Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced in a news release Monday evening that the team has parted ways with their general manager.

Brad Treliving’s time in Toronto is over.

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced in a news release Monday evening that the team has parted ways with their general manager, coming near the end of his third season at the helm. He was under contract through the 2026-27 season.

According to TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun, the Maple Leafs will conduct a formal GM search and believed beginning that search now was preferred to waiting two weeks until the end of the regular season.

Treliving’s firing comes with the Leafs sitting well outside the playoff picture this season at 31-30-13 with 75 points in 74 games. Toronto went a combined 139-92-27 with one playoff series win during his tenure.

Auston Matthews will not play again this season.

The Toronto Maple Leafs captain has been diagnosed with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion, the team announced Friday.

He will be re-evaluated in two weeks but will not return to game action this season.

Matthews was injured in a knee-on-knee collision with Anaheim Ducks captain Radko Gudas on Thursday. Gudas had a phone hearing on Friday and is awaiting discipline from the NHL's department of player safety.

Leafs general manager Brad Treliving met with the media Friday for what was maybe his most sombre availability since coming to Toronto.

The Maple Leafs’ first trade deadline as sellers in a decade is over.

After trading Nicolas Roy, Bobby McMann and Scott Laughton for a collection of draft picks, Leafs general manager Brad Treliving met with the media for what was maybe his most sombre availability since coming to Toronto in 2023.

Let’s unpack the most notable things the Leafs GM said on Friday.

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The sell-off has begun

The Leafs GM is facing his first trade deadline in Toronto as a seller rather than a buyer.

The upcoming trade deadline will be completely unlike the first two of Brad Treliving’s tenure as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

In the midst of the most disappointing (and soon to be playoff-less) Leafs season in more than a decade, his team will unquestionably be selling — not buying, as in the past — ahead of Friday’s deadline.

What impact, if any, will his execution of those trade(s) have on his future as GM? In other words, could it save his job? Or is his job somehow safe already?

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With 22 games left, the odds are completely stacked against the Leafs falling to the bottom five of the league — even with a sell-off.

It’s over. The Toronto Maple Leafs are not making the playoffs and it’s finally time to sell.

Well, it’s finally time for an improvident front office that didn’t see the signs early in the season (or last season, for that matter) and failed to react when the odds were stacked against them. Toronto’s playoff chances fell below 50 percent Nov. 11 and never meaningfully recovered. In the nearly four months since, the Leafs have done nothing to change that.

That it took this long to react to what’s been obvious for months is yet another blight on management that makes it difficult to atone for the last one: trading a pick with only top-five protection for a third-pair defender. With the Leafs’ direction finally decided for them, is it too late to make up ground in the lottery race?

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Mired by an abysmal stretch of games, how many of the Leafs' problems are due to coaching versus talent?

Did the Toronto Maple Leafs just play their worst game of the season?

If it wasn’t the worst, it was in the running. Outshot 16-2 (!) in the first period. Four shots on net halfway through the game (!!). A second period which saw the Ottawa Senators run around and do what they wanted and eventually break things open during the first home game for the Leafs in a month.

The 5-2 loss was Toronto’s third straight coming out of the Olympic break and third straight display of dejected, dispiriting, flat and admittedly embarrassing hockey.

“Just bad,” captain Auston Matthews said afterward.

Any debate about the trade deadline, and the path the front office may take, was already over. Selling remains the only option. But what does this all mean for the head coach? Is Craig Berube’s future with the Leafs being sealed with the way this thing is unravelling?

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At this point in the season, the Leafs need to weigh the short-, medium- and long-term future.

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving strode into the team’s practice rink earlier this week with a special guest: Keith Pelley, the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, otherwise known as Treliving’s boss.

It was a rare occurrence to see the two men who run the Leafs watching practice together, and doing so at a crucial time — shortly before the March 6 trade deadline, when the team must choose a direction for the season.

The plan should already be clear: The Leafs need to sell.

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Should the Leafs trade Bobby McMann? How about Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Scott Laughton? Leafs fans weigh in.

Here at The Athletic, we’re always interested in what our Toronto Maple Leafs readers have to say. Usually we wait until the end of a season, or just before a new season, to take the temperature of the fan base.

Well, there’s nothing “usual” about this season. The team finds itself six points out of a playoff spot with the trade deadline on the horizon. So we had to change things up.

In the middle of the most disappointing and befuddling Leafs season in recent memory, we asked readers for their thoughts on the team ahead of schedule. Well over 2,000 responded — more than usual for one of these fan surveys. It’s clear this season has struck a nerve.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs were in the midst of a last-place season the last time they sold at the trade deadline.

It was 10 years ago, and a front office managed by Lou Lamoriello dealt away the likes of Dion Phaneuf, Shawn Matthias, James Reimer, Daniel Winnik and Roman Polak for a collection of players — and most importantly, draft picks.

Two of those picks, both second-rounders, were used on Carl Grundström (2016) and Sean Durzi (2018), who were later flipped together in the package that brought Jake Muzzin to Toronto.

And that figures to be the goal of the current front office, led by Brad Treliving, ahead of the upcoming March 6 trade deadline: bring in some future assets that help the club retool in the offseason.

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In the middle of October, The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun caught up with Keith Pelley, the president and CEO at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, at the NHL Board of Governors meeting in New York.

