Leafs GM Brad Treliving explains Marc Savard’s firing, provides Craig Berube with another vote of confidence

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving met with reporters prior to Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he extended another vote of confidence to head coach Craig Berube.

It was widely reported that both Berube and Treliving’s jobs are safe ahead of the holiday break, but the Maple Leafs elected to fire assistant coach Marc Savard on Monday evening. Savard was responsible for overseeing the Maple Leafs’ power play, which ranks last in the NHL with a 13.3 percent success rate on the year.

It’s clear that Berube isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.

“Well, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals of what happens with this,” Treliving said, when asked about his vote of confidence extending to Berube, if the Leafs continue to lose. “We’ve got a good coach. We’ve got to continue to make our team better. We’ve got areas that we’ve got to get better in. It’s not lost on us where the team’s at. We live it every day. But I think we’ve got a real good coach. And that’s not to say we don’t change some things, tweak some things. We’ve done that over the course of the last couple of weeks. When you get in these situations, to me, you have to band together and you look for collective solutions. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Treliving previously extended a vote of confidence to Berube on November 18 during his quarterly press conference. Savard’s dismissal is perhaps the first step towards widespread institutional change, and MLSE CEO Keith Pelley will surely be overseeing the next stretch of games with a very careful eye.

“Those are never fun decisions to make, or fun days. I want to make it clear that the decision of yesterday is not putting the blame solely on Marc Savard’s feet. That’s totally incorrect,” Treliving said during his introductory statement.

Replying to @Arunthings

Treliving, on potential trades: “I don’t think we’re turning the page on the season. You know what’s going on in the league, you’re having discussions with other teams, so we’re not here waving a white flag. You always look at change, a lot of it.”

As for the anemic power play, there was some dispute over who will oversee man advantage scenarios. Treliving stated that assistant coach Derek Lalonde will take a leading role, while Berube said it will be a collective effort from the coaching staff.

Toronto will resume its schedule against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday afternoon, with all levels of the organization keeping a firm eye on Berube, Treliving, along with Auston Matthews and William Nylander, as they have both drastically underperformed during the team’s three-game losing skid.

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