On the first day of the NHL season, GM Brad Treliving joined The Fan 590 to discuss Fraser Minten making the NHL roster to start the season and William Nylander shifting back to the wing after the initial plan to play him at center.
Ahead of the first meaningful game as GM of the Maple Leafs, has there been anything about the job that has surprised you or that you weren’t anticipating?
Treliving: I don’t know if there have been any surprises. It is Toronto. It is the Maple Leafs. It is a special spot. I wouldn’t say there have been any surprises, but we are excited. Our focus has been getting our group together here. We are excited about it.
You get through the slog of training camp and preseason. We are looking forward to seeing the real thing tomorrow. We’re excited to get up and going.
There was a bit of a surprise in camp with Fraser Minten. How much did his performance and emergence tip your hand in moving William Nylander back to the wing?
Treliving: I’d be lying if I said that we had any thought Fraser would be here today. Quite frankly, that probably wouldn’t be truthful.
Coming in as a new guy, you have a bit of a read on the young guys from watching the prospects like Fraser as a draft-eligible guy. I’d seen him play in Kamloops. I saw him in the Memorial Cup. I was familiar with the player, but by no means did we have him penciled in coming into this training camp. He has pushed his way onto the roster.
You hear it all the time that there are jobs to be had. Depending on which team you are on, there are fewer jobs with some than others. We didn’t have a lot of jobs available, but Fraser pushed our hand.
Willy at center is still a thing that I don’t know got enough play at training camp. When you have Fraser coming in here and you are giving him an opportunity, you want to put him in the best possible place to succeed. That is in the middle. That is where he is most comfortable. That is where he has always played.
I look at it as a luxury. We have a number of guys who can play in the middle. We have seen what Willy has done on the wing. He is a terrific player and a star player. We are going to be in a work in progress as every team is at the start of the year. Fraser will start here, and we will just watch it day by day. We will watch and see how things progress, but good for him.
We are all looking at the 10 games before he burns off the year of his entry-level contract. If Minten is not a Leaf for all 82 games, is the backup plan to move William Nylander back up the middle?
Treliving: We will see. We have talked about a lot of things. Right now, we are focused on how we can best support Fraser and all of our players to be successful.
The one thing I would caution everybody… Fraser has earned his position here. This is not charity. He has earned a spot on the roster. It will be up to Sheldon how he uses him. We want to do everything to help him succeed.
We will watch it day by day. We are not forecasting too far ahead. We know how the contracts are affected by games played and all of that stuff, but our focus is just getting him ready for the game tomorrow night. We will watch.
One of the benefits is that we do have a number of players who can play in the middle. It will be a little bit of a work in progress here. Depending on how things go, we will adjust accordingly, but right now, we want to get Fraser up and going as well as the rest of our group in order to get off to a good start here.
The nine-game threshold is an important one. There is also the 41-game threshold with RFA years. How do you weigh the contractual status against the impact Minten could make now? There is also the matter of his own development. How do you balance all of that?
Treliving: I would generally say — as a golden rule — that most times at this age, those players go back. That is always the challenge for a young player.
Fraser has been terrific. He has earned his opportuntiy here. He has earned it through building good day upon good day upon good day. But that is not the norm.
The next challenge for Fraser will start tomorrow night when the games will be completely different than what he has seen in the preseason in terms of the speed, the pace, and the rosters. You will have NHL talent right throughout the roster. He has been playing against some mixed rosters. Everything is going to step up a little bit.
At the end of the day, you see what is the best thing for the player and the team. These decisions, as difficult as they may appear, always seem to find a way to sort themselves out. At the end of the day, I think we are going to know with each passing day if this is the right thing for both the player and the team. He has proven that he is deserving of this opportunity to this point, but it is a man’s league. It is harder for young players just because of the strength, the speed, the pace, and all of those types of things.
Fraser has a tremendous hockey mind. He thinks the game and is a big body. Physically, this is not too much for him at this point, but as you get closer to those thresholds, ultimately, you are trying to determine what is the very best thing for the player in the long run, what helps our team win in the stage that we are at right now, and usually, those things are brought into clarity.
We will continue to watch and see how things progress.
Nylander is a pending free agent. Will conversations continue between him and his representatives as the regular season rolls on?
Treliving: I am not going to get into any public discourse. I don’t say that to be rude. I have always found — doing this a long time — that there is no benefit to us to get into a public discourse with respect to Willy or anybody else’s contract.
I have stated publicly that Willy is a star player. He is a big part of our team. We would like to get him signed. I have had lots of discussions with Willy. He loves Toronto. He loves the organization. He loves the city. He loves the fan base. He wants to stay. That is a really good starting point. We’ll try to work through it.
We will continue to work away at it quietly in the background. The focus is going to be on the ice. Between ourselves and Willy’s representatives, we will see if we can continue to move things forward. When there is good news to report, we will make sure we let everybody know.
As we prepare for tomorrow night, all of our focus — and Willy’s focus — is on the ice. The business stuff will continue to work out.
Sheldon Keefe received a contract extension this past summer. How much autonomy does Keefe have to coach the team the way he sees fit? There was a belief last season that some of his post-game criticisms last season were walked back. How free is Sheldon to coach the team the way he sees fit as well as talk about the players publicly the way he sees fit?
Treliving: When you are new coming into a situation, it is not my place to speak about what happened previously. Whatever has happened has happened. Sheldon is the coach of the team, and we will communicate as we always do — regularly — and share thoughts and push each other as we do with the entire staff in order to find ways to be better.
What makes this thing go is everybody doing their specific role. I was taught a long time ago that managers manage, coaches coach, and players play. When you get the order out of sequence, good things don’t happen.
There is an art to coaching. We go through and talk about all sorts of stuff with our team and share ideas, but that is Sheldon’s job to coach. When he is standing behind the bench, he will do what he needs to do to have success. You have to allow your coaches to coach and get someone in there that you feel comfortable with.
I have really enjoyed my time with Sheldon. I have enjoyed getting to know him. When you look at what he has done in his career as a coach, he is a really good coach. We are very fortunate to have Sheldon as our coach.
The calls that are made from a coaching perspective are Sheldon’s calls. I don’t coach from above. We discuss ideas, but managers manage and coaches coach.
