Published Mar 01, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 1\u00a0hour ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 10 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n The question Keith Pelley really needs to answer: Will Brad Treliving be back as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs?<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n And if the answer to that question is no, then why is Treliving in charge in the days heading into Friday\u2019s NHL trade deadline<\/a>?<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n This is not an unfair question to ask considering the circumstances. A year ago, believing the Maple Leafs were this close to a Stanley Cup, Pelley fired Brendan Shanahan as president of the Leafs.<\/p>\n He fired him after the Leafs had made the playoffs a record nine years in a row and not advanced much beyond that in the post-season.<\/p>\n Now they\u2019re not heading to the post-season. So what to think of Treliving\u2019s future after his first season working alongside Pelley?<\/p>\n And, tied to Treliving is the future of head coach Craig Berube, who really has next to no future with the Leafs.<\/p>\n But does Treliving? If he knows, he isn\u2019t saying. He\u2019s proceeding to Friday\u2019s NHL trade deadline as though it\u2019s business as usual for the team. He knows what this team is right now. He knows the mistakes that have been made. He has no blind illusions about what\u2019s gone wrong and where this roster is at.<\/p>\n Your Midday Sun<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The hard part now: Fixing them, for whoever is in charge.<\/p>\n Pat Gillick, maybe the greatest general manager in sports history, once told me that the job of a GM includes making mistakes.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone makes them,\u201d said Gillick. \u201cThe key is fixing them. And not waiting on them.\u201d<\/p>\n This is Treliving\u2019s job right now. Until he doesn\u2019t have a job. And there\u2019s been no indication from anyone that he\u2019s about to be shown the door.<\/p>\n Then again, there was little indication that Shanahan was being pushed out, or that Masai Ujiri was being shelved by the Raptors, before Pelley pulled the plug on both of them last year.<\/p>\n Now Pelley, not a hockey man of any history, is suddenly the central figure in everything to do with Leafs hockey. What happens next, after Friday: That\u2019s his call.<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Healthy Tanev would have made a difference<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I believe: Had Chris Tanev been healthy<\/a> most of the season and the Leafs had their goaltending tandem in place for the entire schedule, they would be a playoff team. Would they be a contender? Not necessarily. But they\u2019re heading to close to 90 points without Tanev, with Mitch Marner gone, and with so-so goaltending. The year before the Leafs signed Tanev, the Dallas Stars traded for him at the deadline. The Stars went 19-4 in the final 23 games. Tanev was injured in Game 4 of the Western Conference final against Edmonton, with the Stars leading 2-1. After Tanev\u2019s injury, Dallas lost the final three games of the series \u2026 Captain Auston Matthews<\/a> returned to the Leafs after the wild Olympic celebration and the ill-determined White House trip, and he was just about their most effective player in two terrible losses in Florida. Which isn\u2019t saying much. If the other 17 Leafs players were at the White House with him, and at the party the night before, blame Matthews for his lack of leadership. But his teammates were close to bloody awful in games in which they had no excuse to be bloody awful in. That\u2019s not on him \u2026 Interesting that after the Leafs loss in Sunrise on Thursday night, waiting just outside the dressing room for Matthews was his Team USA mate, Matthew Tkachuk. The two were both born in 1997, and Tkachuk spent his early years in Arizona, playing hockey in the same rinks as Matthews. Their gold-medal attachment now is forever \u2026 Also their age: Gold-medal winner Tage Thompson, from Phoenix. What are the odds of three hockey players from a state with almost no hockey becoming gold-medal winners together on Team USA? \u2026 The Buffalo Sabres plan to honour Thompson on Tuesday night at their home game, ironically against Vegas. You know who plays for Vegas? Former Sabres star Jack Eichel. Wonder if the Sabres will do what the Panthers did with Matthews and Tkachuk on Thursday night, have Thompson and Eichel take a ceremonial faceoff together. The fans in Florida loved it. The fans in Buffalo, who don\u2019t love Eichel, may not react similarly \u2026 If you have a problem with Claire Hanna, look in the mirror. There\u2019s your problem. You\u2019re staring right at it.