NHL Hot Seat Radar: Leafs' Treliving, Red Wings' Yzerman Face Pressure Again

The NHL's March 6 trade deadline has come and gone, and the heat on certain league figures is rising to a boil.

Two NHL GMs on this week's Hot Seat Radar – Brad Treliving of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Steve Yzerman of the Detroit Red Wings – came into the season with high expectations.

Most people would've suggested prior to the season that Yzerman was in danger of being fired and that Treliving's job security with the Maple Leafs would be safe. But the opposite has turned out to be the case: Treliving now faces calls for his job after Toronto cratered this season, and Yzerman's job is on the verge of being very safe after Detroit's strong season.

Let's look more closely at Yzerman and Treliving, as well as two Western Conference coaches who are feeling varying degrees of pressure right now.

Treliving must have been feeling relatively good after his Maple Leafs finished last  season as the top seed in the competitive Atlantic Division. But after showing some spurts of effectiveness this year, the Leafs have completely cratered out.

Rather than being a buyer team at the trade deadline, the Maple Leafs were sellers. Some of the prices Treliving got for his players did not sit well with Leafs fans.

Treliving's inability to get back what he paid for center Scott Laughton in this year's deal with the Los Angeles Kings is going to haunt him in the Toronto market for years to come.

And if the Maple Leafs don't wind up with a top-five draft pick this season, Treliving could pay for it with his job.

For now, though, how the Leafs end this season will go a long way toward shaping Treliving's off-season. Although it's counterintuitive to suggest a prolonged losing streak the rest of the way will help Treliving keep his job into next season, that's what we believe to be the case. 

Ultimately, Leafs fans should want to see Treliving embrace the tank, rather than winning a few games, finishing outside the top five, and sending the Boston Bruins Toronto's top-five-protected first-round pick.

If Treliving can't show and execute a strong plan for the future, he may be the Leafs' ex-GM sooner than later. So his seat is definitely warming up, and it will continue to do so.

Yzerman needs the Red Wings to make the playoffs to ensure his job is safe.

So far, the Wings have rewarded Yzerman for his faith in them, putting themselves in a playoff spot for the grand majority of the season. So in some respects, Yzerman's seat is on the verge of being significantly cooler – but that's only if the Red Wings make it into the post-season.

In the highly competitive Atlantic Division, Detroit slipped out of the top three spots and into the first wild-card position heading into Thursday's games. They're 4-5-1 in their last 10 games.

The Wings are three points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets, which sit just outside a playoff spot.

Including Thursday's contest, the Wings have 17 games left to stick the landing and finish as high as they can in the Eastern standings. What could be ahead for Detroit is a likely first-round matchup with one of the Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning or Carolina Hurricanes.

Thus, there's a lot at stake for Yzerman & Co. in the coming weeks. While the Red Wings have shown progress this year, squandering a playoff berth would almost assuredly mean the end of Yzerman's tenure in Motown.

The hockey core that makes up the Mammoth and inactive Arizona Coyotes hasn't made the post-season since 2019-20, so Tourigny is essentially coaching to prove he still deserves to be the coach.

Since Dec. 30, Utah has a 16-7-2 record, and it's moved comfortably into the first wild-card position in the Western Conference.

It's unlikely the Mammoth can catch the Central Division's third-place team, the Minnesota Wild, but Utah is six points ahead of the eighth-place Seattle Kraken before Thursday's results. That means there's no real danger that Tourigny will be fired at the end of the season.

If they finish in the first wild card spot, the Mammoth are likely to play the Anaheim Ducks or Edmonton Oilers in the first round. But if they slide to the second wild-card spot, they're almost certain to be playing the first-place Colorado Avalanche. So a strong finish to this season is crucial for the Mammoth's fortunes in the post-season.

We were tempted to suggest Knoblauch's seat is cooling down now that Edmonton has won three of its past four games.

But that modest win streak has only put the Oilers into a tie for second place in the weak Pacific Division – and Edmonton is just five points ahead of the Kraken, with Seattle having two games in hand.

So the race for a playoff spot in the West is even tighter than it looks right now.

Consequently, Knoblauch needs to get a strong showing out of his players in each and every one of the 17 games Edmonton has left in its regular season. The Oilers can't afford even a three- or four-game losing skid if they're intent on locking up a top-three spot in the Pacific.

If the Oilers slip into a wild-card position, they're also going to be a potential opponent for the terrific Avalanche. And a first-round exit to any opponent should signal the end of Knoblauch's time as Oilers coach.

It doesn't matter that Knoblauch has brought the Oilers back-to-back Cup final appearances. All that matters in Edmonton is the here and now.

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