ANAHEIM, Calif. — Ironic, isn’t it?
The Toronto Maple Leafs waited until GM Brad Treliving got fired to summon one of their snottiest efforts in years.
Symbolism was in much greater supply than sympathy Monday night at Honda Center, where the vengeful, leader-less Leafs played the aggressor in a 93-penalty-minute affair and rallied late to edge the Anaheim Ducks 5-4 in overtime.
“Everybody wanted a piece, to be honest,” Matthew Knies said. “We had a resiliency, and everyone was fighting, playing hard, physical. Yeah, I thought we were hard to play against today, and that’s why we came out the win.”
A flicker of the change Treliving was aiming for in Toronto’s DNA, yet only when the season has been labelled DNR.
Max Domi — the Maple Leaf angriest over the club’s lack of response to Radko Gudas’s season-ending knee on Auston Matthews three weeks back — filled Gudas in off the opening draw, then later picked a scrap with defenceman Pavel Mintyukov.
Jake McCabe went after the Ducks captain, too, as did the overzealous, under-used Michael Pezzetta. Domi and Pezzetta got the boot, and the Leafs piled up 61 PIMs as they acquired one pound of flesh and two points Treliving could’ve used three months ago.
“I feel for Brad and his family. You never like to hear that or see that. And it was tough,” said a sombre Craig Berube, who broke the news to his players in a meeting shortly before puck drop. “It’s still difficult right now for me, but that’s the business.
“We didn’t live up to expectations this year, and that’s what happens.”
Thing is, the night Gudas went untouched, the night the Leafs have been so desperate to scrub since, represents rock bottom for the Era of Treliving.
Here was an executive dealt a tricky hand — too many no-move clauses already in place, too few draft picks and prospects coming — and passively let his chips dwindle away with the hope.
Perhaps because of the organization’s blind faith that they had enough talent to survive, Treliving was allowed to oversee a second troublesome trade deadline but not the conclusion of this, the most disappointing campaign of the Maple Leafs’ 109 years.
“Brad Treliving is a man that we all have deep respect and appreciation for, both as a hockey executive and as a person, but it was determined that the club must chart a new course under different leadership,” MLSE president Keith Pelley stated, in a release that dropped less than two hours before the puck. (Pelley will hold a press conference Tuesday in Toronto at 2 p.m. ET.)
Treliving had stopped travelling with the team, and Pelley had begun conducting an internal review on his GM’s operations. Treliving, who still has one more season on his contract, is believed to have felt uncomfortable twisting in the wind and pushed for a decision.
That decision came down via a curiously timed press release sent out 75 minutes before the most emotional game left on the team’s calendar.
Knies, a nice value signing by Treliving, called the news “abrupt” and said he would always cherish their relationship.
William Nylander, to whom Treliving granted the richest contract in franchise history, chose “sad.”
John Tavares, who took less than market value last summer because he believed in Treliving’s vision, used the word shocking.
“It’s a real tough one,” Tavares said. “Brad brought us all in here, tremendous belief in us, and we just didn’t deliver. And it falls on us, starting with myself, and just not playing consistent enough, and what we need to do to be a better hockey team.”
The last time Treliving spoke to reporters in Toronto was minutes after his underwhelming returns for Bobby McMann and Scott Laughton. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
“I’ll take responsibility for our season,” Treliving said on March 6. “We got off to a poor start. (There are) some roster construction issues, lack of consistency, the ability to maintain any kind of level.”
Injuries didn’t help. But even healthy, the Maple Leafs lack puck-movers from the back end, playmakers in the top six, and that instinctual connectedness that binds true contenders between the front office and the bench, the bench and the skaters, and the amongst the players themselves.
Nylander: “Just shows that, like what we did this year wasn’t good enough. And that sucks, because that comes on the players too. So, it’s not just his fault.”
Berube: “We wanted to build something here — and did last year. We were right there, but we didn’t succeed. And this year we obviously dropped off.”
Morgan Rielly: “How I feel is that it’s on the players.”
Rest assured, Treliving’s dismissal is but the first shoe to drop here. And with a qualified coach like Bruce Cassidy joining the accomplished Peter DeBoer on the unemployment line this week, Berube is in jeopardy too.
“I don’t think about it, guys. I mean, I really don’t,” Berube said. “You probably think I’m bulls——- you, but I’m not. I feel for Brad right now and his family. That’s what I feel right now.”
Treliving is a good man, a good hockey man. That’s true.
Also true: Treliving was not good enough at this job to leave the Maple Leafs in a better spot than he inherited them.
And, at least publicly, he presented no plan to correct the mess. Internally and externally, faith in a Treliving-led turnaround dwindled.
Changes are afoot. This is only the beginning.
More good men are going to find themselves not working for the Maple Leafs soon.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Skating at something less than 100 per cent, Gudas logged just 7:10, mostly as a flaming-orange target. But the captain’s respect within the Honda Center’s home dressing room elevated by his decision to stand in there and take his lumps.
Gudas didn’t so much as attempt a meaningful punch when Domi jumped him, seemingly accepting his penance.
“I think more so for his conscience having to hold onto it for a whole other year, you know?” Brandon Carlo said at morning skate, when informed Gudas was going to dress.
“He definitely wants to be out there because I think he recognizes that he was the one who made the hit. So, I don’t think he wants his teammates out there answering for it. He would rather be out there to deal with it himself. I think that’s a good leadership move, for sure. But it is an interesting situation.”
Rielly says there were conversations over the past couple days among the Leafs regarding who would get first crack at Gudas. Max Domi was the guy.
“He’s a character human, and he’s fearless, and it speaks to all that,” Reilly said. “That’s who he is.”
• William Nylander’s four-point night vaulted him ahead of father Michael (679 points) as the highest-scoring Nylander in NHL history (683).
Meanwhile, Tavares’s two-goal effort gives him 28 on the year. He passes the injured Matthews for the team lead in goals.
• When Nylander interfered with Ducks goalie Ville Husso and a scrum ensued around the Anaheim crease, Anthony Stolarz wasted no time skating to centre ice. He later bumped his counterpart as they crossed paths during a stoppage.
Last week, Stolarz didn’t shy away from the fact that he wants a goalie goal.
Now, we know he wants a goalie fight.
And Husso — three inches shorter and 43 pounds lighter — has zero interest in granting the big man’s wish.
• Whoa, boy, can Cutter Gauthier rip a shot.
The sophomore’s first-period snipe gives him 38 on the season. No one younger than the 22-year-old has that many tucks this season. Unfortunately for the Ducks, Gauthier left the game shortly after he scored with an upper-body injury and did not return.
Wonderful touch by game ops, who blast O.T. Genesis’s “Cut It” to punctuate Gauthier’s goals.
• For those wondering, Matthews is rehabbing from MCL surgery in Toronto.
“I just saw him before we left (Friday),” Berube said. “He seemed in pretty good spirits, talking to him. But it’s tough when that happens.
“He’ll be fine. He’ll grind through it and do what he needs to do to get ready.”
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