Confirmed with Link: Brad Treliving named new GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs
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LastOne2100
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- Jan 2, 2017
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With the injuries and his questionable performance this year, there is absolutely no way he's not going to be looking for 7 years of guaranteed income, and many many teams will give it to him happily.
What baffles me more are the people who still think Dubas was the guy. If you would actually look at all of the moves he made while he was here, it was truly horrific. Literally almost nothing good, except his skill at making up for his own mistakes by throwing away draft picks.
GoonieFace
Registered User
That's a just a Mirtle rumor, I saw him at Yorkdale Mall today shopping for sweaters and new glasses. All is well
Bellzy
It was 4-1 finally has better meaning….
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‘A relentless worker’: Treliving heads to Toronto with stellar reputation
Brad Treliving has been hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs as general manager, the same role he held for the past nine seasons in Calgary.
calgarysun.com
Treliving spent the past nine seasons as the GM for the Flames. As he makes the move from Cowtown to Hogtown, he is stepping into the brightest spotlight in the hockey biz.
Over the coming days, every one of his transactions — trades, free-agent signings, draft choices, even waiver claims — will be analyzed and maybe overanalyzed. Maple Leafs fans will wonder why his squads never advanced past the second round of the playoffs, whether he could have done more to convince Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk to stay.
While you can question some of his roster decisions, which is the case with any executive, you won’t hear a bad word about Treliving from those who worked alongside him in Calgary.
Not from a cast of skaters who always felt like he had their back. Treliving agonized about exposing Mark Giordano in the expansion draft in 2021 before his old captain assured him that he understood that it was the right thing for the future of the team. Via text on Wednesday, a different player described the former Flames GM as “a tremendous person” and “a great communicator” and added: “I have all the respect in the world for Tree.”
Not from the staffers at the Saddledome, some of whom were gutted on the day his exit was announced.
Not from the newspaper beat reporter who received a heartfelt text message — two screens worth on an iPhone — from the GM just hours after he lost his father. And that was on a hectic day for Treliving, who was working to finalize a contract with legendary winger Jaromir Jagr.
“Tree is a relentless worker, like everyone portrays him in the media, and his best qualities are how loyal he is to the people around him and how much he trusts his staff and their input,” said one of Treliving’s previous co-workers, reacting to Wednesday’s news. “He is very thorough in every decision he makes and is always sure to check all the boxes and not just panic in the decisions he makes."
“A great family man and always cared about other people’s families first before hockey. He is someone you want to work hard for because you don’t want to let him down and fail him.”
As Maple Leafs honcho Brendan Shanahan asked around during the hiring process, Treliving’s work ethic was likely mentioned time and time again.
During Eastern road trips, if the Flames had a night off between games in, say, Buffalo and Pittsburgh, it wasn’t uncommon to hear he had scooted to a nearby-ish city to scout a college free agent or catch up with one of his own prospects.
He tried to sneak away from his desk for a couple of days off at the tail-end of last summer. He wound up sitting on the dock at his lakeside retreat for several hours, not reeling in fish but instead trying to land Nazem Kadri as a free agent.
If there’s a big name available on the trade market, you can be assured that Treliving is calling to inquire. During his tenure in Calgary, he was in the bidding for Mark Stone, Jack Eichel and others. When Tkachuk refused to sign long-term as a restricted free agent, he orchestrated a blockbuster that brought Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to the Stampede City.
While Tkachuk has powered the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup final and Huberdeau struggled to produce this past season, most agree that was impressive work by a guy who wasn’t left with a lot of options.
justashadowof
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BT literally made one trade in his first 6 months as Calgary GM: June 28th, 2014, Brandon Bollig from Chicago for a 3rd. Didn't make his next deal until January 2015.
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Opinion | Leafs play it safe with Brad Treliving at a time for bold action. Brendan Shanahan owns this, for better or worse
Brad Treliving wasn’t the Leafs’ first choice; that was Kyle Dubas. But he’s their choice now. This is a big bet for Shanahan in his most uncertain time.
But whether Treliving does or doesn’t, this is a big bet for Shanahan in his most uncertain time. It was less than two weeks ago that Shanahan offered Dubas a contract on a Sunday, and told him he was gone on a Friday. The big decisions facing the Leafs haven’t changed since Dubas’s explosive post-season presser, where he said that everything was finally on the table. The answers may have, though.
Shanahan has made big bets before, of course. He fired his NHL mentor in Lou Lamoriello to hire Dubas; he cleaned out the old organization for Lou and Mike Babcock and everything else. The difference now, of course, is the playoff years haven’t been kind, and the stakes are higher now.
And Shanahan is betting on Treliving, who is widely regarded as a hell of a decent man and a decent GM. You can pick apart his nine years in Calgary when it comes to trades and drafts and signings, with some notable bits. He once held the line on salaries with Mark Giordano, but signed some truly wretched veterans in free agency, and some contracts that will weigh heavy as the franchise’s stars age. He dithered enough that Johnny Gaudreau walked for nothing, and was forced into salvaging the Tkachuk trade by forces less within his control. If that’s boldness, it seems those were bold decisions that were either self-inflicted or unavoidable.
