5 Regrets the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Have This Summer

5 Regrets the Toronto Maple Leafs Will Have This Summer

5. Hiring Brad Treliving

The Kyle Dubas conversation is annoying because he's turned into a political figure where the takes are just so biased and ridiculous that you can't have a normal conversation about him.

The fact is, however, that the Leafs trained a young manager and let him learn on the job and just when he was perhaps going to put that experience to use, he went to another team.

Dubas was only controversial because a billion dollar franchise not only put a kid in charge of their team, but they let him try to innovate in an industry that is extremely hostile to innovation. It was awesome in just about every way and probably won't ever happen again, so it's unfortunate that when bad luck and circumstance prevented him from wining that people took it personally.

No matter. He had his run and while I personally would rather have kept him on, I'm happy to move on as well. I just don't really like going from the cutting edge of the NHL basically the epitome of the average NHL GM.

Treliving seems to operate by the Book of Cliched Hockey Beliefs and he's also the only GM in the league with 2 disappointing teams in the league right now. *(You could put Dubas on this list, but he left Treliving the league's best core and $20 million to spend).

If the Leafs don't make it out of the first round, the upside is that the incoming President of MLSE will likely fire Shanahan and that means a one-and-done with Treliving. I'd rather win the Stanely Cup or at least have a long playoff season, but at least there is that silver lining.

Brad Treliving is a bad GM and he never should have been in charge for one of Auston Matthews' limited Prime Seasons.

It's too bad Dubas lost the power-struggle. I would have liked to see what he'd have done without Shanahan meddling all the time.