The inevitable has officially arrived, as the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that Brad Treliving has been relieved of his duties as General Manager. 

The writing has been on the wall for months. The Leafs entered this season with MLSE President Keith Pelley talking about windows of contention, only for the team to spiral down the standings in a season that has been confounding from the very beginning.

Brad Treliving didn’t acquire a single player this season via trade, instead opting for three waiver claims before the team officially waved the white flag on the 2025-26 season, at which point he sold good players for pennies on the dollar.  It was the tip of the iceberg of an obituary full of missteps. 

Hired in 2023, Treliving talked on day one about his desire to add snot to the roster before promptly signing Max Domi, Ryan Reaves, and Tyler Bertuzzi. It wasn’t an unfair thought to diversify the team, but the execution left a lot to be desired. At the subsequent trade deadline, he further leaned into it by acquiring Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin as well as Connor Dewar. 

The Leafs lost in Game 7 to Boston after both William Nylander and Auston Matthews missed significant chunks of the series, and after the season, Treliving parted ways with head coach Sheldon Keefe, eventually hiring Craig Berube as the replacement.

To his credit, results did follow. The Leafs won the Atlantic for the first time in this era and went deeper than any previous iteration of this team, though that bar had only been set at Game 5 of round two. This time, they got completely dismantled in Game 7 of round two.

At the 2025 trade deadline, Brad Treliving paid huge prices for Scott Laughton and Brandon Carlo, and neither really lived up to the billing. In Laughton’s case, specifically, he paid a high price just for his head coach to effectively plant him on the fourth line alongside Steven Lorentz for the majority of his tenure. It was one of many signs of disconnect between the GM and the coach. 

In the offseason, Treliving ultimately walked Mitch Marner to free agency, though he was able to at least fetch something in return (Nic Roy). The rest of the offseason saw him buy low on Matias Maccelli and Dakota Joshua, add zero defensemen, and walk away from Pontus Holmberg at the age of 26. 

This season, the team started slowly and never got on track. Treliving did next to nothing to intervene, while acknowledging in November that even when the team was winning games, they were scoring more goals but weren’t really winning the games (i.e., actually outplaying their opponents). It made it even more bizarre that Treliving identified serious concerns but failed to act, except to claim Troy Stecher on waivers (who was actually good, too!).

As Christmastime rolled around, the Leafs owned the worst power play in the league and eventually fired the power-play coach, Marc Savard, even as the head coach who had handpicked him and fought for him to stay remained behind the bench. Since Savard was dismissed, the Leafs rank eighth in the league on the power play. 

On the back of their hot power play, the Leafs went on a run, and while it’s almost unfathomable to think back on now, they beat Colorado to get back into a playoff spot in mid-January. However, they returned home for a massive five-game homestand during which they picked up just one of 10 points, effectively sealing their fate and all but ending the longest playoff-qualification streak in the league. 

There were likely many nails in the coffin prior to the 2026 trade deadline, but if there was any sliver of hope for Treliving, it required a great deadline. Instead, he fell way short.

Bobby McMann went for less than he should have. Laughton was traded for significantly less than what Treliving spent, while Colorado called him out of nowhere to offer a first-rounder for Roy. He couldn’t capitalize on a big season from OEL, he couldn’t clear a single big contract off the books, and he didn’t acquire a single player in return.

Perhaps his hands were tied because this move was already in the works, and for whatever it’s worth, that has been suggested to me at times leading up to the deadline. Plus, Treliving has been coy about future plans when asked directly multiple times, lending even more credence to the theory. But why bother keeping him in place for the deadline, then? The trade deadline was a huge missed opportunity, and, short of the Leafs falling far enough to retain their 2026 first-round draft pick, every single game they’ve kept Craig Berube behind the bench has been a mistake. 

The timing at this point is rather curious. Usually, teams wait until the season is over, but the Leafs are clearing the deck and starting the hunt now. How they proceed from this point forward will be very interesting to watch. Namely, do they hire a proper President of Hockey Operations, or do they simply find a new GM? How they approach that first step will dictate the next ones.

At the same time, Bruce Cassidy was just relieved of his duties in Vegas, joining Pete DeBoer on the free agent market. Both of them were available in 2022, but the Leafs stuck with Sheldon Keefe that offseason. Are they going to do the same thing again, some four years later?

Firing Treliving was the most logical first step, and given Treliving’s lack of activity all season, it actually marks the best move the organization has made all year. He couldn’t return after the way this season has transpired, and we didn’t even get into the Matthews incident, Treliving and Berube publicly crossing wires on who was running the power play post-Savard, or any number of other amateur-hour-level missteps. 

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