You can also caution, however, that Treliving worked under a meddlesome owner in Calgary — some say Murray Edwards hired coach Darryl Sutter and only told Treliving about it afterwards, and Sutter proceeded to make everyone’s life miserable for two years while aiming at Treliving’s job. Sutter and Edwards are the reasons Treliving left.
Beyond that, the Flames are not the Leafs. The Flames don’t have Toronto’s resources, and only partly because their arena is almost literally an antiquated, whimsical barn.
But is Treliving the right man for this moment? Auston Matthews needs a new contract and says he wants to stay, but you can make him the new highest-paid player in hockey without hitting, say, $15 million (U.S.) per season; Nathan MacKinnon has a Cup and makes $12.6 million. William Nylander is also a year away from free agency and will doubtless want a raise. Mitch Marner’s no-move clause kicks in the same day Matthews’s does, and not moving him — or at least entertaining the idea in a way that allows you to gauge the market — means he’s staying for at least two years, too.
It’s not clear that the key to playoff success for Toronto is to keep the same core players, but to pay them more.
Then there is coach Sheldon Keefe — as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said, it’s not impossible he returns — the 10 free agents and all the sprawling pieces of the hockey empire Dubas constructed. That Treliving is a very good man should help cushion the blow felt by Dubas loyalists. If so, that could go a ways toward organizational stability.
But Treliving is a safe choice parachuted into an organization where the status quo should very much be in question. Treliving is said to see many component parts of the organization as assets, rather than liabilities. There is an idea within the franchise that if this wasn’t Toronto, then maybe people wouldn’t look at that second-round flop against Florida as a breaking point for the core; that maybe there isn’t a better deal out there to make and letting Matthews, Nylander, Marner and John Tavares try again is the logical path forward — 111-point regular-season teams, after all, aren’t available in bulk.
The Masters
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Superstar
"Be water, my friend."
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TheGoldenJet
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TheDoldrums
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"definitely doesn't want to move Marner" is pretty strong and disappointing language
DarkKnight
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- Jan 17, 2017
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This should make the Dubists happy, the new guy was mourned too 
“the staffers at the Saddledome, some of whom were gutted on the day his exit was announced.”
calgarysun.com
“the staffers at the Saddledome, some of whom were gutted on the day his exit was announced.”
‘A relentless worker’: Treliving heads to Toronto with stellar reputation
Brad Treliving has been hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs as general manager, the same role he held for the past nine seasons in Calgary.
calgarysun.com
In general, as a species, we fear change and all that it brings.
ITM
Out on the front line, don't worry I'll be fine...
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Play devil's advocate for a moment...
Dubas had a fantastic trade deadline. And, that we finally got past the first round and the first round with Tampa was validating.
Prior to that we have had two suspicious playoffs failures -- I'm referencing Columbus and Montreal. Montreal especially. Certainly could have fired him then and there and Keefe with him. Granted, we have faced multiple Stanley Cup champions as a young team. There's a distinction that merits patience there.
But playing devil's advocate, Shanahan holds off owing to certain external circumstances and provides stability in the organization and allows a young core room to fail.
Now, we're still a mid-career core four. Shanahan sees two rounds for the first time and sees Florida manhandle Carolina. Given the regular season successes, the age of the team, the possibility of that core continuing on past Tavares albatross contract...I can see why Shanahan saw merit in keeping this glacial development of Dubas going.
All of that said, Dubas' opportunism isn't worth the tossed Tim Horton's cup Shanahan pitched post-firing. Shanahan was absolutely right then and I think his reasoning, if the above approaches it, has always been sound.
It doesn't feel like it at times, but there are too many good things Shanahan's brought that we overlook in a kind of arrogant, effortless manner.
I've said previously that my sense is the one thing Shanahan wanted to establish as a part of Toronto's new culture along with success was/is constancy. That's a foundational stone. And the only way that that part of the equation is laid is over time. Through good times and bad and worse, through confounding times.
Perhaps Treliving's tenure's the beginning of some semblance of much needed balance and maturity and accountability. And maybe Shanahan sees something that his experience provides and something ours can't.
The Masters
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I think we have to remember that the key is Matthews extension. I dont think Tre wants to rock the boat early on with Burkie type quotes of trading players and firing the coach. He has to play it smart and give bullshyt non definitive answers right now. WE NEED Matthews to sign. Get him signed first then you can make ur moves
Martin Skoula
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- Oct 18, 2017
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seventieslord
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Anthrax442
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BertCorbeau
F*ck cancer - RIP Fugu and Buffaloed
Indeed .. with their playoff failures all options should be on the table.
Strongly dislike that he's ok with running it back with the core .. Beyond next season affording all 4 becomes more and more strained.
They only way to then improve the D is to move futures (which are already limited).
The seems to be a short sighted win-now mentality that Shanny is determined to go all in again...
Bad vibes.
Martin Skoula
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- Oct 18, 2017
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Just a confirmation that “everything is on the table” is what changed Shanny’s mind, not the money.
