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On Friday, the Toronto Maple Leafs held their end-of-season media availability with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley, Team President Brendan Shanahan, and GM Brad Treliving. The trio promised that the results of the last eight years have not been good enough, that the fanbase of the NHL’s richest franchise deserves a championship, and that things will change.
We’ll see.
Pelley stated that the fact that he had only been on the job for four weeks was one of the reasons he opted for continuity in keeping Shanahan in his current position, but there is rightly a boatload of skepticism from the fanbase that anything will be different. Shanahan is someone who should receive the credit for convincing the MLSE board in 2014 to allow the club to tank to try to get Connor McDavid in 2015 and succeed in tanking to get Auston Matthews in 2016, but he is also the man who doubled-and-tripled down on failure, continued to reshuffle the deck chairs around the core four forwards, even when his hand-picked GM Kyle Dubas seemed to waver after losing to Florida in the second-round last season.
Shanahan said patience was the right course of action in the past, but after losing to Boston in seven games, now is the right time to make changes. Ironically, this summer will be the most difficult time to make the changes that have clearly been needed since the club lost to Montreal three years ago, but for one excuse or another, they were not made.
Before Dubas was fired last May, the Leafs had a better opportunity to make consequential changes with William Nylander entering the final year of his contract making less than $7 million unhindered by any no-trade protection, and Mitch Marner before his no-movement clause kicked in on July 1.
What did the Leafs under Shanahan do? They allowed Marner’s NMC to kick in and they signed Nylander to an eight-year extension.
Now the Leafs have five players with no-movement clauses. It’s not exactly the Muskoka Five 2.0, but it does bring back bad memories. In 2008, a faltering Toronto club that had not made the playoffs for three straight years wanted to move out some or all of Mats Sundin, Darcy Tucker, Pavel Kubina, Bryan McCabe, and Tomas Kaberle. It took three years to unravel the mess created by John Ferguson Jr., with Sundin blocking trades at the 2008 deadline before going to Vancouver as a free agent later that year, Tucker being bought out and McCabe traded to Florida that summer, Kubina being dealt to Atlanta in 2009, and Kaberle to Boston in 2011.
Toronto is not in the same place as they were 16 years ago. Auston Matthews is one of the best forwards in the NHL and Nylander is coming off two straight 40-goal campaigns, so they will be exempt from any on-ice reorganization. The criticism of Morgan Rielly is hilarious since the main issue with the Leafs has been a short-handed blueline and trading him will make it weaker. The 30-year-old is a very good defenseman, good enough to likely be a member of Team Canada for the Four Nation series next February and the Olympics in 2026, he is just not a 25-minute #1 defenseman.
Trying to bully John Tavares to go elsewhere in the final year of his contract will succeed in doing only one thing, alienating every potential free agent in the future from signing with Toronto. The 33-year-old is not the player that the Leafs signed in 2018 and is no longer an $11 million player, but he still scored 65 points and is an effective #2 center behind Matthews.
That leaves Marner, who said last Monday that he does not want to play anywhere else. He will undoubtedly face a summer of scrutiny. According to Elliotte Friedman, agent Darren Ferris’ may advise the winger to not knuckle under to any pressure the Leafs might put on him and just play out the final year of his deal in Toronto and head to free agency next summer. It is also possible that the 27-year-old might see that it is time for a change, but any move will be up to him and might limit the Leafs return in a deal.
Change is needed. Change is necessary. But it is still possible that change will not happen….until the summer of 2025.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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