Maple Leafs General Manager Brad Treliving joined Real Kyper & Bourne to discuss his goaltending situation, his depth up front and on the blue line, and the internal/external search for top-six right wing help.
You’ve referenced wanting to add another top-six forward, perhaps to play alongside Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies. Before the playoffs start, what is the path to a solution at that right-wing position?
Treliving: I know everyone is focused on that one spot, and I get it. Certainly, we are. But you don’t know where chemistry is going to come from. You don’t know who may have a match. You can sit here and put it on a piece of paper, and everyone will have an opinion on it, but until you get out on the ice and see who fits with who…
Some of it is the job description, too. We all know what the prototypical top-six forward looks like in terms of creating offense, but sometimes, it needs a little bit of a different ingredient, whether it is defensive play or someone who can get in on the forecheck and create loose pucks and space.
We are not going to get ahead of ourselves and look to the playoffs. It sounds like a motherhood statement, but we are just looking at tomorrow. We have to go through camp and see if there is chemistry with the guys we have right now.
That is the process, right? You practice, and you talk. Chief and I talk every day, and we talk with our staff here about different ideas. You are looking internally and externally. It is easy to say, “Let’s go get a top-six forward,” but who is that? What is the cost?
That is really where we are focused. We have our group in camp. We are six days in. Is there a fit? We have seen Matias Maccelli up there. They’ve had one preseason game under their belts. Max Domi is just now back joining the group after working through an injury in the first few days.
Maybe there is something else internally. We are going to continue to look internally while also continuing to look outside to see if there is an availability for someone who can come in and help us.
With such a compressed schedule now for exhibition games, how much pressure does it place on an Easton Cowan, who is trying to crack the opening lineup, or on Matias Maccelli, who is trying to establish chemistry, among the others who are pushing as well?
Treliving: The camps are different now, and you go through them pretty quickly.
There are different stages of camp; the first three days are a grind where you are getting all of the summer skated off and getting back to bumping a little bit. You then get into the next phase, which, from the coach’s perspective, includes a little more systems play and a little bit more teaching.
There is competition within camp. Specifically, talking up front, we have a lot of players here. There is competition. Where can you find chemistry? Where do you fit?
As far as the young players go, I think it is really important for them to keep the picture small. How you make a good team is by stacking good day after good day. For a player like Easton, his focus has to be small. For those guys, the window is short.
I always tell young players, “Don’t dip your toe in. You are going to wake up, and all of a sudden, three or four days have gone by. People start making decisions. Just start putting good day after good day, and worry about today. And then recharge and get ready for tomorrow.”
In Easton’s case, I think he has had a really good camp thus far. He and Craig talked a lot leading up to camp about some of the things he wants to see.
With these younger players, they’re bigger, stronger, and more mature as each year goes by. [Cowan] has another summer behind him where he could work on his body. It is his third camp; you feel more comfortable in your surroundings, and it is not all new.
Two young guys who have caught my eye are Easton as well as Ben Danford, who played again last night and acquitted himself really well. For them, it is about keeping the picture really small and just worrying about tomorrow. Don’t get two weeks ahead of yourself or start looking around at the numbers. You can’t control any of that. You can just control how well you play, and I think both have acquitted themselves well.
Regarding Joseph Woll’s absence, how much of your time is spent on finding a solution there? Is it something serious that you have to make plans for, or are you just waiting for him to come back?
Treliving: We are going to give Joe some space. He is doing well. For right now, Joe is not available to us. We are there to support him and do everything we can, and we certainly expect him back, but we don’t know when that will be at this point.
An opportunity now presents itself for somebody else. We think we have good depth at the position. Does that mean we don’t continue to look? You are always looking. At every position, you are looking at ways to get better.
Is there something out there that is better than what we have? That is the question we ask our staff every day. “We like this player out here. Okay — what does he do, and how is he better than what we currently have?” We do that at all positions. Joe’s situation has put us in a position where we look at it, but we also want to give an opportunity to Dennis Hildeby and Artur Akhtyamov.
In Dennis’ position, this is his time for me. He has had two years now in North America. He is entering his third year here. He has been spectacular at times in the AHL, and he got a little (NHL) taste last year. He has had a really good camp so far, and he was really good last night.
There is an opportunity that has opened up for him. Your job as a player is to grab hold of it, and my staff and I will continue to look — whether a player is taking a leave or not — to see if there are other avenues to make us better.
We will continue that process, and we are hopeful and optimistic that we will see Joe before too long.
What you don’t have in the goaltending ranks is a lot of experience. In your mind, moving forward, is there a cut-off date — depending on when Joe Woll is back — or is there a short leash for these goalies backing up Anthony Stolarz, based on what you see from them early on?
Treliving: This is something we talked a lot about over the summer before any of this came up.
If you go back a couple of years, we had Marty Jones in here. Really, the feeling was to have more depth there and more experienced depth. Entering last year, Matt Murray came off double hip surgery. In Dennis’ case, he only had one year under his belt. If you go back to this time last year, between Joseph and Anthony, there were question marks on the number of games they had played. We wanted to have an insurance blanket.
