Barring an unexpected Stanley Cup win, the Toronto Maple Leafs will fire Brendan Shanahan and Brad Treliving when the season is over.
Not only will that be the correct choice, it is the only choice the Toronto Maple Leafs have.
Brendan Shanahan was brought in a decade ago, and for a time, he was a breath of fresh air for a stale, corporate, moribund franchise. Shanahan's best move was to hire a 28 year-old Kyle Dubas to run the team, but a string of bad luck (0-11 in elimination games) saw Dubas' try to unsuccessfully wrestle power from Shanahan's grasp.
It would have been better if Dubas had taken control because Shanahan has been a directionless mess since he was betrayed by his protégé. Spurned, Shanahan didn't even conduct a management search, he just handed the reigns of the team to unsuccessful old-school GM Brad Treliving who was fresh of ruining the Calgary Flames.
It was a curious decision, but it turned out to be pretty basic: Shanahan tried to invent a new way to do things, wasn't immediately successful and in response he ran back into the arms of the generic traditionalism offered by the NHL's ruling class.
Time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to fire Brendan Shanahan and Brad Treliving
Brad Treliving had his chance, but he blew it. I'm sorry, but he doesn't get any more credit for the Mikko Rantanen thing than Ross Atkins gets for Shohei Ohtani.
For two summers, Treliving played it safe and overpaid name-brand non-stars to come to the Leafs. In each summer he was in charge, he spent about $20 million poorly then we had to watch as the media blamed Kyle Dubas, erroneously, for the team's cap troubles.
Treliving hasn't made a single trade as the Leafs GM that could be called a blockbuster. His "signature move" will go down as trading a first round pick and Fraser Minten for Brandon Carlo a trade people like right now, but which I don't mind telling you will go down as an absolute disaster.
Treliving's legacy will be that of a guy who was afraid to take big swings and who played it safe until the final minutes on the job when he panicked and tried to trade for Rantanen, a player who doesn't even really fit on a team that already has two of the best pure goal scorers alive.
Minten for Carlo will be the new Rask for Raycroft, and the similarities between John Ferguson Jr and Brad Treliving continue to grow. #Leafsforever
— Editor in Leaf (@EditorinLeaf) March 12, 2025
The Leafs under Treliving were really all about missed opportunities and bad management. The sooner he is out of here, the better. It's a shame that the Leafs now have five injury-prone and declining geezers locked into their blue-line for the duration of Auston Matthews' prime/contract, but the new guy will just have to figure something out.
As for Shanahan, you can't blame him for the Dubas Betrayal, but he really should have spent more than six minutes looking for a replacement GM because Brad Treliving has been an absolute disaster who will go down with John Ferguson JR and Gord Stellick as one of the worst Leafs GMs ever.