Grading Brad Treliving's First Season as the Toronto Maple Leafs GM
The Toronto Maple Leafs season ended just over a week ago, capping off Brad Treliving’s first as GM.
The dust has finally settled after a crazy week that saw locker clean out for the players, head coach Sheldon Keefe get the axe and MLSE CEO Keith Pelley, Toronto Maple Leafs President Brendan Shanahan, and Treliving give their end of season press conference.
It was no doubt a disappointing end, losing in seven games to the Boston Bruins once again.
It was even more disappointing after breaking the 18 year series win drought the year prior. In many ways it felt like a step back, hopefully it means two steps forward come next.
This season felt like it needed a recap and to grade how Treliving performed in his first season. We are currently just under a calendar year since Treliving took over, it feels like now is as good a time as any to grade how things have went thus far.
I will be using a standard lettering grade system to grade four categories that most GMs, Treliving being no exception, are held accountable for. These are: The draft, signings, trades, and team performance.
The NHL Entry Draft
Grade: B+
Starting off in chronological order, the draft was the first main event of the Treliving era. Though to be fair, he had just been hired and it's debatable how much influence he had on the Leafs picks.
He entered the draft with three selections and made all of them, opting not to make a trade to acquire more picks. The Leafs shocked many when he drafted London Knights forward Easton Cowan at 28th overall.
So far, this seems to be the right call with Cowan having a breakout year scoring 96 points through 54 regular season games including a 36-game point streak. He has followed that up with 27 points in 16 playoff games.
His play this year has awarded him the Red Tillson trophy for the OHL’s most outstanding player, an award won by many good NHLers in recent years like; Wyatt Johnston, Jordan Kyrou, Alex DeBrincat, and Mitch Marner.
The next pick the Leafs had was in the fifth round, 153rd overall. Treliving used this to select overage center Hudson Malinoski from the Brooks Brandits of the AJHL. Malinoski, from Saskatoon, played his freshman year at Providence College this season, scoring 18 points through 35 games.
This was on par with fellow Leafs prospect and NCAA rookie Nicholas Moldenhauer at a 0.51 points-per-game pace. Both players are raw talents that have decent NHL ceilings if they can take the necessary strides over the coming seasons.
The third and final pick of the draft was 6-4 left-shot defenseman Noah Chadwick from the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the WHL. At the time, he looked like a concerning pick; Another big bodied defenseman who couldn’t produce and who scouts said was a poor skater.
Overall, Treliving’s first draft looks promising with Cowan looking like a potential steal, Chadwick making great strides, and Malinoski showing some promise.
The jury is of course still out but many players who have followed a similar progression to Cowan have gone on to have very fruitful NHL careers. The most recent being the aforementioned Wyatt Johnston who almost exactly mirrors Cowan’s development path up to this point. As of right now, this draft gets a B-plus for me.
Free Agency
Grade: C
Heading into the free agency period, Treliving had just over $20 million to play with and had holes to fill with multiple UFAs walking. He made big splashes early on allocating $14 million of the cap in signing Tyler Bertuzzi, Ryan Reaves, Max Domi, and John Klingberg. He also re-signed David Kampf for four years at $2.4 million per season and Ilya Smasonov for one year and $3.55 million.
These moves represent over $20 million of this past year’s caphit and have largely been a mixed bag.
Bertuzzi struggled for large portions of the season but started to turn his season around in the second-half. He finished just slightly above a half-point per game with 21 goals and 43 points in 80 games.
Max Domi was a big hit, producing 47 points in 80 games, ingratiating himself with fans for his unique hard-nosed playmaker style.
John Klingberg started the season on the wrong foot and looked very out of place on the Leafs’ blueline before suffering an injury only 14 games into his tenure and being out for the season (and possibly his career).
The last of the “big four” free agents was Ryan Reaves. Treliving signed the 37 year-old for more than the league minimum and for three years. There is no defending this contract.
He definitely looked better down the stretch but between the term, caphit, his age, and playstyle the Reaves acquisition will always be a negative grade for me. The fighting and toughness elements he provides do not overshadow the fact that he is a below replacement level player. Between averaging eight minutes a game and his fighting majors, he essentially forces the Leafs to play with 17 skaters instead of 18 when he dresses.
Surprisingly, the area that was the most successful was the depth signings. Simon Benoit, William Lagesson, Martin Jones, Noah Gregor, and Max Lajoie all played NHL games this season for under $900,000.
That is successful enough but with Benoit stepping up in a big way due to injuries and working his way into a three-year $1.35 million AAV contract and a likely third pair role moving forward is about as much of a slam dunk move as you can have when it comes to depth signings.
Martin Jones also stepped up between injuries and inconsistent play in the crease and he played a big part in keeping the Leafs in the playoff picture this season. Although Lagesson and Lajoie did not play as significant of a role, they both played games in relief of injuries this season and held their own. Gregor was possibly the worst of the bunch but still played over 60 games in a fourth line role for the team.
Lastly, looking at the re-signees, again Treliving had a mixed bag. Kampf receiving a four year commitment at $2.4 million looked bad at the time and doesn’t look any better one year later. In a salary cap league there is likely no justification for having the highest paid fourth liner on your team.
Kampf undoubtedly plays a valuable role as the de facto shutdown center but he struggled mightily this year, consistently losing his minutes against all forms of competition. The modified no-trade clause makes moving him difficult but the Leafs should look to pursue that to free up cap space this summer or at least have a plan to make his line more effective moving forward.
To add to disappointing re-signings, despite Samsonov turning his play around in the new year, it’s hard to see his season as anything but a letdown. After playing like one of the league’s worst goaltenders for the first few months of the season and struggling again in the playoffs, it was a bad year all-in-all.
