Rielly Out, Rumors Of Selling Abound

The Toronto Maple Leafs continue their four-game road swing in Western Canada against the Calgary Flames, in the first of back-to-back contests in Alberta on Monday. The Leafs will finish off the pre-Olympic portion of their schedule in Edmonton on Tuesday, but the chatter has already begun to percolate that GM Brad Treliving is spreading the word that Toronto will be sellers before the March 6th trade deadline. 

It is unknown whether the Leafs will begin to make deals in advance of the Olympic roster freeze at 3 pm on Wednesday, and there should be no rush since Treliving has nearly three weeks to talk with his league colleagues about potential deals.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Saturday that the Leafs have discussed the team’s situation with team captain Auston Matthews representatives and both sides remain committed to each other for the future. Friedman’s report last week in connection to Mitch Marner indicated that Toronto management went to Matthews in advance of him signing an extension and asked whether they were going to have any issues re-signing him, and, unlike Marner, Matthews said he was on board with staying with the Leafs unless things went off the rails. 

This season has been a disaster with injuries and regression on a number of fronts, but it does not appear that Toronto will be doing a full rebuild and “tearing it down to the studs”  as some of the talking heads have suggested. Friedman indicated that last week, after a recognition thar the club has fallen out of the playoff race, Toronto is pivoting towards a re-tool and that Treliving has begun to put out feelers about being a seller, but that they are not considering moves that would be considered “extraordinary” or “huge”, but are looking at the moves that you would expect them to be looking at.  

Reading between the lines, that would indicate that deals involving the likes of William Nylander or Matthew Knies are off the table, as well as players like John Tavares and Morgan Rielly, who have full no-move protection. Players like pending UFA’s Bobby McMann and Scott Laughton, veteran forwards Nicolas Roy and Calle Jarnkrok, defensemen Brandon Carlo, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Simon Benoit, and Troy Stecher, and possibly one of the Leafs netminders is in the realm of the possible.  

The Leafs could also be in the position of being a dumping ground for players with salaries that contenders are looking to move, after the club placed Chris Tanev and Dakota Joshua on LTIR last week. While moves like that will not let them recoup picks at the top of the draft unless it is a player with significant term remaining, Toronto would be able to add mid-round picks in such transactions. Currently, the Leafs have just a third, fifth, and sixth round picks in the upcoming NHL Draft in Buffalo. 

Head coach Craig Berube indicated that Rielly, who missed most of the second and third periods in Vancouver on Saturday,  has been dealing with an upper-body injury for some time and will not play in the final two games this week. Philippe Myers will replace Rielly in the lineup. Rookie Easton Cowan will sit out his second straight game, and Joseph Woll get the start in goal.