Will Maple Leafs make key changes at the top? 

Following the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers, questions have been raised about whether changes will be made not only to the core four but also to the top of the chain in Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment Group.

Today on Daily Faceoff Live, Matt Larkin shines light on what could happen this summer regarding the Leafs’ brass.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Frank mentioned Brendan Shanahan heading into a year where he doesn’t have a contract. What do you think, are there gonna be changes way up at the top, potentially?

Matt Larkin: Well, I suspect there will be. If you look at the way Keith Pelley, the CEO of MLSE, spoke when he made his big address last year, it seems like there’s supposedly a zero tolerance for anything less than a deep playoff run. Shanahan, of course, the contract is over anyway. We don’t even know if he wants to come back after being a decade in this pressure cooker. You know, Shanahan did do a lot of good things for the franchise. I think he brought them back to relevance. He did a lot of small touches, even things like changing honored numbers to retired numbers. I think he made the Leafs less of a laughing stock as a franchise, but at the same time, I think he was also part of the brain trust that coddled these stars and gave them so many more chances than a lot of other franchises would. I think you just eventually have to let him fall on the sword here because you cannot do this over and over and not be able to break through even to the third round of the playoffs. I think it’s embarrassing in a sense that this is considered such a mountain to climb when you have so many other franchises that seem to do it every year, relatively easily, it’s not that big a deal to make the conference final. We’re not talking about the Stanley Cup Final. We’re just talking about the third round of the playoffs.