Does Brad Treliving have right character for Maple Leafs?

Toronto's new general manager Brad Treliving spent nine seasons in Calgary, with mixed success but the Maple Leafs will put more resources at his disposal than he's ever had.

Video Transcript

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Give them a chance in an organization that has more resources to play with. That's the biggest thing I have to say. Because dude spent nine years under Murray Edwards, who is not known as one of the more free spending owners in the National Hockey League. And that might be putting it lightly. That's one thing I would say.

The Brendan Shanahan part of all this gives me a little pause, but I don't have to worry about Brad Treliving fighting for space with his head coach, like what was the case in Calgary with Darryl Sutter when it comes to young players. As for Auston Matthews, Auston Matthews seems like he wants to stay in Toronto. I don't know why everyone's getting so worked up about it. Let him-- they'll figure that out in time. Brad Treliving has already made that priority number one. He'll be OK.

I liked talking to Brad, just offhanded, or just sending him a text or anything like that. He seemed like a very nice-- actually, I will say this. And this is-- like, don't take what I'm about to say is like a sign that he's a good general manager. This is just me basing off my own personal relationship with him.

When it was announced I was moving to Calgary, he called me personally and was like, hey, congratulations. He is a very nice guy. Like, I will give him that. And I wish him nothing but the best.

Do I agree with every single move that he made during his tenure? Absolutely not. He had Bill Peters as his head coach. He has to get fired for that. But I will give him props on the fact that he did, you know, in terms of his people skills with media, never had an issue with him, made himself accessible.

That's one other thing I'm very intrigued about. He made himself accessible in Calgary. Does he have-- is he going to be able to do that in Toronto, considering the horde of media that's going to be descending on him? But that's a whole other thing in itself.

The only thing I can really say is Leafs fans have to give him a chance, I guess. I get it, like, their track record is not perfect. But I think in a market like Toronto, and with the players that they have, there's a potential, at least, they win a round. Or you don't have to worry about those first round jokes again.

He can make them competitive. Maybe could find some other guys that can fill out the roster. Before I got there, that seemed to be a thing that followed him. He seemed to be a GM who was very good at finding those bit players and maybe not getting some of those bigger names in. And that's another thing, too.

Calgary is not Toronto. All right, Auston, we mentioned him already, if there's any other prospective free agent, it's a lot easier to entice them to come to Toronto compared to getting them to come to Calgary. Brad Treliving also has that advantage in his pocket, too.

OMAR: Hey, you want to be in the next Boston Pizza commercial?

SAM CHANG: It's a lot of--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

The criticism, including criticisms that I expressed about Treliving is a lot of hindsight. Like, going into this season, no one thought the Flames would under-perform the way they did.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: No, no.

SAM CHANG: No one-- and, you know, like I made fun of the Leafs for hiring him because he's the one who traded [? Tkachuk. ?] But like, he made the best of a bad situation. Like, he was told by a player who clearly and openly says he respects and a lot has a great relationship with them made a point of telling him, I don't want to sign here long term. Do what you need to do. And he made the best of a bad situation. We all thought that he got a good return.