The Toronto Maple Leafs finished up their final road trip of the season against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday with a regrettable loser point in a 7-6 overtime loss. The Leafs were trailing 6-4 midway through the third period, but staged a comeback with goals from Nick Robertson and Matthew Knies to send the game to overtime, where Quinton Byfield scored to give the Kings the win.
The loss moved Toronto to 32-31-14 (78 points). After the weekend, the Leafs are just three points out of a potential top-five draft slot, with Florida at 77 points, and Seattle and the NY Rangers at 75. The Panthers are equal in games played and seem to be doing the tank correctly, by getting hammered by the Pittsburgh Penguins in back-to-back games at PPG Paints Arena, but the Rangers have played much better since the trade deadline and Seattle is still in the Western Conference wildcard race, and has two games in hand on Toronto.
The news off the ice continues to be a morass of names and rumors. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on his Saturday night spot on Hockey Night in Canada and 32 Thoughts podcast has attempted ot provide some clarity on MLSE boss Keith Pelley’s search and indicated that the club has not asked any other clubs for permission to speak to one of their employees, but that the Leafs held a Zoom call after his press availability earlier in the week and the indications are to be prepared for major changes.
This is not a big surprise, since former GM Brad Treliving pretty much tinkered around the edges after replacing Kyle Dubas in 2023, such as adding Shane Doan as an assistant to the GM. As with many of the things being done by Rogers, there appears to be an attempt to streamline the organization that has five assistant GMs.
He also said that the timing for the Leafs to approach St.Louis about talking to GM Doug Armstrong is not right. Armstrong is set to transition to Team President of the Blues with former Leaf first-rounder Alex Steen stepping in as GM, and on both shows mentioned, Florida Panthers Asst. GM Sunny Mehta as a potential candidate, but said that his feeling is that former Buffalo GM Kevyn Adams might be in the mix, based on his use of data and analytics with the Sabres.
As for head coach, with the hiring of Peter DeBoer in New York, the Leafs are likely not going big game hunting in the summer. According to Friedman, DeBoer was not on Toronto’s radar and both he and The Sheet’s Jeff Marek have connected Toronto to Abbotsford Canucks head coach and former Leafs assistant Manny Malhotra. Malhotra was on Sheldon Keefe’s staff from 2020 to 2024 and won a Calder Cup last season.
If the Leafs are interested in Mehta or someone similar to him, it would have to be in concert with an experienced President of Hockey Operations. The floating of Adams in connection to Toronto would be a bafflingly bad decision. Adams was GM of the Sabres and eliminated the stupid reference to palm trees that eventually led to his ouster last December; his tenure in Western New York was littered with bad moves and mistakes.
Buffalo did draft a group of young players after shedding the likes of Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen, but most of those players (Noah Ostlund, Isak Rosen, Anton Wahlberg, Devon Levi, Jiri Kulich) have not established themselves in the NHL. Another factor that cannot be ignored is that, in five years of drafting, of the 39 players selected outside of the first round, only fourth liner Tyson Kozak has played an NHL game.
The Leafs need to find a general manager who can, along with his scouting staff, not only hit on players in the first round but also find contributors in the later rounds of the draft. Hiring Adams would be an unmitigated disaster for Toronto.
