TORONTO — More could be gleaned from what Brad Treliving did not say than from what he did say at his long-awaited end-of-season press conference.
The Toronto Maple Leafs general manager and — now — the organization’s top decision-maker when it comes to hockey personnel did not say that he would be working his darndest to hammer out contract extensions for Mitch Marner and John Tavares, two of this summer’s most coveted impending unrestricted free agents.
What Treliving said definitively about pending RFA Matthew Knies’s extension — “I’d like to get it done as soon as possible” — he didn’t come close to applying to the Marner and Tavares files.
Treliving did not float hopeful platitudes about internal growth and lessons to be learned. He didn’t philosophize about plucking some ungraspable “killer instinct” out of the ether and injecting it into the dressing room’s core. He didn’t speak about crummy bounces and tweaking the fringes and keeping banging on the door and eventually that sucker will topple down under the force of Toronto’s assembled talent.
Because, yeah, if the ninth time didn’t do that, well, the 10th surely should.
No.
Instead, Treliving hinted at major surgery. Deep cuts.
“There’s some DNA that has to change in our team,” Treliving said Thursday, during a 50-minute meeting with a roomful of reporters at the Maple Leafs’ practice facility.
“That’s on me now.”
Like the chief roster shot-callers before him, Treliving did speak to the value of scar tissue and how disappointment can be spun into achievement. But he didn’t shy away from the cold, hard failures.
With Treliving watching fervently from up high, he saw his Leafs come up short in 2024’s Game 7 in Boston, fail to stomp the throat of Ottawa in Game 5 at home in 2025, then blow chances to stick it to Florida in Games 3, 5, and 7 in Round 2.
“There’s some experience you get from that,” Treliving said, “but ultimately sometimes you just have to change.
“I felt there was a real tightness of our team.
“Champions are the calmest at the most critical time. That’s an area we’ve got to get through.”
Which brings us back to Marner, a key strand of this roster since 2016-17 and the club’s most prolific scorer in 2024-25 (102 points).
In those four aforementioned critical playoff games, Marner mustered a total of two assists (both in Game 3 versus the Panthers) and four shots. He didn’t score. He was a minus-6.
“Can I think Mitch can succeed? Yes, I do. But as I said before, we’ve all got to kind of take a step back and look at,” Treliving said. “You can’t be rigid in our thought process, saying we can only do something one way.”
Truth is, the Maple Leafs no longer hold a stitch of leverage with Marner, and their only leverage with Tavares is knowing that the family man desperately wants to ply his trade near home.
Given the opportunity, Treliving did not guarantee that a formal contract offer would be presented to either star forward. And it is safe to say that if total dollars are top priority for these athletes, they’ll be able to fetch that elsewhere.
First, Treliving’s office will undergo an internal evaluation and have discussions with Darren Ferris (Marner’s agent) and Pat Brisson (Tavares’s rep).
Eleven days after the debacle of Game 7, Treliving was talking about letting emotions cool, about taking time to think clearly and then working through all options to restructure a forward core that failed to score at the most important time.
“You’re miserable. And then two days later, we all get together, and we do exit meetings, and it’s emotional, right? Like, it’s emotional. This one’s gonna stay for a while,” Treliving said.
“Mitch and I had a discussion. It’s emotional right now, right? And so my discussion with Mitch: Let’s all take a step back. Let’s take a deep breath. I gotta decompress a little bit.”
To be fair, Treliving was dealt “a curveball” (his phrase) last week with the firing of president Brenadan Shanahan, the man who hired him two seasons ago, and he’s only tiptoeing into a closer working relationship with MLSE chief Keith Pelley.
But the draft looms in four weeks. Free agency opens in less than five.
And if Marner indeed walks, how does one infuse 100 points into its DNA?
All options will be investigated.
“We have to drive what we think is the best outcome. In Mitch’s case, he’s got a say in the matter,” Treliving said. “We have to change the makeup of the team.
“And it may take some time to figure out the best way to move forward.”
The executive is on the clock.
We have a mountain of evidence showing how the Maple Leafs’ players perform at the most critical time.
This summer is shaping up to be Treliving’s Game 7. Or, at the very least, his Game 6.
We’re fascinated to see how he handles the pressure.
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