A little over a week before the trade deadline, Brad Treliving’s answers in his media availability fell somewhere between managing expectations and under-promising/over-delivering.
Here was the money quote:
“To me, it is not about taking big swings. Where do you think you can help your team the most? This isn’t to say we are doing this or doing that, but historically, if you look back at these attention-grabbing deadline deals, really look back at how many have really paid dividends.
Ultimately, it is more about looking at your team. What are the areas you think you can improve on? Are there players out there who can make a difference and move the needle? Sometimes, moving the needle is a small (move). Maybe it is not the sexy, headline-grabbing move, but are there areas where you can shore up? Ultimately, what is available, what is the cost, and how does it all fit in?
It is a long way of saying that I like our team. I would like to see if we can make it better by Friday than it is today.”
Treliving certainly tempered expectations on a big swing, and we can understand why. The Leafs have a limited cupboard of draft picks and around $1 million in cap space to add, not including waiving a few depth players or putting Max Pacioretty on LTIR to squeeze out further space. Tack on that close to 25 teams in the league can justify staying competitive and not selling off their players, and the Leafs are in tough to be major buyers in a limited market.
At the same time, since Treliving’s comments, the Florida Panthers have swung big on Seth Jones, while the Tampa Bay Lightning have added Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand.
We hear a lot of rhetoric around this time of the year that just because a rival makes a trade, it doesn’t mean you should, but this isn’t true if the team is serious about winning. And the Leafs at least claim to be serious about winning.
At the time of their trades, the Leafs were just ahead of both teams and sitting atop the Atlantic. It’s the ideal spot because they can avoid playing both teams and face a wildcard matchup in round one. If they win the first round, they take on the winner of the battle of Florida (while hoping it takes a toll on the victor). Both Florida and Tampa Bay have added bona fide contributors who have improved their hockey teams and are nipping at the Leafs‘ heels.
It doesn’t increase the Leafs’ needs but underscores them further. They need a solid defenseman and, at minimum, a top-nine forward—preferably a center. Nothing Florida or Tampa Bay has done has changed this reality. We have identified these needs since the summer. The only wiggle room was whether Jani Hakanpaa would fill a role, and so far, he hasn’t played a part.
The other undertone of the whole situation is the impending free agency of Mitch Marner and, even to some degree, John Tavares. I don’t want to get into a million what-if scenarios, but the Leafs went into this season without a contract in place for Marner and without asking him to waive his no-movement clause. The closer a player makes it to free agency, the more his leverage grows. If the Leafs ultimately don’t add much of anything at the deadline and lose in the first round (whether they win the division or not, although it would be worse if they lose the division and are eliminated in the first round after both Florida and Tampa bought at the deadline) and Marner later walks for free, it’s a calamity of errors by the management team. It borders on a fireable offense unless they can make some big moves in the summer to offset losing a top-five scorer this season for absolutely nothing.
If the Leafs are going to see it through with this group this season — which they clearly are — Treliving at least has to give them a chance. Having two of Simon Benoit, Conor Timmins, or Philippe Myers in the playoff lineup is not good enough. Neither is Pontus Holmberg in the top six or Max Domi and Nick Robertson playing on the third line together. This shouldn’t be the Leafs’ lineup when the team is fully healthy, but right now, it is more or less.
This is also why I’d argue this isn’t a sunk-cost-fallacy situation with the team’s core. There are significant holes around them right now that would prevent the team from embarking on a lengthy run, regardless of whether their top players performed well or not. They need a forward and a defenseman to push players either down — or completely out — of the lineup.
Treliving is right that it doesn’t need to be a big swing, but he does need to mine quality contributors who can bring this lineup together. The Panthers and Lightning have already done this to help improve their team. If Treliving ultimately responds by acquiring a Luke Kunin type or the equivalent, he’s not genuinely giving his guys a fighting chance. We can’t compare the defense cores or third lines between these three teams as it stands. One is a clear outlier in a bad way, and it’s not the teams in Florida.
At the same time, the Leafs are tied at the top of the Atlantic, and it’s all there for the taking. It’s the central fact I continue to remind myself: We aren’t necessarily talking about a team that will start on the road and must overcome the gauntlet of opposition. They have a real opportunity to win the division and chart a path through the wildcard round and through Toronto, where they have a really good record this season. They’ve had many injuries, and Auston Matthews has been nowhere near as dominant as he can be, and yet they are still right there. They’ve earned the management group adding meaningful contributors to the roster to help push them over the hump.
It’s no coincidence that Matthews recently bluntly stated, “You look at our division, in particular, and it’s obviously very tight. We know management is going do the best they can. All we can do is just trust in them… I mean, of course, you’d love to see a boost with the way that we’ve played this year and the position that we’re in right now.”
