On TSN Overdrive, Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving discussed his disappointment in the recent downturn in results, the current trajectory of the season, and the report that the organization has cut back on sports science staff.
Is it going too far to say the team is happy to be out of Toronto right now? Where do things stand in Seattle?
Treliving: Well, we have a big game tonight. Let’s call a spade a spade. It hasn’t been a good week. It wasn’t a good homestand. As you have to do in this business, you park it, and you worry about the one that is in front of you. That is the one here tonight. That is where the focus will be.
In your eyes, what are you seeing that led to the downturn in results last week?
Treliving: Generally disappointed. Completely disappointed in the homestand that took place.
You have to park that. All you can focus on, for the players and coaches, is tonight’s game and moving forward. But from a manager’s perspective, you’re looking at what happened before, what’s happening now, and what is going to happen in the future.
When I look at the homestand, we were flat. In the first game back against Minnesota, we were flat. We had fits and starts throughout the homestand, but the consistency level was not where we needed it to be, especially against the teams coming in. It just wasn’t good enough.
We knew the critical point and juncture of the season we were in. There is no excuse for it. We didn’t perform well enough to win games. You continue to watch and evaluate. Ultimately, you can look at each individual game and pick specific critical moments, but for me, it is just the consistency level; we weren’t at the level we needed to be at for enough stretches and for long enough stretches. We got the results that we got.
It’s certainly disappointing. For us, we have to focus on tonight. There is nothing you can do. The manager can be pissed off, but all we can do right now is focus on the one ahead of us, especially in a season like this, where the games come at you quickly. That is all you can do: focus on what is ahead of you and be ready to go at puck drop tonight.
It was well-documented that Craig Berube had a meeting with the leaders of your team prior to the game against Buffalo. We saw how the game played out. How do you respond to that? The coach is meeting with the leaders, and it is a veteran team, and you lose in the fashion you did against Buffalo?
Treliving: I know there has been stuff mentioned about leadership (meetings). Those are pre-set. There are regular meetings with the leadership group. This wasn’t a call to arms here. Those are scheduled in advance. Both Craig and I meet with the leadership group on a regular basis. Really, it is feedback both ways.
The Buffalo game… It is not necessarily how we came out. Again, at critical moments, it wasn’t good enough. At the end of the day, you can go back, and there are certain times when you just have to find ways to win. Ultimately, we haven’t found ways to win.
To me, with the meetings with players, those things happen regularly. Things will get made about a player meeting. The coaches meet with players every day. But we didn’t do enough good things at critical moments to win.
As critical as that homestand was, it was made more critical by what happened in October and November. You shortened your runway to give yourself room for error. You are not going to win every night, but when you put yourself behind the eight ball in a really competitive division and conference, you have shortened your window for rough stretches.
After a good road trip, we had been playing better and finding ways to accumulate points. We came back, and we got one point in a five-game homestand. You are going to have stretches like that, but when you skinned your knee enough in the first two months of the season, it makes it that much more profound a stretch.
Against Buffalo, it was similar to some of the other games. There were not enough stretches of good play to put yourself in a position to win a game.
Have you made a decision one way or another on the trajectory of the group for this season? Is it still a constant evaluation leading into the Olympic break and then into the deadline?
Treliving: You are always evaluating, but listen, we are very cognizant. I am not going to come out and make any profound statements, but we are also very cognizant of where we sit in the standings. You are looking at probabilities. You are looking at schedules ahead.
The players and coaches have their job to do, and that is to perform and be ready for every game. We certainly have four games remaining before the Olympic break, and then we have a three-week break for the Olympics. When we come back, we have a handful of games before the March 6 deadline.
You are always evaluating the short-term. You are evaluating the long-term. My job is and always will be to evaluate where the team is, but looking back over the three years I’ve been here and the two or three years before, you are spending a lot of assets trying to win. When you get to the deadline, it is the last opportunity to make additions to your team. You are trying to do things — as all teams in that position are — to push your team over the top.
We are in a different position than we’ve been in the past. You take all of that information. You are continually talking throughout the league and seeing what is in front of you. You are planning based on where your team is sitting and what is in front of you.
It is a combination of knowing where the games sit leading up to the deadline, but you also have four months of information already in the rear-view mirror. You make decisions accordingly.
Do you believe there is enough here among the core group to keep a Cup window open years into the future?
