The Toronto Maple Leafs have suffered another devastating loss; this time to the lowly Nashville Predators. Sitting one point out of last in the Eastern Conference, the Leafs are simply running out of time and patience to let this season get away from them.
Is this current iteration good enough to make the postseason? From what we have seen so far, probably not. Whose responsibility is that? The General Manager’s.
Brad Treliving has been with the organization since 2023, but his time has run out already. The team needs to start making changes, and he should be the first to go.
The first domino to fall
Typically, when things are going south this quickly, the team opts to cut ties with their head coach. That’s not to say the Leafs still shouldn’t pursue that option, since Craig Berube has clearly lost his players’ interest, but you have to go one level up to note where real change would occur.
Treliving has made a lot of decisions since taking over as GM, but not a lot of those decisions have been strong ones. Trading away assets for Brandon Carlo, Scott Laughton, Matias Maccelli, Dakota Joshua, and others has left the team in a worse position to make further moves. Injuries have proven to be a massive factor in the team’s performance this year, but the lack of NHL options to replace those players is a key callout to make. The team could benefit from some youth injection, had most of them not been shipped off at last year’s deadline.
Losing Mitch Marner was a disaster everyone saw coming, but a disaster that Treliving had already gone through with Johnny Gaudreau in Calgary. Something he vowed he would never repeat, yet here we are. Getting Nicolas Roy at the time was something that was praised for not coming out of the whole ordeal empty-handed. Now it just looks even more like a narrative to prop up Treliving further.
Treliving has always had a mixed bag of outcomes as GM; some moves were amazing, and some you look back at and cringe. The majority of moves he’s made as GM have been cringeworthy, and more and more, they are starting to show.
Coaching Carousel
Firing a GM midseason is rare, unless you’re the Buffalo Sabres, but one of the biggest reasons to do so is that you’re not confident in that person making decisions about the future. Right now, that decision is around the coach.
As mentioned, Berube’s time is also up in Toronto, but if you’re not 100% certain Treliving is going to be around in the future, why give him the ability to hire a new coach?
In Calgary, Treliving was at the helm for a cornucopia of head coaches. He inherited Bob Hartley before firing him for Glen Gulutzan, who was then fired for Bill Peters, who was then fired for Geoff Ward, who was then fired for Darryl Sutter. Absolutely zero success at finding a coach, because it was well known that Sutter was a push from ownership rather than Treliving himself.
MLSE could throw money at this problem by bringing in, say, Peter DeBoer, but does that solve the problem of roster construction? The Leafs need to change up their roster, but their GM spent all of their assets in building this iteration. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The right move now and for the future
It’s like the chicken or the egg: what should come first? GM or coach?
If you want to do something for the sake of doing something, the coaching staff is the easiest. Does that truly solve the Leafs’ problems? No. The root of the problem is likely the GM, who could then hire his own new coach to lead this team into whatever comes next.
Brad Treliving was the right move at the time for what was available, but that time has passed.
It’s time to move on.
