The Toronto Maple Leafs are not a very good hockey team right, so who’s to blame?
When GM Brad Treliving took the job in summer, 2024, he inherited a very good team. The Leafs had previously made the Second Round of the playoffs, but unfortunately ran into a buzz-saw, which was the Florida Panthers. Although the Panthers were the underdog at that time, they were just about to reach their first of three straight Stanley Cup Finals, so they were way better than anticipated.
During Treliving’s first season with the Leafs, history repeated itself as Toronto ultimately lost in seven games to the Boston Bruins (what else is new?). He then fired Sheldon Keefe and replaced him with Craig Berube, who helped guide this team to an Atlantic Division title and an eventual Second Round exit, once again to the Panthers.
With home-ice advantage in Game 7 of the Second Round, Toronto had a chance to breakthrough to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 20 years, but ultimately failed, which sparked more change.
Although Treliving stressed change, the 2025-26 roster may look different than 2024-25, but it’s just seemingly worse. They brought back their entire defensive-core, but that group isn’t any better than mediocre. They were one injury away from being below-average and that’s been displayed with Chris Tanev being out of the line-up.
The team doesn’t have a legitimate number-one defenseman and until they do, they’re not going to go far in the playoffs, let alone the regular season. In addition to that, the team is relying on a goalie who’s never played more than 35 games in an NHL season and now that he’s been given a chance, he’s struggling.
GM Treliving needs to make a splash
The Leafs are a top-heavy team, which is what they’ve always been, but now they don’t have Mitch Marner. As much as we hate to admit it, Marner’s absence is apparent and the fact that the Leafs essentially replaced him with Dakota Joshua and Nic Roy is unacceptable.
If this team wants to make a splash, Treliving may need to go big-game hunting and that may mean trading someone like William Nylander or Auston Matthews. John Tavares (legacy play) and Matthew Knies (age) aren’t going anywhere, so if you want to fetch something decent in return, those two players may be your ticket to a better team.
It would be smart to flip Morgan Rielly too while you’re at it, but I don’t really know what you could get for him, as his contract is expensive and he just doesn’t bring much. He’s not that offensively talented or defensively-sound, so he’s just an average defenseman playing more minutes than he should.
If you want to point to the criticism at Craig Berube, go for it, however he unfortunately doesn’t have the personnel for this team to be successful. MLSE loves jersey sales so flipping someone like Matthews or Nylander is a scary thought but if this team continues to struggle, that may be the only way to get out of this mess.