Treliving: Listen, I think we have some really good players. I understand the question. I believe in our players. But I am not going to sit here and make profound statements or do an autopsy on the team. We are certainly not in the position we want to be in, so you always have to be able to read, react, and act accordingly.
At the top-end of our lineup, Willy has been out for a while battling an injury, but every team has that. I think we have some really good players here, but we have to continue to watch, evaluate, and make the necessary decisions. Obviously, we have a deadline coming up that forces decisions on that, and then you go into the remainder of the season and the offseason.
We will continue to look at things. Without being vague, we will continue to evaluate and see what the best steps are for us moving forward, based on where we are at.
Jonas Siegel reported in The Athletic that the team eliminated personnel in the sports science department, or a contract ran out, and you lost the director to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Would you like to respond to that?
Treliving: I get it. I understand the job, sometimes, is to dig into different areas of the organization. First and foremost, when we don’t perform, we should take every bullet that we should take.
In this particular case with this particular article, I just take issue with it. I stick up for our medical staff. The slant of the article is, quite frankly, completely incorrect.
There was a gentleman, Rich Rotenberg, who was with the organization, left the organization, and moved to Pittsburgh. He is a good man who did a good job, but his duties were in a coordinating position. We promoted somebody into that position to coordinate and oversee the daily job description and the daily duties of our medical staff.
Quite frankly, we have added more staff this year than we had last year. The insinuation that we have cut back in any way, shape, or form in terms of the medical, performance, or care of our players is simply incorrect. It is wrong.
The gentleman who was quoted in the article is a previous staff member here. I have been here for going on my third year, and I’ve never met this individual. He hasn’t been around to know the inner workings of our staff. I would put our medical team and the care that our players get amongst the very best, not only in the NHL but in professional sports.
I think the article is not a true indication of the care our players get. We’ve added to our staff in terms of the player-facing positions and the people who are touching the players and administering therapy to them. We take it very seriously. If you ask any of the players who have come through Toronto, the care they get is second-to-none.
When you look at the injuries… As we all know, it is a contact sport, and you are going to have injuries. If you look at the numbers — as we do every single day — from October 1st to January 28 from last year to this year, league-wide, it is almost exactly 100 more players who have been placed on Injured Reserve. I think it is more the result of a condensed schedule and more games being played in a shorter period of time. It has nothing to do with medical attention.
I bring it up not to arm wrestle with anybody, but let’s get the facts involved. The medical care of our players has not, will not, and never will be compromised in any way, shape, or form. The actual truth of the matter is that we have increased our staff. We have increased the number of people who are touching the players. We continue every year to improve our operation, not go the other way.
Has budgeting for something like this department changed over the last 18-24 months since Keith Pelley arrived? Do you have the same budget to do whatever you please with as you did a year or two ago?
Treliving: It has increased since I’ve been here. The actual expenditure in terms of what we put into player performance — the staff size has increased, and the expenditure has increased. That is never an issue in terms of what we need.
I look at our sports performance staff, and our goal is to be on the cutting edge of whatever new and innovative technology is out there. As I said, the fact of the matter is that we have increased personnel. We have increased therapists. We have increased our strength and conditioning personnel and program.
The success on the ice — or the lack thereof so far this year — is not an indication of anything to do with the medical staff. I think the headline was that the process we have isn’t conducive to keeping players healthy. I would push back on that as hard as I possibly can. The process continues to get better, each and every year. Any description otherwise is just simply false.
One of the arguments Jeremy Bettle, quoted in the article, made was that there needs to be someone qualified to make the call when two opinions from the strength and conditioning, performance, or medical staff differ. It can’t be the GM, in terms of injury prevention or managing a particular player. How do you respond to that? How does it work today?
Treliving: I would agree. I don’t know this Dr. Bettle, but that is exactly how it works. No member of the coaching staff or management makes any decisions with respect to players’ health or players’ returns to play. We have a full, comprehensive process that is directed by our medical directors.
Where I think Jonas has gone down rabbit holes is in titles. We have gone from a sports performance director to a sports performance coordinator, and then we have invested more. The coordinating part has not changed at all in terms of how we go about our process. We have increased the number of people who are actually working on the players.
Really, looking forward, I think it is the right thing to do. You are always evaluating it, but specifically last summer, when we looked ahead to this year, we knew we had a condensed schedule with games coming at you at a faster clip. We wanted to increase the number of hands on the players.
If we really wanted to dig into the actual workings of the medical staff, this is not a step back. To me, this is as progressive an operation as I’ve seen, and it will continue to be so.