Treliving reveals what the Toronto Maple Leafs need to get better at
When Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving met the media today for his end-of-season media availability on Thursday, he didn’t pretend to have all the answers.
Heading into his third offseason in charge of the biggest franchise in hockey, Treliving spoke of pending changes on the way for the franchise.
“There’s some DNA that needs to change in our team,” Treliving said in the most eye-catching quote of the day.
But while it’s easy to speak of change broadly, actually figuring out what changes the team needs is a whole other task.
Treliving touched briefly on the futures of star forwards Mitch Marner and John Tavares, both of whom are pending unrestricted free agents. He spoke in pretty general terms: he likes both players, they’re in the process of chatting with their agents and seeing how things will go, and he has yet to offer either player a contract for next season.
But Treliving did talk in specifics of what exactly he feels like this year’s roster was lacking, starting off with his defence.
“We need to get more offence from our defence now, not just goals, but creating,” Treliving said. “We wanted to have a long defence, rangy defence, make it hard around our net, and a defending defence, you need to move pucks.”
The meeting with the media came less than 12 hours after the Florida Panthers — the team that the Leafs had a 2-0 series lead on and eventually took to seven games — advanced to their third straight Stanley Cup Final. Treliving is no doubt looking at the Panthers’ style of play and seeing how the Leafs can emulate that.
“There was a style of play that we needed to get to. It’s a style of play that I feel gives you the best chance to have success… we’re seeing it in the playoffs. You have to become a forechecking team. You have to limit risk. There is always risk in this game, but trying to reduce risk, that gives you the best chance to win at the most important time,” Treliving said.
“We’ve gotta find a way to create the team, both between the ears and personnel, to be our best at the critical moments.”
As for their goaltending, Treliving touched on seeing positives from Joseph Woll throughout the playoff run, but still feeling like he’s best suited alongside another goalie like Anthony Stolarz. Stolarz played 34 games this past season, while Woll led the team with 42 appearances, but was only thrust into playoff action after Stolarz’s injury in Game 1 of the Panthers series.
“We need to partner [Woll] within a tandem,” Treliving added. “I thought together, they were excellent. And they both had their own individual times where they went on runs.”
With about four and a half months until the Leafs play their next game, it’ll be a long summer to try and figure out if the team will ever be able to build a true Stanley Cup contender.
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