Brad Treliving believes there’s lots of opportunity for Maple Leafs following Marner’s departure

Surprise, surprise. It’s been two months since Mitch Marner was dealt to the Vegas Golden Knights following the expiration of his contract, and he’s still very much in the headlines. We aren’t going to go too far into that aspect of things, but if you want to get caught up on his recent interview with TSN’s Mark Masters and his alleged security issues following the season, we covered that too.

Anyway, back to current Maple Leafs.

General Manager Brad Treliving sat down with The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun for an interview about the upcoming season, whether the team is looking at making any more additions before training camp ramps up, and how the team is going to adapt to life without Marner. While Treliving acknowledged that moving on from a 100-point winger with Selke capabilities on the other side of the puck will be an adjustment, he’s got lots of faith in the players who are still here.

“We’re going to miss him, but everyone moves on, right?” Treliving told LeBrun. “We’ve got some guys that are looking for a bit of a bigger bite of the apple. We’ve got some new players that will be interesting to see where they fit.  But you’re not just going to go out and replace him. You’ve got to do it by the aggregate, and then keep phoning around.”

Instead of replacing Marner with a similar talent like the Tampa Bay Lightning did when they replaced Steven Stamkos with Jake Guentzel, they used their cap space to move away from the ‘Core Four’ label and fill out their depth instead. Treliving went on to say that he’s encouraged by the skillsets of some of the incoming players, whether you’re looking at free agency additions or internal additions like prospect Easton Cowan.

“We’ve got a couple of young guys that will be interesting to see where they’re at,” Treliving said. “Especially with [Easton] Cowan, and you’ve got Matias Maccelli coming in, Nic Roy, and Dakota Joshua.”

Maccelli is a 24-year old playmaking winger who fell out of favour with his head coach in Utah last season, but seems to be a prime bounce-back candidate with 57 points in 82 games in 2023-24 and 49 points in 64 games the year before. Roy will be the best third-line centre this team has had since Ryan O’Reilly post-deadline in 2022-23, and Joshua is a bottom-six forward who can jump into the top six on a whim and brings that combination of speed and physicality the Leafs have been trying to add.

While Marner’s departure will mean one less star player to feast during the regular season, the Leafs will look to use their improved depth as a strength with the possibility of taking a bigger swing at the trade deadline.