BOSTON — The call came last summer.
It was from new Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving, and he had a message for Mitch Marner.
“He made it very clear that he wanted to keep our core together,” Marner told CNN Competitor last fall. “He trusts our core.”
What does the Maple Leafs and core do now after another early playoff exit?
“It feels empty right now,” William Nylander said in all-too-familiar surroundings for the Maple Leafs, an empty locker room after a painful playoff loss.
Nylander’s cane with “Willie Stiles” engraved on it still stands against the wall in the corner. Shortly after the seventh game, there was another first-round exit. The mood was very dull.
“Look, I don’t think there’s a problem with the core,” Nylander said. “I thought we fought hard throughout the series. We went into overtime in Game 7. It was just like — it felt like.
Auston Matthews calls this Maple Leafs team the tightest he’s ever been a part of. “I feel like we say this every year, but this is an incredible group, very tight-knit,” he said.
“We’re right there,” John Tavares said. “It’s a very small difference.”
This is the result. The Maple Leafs weren’t even close. Running it with this core — Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares and Morgan Rielly — just didn’t work.
The Maple Leafs came back after being humiliated by a inferior Columbus Blue Jackets team in 2020. After defeat, they evened the score. Last spring, when the team appeared to be in transition after losing a five-game second-round series to the Florida Panthers, team president Brendan Shanahan fired then-general manager Kyle Duba s, and once again insisted – Terry Living took over as general manager – that the core remained the same.
“Just being different doesn’t solve the problem,” Shanahan said when announcing Dubas’ firing.
Clearly, however, the status quo solves nothing either. If anything, it was the opposite: The Maple Leafs were eliminated in the first round again. Coming back from a 3-1 series deficit to force a Game 7 doesn’t change the fact that another equalizer backfired.
Is this — finally — the moment for a big shift for the Maple Leafs? If so, who can make this call? What does it mean?
The question of running it again must include a core member of the front office who is never mentioned: Shanahan.
deeper
Johnston: The Maple Leafs’ recent playoff exit has been clear.It’s time for Shana’s plan
No one is more responsible for the Leafs’ lack of playoff success for so long than he is. If anyone believes Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares and Rielly are capable of getting it done, it’s him.
Despite the outcome, he believed it again and again.
After 10 seasons as team president, Shanahan’s Maple Leafs have won one playoff round, putting them in the same league as many of the league’s worst teams over the past decade.
Kind of amazing indeed.
Playoff wins since 2014-15
The Maple Leafs have been a top team during the regular season and Shanahan deserves credit, but the goal isn’t to win the regular season. Sticking with the same core group in order to win in the playoffs isn’t going to get anywhere close to a Stanley Cup.
Losing seven games in the first round wasn’t “right there,” as Tavares put it.
Shanahan met with new MLSE President Keith Pelley earlier this week. Paley should be asking why Shanahan lasted so long without results when it mattered, and most importantly, what is he going to do now after yet another failure.
Does he deserve this opportunity after a decade of chances?
Here’s Shanahan’s thinking: If the Maple Leafs trade away one of their great players every time they lose in the playoffs, they could end up losing great players.
He believes that given enough time, enough scars and enough cracks in the postseason, the stars will eventually emerge and the team will win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup since 1967.
The problem is: there aren’t enough stars. Not when it matters. In a top-heavy system, like the one the Maple Leafs have been operating in, the star has to be the star when it matters. They haven’t been good enough, including against Boston this spring.
Shanahan likes to say that sticking to the plan is the hardest part in Toronto.
It turns out that sticking with this plan for the long term is naive.Time and again, it ignores evidence that emphasizes that, while the players in question are talented—arguably this The most talented player the team has ever had – and for whatever reason, that combination didn’t work when the games mattered most.
Something is missing. The Maple Leafs could have tried to address this issue at some point along the way. Maybe instead of a sledgehammer striking to the core, it’s a scalpel. One piece is carved out and another piece of a different type is inserted.
Now, some things are almost certain to change, at least a year too late.
