Brendan Shanahan’s fate with Maple Leafs in Brad Treliving’s hands now

Brendan Shanahan fought plenty of battles in his playing career. Ninety-seven of them, to be exact, according to hockeyfights.com. And he wasn’t known for losing too many. He crafted a Hall of Fame resume as a 600-goal scorer but was also one of the last true power forwards in the sport, a mean customer at 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, unafraid to maim or intimidate opponents when the situation called for it.

Shanahan’s post-playing path, however, had largely been that of a pacifist. He headed up the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for three years before taking over as president of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2014. His public persona in that role typically connoted a soft, measured touch. Under his watch, the Leafs became one of the NHL’s most progressive franchises, embracing analytics and inclusivity earlier than most, if not all, other teams.

But on Friday, May 19, 2023, the snarling alpha version of Shanahan returned. It wasn’t visible on the surface when he delivered his press conference, calmly explaining the events that led to the team walking away from Kyle Dubas as GM. But Shanahan’s words dripped with venom in the hours after he had won a power struggle for control of the franchise. Without diving too much into the timeline or exact semantics of how much control or money Dubas wanted or whether he wanted equal power to Shanahan or to fully take over Shanahan’s duties: the key takeaway was that, whatever battle happened, Shanahan won it. MLSE chose its president over its young GM.

And that meant the responsibility for whatever happened to the franchise next would fall at the feet of Shanahan and Shanahan only.

In ousting a GM who only won a single playoff series but also helped his team win its first playoff series in 19 years, Shanahan and the Leafs boxed themselves into somewhat of a corner. They had a team squarely in its contention window, with multiple stars in need of contract extensions and an extremely busy summer to-do list. Another progressive, forward-thinking hire that could grow into the role simply wasn’t going to work. They forced themselves into needing a turnkey hire. During the presser, Shanahan essentially admitted that when he explained that experience “would be attractive” as a quality.  

In an instant, Brad Treliving’s name shot to the top of every logical candidate list. Unlike fan-fiction option Doug Armstrong, Treliving was actually available, having just parted ways with the Calgary Flames. He had taken that team to a pair of division titles over his nine seasons in Calgary. He had the relevant recent experience of making major roster overhauls involving superstars in a Canadian market and, despite Calgary’s poor showing this season, was perceived to have done extremely well in replacing Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau with Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri. Really, had the Flames gotten even average goaltending this season, they would’ve made the playoffs.

So Treliving steps into the job as the most sensible hire out there, especially when compared to the other options. The image-conscious Leafs were never going to touch Stan Bowman, and even Marc Bergevin would’ve raised some eyebrows. With so much at stake during their current contention window, they weren’t going to try a Jason Botterill redemption arc or crown a first-time GM such as Eric Tulsky. It had to be Treliving.

He has himself a new stretch of runway, albeit not nearly as long as what he had in Calgary. But the question now is: how much runway does Shanahan have left?

He theoretically will be bringing in a GM who will work within the confines of the MLSE and Shanahan influence when it comes to making roster decisions, something Dubas reportedly was tired of doing. But while Shananan will have the final say over Treliving – it’s Treliving who will have the power over what happens to Shanahan next.

In walking away from Dubas and immediately bringing in a GM who, while experienced, doesn’t have any top-end NHL success, Shanahan is making a moderate gamble that will either be revered one day as a stroke of genius or remembered as his final stand.

Treliving had the necessary experience, yes. But we’d be lying to ourselves if we called it resoundingly successful experience. In nine seasons, his Flames actually won just one playoff series more than the Leafs, unless you count Calgary’s victory in the preliminary round of 24 just to qualify for the 16-team bubble in 2019-20. His Flames missed the playoffs in four of nine seasons.

Treliving showed a willingness over that span to make some bold moves, and some of them paid off. Getting Dougie Hamilton from the Boston Bruins for draft picks in 2015 was a coup, and the Flames scored another win when they nabbed Elias Lindholm and Noah Hanifin from the Carolina Hurricanes in 2018 in a deal that sent Hamilton, Adam Fox and Micheal Ferland the other way – when you factor in that future Norris Trophy winner Fox wasn’t going to sign in Calgary.

The Flames also inked some winning contracts under Treliving. Jacob Markstrom, at first, become the No. 1 goaltender they hoped he’d be, and Chris Tanev brought stability to the back end. And they scored plenty of draft-day victories under Treliving’s watch: Rasmus Andersson, Oliver Kylington and Andrew Mangiapane in 2015 and Tkachuk and Dillon Dube in 2016 were among the standouts.

Treliving also took plenty of Ls with his roster decisions. The 2017 Travis Hamonic trade aged terribly. The 2021 Sam Bennett trade looks worse by the day. The signings of Troy Brouwer (2016) and James Neal (2018) were disastrous, and Blake Coleman’s 2021 deal has been a flop so far.

The Flames also haven’t yielded much production from recent first-round selections such as Jakob Pelletier (2019) and Connor Zary (2020), largely because they employed a coach in Darryl Sutter who was loath to play them. That hire was made by Treliving. 

While Sutter won the Jack Adams Award for his work in 2021-22, his aloof taskmaster act wore so thin, so fast that players were prepping their trade requests for this offseason before the Flames let him go. Sutter’s reputation did not sneak up on anyone. Treliving knew who he was hiring, so he has to bear some of the responsibility for things going sour.

The summary of Treliving’s work as an NHL GM so far is a mixture of noteworthy wins and losses, both in the standings and in his transaction history. It tells us the Leafs and Shanahan are putting their eggs into the basket of someone who has proven himself to be competent at the NHL level but has yet to truly excel as a GM.

Whether Treliving makes Shanahan look brilliant or not, honestly, could come down to the randomness of the NHL in the current era. This is a world in which the Jack Adams winner gets fired the next season, the Flames’ goaltender goes from second place in the Vezina Trophy vote to one of the worst puck-stoppers in the league, a 115-point scorer in Huberdeau drops to 55 points the next season and a team that qualified for the playoffs in the final week of the season beats the first 65-win team in NHL history en route to reaching the Stanley Cup Final.

Nothing is a sure thing in the NHL anymore. Treliving isn’t despite his experience. The Leafs could crumble next season or win the Stanley Cup. But whatever happens in the Treliving era will finalize Shanahan’s legacy shepherding the storied franchise, for better or worse.