The Toronto Maple Leafs are no longer the same team that they were at this time last week.
Not just after the embarrassing way that their season ended in front of their home fans. Not only with the likely departure of some key members of the roster who could be hitting the open market on July 1st. But also with the symbolic shift in philosophy after long-time president Brendan Shanahan was not offered a new contract on Thursday, thus ending an 11-year tenure.
I could sense that this was the direction that the Leafs were going in after Game 5, and it certainly became painfully clear that the status quo could not continue when the circus unfolded at the end of Game 7. But seeing the changes starting to be made, beginning with moving on from the architect of the ‘Shanaplan’, is a breath of fresh air that has been a long time coming for this franchise.
For too long, there was a timidness to deviate from the plan in favour of maintaining stability. The idea was to preach patience and not walk into irrational decisions that only offer short-term reprieve but have long-term consequences. There were times in the early days of Shanahan’s tenure when this line of thinking made perfect sense, given all of the tumultuous years that came prior to his arrival. The issue lay in the inability to make bold decisions quickly when it was clear that things were not working as intended. Instead of being proactive, the Leafs were reactive when it was too obvious and hard to ignore.
One could argue that letting go of Shanahan now instead of a few years ago would have fallen into the latter category, and I can understand the arguments in favour of that. But it would have been easy for MLSE to think that keeping the president on board after this season was the right move, especially given they took strides as a hockey team by winning the Atlantic Division and pushing the defending Stanley Cup winners to Game 7.
CEO Keith Pelley made it clear during his media availability on Friday that just because the Leafs did well in 2024-25, doesn’t mean they can be satisfied. Not when the primary objective is to bring a city starving for success to see the team finally get over the hump in the playoffs.
“I respect, understand, and appreciated their disappointment in the way the season ended,” he said. “I thank them for it, I thank them for the way they’ve invested in the team, and I understand to our fans that winning is the only thing that matters. I think I said to you last year that good simply isn’t good enough. That’s the case here.”
Winning should always be the ultimate goal no matter which team you are on or what sport you play for, but that is especially true for the Leafs who have now gone 58 years since their last moment of hockey glory. This current iteration is well past the point of preaching patience, acting methodically, and sticking to the plan because too much time has gone by without meaningful progress where it matters.
The likes of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander are not young kids who have their whole careers ahead of them: they are now fully grown adults operating at the peak of their powers. Pressure or not, the team has reached that pivotal fork in the road, and it’s beyond time that they determine who on the roster they can win with and who they will need to move out to make room for someone that will.
Pelley certainly understands this philosophy while also smartly not getting too involved in the day-to-day decision-making. He will certainly be around to provide support for the people he is entrusting to bring a championship, but he is allowing Brad Treliving and Craig Berube to do their thing on the hockey side of things. Meaning, there will be no immediate search for a replacement for Shanahan’s services, and instead, focusing on streamlining the process behind the scenes.
“In any other business, we evaluate all facets of the organization in terms of how we utilize resources,” he said. “We have all the resources here to be a championship team, but it’s how we use the resources and that’s what we’ll spend the next week looking at. I’m confident in Brad, I’m confident in Craig and the resources that we have, but I do believe as the custodians of the biggest hockey brand in the world, we have a responsibility to our fans, and that responsibility is winning championships. We will do everything we said and won’t stop until we reach that goal.”
What wasn’t made clear on Friday is where exactly things stand for the roster and just how many changes there will be. Pelley revealed he hasn’t had a chance to talk with Treliving in person since the news of Shanahan’s departure was made public, but you can best believe that things will start to move quickly once the two men chat over the weekend. At the time of filing, there are only a little over five weeks to go before the start of free agent frenzy as well as a bit less before the draft kicks off. There will almost certainly be some adjustments made between now and then – even into the dog days of the summer – which will result in a roster looking a bit different from what was iced for Game 7.
It remains to be seen if these hypothetical adjustments will indeed result in the Leafs finally winning the Stanley Cup in the Matthews era, but it is clear that sticking with the way things were run before was no longer going to cut it. The time is now for everyone on the team from the top down to act with urgency in their commitment and desire to winning because being good won’t be tolerated. Leafs fans deserve a team that is damn-near perfect and gives it their all every single night no matter what happens in a game, not one that withers the moment they get a chance to make meaningful progress towards the summit.
“At the end of the day, Brendan has added a lot to this organization,” Pelley said. “He has revamped it, he’s put it in a really good position in so many ways. But it’s about results. This is a results driven business, sometimes you need change to get to the next level. That’s what we feel we needed by now.”
The Leafs took the first meaningful step in being an organization that tolerates nothing but winning by putting real consequences for failure. They will be judged by their actions moving forward to ensure they are following through on that promise, but Pelley signalled that this is the dawn of a new era by choosing to move on from Shanahan now.
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