Like his predecessor, Treliving had to make some big decisions regarding the team’s core in his first year on the job. He signed franchise center Auston Matthews to a four-year deal carrying a $13.25 million AAV. Say what you want about the dollar figure, locking up the greatest player in franchise history is never a bad move.
He also signed William Nylander to a max term eight-year $11.5 million AAV contract. The money on Nylander’s deal is a little rich but given his play in recent years and the rising cap he should be worth the investment, especially if he can keep scoring at a 40-goal and above point-per-game pace.
The signings are a definite downgrade for Treliving. He handed out some good, some bad, and some ugly contracts which gives him a C-grade for me. To his credit, some of the moves that didn’t pan out, probably would have looked better if we could have a mulligan on the season. But, since we can only evaluate what has actually happened, he gets a decent mark of C.
Trades
Grade: D
There is a slight disclaimer for Treliving’s trading grade; I do not agree with his philosophy for the most part which likely pushes me towards disliking some of his moves right out of the gate. As is the case with most teams in the Leafs’ spot and par for the course in a new GM, he was fairly quiet on the trade market for most of this season.
His first trade came over four months after assuming his post by sending Sam Lafferty to the Vancouver Canucks for a 2024 fifth round pick.
This trade was largely necessitated by his summer spending and although Lafferty seemed to be the odd man out heading into the season, he probably would have significantly helped the fourth line that struggled for most of the year. He has also shown the ability to play up-and-down the lineup which would have been valuable to have over the course of the season. At $1.15 million, he also would have been cheaper than a few other depth players on the Leafs which would have helped the cap situation.
His next move didn’t come until March 1st, this is even with many struggles at different positions throughout the season.
He acquired Ilya Lyubushkin and the rights to Kirill Slepets in a three-way trade for a 2024 sixth round pick and a 2025 third rounder. The price was not high but Lyubushkin is not the player you acquire to throw on the top pair and there were better options available.
Then, Treliving acquired Joel Edmundson for a 2024 third and 2025 fifth. Again, not a steep price to pay but Edmundson is relatively ineffective in his shutdown role.
As evidenced by his pairing with Liljegren being one of the only net-negative xG% pairs Liljegren was a part of this season. He also acquired another shutdown defender in the way of acquiring prospect Cade Webber for a 2026 sixth round pick from the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the last trade of the deadline period, he acquired Connor Dewar from the Minnesota Wild for prospect Dmitry Ovchinnikov and a 2026 fourth round pick. This was one of the only trades I’d classify as a hands down good trade that Treliving made this season as Dewar was a key part of the bottom-six and helped form a much more effective shutdown fourth line.
Treliving standing pat at the deadline during one of the few Auston Matthews Prime seasons was inexcusable and negatively impacts his grade.
There were multiple impact players moved at the deadline, and the Leafs didn't get any of them. The Leafs were one of the NHL's top teams in the second half of the season and had both trade assets and cap flexibility, so not getting beyond the first round has a lot to do with Treliving's decision not to improve the team in-season.
His lack of impact moves and settling for lesser players at a similar price tag that many teams paid for better players does not help his grade in this aspect. He helped by addressing needs in some aspects and by acquiring a young shot suppressing forward in Dewar at a minimal cost, this mainly prevented him from getting an F.
He also opted to shed a lot of draft capital over the next few seasons; trading away six total draft picks and acquiring one. He also traded a prospect and acquired a prospect. on the positive side, the Leafs likely retain Dewar and have a prospect in Cade Webber to add to the system.
Again, my disagreement with his philosophy and the lack of success as a result plays a big part. Had he used these assets on one or more of the above mentioned players, I would view these trades in a much more favorable light. That is why his grade is a D.
Team Performance
Grade: D
It is indisputable that the 2023-24 iteration of the Toronto Maple Leafs was the worst they have been in years.
Last year, the team at least won a playoff round against recent back-to-back cup champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning.
This year, the team had their worst record since 2019-20 in terms of points percentage (PTS%). By most metrics the Leafs suffered a major downgrade in terms of performance. Their special teams went from 26% down to 24% on the powerplay and their penalty kill went from 81.9% to 76.9%.
That isn’t all though, they scored 20 more goals this season over the course of the 82-game year but allowed 41 more goals than last. This tracks with their xG numbers, staying stagnant in xGF/60 at 6th league wide but dropping from 12th to 16th in xGA/60.
This is due to many factors, some of which were completely out of the first-year GM’s hands like an injury riddled blue line and injuries to other key players like Mitch Marner and Joseph Woll.
This does not negate responsibility though. There is an argument to be made that Treliving should have either better prepared the team by allocating cap space more efficiently in the off-season or intervened when things started to look bad mid-season.
These issues could have been mitigated by making trades that would better equip the team at the deadline heading into the playoffs. Doing any one of these could have changed the team’s fortune and we could be having a vastly different conversation right now.
Unfortunately, between the regular season being an obvious downgrade and taking a step back in the postseason, Treliving receives a D-grade for the team performance as well. He had a major hand in roster construction by allocating nearly 25% of the team's salary cap last season.
Anytime a coach is fired, it is almost always because it is the easiest move and it is an indication that failure has happened and usually the blame extends beyond them.
All contract information via: Capfriendly.com
all Statistics via: Evolving-hockey.com , EliteProspects.com ,and Moneypuck.com
Overall Performance As GM:
Grade: C
Averaging out his grades, I give Treliving a C, edging close to a C-minus.
Looking ahead, he will have roughly a similar amount of cap space with an estimated $18.5 million available. He will have the chance to add more cap flexibility through trades but should be able to make do with that amount.
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This season could prove to be more challenging though with both captain John Tavares and Mitch Marner’s contracts set to expire next summer. Hopefully at this point next season the Leafs are still in the playoffs and his grade can improve.