Ahead of a tough February on the road, I wrote that the players needed to earn the faith from the management group, and the players went 7-1 in the month. Even if the last two games have been challenging, they’ve made their case by and large.
Management needs to pull the right levers, and they need the usual luck and health to survive the playoffs, but there is a real opportunity here. It’s on Brad Treliving and the management group to find a creative way to fill the team’s needs before 3 p.m. on Friday.
Other Trade Deadline Notes
– If we look at most recent Cup winners, they usually add some quality players at the trade deadline. Tampa Bay added Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, and Zach Bogosian when they won their first Cup — three regulars and, in Coleman’s case, an excellent player who drove a line for them. They didn’t add in the next season, but if the Leafs win the Cup and decide to run back the same group again for the next playoffs (Tampa added David Savard, who was a third-pairing defenseman in the playoffs), you won’t hear a word from me.
It’s similar to the Panthers merely adding Vladimir Tarasenko before winning the Cup. They weren’t the reigning champs, but they went to the Finals the year before and had an excellent regular season, so they didn’t really need to add much.
Otherwise, Colorado added a top-six forward (Artturi Lehkonen) and a top-four defenseman (Josh Manson) — basically, a dream equivalent for the Leafs now, even if Lehkonen isn’t a center. Vegas added Ivan Barbashev, who ended up on their top line and was fifth on their team in scoring with 18 points in 22 playoff games that year. That’s a significant add. Cup winners usually make at least one.
– We haven’t spoken too much about forwards in the same detail as we have defensemen on the market, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on it. I’ve already written about the now-traded Yanni Gourde and Scott Laughton. I also would have written about the now-traded Trent Frederic and now-signed Jake Evans, two useful players who could have helped. Obviously, those options are out the window. I also mentioned Reilly Smith on the podcast as an option, and Vegas just traded for him, too.
– Among the top players potentially available — Mikko Rantanen, Brock Nelson, and Brayden Schenn — one of the big questions is the cost for each. Rantanen and Nelson are both pending free agents, and the Leafs have wasted a lot of assets on players who walked months later over the past few years. That’s not ideal for a team that already has limited assets to play with. Schenn does have term, but it’s not a great contract with three years remaining at $6.5 million per season. He turns 34 in August and is a 45-55 point player now. They can’t give up the earth and moon for him, although he would help.
– JG Pageau fits the bill as a right-handed center with term who is enjoying a good season and has playoff pedigree. Assistant coach Lane Lambert would be very familiar with him, having coached him with the Islanders for years. Pageau has 43 points in 86 career playoff games and would become their only right-handed center, so while he’s small, he checks a lot of boxes and is a bit of a “greasy” player who doesn’t play to his size. After a bit of a tough year last season, the Islanders stopped burying him this year (34 percent offensive zone starts last season versus 50 percent this season), and his offense has ticked up. He’s a good two-way center worth exploring and shouldn’t cost a ton.
– Ryan Donato doesn’t seem to be getting much love, and it doesn’t appear the Leafs are interested in him, but he’s enjoying a really good season and can play center. Only Marner, Nylander, Matthews, and Tavares have more points than him. He’d be fifth on the team in goals, too, with 23. At 28 and making just $2 million, he comes at a good age and price tag, and they could explore keeping him through the rest of his prime years. He is playing center right now and has no issues there; plus, he is a good bumper option on the power play, where the Leafs need help.
– Similarly, but on a much lower level, Justin Brazeau intrigues me. 27 years old and 6’5, he has 10 goals and 20 points this year. It’s not a huge total, but he’s a potential fit they could retain and keep in their mix moving forward. For a team that lacks double-digit goal scorers, a mammoth like Brazeau with skill who is still young — if they can get him for cheap — is a nice move, provided they keep him on a team-friendly deal.
– On the flip side, the Leafs’ penalty kill is also starting to struggle, which is why any interest in Brandon Tanev makes sense (and even Laughton, to some extent). He’s not going to add much secondary scoring, but he’s reliable, has speed, forechecks hard, and is good defensively. The penalty kill is once again turning into a legitimate need. At $3.5 million, though, he strikes me as a player they might need to secure double retention on, so it reaches the point where part of the question is whether he’s worth all of the work if he’s not going to chip in some offense.
– It made sense to place Ryan Reaves on waivers. They needed to clear some space, and he’s clearly not among their top 12 — or arguably even top 14 — forwards. I thought about Matthews calling out the fans for not responding to Reaves’ first fight of the season when the news broke; in retrospect, it may have been the last fight of Reaves’s NHL career. You could see how his teammates would care about it and feel some emotions about it, as it’s a tough role, and Reaves did it admirably throughout his career. It’s a role teammates always respect in this league. Everyone has to know it’s just about time, although I would expect he won’t be claimed and could even get into the odd game down the stretch.
