Mitch Marner and John Tavares headline key unrestricted free agents at the end of the 2024-25 season, highlighting this year as a crucial opportunity for championship glory in the ‘Core Four’ era.
Mitch Marner and John Tavares headline key unrestricted free agents at the end of the 2024-25 season, highlighting this year as a crucial opportunity for championship glory in the ‘Core Four’ era.
As the Toronto Maple Leafs opened their 2024 training camp on Wednesday, the longest-tenured Leaf, defenseman Morgan Rielly, emphasized a sense of urgency with his and the club’s lone goal of winning the Stanley Cup. Rielly, who spoke to media during availability, underscored that the 2024-25 season is championship or bust, anything short of a Stanley Cup would be considered a failure.
“Right now I'm going to stay a bit more focused on the short term. We want to get training camp going. We want to start competing. And as we go, our goal will always be to win the Stanley Cup, and anything short of that is a failure,” Rielly told reporters on Wednesday.
Flashback to May 6, the Leafs held their end-of-season media availability and Rielly echoed a similar desire when discussing shortcomings in Toronto and expectations. Now 30 years old, and entering his 12th season with the Leafs, Rielly knows the stakes are growing higher with each passing year.
“I think at this point, we're in a wonderful position where anything other than a championship is a disappointment,” Rielly said following the club’s elimination in the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs. “We're lucky to be in that position, but it makes anything other than that very difficult and very challenging for the group on many levels.”
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As the longest-serving player on the team, the former first-round pick has seen it all. Since his debut in 2013, he has only advanced past the first round once, despite his stellar play, including 12 points (4G, 8A) in 11 games during the 2022-23 postseason run. The sentiment can be felt, and for him, winning a Stanley Cup in Toronto is the ultimate goal.
“The next thing that our group needs to accomplish is winning. And that's obviously the main focus. There's been stuff that has happened along the way during that journey. But ultimately, we want to win together. We want to win in Toronto,” Rielly reiterated on Wednesday.
“We're constantly competing to try to make that happen – trying to make the team better, trying to make ourselves better. All I can remember is to accomplish that goal of being Stanley Cup champions.”
Besides, in the NHL there are windows of opportunities to consistently make deep playoff runs in hopes of eventually coming out on top. For the Leafs, two members of the ‘Core Four,’ Mitch Marner and John Tavares, are unrestricted free agents at the conclusion of the 2024-25 season, creating that much more uncertainty regarding what the foundation of this team looks like a year from now. The ambiguity surrounding their future should add a sense of urgency to capitalize on the current window of opportunity.
In the Toronto market, the burners are always hot, the pressure is always sky-high. Despite this being the highest goal, the need to stay grounded and focused on the task at hand will pay dividends. Marner identified this on Wednesday when asked about Rielly’s comments, reaffirming the team’s desire to capture a Stanley Cup championship, but noting the importance of staying in the moment.
“I think we can't look ahead. I mean, that's the problem,” Marner said. “There's going to be a lot of ups and downs this season. We're always in it for injuries that happen that can hurt the team, and can take it down a little bit. You've just got to be ready for the ups and downs of the season. Nothing's going to run smoothly all the time. I don't want to look too far ahead; I want to be here now, and ready to go. I'm very excited for the opportunity.”
It’s no secret that the Leafs carry high expectations into the 2024-25 season, as they have for previous years in the past. The Stanley Cup isn’t handed out easily – it's often said to be the hardest trophy to win in professional sports. The stakes are high, and while the team has brought in experienced players and fresh faces, there’s no telling how many more chances this core group will have to make a deep playoff run.
That’s why, for Rielly and the Leafs, it’s simple: the mentality has to be championship or bust.
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