‘Everything is on the table’: Toronto Maple Leafs’ core is no longer safe

Keith Pelley’s opener was fitting.

The recently minted CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment addressed media Friday at Ford Performance Centre alongside Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and GM Brad Treliving, and the first thing Pelley did was remark that he was last there when his son was playing for the Humber Valley Sharks “about 20 years ago.”

That’s about how long it’s been since the Leafs were a relevant Stanley Cup contender, expected to win playoff series and make deeper runs in the playoffs every season. Those Pat-Quinn-era teams never did go all the way, but they were only bounced in the first round once between 1998-99 and 2003-04, reaching the Eastern Conference Final twice. The idea of the current Leafs playing in a conference final feels comically foreign after the team fell in Round 1 of the playoffs last week for the seventh time in eight seasons, dropping to 0-6 in winner-take-all games over that span. It’s why the situation was deemed grave enough to warrant coach Sheldon Keefe’s firing Thursday, and it’s why Pelley felt it was necessary to show up Friday for the year-end availability with the franchise’s management.

“Good is simply not good enough,” Pelley said during his preliminary statement. It set the tone for the presser, which might’ve seemed like a vague retread of previous year-enders on the surface but ultimately was not.

One day after the Leafs walked away from Keefe, Pelley did seemingly commit to ‘The Shanaplan’ continuing when he asserted, “Brendan Shanahan is the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s a champion. He’s a three-time Stanley Cup winner.” While Shanahan refused to go into specifics about his contract, it’s believed he has one year left on his deal and will get a chance to make good during it. But that was pretty much the only moment Friday in which any of Pelley, Shanahan or Treliving spoke out and guaranteed anyone would remain with the club next season.

For the rest of the presser, if you read between the lines, the Toronto brass left plenty of crumbs to imply significant on-ice change was coming, none more than Shanahan, who claimed “everything is on the table.”

“In the past, I believed that there are times where you talk about patience, and I still believe that there are times where patience is the suitable call,” he said. “However, when you see patterns persist and the results don’t change, you have to adjust the way that you think about things. We will look at everything this summer, and we will consider everything this summer, all with the intention of the one thing we are here for, which is to make the Maple Leafs better and to win.”

When asked explicitly if he’d urge Mitch Marner or John Tavares to waive their no-movement clauses, and when asked he had faith in the team’s core to win, Shanahan wouldn’t single out any individual but continued repeating his assertion that the time for patience was over.

Shanahan surely wasn’t referring to Auston Matthews or William Nylander, the team’s top two scorers, whose extensions kick in next season at a combined cap hit of $24.75 million. The door has clearly swung open to seriously consider trading right winger Marner, who has two goals in his last 16 playoff games and has become the public scapegoat for retreating when the play becomes more intense in the spring. He has just a single season remaining on his contract and is eligible to sign an extension July 1. Despite his playoff failures, Marner is a two-time first-team all-star, sits seventh in NHL scoring in the past five seasons and is in his prime at 27. He would command a significant, team-altering return in a trade. While Marner does have a no-movement clause, it shouldn’t be seen as overly prohibitive if the club makes it known he’s not part of their long-term vision, in which case a change of scenery would be mutually beneficial. At no point Friday did the Leafs commit to retaining captain Tavares, either. He has one year remaining on his contract at an $11 million AAV and carries a no-movement clause. Top blueliner Morgan Rielly’s name did not come up, either.

Even when speaking about Toronto’s goaltending, GM Brad Treliving barely mentioned UFA Ilya Samsonov aside from noting that he’s a free agent. Treliving spent more air time on Joseph Woll and whether the team needs to make some changes to his training regimen this offseason after a back injury knocked him out of their series with the Bruins just when his outstanding play had turned the tide in Toronto’s favor.

The Core is no longer safe. The goaltending situation in all likelihood will change. While the Leafs offered no hints as to what type of coach they’re intending to pursue, Treliving did make it clear what needs to change in the team’s playing style, which yielded the second-most goals in the NHL during the regular season but cratered for 1.71 goals per game and a 4.8% power-play conversion rate in the playoffs.

“It wasn’t total goals, it’s how the goals are scored in the playoffs,” Treliving said. “You score differently in the playoffs than you do in the regular season. So is it systematic? Is it personnel? Most of us in this room could understand it’s more difficult. You’re defended harder, you’re played against harder in the playoffs. So we haven’t scored enough, our special teams haven’t been good enough, and we seem to be turning the other team’s goalie into the first star. It’s twofold, we’ve got to find a way systematically [and] personnel wise, to score more in the playoffs and score those goals that are scored in the playoffs.”

In their first season under Treliving, the Leafs achieved his stated goal of playing with more “snot.” They jumped from the 23rd-heaviest team to ninth-heaviest, from 23rd in hits to second, from 19th in penalty minutes per game to ninth. If we follow along with his idea tabled Friday, that scoring is earned differently in the postseason, it could indicate an offseason gameplan centered on moving the needle in an even grittier direction. It should be noted that the changes this season made the Leafs worse, not better. They were slower, less defensively adept and had their worst penalty kill since 2008-09. But when the previous approach wasn’t working, there was little to lose, and that remains the case today. As Pelley, Shanahan and Treliving each stated in their own way, the time for patience, for doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on a core built to light up the scoreboard in the regular season, is long gone.

Friday was all about what the Leafs’ decision makers didn’t say, and which names they didn’t defend. They appear committed to making some significant renovations. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for that first swing of the sledgehammer.

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‘Everything is on the table’: Toronto Maple Leafs’ core is no longer safe

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