Maple Leafs get ahead of post-season reality by parting ways with Brad Treliving

While it felt like a coaching change would be eventually be necessary much earlier in the season, Treliving seemingly got one last shot to keep his job with an impactful trade deadline. The result was a first-round pick for Nicolas Roy (decent), a second and a fourth round pick for Bobby McMann (not great, and even worse when you consider his production with the Seattle Kraken), and a conditional third-round pick for Scott Laughton (all around awful given the asset management factor). The final result of this? Craig Berube still has his job, and Treliving doesn’t.

Treliving’s tenure had some good and some bad in it. All things considered, people were thrilled with the extensions he was able to ink John Tavares and Matthew Knies to last summer, and he had some other moves with promise like the gamble on Matias Maccelli. But all of that was evidently outdone by two things – number one, the fact that the Leafs are going to miss the playoffs for the first time in ten years under his roster construction, and number two, the aforementioned asset management.

The prices he paid for Scott Laughton (a first-round pick and prospect Nikita Grebenkin) and Brandon Carlo (a first-round pick and Fraser Minten) were hefty at the time, and he was clearly pushing all of his chips in on the team’s ability to make a run that year. They still couldn’t make it to the Conference Final, and now his team is headed towards a draft-lottery finish with a good chance that the Boston Bruins will have their first round pick. It was a disastrous deadline that put the final nail in the coffin that was his tenure as Leafs general manager.

The Maple Leafs haven’t announced an interim hire yet, but this firing should earn MLSE CEO Keith Pelley some grace from the fanbase. It became apparent that Treliving wasn’t the guy to lead this team forward after the way the deadline (and this season) went, and the organization clearly recognized that and wanted to pounce now instead of waiting for postseason interviews. We’ll see how much longer Berube’s job is safe for.

Sponsored by bet365