The Maple Leafs had beaten the Nashville Predators in Toronto the night before. “The vibe around the team is positive,” Pelley said. “There’s a lot of optimism.”

Pelley said he was enjoying working more closely with Brad Treliving, the general manager, and Craig Berube, the head coach (also known as “Chief”), in the months since Brendan Shanahan was let go as team president.

“It’s go time,” said Pelley. “And I think we have two leaders, in Brad and Chief, to hopefully take us to the promised land.”

Three and a half months later, it’s definitely not “go time” anymore. And it’s become clear the new leadership structure isn’t working. With Pelley in charge minus Shanahan, the Leafs will very likely miss the playoffs for the first time in 10 years and end the NHL’s longest playoff streak.

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When the Vegas Golden Knights come to Toronto Friday night, many eyes will be on former Maple Leaf Mitch Marner. From the perspective of where the Leafs currently stand, the focus should be on what’s around him instead — and how the Golden Knights acquired it.

Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, Tomas Hertl, Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson. All top-of-the-lineup impact players; all acquired with something equivalent to a first-round pick as the centerpiece, with more added depending on how impactful the player was.

Eichel went for the equivalent of a roster player, two firsts and a second. Stone went for the equivalent of a first and two seconds. Hertl went for the equivalent of two firsts (with two thirds coming back). Hanifin went for a first and a conditional third. Andersson went for a first, a conditional second and a depth defenseman.

Contrast that directly with how the Leafs approached last year’s deadline, and the difference is stark.

. . .

Different years and different markets, yes, but the concept still holds: The Leafs paid premium prices for depth players that didn’t really fill a need, and Vegas has used similar premium assets to acquire actual difference-makers.

If there isn’t a good trade to make, don’t make one. That’s a great philosophy many of the league’s top teams live by. In desperation, the Leafs opted for an extremely costly and short-sighted path that didn’t move the needle much, and it’s one they’re now paying the price for in opportunity lost.

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For Bobby McMann, life in Toronto has probably never been better.

Top-line minutes with burgeoning ice time for the winger? Check. McMann’s 15:09 ATOI is fifth among Toronto Maple Leafs forwards.

The production to match it? Again, check. McMann, 29, is fourth in Leafs goals with 15 in 47 games.

And being part of a team on the rise? Check, check, check. Thanks in part to McMann’s uptick in production and energy, the Leafs have points in 12 of their past 13 games.

That’s why even with McMann’s impending status as an unrestricted free agent, he’s not that interested in testing the free-agent waters right now.

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When Schenn signed with the Vancouver Canucks as a free agent that year, he saw the move as possibly his last stop in the NHL. Schenn was 32. He had already played for seven different NHL organizations at that point. Vancouver was close to Schenn’s hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and it was a city he and his wife saw themselves staying in for good.

“I always joke, every time I think I have my future figured out and start making plans, that’s typically when things go sideways on me,” Schenn told The Athletic on Saturday.

Maple Leafs fans know what happened next: in the second year of his two-year deal, Schenn was dealt to Toronto at the 2023 trade deadline. The hulking defenceman made a homecoming of sorts to the organization that had chosen him with the fifth pick in the 2008 NHL Draft. Schenn would go on to have a strong playoff run with the Leafs in 2023. His durability and leadership helped guide Toronto to its first playoff series win since 2004.

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In the dead of winter in Grand Forks, N.D., Troy Stecher wouldn’t stop barking at teammates.

The University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks believed they were the top college hockey team in February 2016. But the University of Denver had just served them their first back-to-back losses of the season. The team cancelled a Valentine’s Day party as a result. During their first practice following the losses, Stecher heard teammates moaning about how they should be sleeping off fun from the party instead.

And so the defenseman got to work: he finished checks with force. He slammed his stick in puck battles with authority. And he shouted at teammates to do the same, even if that meant hurting their feelings.

What mattered to Stecher was winning a national championship.

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The odds were most definitely stacked against the Toronto Maple Leafs Monday night.

They were playing the best team in the league, for one thing, a Colorado Avalanche squad which hadn’t lost a game in regulation at home all season or a home game, period, since Oct. 23, winning an unthinkable 17 straight.

The Leafs, after a Saturday night home game, also crossed time zones with almost no time to adjust, a hurdle made all the more challenging by the 8 p.m. local start time and the altitude in the Mile High City, which can make for exhausting conditions even without the frenetic speed of their opponent.

None of it mattered.

The Leafs overcame it all and scored by far their biggest victory of the season, beating the Avalanche 4-3 in overtime. They became only the third team all season to win in Denver, joining Dallas and Carolina, both of which scored their victories in October.

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This didn’t look the least bit likely only three weeks ago.

It was then, on Dec. 22, that the Toronto Maple Leafs arrived home from Dallas, where they had dropped their third game in a row, and fired Marc Savard.

“It’s not lost on us where the team’s at,” GM Brad Treliving said that week.

Since then, it’s been only good times. The Leafs have picked up points in nine straight games, winning seven times (7-0-2), including a 5-0 trouncing of the lowly Vancouver Canucks over the weekend.

Is this team for real, though? We’re about to find out, as the schedule is set to get very difficult.

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Happy New Year!

Haven't done one in a while, why not tonight? How many goalies will get hurt tonight?

Slowly getting over the Jays loss, back to hockey now.

Early start tonight - Go Jays!