Extenuating circumstances in this series — Nylander missed Games 1-3 with a migraine, an illness and injury that derailed Matthews and left him in Games 5 and 6 Getting eliminated from the game – doesn’t matter. They will be lost in history like Tavares missing nearly the entire Montreal series with injury or Sergei Bobrovsky suddenly becoming a superhero again last spring.
In 2017, the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup without Chris Letang. .
The Maple Leafs had the opportunity to move in any direction they liked last offseason before the no-move clauses in the contracts of Marner, Nylander and Matthews took effect.
The date is July 1st.
If Dubas remains as general manager, and perhaps even increases his control over the team, the Maple Leafs could end up shaking their core by moving one of their players (Marner or Nylander). Instead, everything that matters, including head coach Sheldon Keefe, remains the same.
Now the decision about the core feels obvious.
Last summer, the Maple Leafs signed Matthews to a four-year contract extension that would soon make him the highest-paid player in the league. Nylander received the full eight-year extension in January. Both players have full no-walk clauses.
So does Tavares.
The Maple Leafs captain is entering the final year of the seven-year contract he signed in 2018. At the time, Tavares expressed no interest in leaving through the media.
Lilley also has a no-transfer clause in his contract, which has six seasons remaining.
The remaining Marner is eligible to sign an extension on July 1.
He also has a no-move clause, meaning he will only go elsewhere if he wants to. This means that, at best, the Maple Leafs can only move him to a limited number of teams, and therefore, are limited in the assets they can acquire.
Think of it this way: How many teams would be interested in a) taking on Marner’s $10.9 million salary cap hit next season, b) willing to pay him more than an extension would allow, and c) having an attractive player they’re willing to Asset trades and assets the Maple Leafs are interested in?
All of this suggests that the Maple Leafs are in trouble by waiting too long. If they go this route, a deal involving Marner will be difficult to pull off.
Does the Maple Leafs’ future include Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews together? (Nick Turchiaro/USA Today)
If not after the Montreal series, then for Marner it feels like it was after last season. He’s said he wants to be a Leaf, stay a Leaf, and those are the right things to do, but this past season, he’s looked a lot like a guy who doesn’t like what it comes with being a Leaf — —Pressure, scrutiny, criticism, ruthless demands for more.
What’s notable about Marner’s poor start to the season is how uninteresting he appears to be, how lacking in enthusiasm and energy.
He had three points in seven games against the Bruins. He wasn’t the difference-maker the Maple Leafs needed offensively, especially early in the series when Nylander was out.
He may be as ready for a change as the Maple Leafs are. He prepared for this possibility last summer.
Without extension talks, and the possibility of a long-term future in Toronto, he might be persuaded to accept a deal elsewhere.
The question then becomes: What should the Leafs seek in return? It’s easy to say defensive player, which might not be the wrong answer if it’s the right defensive player. But this team appears to be devoid of high-end forwards outside of Matthews and Nylander.
Whoever is running the front office, can the front office successfully bring in a higher-level forward and a defender? What type of striker is he? If the point is to try and change the “combination”, does it have to be a striker with a different skill set than Marner? Against harder, heavier opponents?
Or, do the Maple Leafs just look for the best player available (who might make less than Marner) and use the remaining cap space elsewhere?
Are draft picks part of the package? Given the limited supply, do the Leafs need to include the pick?
Then again, which team has what the Maple Leafs want, accommodates Marner’s desire to leave, and is willing to pay him?
Could Shanahan and Treliving be able to do this if they were still the two key figures leading it all? Their first season as president and general manager didn’t go well. They failed to adequately fill a need last summer and then arrived without any meaningful reinforcements at the trade deadline, which resulted in another first-round loss.
Can they execute the Marner trade in a way that makes the Maple Leafs better or, at worst, different?
As Trelevan himself said last summer at his introductory press conference about the transfer of key players, “You can throw a body under the tarmac and it might look good, but you have Progress? Ultimately, it’s all about getting better. Just being different doesn’t necessarily make you better.
no longer. The Maple Leafs need to be different and better at the same time. Running it again is not an option.
(Top photo of John Tavares, Tyler Bertuzzi and Morgan Rielly: Michael Dwyer/AP)
