The Toronto Maple Leafs held their end-of-season locker cleanout availabilities at Ford Performance Centre on Tuesday morning, and while the disappointment of a season ending too early has become a constant, there seemed to be an aura of finality in the air, as it is widely expected that there will be long overdue changes to the management structure and the product on the ice this summer.
Head coach Craig Berube said that he enjoyed coaching the club this season and thought that the players devoted themselves to the goal of winning. However, he indicated that the dismal showings in Game 5 and Game 7 against Florida were more errors in not maintaining structure. He also dismissed the assertions that the pressure of playing in Toronto contributed to the Leafs’ inability to come through in the clutch.
“You may not have your A game in these games, but what you what you have to rely on is your structure. And when I look at these games, and I look at this, the situations that arrived and hurt us in these games, we lost our structure, and that’s very important that we take this away and that we come back next year, structure is very important, and if you don’t lose your structure, you can get through these games without having your A game.” Berube said. “Pressure is pressure. I understand it, I do. (Toronto is) a hard market, and it’s a great market though, and you got to look at it that way, but pressure comes from inside the locker room. That’s it. Your teammates are the most important people, and that to me is the only pressure.”
Here are the important items from today’s locker cleanout and my interpretation of what they mean for the future.
Mitch Marner on what lies ahead:
“I always loved my time here, I love being here…..I haven’t processed anything yet, it’s still so fresh.”
My Thoughts – It may have been Marner’s intention and agent Darren Ferris’s tactic to put the Leafs in a position to pay him as much as Auston Matthews on a new deal, but GM Brad Treliving trying to get him to waive his no-movement clause in March likely put an end to that.
For all the double-talk and evasion that Marner used in his availability, he did not once express a desire to come back because both the media and he know that the Leafs are prepared to move on from this era of failure. He will get a big payday somewhere, whether it be in a quiet market in need of a star player (like Anaheim or Utah) or with a contending team with enough cap space to pay him so he can be a high-end complementary player like Phil Kessel was in Pittsburgh.
One thing that is almost certain, it will not be in Toronto.
Auston Matthews on his injury:
“I got injured in training camp, obviously wasn’t feeling great throughout the first month or so of the season, took some time off, went to Germany, did all these things to feel better, and then was just kind of in a place that felt like I could manage it,” Matthews said. “I’m confident with some time off and just going through my own process and stuff like that, treatment, everything, I’m really confident I’ll be back 100 percent and there’s nothing to worry about.”
My Thoughts – With the likely departure of Marner, the health of the Leafs team captain will be of the utmost importance during the summer. The preference for Matthews may be rehabilitation over surgery, but Toronto will need him to do whatever’s necessary to be 100%.
John Tavares on returning:
“(I’m) very optimistic that it can work out where I’m back, but haven’t put too much thought into it,” Tavares said. “You want to make something work, you do everything you can to try to find what works on both sides and what’s fair for myself and my family and for the team and the club. I’ve expressed my desire to stay and wanting to make it work.”
My Thoughts – Tavares has been open about wanting to come back and working with GM Brad Treliving on a deal that is fair to both sides. Fair is not a nearly league-minimum deal like Jason Spezza or Mark Giordano took, but it is not an $11 million AAV either. Again with Marner likely gone, the Leafs will need Tavares as a second-line center next season and possibly transitioning to the wing down the line. The only hiccup will be where the number falls.
Morgan Rielly on whether he could see himself playing elsewhere next season:
“That’s not what I’m thinking about right now,” Rielly said. “Every summer, every offseason is different. As a player, I think sometimes it’s best not to speculate on what may or may not happen. For us, individually for me, you want to focus on what you can do to come back better.”
My Thoughts – It’s up to Rielly whether he wants to remain in Toronto, since he has a no-movement clause for the remaining three years of his contract. It is likely that he will be back on the Leafs’ power play next season with the departure of Marner and he remains the Leafs’ best offensive defenseman, so any departure is unlikely.
Matthew Knies on the possibility of an offer sheet:
“I wanna be here, I wanna play here, that’s all that really matters to me.”
My Thoughts – Getting Knies signed to a long-term extension should be priority #1 on Treliving’s to-do list and he needs to get it done before July 1, before other teams try to put the Leafs in a pickle. The player would have to agree to the offer sheet option, but that only seems possible if talks break down.
Other notes:
Anthony Stolarz indicated that he was concussed by the elbow of Sam Bennett, and not by the shot from Sam Reinhart in the first period of Game 1.
Max Pacioretty sounded like a player heading towards retirement. He loved playing in Toronto, but he lived apart from his family all year.
My Thoughts – It will be sad to see Pacioretty go, because he did show up and perform when the Leafs needed him, like Jason Spezza did a few years back. As for Stolarz, we will never know how the Leafs would’ve fared if he had not been injured, but because it did it calls into question his long-term viability as a starter since he has been so injury-prone throughout his career and the failure to give Joseph Woll more playing time down the stretch to prepare him for the possibility of being the goalie in the playoffs.
Such an odd situation where you have so much talent with a fantastic coach and the result is the same.
The construction of the club with that core group has not been right, and that has been painfully apparent since 2020.
I tend to agree with most of your comments. On Rielly, I do think it’s time for him to also leave. If we’re breaking up the core, it needs to be more than Marner going. Tavares can’t expect more than $5M per season over 2 to 3 years. On Stolarz, we keep him, but Woll must play the majority of games because he is our goaltender of the future. He was very good in the playoffs. There would have been no game 7 without him. He held them in for as long as he could, at the end, but his team-mates let him down. Knies is the number 1 priority signing going forward.