At some point, you have to let people swim a little bit; take the training wheels off and let them ride. That is certainly the case we are looking at with Dennis right now.
Now, that is not to say we don’t continue to look and see if there are other avenues to support us better here, hopefully in the short term. We will continue to look at that.
Dennis has an opportunity in front of him. Artur has an opportunity in front of him. I am hopeful that they will grab it, and we will continue to review daily if there is another option to best support the guys we have right now and the group as a whole.
Is there any update on the Anthony Stolarz extension? Is it something you believe will be looked after before the season starts?
Treliving: I don’t like to talk too much about contract negotiations, other than to say we are certainly talking to the other side. I am always optimistic until I am not. We will continue to work away at it.
The good news is that we have Anthony under contract for this year. He had a terrific year last year. We are hopeful that we can get something done, but we know that there is really no immediacy for it right now in the sense that he is under contract.
I am expecting him to have another really good year. We are certainly working away at it. Hopefully, we can get to the finish line before long.
If you don’t get a deal done, would you be happy with Stolarz coming up to you and saying he is going to bet on himself this year?
Treliving: The great thing I’ve always found with competitors — which Anthony is — is that they are very confident in their abilities. I am really, really confident in him.
We have had a lot of communication — both with his agent and Anthony — and it has been an open dialogue. I think both sides know where the other is. I am confident we can get something done. But I don’t look at it as a dire situation at all.
He is poised to have a really good year, and if we can get something done before the season starts and give us some certainty there, it would be my preference. If not, I know we are going to have a really motivated player who is motivated to go out and have a really good year.
There is a new-look bottom-six this year. There are a lot of bodies on the roster right now. There appear to be more NHL-calibre depth players than the Leafs have had in recent memory. What does it present for you as a GM?
Treliving: It gives you options right now.
Nic (Roy) got banged up a little bit and was off the ice for a few days. He skated today. The early part of camp is about trying to get some pairings together, and we haven’t necessarily seen Nic at full strength in game action yet, or where it all shakes out.
We certainly have some ideas in mind, as we discussed over the summer. It gives you some options and some real competition. There are different styles of players. We have lefties and righties. I like our depth in the middle of the ice. We have guys who can play on the power play and the penalty kill.
I think it is going to come down to performance, number one, and then where we can see some fits. I know Craig is intrigued by Dakota (Joshua) and Nic (Roy) as a possible pairing. There is size and forechecking ability. In the brief bit we have seen them together, they are two big men who are hard to handle down low.
Nic is really intriguing to me as a right-handed centerman. I think he is really excited about his potential role here.
There are a lot of bodies here right now. We have some young guys pushing as well. Ultimately, it comes down to performance. As we said to the team, over the three weeks, we are looking for who can help us win and who will thrive in the role we need them to play.
That is really where our focus is: Where does everybody fit? Who do they fit best with? Who is performing best?
On the blue line, the depth has never been better, but the thought is that Morgan Rielly has to rise above all. What were the conversations like over the summer in terms of Rielly finding that 60-70 point feel again?
Treliving: Morgan and I had a good chat after the season. It was just a real, honest discussion. We don’t need anything more than the best version of Morgan.
What really gave me a lot of confidence: He is a proud guy. He is a truthful guy. We all know he can be better, and he took it to heart.
I always laugh at the beginning of training camp because everyone is in the best shape of their life and has either lost or gained 10 points. Everybody looks good. But with Morgan, there really was a fire to him this summer.
We are in the facility, and I don’t remember many days when Morgan wasn’t here. He really put a lot of work into his preparation this year.
It is not a secret that we need the best version of Morgan. I am really confident that we are going to get it.
It doesn’t just stop at Morgan. I like our blue line. We will start the year with Brandon Carlo, who came late last year. There is depth there. It is an experienced group, and then you have some guys pushing from underneath. At the end of the day, to be a good organization, you need it in all positions: people pushing. We certainly have that.
We talk about the six or seven guys, or how many you keep up here, but you are going to go through injuries. We saw it last year, especially up front, where we had a lot of injuries. It can be a stabilizer for our team — our defense — and we need all of them contributing to the level that they can.
Through the first five or six days, I have been happy with that. I’ve been happy with some of the names who are not talked about so much but are pushing and are eager to get a spot on the roster as well.
Auston Matthews has given the media a small window to mention Mitch Marner a few times before it’s over. What are your early impressions of your captain?
Treliving: Yeah, he sets the tone for us.
To me, it starts with his preparation. He was back here early in the summer. It is amazing; when he shows up, it seems like everyone else is here now, too. He was here probably a month before we got going, and with the preparation he puts toward his craft and the way he practices, he sets the standard.
For any team or organization, when the top guys are working the hardest and competing the hardest, that is the level everyone else has to follow. He has been dialed in since the start of camp. He feels good physically. He looked dangerous last night in the first preseason game.
He has been dialed in. He is the tip of the spear for us, and everyone else follows. I have been really happy that, number one, he is healthy, ready, and looks good.
