Leafs GM Brad Treliving hints at Mitch Marner departure

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If the Maple Leafs undergo a DNA change, like general manager Brad Treliving suggested on Thursday, that can only mean one thing.

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Mitch Marner is as good as gone, never mind that we’re still more than four weeks away from July 1 and the start of free agency in the National Hockey League.

In regard to the future of Marner, there was no chest-beating from Treliving at the Ford Performance Centre in his end-of-season media availability, coming 11 days after the Leafs were eliminated in Game 7 of the second round by the Florida Panthers.

Treliving didn’t look directly into cameras and say that it’s priority for the Leafs to re-sign Marner, who will have no equals among forwards on the open market.

Of course, even if the Leafs think that way, it won’t matter much if Marner decides — or has decided — that his hockey future doesn’t include wearing Toronto’s blue and white anymore.

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The dilemma for Treliving: How does he replace a player of Marner’s talent and what Marner does in the regular season to help get the Leafs to a place in the post-season where it should be expected to have some success?

Treliving can’t assure that the Leafs won’t take a step back if Marner departs.

“There’s not a hockey tree out there that you just go and pluck the player off of,” Treliving said. “Our job is to look at all the options.

That’s what we have to go through right now. I can’t sit here and give you a definitive answer. We have to go through the process with Mitch. Our staff is in the process now of looking at all different (outcomes).

“In Mitch’s case, he has a say in the matter. We’ll see where this goes. I don’t think you’re saying ‘OK, let’s go get this player and he replaces Mitch.’

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“That’s speculation right now. That’s hypotheticals that I don’t like to necessarily get into. ‘We’ll see’ is the answer.”

Keep in mind that when the Leafs players met with media for the last time last week, Marner spoke in the past tense about his time with the Leafs and said he had not thought a lot about his future.

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Before Treliving took questions — when the morning availability was done, he had spent approximately 50 minutes with media — he brought up the factor regarding the team’s mental makeup.

“There’s some DNA that has to change in our team,” Treliving said. “That’s one thing that I found. If you keep getting to the same result and that’s not to dismiss a lot of the good that happened up to it, there’s some DNA that needs to change.”

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Treliving then went on for a bit about the preparation his staff already has been making for the 2025-26 season.

He ended with a thought about the Leafs’ no-show in a 6-1 loss in Game 7 against the Panthers.

“That Game 7 is going to live with me,” Treliving said. “I felt really good in that morning, the vibe around the team, and then we had the result we had. That’s the challenge that’s in front of us.”

Marner didn’t have a point in Game 7. Treliving discussed the critical moments for any team in a playoff series, breaking them down to how a team starts a series, critical games within a series and how a team closes out and finishes a series.

The first-round win in six games against the Ottawa Senators was not unexpected. The collapses in Games 5 and 7 versus the Panthers, both at home, shook the organization and served notice that the Leafs weren’t as good as they had led themselves to believe.

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On Marner in general, Treliving spoke glowingly of the 28-year-old all-star, as he always does.

“I think Mitch is a tremendous player, I think he’s a star,” Treliving said. “I had a meeting with all the players individually. My discussion with Mitch was, ‘let’s all take a step back, let’s take a deep breath.’

“He has been a great player here. (Do) I think Mitch can succeed? Yes, I do. We can’t be rigid in our thought process, saying you can only do something one way.”

Treliving likes his coach. He likes his goaltending. He likes his defence corps. Captain Auston Matthews and William Nylander are under contract and aren’t going anywhere.

How about John Tavares? If Treliving is being truthful about a change in the team’s DNA, to what degree does he entertain re-signing the former captain?

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“I’m a huge John Tavares fan,” Treliving said. “He had 38 goals … to go find someone who scored more than that …

“He had a hell of a year, so we’ll see how it goes.”

We agree with Treliving: The Leafs do need a DNA change to a degree. They’re going to have to figure out how to do that with Matthews and Nylander, who have been here through all of the recent playoff failures, on the club.

How Treliving smooths over what Marner does in the regular season, which amounts to a large piece of where the Leafs finish in the standings, will be the challenge.

Just because Treliving thinks there has to be a DNA change doesn’t mean that it will be accomplished automatically.

The GM has no choice but to get it right with the new blood.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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