<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Bobby McMann likely won\u2019t fetch a first<\/p>\n As a city and a market, Toronto has a way of historically overrating hockey talent. The latest is Bobby McMann<\/a>, a nice, hard-working kid, a late-bloomer of good speed but limited skills. He is not a front-line player on any team. He is not a $5-million-a-year player, even by today\u2019s inflated NHL standards, He will not bring a first-round pick in a trade unless a general manager panics by Friday. Maybe he\u2019ll be traded. Maybe he\u2019ll be re-signed by the Leafs. That doesn\u2019t change who he is, which is a middle-of-the-roster NHLer who turns 30 in June \u2026 I\u2019d like to see the Leafs finish the season with Matthews centring William Nylander and Matthew Knies. Their three best forwards on one line. Boston Bruins style \u2026 When Team Sweden won gold in 2006 at the Turin Olympics, Mats Sundin helped charter a plane so that the players could head to Stockholm to celebrate, rather than return to the NHL immediately. The players didn\u2019t miss any games but their Swedish party was apparently legendary. There was no Donald Trump, no social network commentary involved, so all passed without much comment. All these years later, those players are still connected by that gold-medal win and will be forever \u2026 The NHL season is about 70% completed. And if I\u2019m voting today, I\u2019d have Islanders rookie Matthew Schaefer on my Hart Trophy, Norris Trophy and Calder Trophy ballots. And that I didn\u2019t expect. I don\u2019t have him close to the top for the Hart or Norris, but still top-five. He should be a runaway winner for rookie of the year. Schaefer is from Hamilton, by the way, same place that brought you Shai Gilgeous-Alexander \u2026 My Hart winner today as March begins: Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay. My Norris winner: One of Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes<\/a> or Zach Werenski. The Calder should be a unanimous vote \u2026 Not that many years ago, I asked an analytics expert if there was a single statistic to determine who the best defenceman in hockey was? His answer surprised me: Minutes played, he said. The coaches know this stuff better than anyone. As of today, the three leading defencemen in minutes played in the NHL: 1. Hughes; 2. Werenski; 3. Miro Heiskanen of Dallas. Sixth is Makar. That\u2019s a pretty sound group, courtesy of a stats geek \u2026 The top Leafs defenceman in minutes played, Jake McCabe is 54th in the league in that category. Morgan Rielly is 70th.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Blue Jays have it easy to start season<\/p>\n The Blue Jays schedule to start the season is so light they might go something like 22-8 in the first month. It\u2019s that crazy. Aside from three games against the World Series-champion Dodgers \u2014 which should be fun in Toronto \u2014 the Jays play the A\u2019s, Rockies, White Sox, Twins and Diamondbacks. And they start May with 12 games against the Twins, Rays and Angels. First quarter of the season, they should be close to 30 wins \u2026 Max Scherzer is betting on himself with his new Blue Jays contract. If he pitches the 85 innings he pitched last year, he\u2019ll be paid $6 million. If he pitches the 43 innings he pitched the year before in Texas, he\u2019ll earn only the $3 million the Jays signed him for. There\u2019s no loss here for the Jays and probably none for Scherzer \u2026 I still worry about their offence without the steady bat of Bo Bichette and the surprising production that came from nowhere a year ago \u2026 The three best American basketball players in the NBA are probably Kevin Durant, age 37, LeBron James, 41, and Steph Curry, 37. In other words, old. The three best Canadians in the NBA are Gilgeous-Alexander, 27; Jamal Murray, 29; and Andrew Wiggins, 31 (unless you have RJ Barrett ahead of him.) \u2026 The top three Canadians in the NHL are 1. Connor McDavid; 2. Nathan MacKinnon; 3. Makar. The top three Americans in the NHL: 1. Hughes; 2. Connor Hellebuyck; 3. Eichel \u2026 Hockey games played that were better than the Olympic gold-medal final: Sorry, I can\u2019t come up with one \u2026 The best paying job in sports: Being the owner. When Larry Tanenbaum bought in to the Maple Leafs, the team was worth just more than $175 millon. Now he\u2019s about to cash out \u2014 or has cashed out \u2014 some 26 years later and the Leafs are worth more than $4 billion \u2026 My advice to my money manager: Buy sports franchises \u2026 Teams in need of better coaching: 1. Los Angeles Kings; 2. Los Angeles Kings; 3. Los Angeles Kings \u2026 It\u2019s entirely possible that Mike Sullivan will have a coached a gold-medal winning hockey team and the worst team in the NHL, all in the very same season.