again, that playing with heart isn’t part of their skill set.
Nobody is safe from blame here. Not the coachs, not the players and certainly not management, who put this team together.
So, where do you go from here?
Where do you take a team that has lost every single big game they have ever been a part of and rebuild it into a group with killer instinct?
Well, you don’t. At least not in a single stroke. Instead, you need to start small and work towards it, the same as you would if you were building a house.
Foundation first.
Then the frame.
Finish it off with the things that make it look good, but have no bearing on the structural integrity of the place.
What somebody has to do now is ask a very important question. Is the current foundation stable?
But first, who is the “somebody” that needs to ask about the foundation?
Brad Treliving, for what he has shown, is incapable of building anything close to a contending team. While some of the contracts negotiated are fantastic, such as the ones afforded to John Tavares, Jake McCabe and Matthew Knies, others are questionable to say the least. Max Domi, David Kampf, Ryan Reaves, Timothy Liljegren and Jani Hakanpaa stand as poor deals, while Chris Tanev’s long term contract will likely join that group at some point as well. Still, his trades are somehow worse than his signings, with just one deal being a clear example of getting more for a player than you should, which was 3rd and 6th round picks for Timothy Liljegren. Outside of that he overpaid for Brandon Carlo (Fraser Minten, 2026 1st, 2025 4th) and Scott Laughton (Nikita Grebenkin, 2027 1st) with high end assets, while he also agreed to not just take the cap dump contracts that are attached to Matias Maccelli and Dakota Joshua, put to pay a 3rd and 4th for them, respectively.
To say it clearly, that’s two solid prospects that were playing in the NHL for the Leafs last season, two 1st round picks, a 3rd round pick and two 4th round picks for four players, none of which are top line talents.
To make matters worse, the Boston Bruins currently possess the Leafs’ 1st round selection and the coming draft is said to be very deep. As bad as the trade looks already, it could be much worse when we look back 5 years from now. But I digress.
I would argue that the quality of your homes foundation starts with the engineer that designs and inspects it, aka, your GM.
I’m not convinced that Brad Treliving can tie his own shoelaces, let alone be the driving force behind a Stanley Cup winning hockey club.
So, what is step one? The first step is for Keith Pelley to fire Brad Treliving.
Here’s my prediction. Brad Treliving won’t be fired any time soon.
Here’s the best case scenario. The firing of Treliving is something that should happen during the Olympic break, but will likely wait until after the trade deadline or even after the season ends. Up to that point he should be watched carefully, as to avoid the potential of him trying to add to the roster in an attempt to save his job and squandering more future assets. From there a proper President of Hockey Operations should be hired, who can then hire a capable GM.
Here’s what would be the right thing to do (aka, what they won’t do). Treliving should be fired today. This is his 3rd season on the job and we’ve seen enough. In his place they should promote one of the assistant GMs on an interim basis. Candidates include Ryan Hardy, Lawrence Gilman, Shane Doan and Brandon Pridham. This person, or persons, should be tasked with step two.
Step two is simply to sell whatever non-core pieces you can before the trade deadline. We’re not talking about the guys with no-move clauses here. Rather, they need to sell every pending UFA and RFA at the very least and the list isn’t long. Scott Laughton, Bobby McMann, Matias Maccelli, Nicholas Robertson, Calle Jarnkrok and Troy Stecher are who we’re talking about and no, they won’t bring back a lot of assets, but you need to start somewhere.
On top of that they have to field offers on players with short term deals to try to maximize the return. Brandon Carlo, Simon Benoit, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Domi, Nicholas Roy and Dakota Joshua are the players on this list. While I don’t believe some of them are going to be able to be moved (Domi, Joshua, in particular), the rest should return higher picks and/or prospects than the first group.
Step three is a review of the core group of players and has to be done by the future President and GM. Morgan Rielly, William Nylander and Auston Matthews are the main three that need to be viewed under a microscope. Their attitudes and/or on-ice play, combined with the potential return’s via trade make them susceptible to being moved. As I write this I would wholeheartedly agree that those three players should be traded out of Toronto.
Step four is to build it back again. Through the process of elimination that would mean they would build a team around John Tavares, Matthew Knies, Easton Cowan, Steven Lorentz, Chris Tanev, Jake McCabe and the goaltending trio of Anthony Stolarz, Joseph Woll and Dennis Hildeby for next season (lets ignore the fact that they may have a goaltending decision to make as well this summer). In theory, even those players should be on the trade block if the right deal is offered, but for now you’d have to consider the veterans from that group your leaders, with the young Knies and Cowan as the star pupils.
The return’s from Matthews and Nylander, in particular, would be immense. Young NHL player and/or NHL ready players, as well as picks in the 1st and 2nd rounds could launch the team back into the playoffs next season. A shrewd GM could use the picks to acquire proven NHL talent, as well as sign the right individuals on July 1st, which would effectively insulate the young players they have or will have. While the proposition of moving those stars can easily be viewed as a complete rebuild, that simply isn’t the case. They needn’t finish in the bottom of the NHL. Instead, they need to target the appropriate young players in trade and work from there.
With that said, they are just 7pts away from falling into the top 5 in the draft, which would mean they would retain their 1st round selection this year. If that could happen in conjunction with everything above, it would mean a new era in Leafs hockey.