The Toronto Maple Leafs parted ways with general manager Brad Treliving on Monday evening, as the end of a disappointing season approaches.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
When the Toronto Maple Leafs hired Brad Treliving as general manager in May, 2023 – that was the moment things started to get fuzzy.
Why exactly had they fallen out with Kyle Dubas, the previous GM? And why were they hiring a guy that had been run out of his last job?
There was no time to explain. Everyone was too busy putting the next phase of the endless plan together, mostly by moving widgets around the collapsing Core Four.
Treliving was a perfect Leafs hire in a lot of ways. Good in front of a microphone. Self-effacing. Gave off an air of competence.
The only way he was bad was in his inability to notch a single trade or acquisition that was an undeniable win. His apparent strategy to make the club bigger and tougher only made it slower and older. Everything he touched turned to stone. As the 2025-26 season began to sink under the waves, he became invisible.
Leafs fire GM Brad Treliving as team set to miss playoffs for the first time in a decade
The problem wasn’t that he got nothing for a bunch of schmucks he’d given away the Leafs draft future for. It’s that people kept talking about it. In the past, the bad deals had been papered over by excitement for the upcoming playoffs. Treliving no longer had that advantage. He was fully exposed.
The more people talked about those deals, the more obvious it became who should take the blame for a lost season. As soon as he let Mitch Marner leave – not that he could have stopped him – he was already cooked.
“The failures here start with me,” Treliving said in an interview after the deadline.
It’s the kind of thing Leafs executives have been saying for decades. How could Treliving know that this was first time anybody took them at their word.
Mitch Marner's departure to the Vegas Golden Knights may not have been able to have been stopped, but it fell on Treliving, Cathal Kelly writes.LM Otero/The Associated Press
Late on Monday night, the Leafs fired Treliving.
“Throughout the course of this season, there has been deep analysis into both the current state of the Maple Leafs organization and the direction needed to achieve the ultimate goal of delivering a Stanley Cup championship to the city,” MLSE president Keith Pelley said in a release. “It was determined that the club must chart a new course under different leadership.”
I’m glad to hear that they’re not just doing analysis any more. Now it’s deep analysis. I picture a red-lamped command centre and lots of people running around with Zippos trying to light each other’s hair on fire.
Firing Treliving now makes even less sense than keeping him through the trade deadline. All it accomplishes is giving off a sense of panic, a month after panic might have done you some good. But great news – this is where it starts to get really fun.
The marching order for the next GM is clear from Pelley’s note – no backsliding. There will be no rebuild. That might get in the way of delivering a Stanley Cup championship to the city.
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What the club needs now is a real snake oil salesman. Someone who will tell them what they want to hear – that the Leafs’ obvious structural problems aren’t problems at all. They are in fact advantages.
Too old? Nah. They’re just exceptionally experienced. Plus, you have to love that senior’s discount.
Roster too thin? Nonsense. You got unlucky with injuries. Generally speaking, that doesn’t happen two years in a row to old people. Not in this new guy’s experience any way.
Auston Matthews beginning a slow fade out of town? Not once I talk to him. He’ll be getting a blue dye injection via IV by the time I’m through with him.
Ensuring Auston Matthews's happiness in Toronto will be a top priority for the next Maple Leafs GM.Adam Hunger/The Associated Press
Prepare for the full snow job – mistakes were made, but they will be corrected. A page is being turned. Changes are afoot, but not too much. In fact, not at all.
Things are so desperate, and the Jays are so much fun, that the club can’t afford to wait another two weeks for the season to end. People might wander off and not even hear this message of hope. That PR machine has to kick up right now. That’s how bad it is.
In a lot of ways, the next GM is in the perfect spot. Whatever happens, they won’t be blamed. The building was already in flames when they became its new fire warden.
By the time this collapse is done, Leafs antagonists will be excavating every decision all the way back to Lou Lamoriello to identify the moment the train’s wheels first left the track. Once the next reboot is under way, they’ll need something to talk about. I can’t wait to hear how different it’s going to be that time, as opposed to how different it will be right now.
The new hire gets to swan in, lay it on thick about rebound seasons and, if they play it right, gets to ride the ship down to the bottom. That could take years and years. There is an art to being bad at hockey in Toronto. Someone’s always willing to give it a shot.
Poor Brad Treliving. Like all of his predecessors, he thought he would be the guy to crack the Toronto code.
Instead, he was the guy who broke up the Core Four. He ended a dream that was never going to come true. Now someone else gets to reap the benefit of blaming him for it.