<\/p>\n Advertisement 7<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Women\u2019s hockey big Olympic winner<\/p>\n After all the foolish noise, the real winner from the Winter Olympics: Women\u2019s hockey. The sport. Not anyone individually. Tickets for PWHL games have skyrocketed in online pricing since the performance of Team USA in Milan. There is now all kinds of talk of PWHL expansion and demand for it. The game in first-year Seattle the other night drew a record crowd of 17,335. Personally, I thought the women\u2019s Olympic tournament was a display of one team\u2019s brilliance. This was just about the worst Team Canada I\u2019ve ever seen, save for the gold-medal game. The rest of the draw was the rest of the draw, as always. But the Americans, man, they took your breath away with their talent \u2026 The PWHL, and by extension Mark Walter, the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, owns every franchise in the league. They have yet to sell franchises externally. This way of doing business has never been done successfully before in pro sport \u2026 Give Troy Ryan credit for getting ahead of the obvious. Instead of waiting to be let go as Team Canada women\u2019s team hockey coach he\u2019s saying that he\u2019s stepping down. Good for him. There\u2019s work to be done coaching with the Toronto Sceptres \u2026 If more Canadian women are playing hockey than ever before, shouldn\u2019t we be developing better players? \u2026 During the regular season, more people in America watch the WNBA on average than watch the NHL on television. But at the Olympics, the opposite occurs. The gold-medal men\u2019s hockey game had 18.6 million viewers on TV in the U.S. The gold-medal women\u2019s game in basketball at the 2024 Olympics in Paris had 7.8 million viewers \u2026 The TV number for the men\u2019s gold-medal final in Canada was surprisingly low, just 8.7 million watching. That\u2019s fewer watching than Games 6 and 7 of the World Series last fall. The gold-medal hockey game did do better on television than the first five games of the World Series in Canada did \u2026 Why it\u2019s hard to take the Raptors seriously as contenders, in spite of their impressive record? They\u2019re 11-18 against teams above .500 \u2026 Wayne Gretzky talking about Mike Keenan: \u201cHe told after a game once that I didn\u2019t have to watch the video. He said I memorized everything that happened during the game, so what was the point? And I told him I only knew one other individual who could do that \u2014 and that was you.\u201d Keenan called it the greatest compliment of his career \u2026 A question worthy of debate: Should Keenan be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, where coaches tend to be forgotten? \u2026 Weird, ESPN has done a deal with the WWE and now it is bringing in big-name wrestlers to talk about other sports on their network and promote their upcoming championship fights, as if they\u2019re not choreographed \u2026 A brief view of Brayden Point on Wednesday night: Boy, could Team Canada have used him in Milan. He\u2019s just natural around the net \u2026 And condolences and best wishes to Team Canada coach Jon Cooper, who got home after the Olympics to learn of his father\u2019s passing. Can\u2019t imagine the kind of emotional tumult that a hockey loss followed by a deep personal loss would bring \u2026 My dad has been gone for 26 years. I still think of him every day \u2026 The Pittsburgh Penguins won the other night. Their goal-scorers were Connor Clifton, Blake Lizotte, Egor Chinakhov and Tommy Novak, none of whom could be picked out of a police lineup. How is this Penguins season happening? \u2026 Happy birthday to Eric Lindros (53), Ron Francis (63), Ja\u2019Marr Chase (26), Luka Doncic (27) Pat Boutette (74), Adrian Dantley (71), Randy Arozarena (31), Aroldis Chapman (38), Tyreek Hill (32), Ricky Steamboat (73), Ickey Woods (60), Darren Raddysh (30) and Chris Webber (53) \u2026 And hey, whatever became of Ben Bishop?<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breadcrumb Trail Links Sports Get the latest from Steve Simmons straight to your inbox Sign Up Published Mar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-507428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"leafs](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-1504490962-e1772327184156.jpg\")
If the prime job of a GM is to fix his mistakes, will Brad Treliving be given the chance to do that with his Maple Leafs roster? \u2002 Photo by Bruce Bennett \/Getty ImagesArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.6.2\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tsun.svg\"){kind=logo}
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