No one ever said Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving had an easy job.
It was a little less than two months ago that Treliving sat at a table with MLSE CEO Keith Pelley and Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and listened to what sounded a lot like an acknowledgment that, 10 years into the Shanaplan, something substantial had to change in Leafland.
All of which left Treliving to answer a difficult question: How do you make a substantial change to a team when you can’t do much about changing its core?
Because let’s face it, as much as a majority of Leafs fans would be perfectly happy to see Mitch Marner playing elsewhere next season, it’s Marner — like every other member of the Core Four — who holds full control over his career until his contract expires. Still, barring a miracle deal to shake the foundation of Toronto’s faulty build, the Leafs would no doubt like to be able to spin the notion they’ve made real change (real improvements, even) as they wait for the clock to run out on the Core Four era.
The beauty of being a perennial playoff failure like the Leafs is this: You’ve got a transaction-filled off-season, plus a presumably successful regular season, to convince people that this time it’ll be different.
And here’s the thing: The newly assembled team, which has begun to take shape, figures to look at least a little bit different. When you sufficiently shuffle the proverbial deck chairs, it always does. Part of the change will come in the form of a new daily voice, specifically head coach Craig Berube. If he’s been billed as a take-no-prisoners hardass on account of his past as an on-ice tough guy, the Leafs are betting it’s Berube’s Stanley Cup ring that’ll give him the credibility to demand better of Toronto’s best players.
There’s a chance it will. Just like there’s a chance that Chris Tanev, the Toronto-born defenceman whose rights were acquired in the lead-up to Monday’s opening of free agency, has the potential to be Morgan Rielly’s best blueline partner in recent memory. Then again, signing the 34-year-old Tanev to the six-year deal worth an annual $4.5 million (U.S.) essentially guarantees a lamentable ending, at least when it comes to the salary-cap implications. But so goes the reality of Treliving’s existence. If he’s going to make real change — without making real change — he’s got bigger concerns than the problems of his potential successors.
Which is why he’ll be forgiven, too, for overspending to acquire 32-year-old defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. On one hand, he’s coming off a season in which he was a reliable third-pair guy for a team that won the Stanley Cup. On the other, he’s only a year removed from being bought out after flopping with the Vancouver Canucks. This week, the Leafs agreed to pay Ekman-Larsson an annual $3.5 million for four years to play for them; last year, the Canucks agreed to pay him more than $2 million a year for most of the next decade so long as he doesn’t to play for them. Of course, the Canucks made that move to get out from his underperformance on a $7.3-million cap hit. To which the Leafs might say: Hey, we’re getting the dude for less than half price! If Ekman-Larsson can play on a credible second pair and six-foot-five Finn acquisition Jani Hakanpää, signed for two years at a $1.5-million annual hit, can provide third pair and penalty kill help in the wake of persistent knee problems, the Leafs can make the case they’ve made considerable back-end upgrades, no matter your feelings on the extension that’ll keep the inconsistent Timothy Liljegren in tow for the next two years at $3 million a season.
Everything in free agency amounts to a bet, and perhaps nothing is more of a gamble than the goaltending market. The good news when it comes to Toronto’s tandem is both goaltenders are coming off career highs in starts. The bad news is Joseph Woll started 23 games for the Leafs and Anthony Stolarz started 24 for the Panthers. Add those up and you’d have  a pretty good number for one NHL starter. That’s not to say both Woll (signed to a three-year extension worth $3.66 million a season) and Stolarz (two years at $2.66 million per) can’t play more, only that a more rigorous workload will amount to uncharted territory.
Woll at his best has been excellent. But his troubling history — a back injury kept him out of a Game 7 loss in Boston this spring, after a high ankle sprain left him absent for most of three months in the regular season — makes him a scary risk. As for Stolarz and his potential contribution to Toronto’s next push for a Stanley Cup: Yes, he earned a Cup ring as a member of the Florida Panthers, but his next post-season start will be his first.
In other words, Stolarz, like the team he’s joining, has yet to prove himself in the playoffs. Stolarz, at least, has an excuse.
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