The Toronto Maple Leafs made headlines when firing GM Brad Treliving, but the organization isn’t expected to stop there, as Sportsnet’s insider Elliotte Friedman expects major changes.
The Toronto Maple Leafs shocked the hockey world on Monday when they announced that they had fired Brad Treliving.
Treliving was nearing the end of his third season as the GM of the Maple Leafs before he was fired. The decision to fire Treliving wasn’t too surprising, as he had been heavily scrutinized for his decisions while working for Toronto, but the timing was.
With the decision to part ways, the Maple Leafs are expected to make several other major changes when their season ends, following their elimination from playoff contention on Thursday.
During Elliotte Friedman’s ‘Saturday Headlines’ segment on Hockey Night in Canada, the trusted insider went in-depth on the fallout from the move and what could be coming next for Toronto.
“After the change of the GM spot, Keith Pelley held a Zoom call with the members of the hockey operations department,” started Friedman. “And just from talking to a few people after it was over and the last couple of days, it’s pretty clear that they are expecting major change.
I asked, ‘Did Pelley say anything specifically about change in there?’ and it wasn’t so much the word, it’s about how he talked. One of the things he kind of mentioned is ‘we are going to use our resources to the fullest capacity we can.’”
Friedman went on to discuss how Pelley, the president and CEO of MLSE, felt they hadn’t been doing so, which is why his sources are expecting major changes.
Much has been made recently about the reported underuse of those resources. It’s well documented that the Maple Leafs have one of the biggest, if not the biggest, analytics departments in the NHL. Plenty of it was brought in by former GM Kyle Dubas and former president Brendan Shanahan, but the department currently remains intact.
The next GM and the other new faces expected to join the organization will need to use these resources, but according to Friedman, the Maple Leafs haven’t requested to speak with anyone under contract with another team.
“No ask for permission yet,” said Friedman. “They have not asked anybody for permission to talk to anybody under contract with another team.”
Several names have been linked to the Maple Leafs, including St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong, who is set to become the full-time president of hockey operations on July 1, with Alexander Steen taking over as GM.
“Doug Armstrong, it just doesn’t seem like the timing is right for the Blues and the Maple Leafs for Doug Armstrong.”
While Armstrong seems like a long shot, there are still several viable candidates, such as Sunny Mehta, an assistant GM with the Florida Panthers. The 47-year-old has been with the Panthers since 2021, beginning as a hockey strategy and intelligence analyst. He then became the director of analytics before spending the past two seasons as an assistant GM as well.
“He’s been kind of discussed this week, Sunny Mehta, one of the assistant general managers of the Florida Panthers,” mentioned Friedman. “I do think he’s going to be a factor.”
Mehta fits the description of what Pelley is looking for, but it will ultimately come down to what other candidates arise.
Host Ron McLean also asked Friedman about the possibility of Shanahan returning, to which Friedman quickly dismissed.
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