To PoHo or not to PoHo, that is the Maple Leafs’ question

If there is one word to summarize the 2025-26 season for the Toronto Maple Leafs it would probably be “directionless” (crappy would also work, but this post needs to argue something). Brad Treliving, whether or not it was specifically of his own doing, had to move on from the “Shanaplan” and the “Core Four” era and set a new course for the team without a President of Hockey Operations and of course, without Mitch Marner. Treliving brought in new players but it doesn’t seem like a clear direction for the 2025-26 Maple Leafs was ever established beyond “let’s see if this works any better.” That might be the case and point for the Leafs looking at bringing in a President of Hockey Operations, or at very least it is a criticism of Treliving’s ability to build a cohesive team.

The idea of a President of Hockey Operations is one that has only been around for the past decade or so. The Avalanche wanted moved Joe Sakic up to loftier title and slide a General Manager underneath him to handle the more transactional aspects of hockey operations leadership, other clubs viewed the role as an additional title for whomever was the owner’s alternate for Board of Governors meetings. The role seems to be whatever teams want to make it and may not be necessary, but given that Treliving operated under one (Brian Burke) during much of his time in Calgary and then also achieved better results under one in Toronto (Shanahan), it might be an argument for Treliving needing a direction setter and hands on boss in order for him to thrive as a General Manager (or the Maple Leafs need to just look at a different General Manager.)

The President of Hockey Operations role has the potential to mitigate some of the risk of going it alone with just a General Manager. Potentially, the President is the final word on Hockey Operations decisions and prevents decisions from going to the MLSE board, one of the pitfalls that apparently existed under Brendan Shanahan. It’s hard to imagine that any incoming President would accept the same conditions and instead expect a budget, a list of performance and financial targets, and be sent on their merry way. It’s hard to imagine that Treliving has that level of autonomy right now and that is absolutely a barrier as it means hockey decisions are going to be exclusively reviewed from a business perspective or possibly even worse, a fan perspective.

On the President is also a sounding board for the GM and a very important one. The All or Nothing “documentary” of the Leafs showed the back and forth between Dubas and Shanahan, with Shanahan being very clearly the approver but also bringing his own ideas to the table. Those ideas may have hurt more than they helped at times, but there is something to be said for a General Manager being forced to debate their decisions or achieve buy-in to complete them.

A President of Hockey Operations is a surefire path to success. Calgary had Brian Burke for Treliving and to some extent it feels like the Maple Leafs have once again become victims of the Brian Burke’s philosophies by hiring Treliving. You can see it in the players Treliving targets and his attitude towards the trade deadline, and while Treliving never inherited Brian Burke’s love of the spotlight, he’s been a Dave Nonis-like quiet executor of the Burke approach.

You can look at various examples of success and failures around the league of the PoHO pairings. Jim Rutherford’s aggressive trade approach might not be what works best for Patrik Allvin and part of the reason why the Canucks can’t maintain their success. George McPhee’s green light to Kelly McCrimmon to always go big game hunting in Vegas has kept them at the top of Pacific and earned them a Stanley Cup. Moving Joe Sakic up from General Manager to President meant having a more capable GM the type of team Sakic couldn’t build himself, and while not hitting the mark as a GM in Seattle, it remains to be seen if Ron Francis will be another Sakic type story or if he just failed upwards.

There’s no perfect answer and General Managers like Julien Brisebois, Steve Yzerman, and Bill Zito all seem to have owned their team’s championships more than their President did. The right GM can go it alone, but often they rely heavily on their assistants. Treliving’s history in Calgary doesn’t point to him being a strong delegator and his front office that made up Dubas hold overs and Shane Doan. I’m not sure you can say that Treliving has built the team that would work best for him, nor did he do so in Calgary, and while this discussion is riddled with assumptions about how Treliving does business, if it is not on the setting the vision side of things that he struggles, it seems like it becomes even more of a concern that he is failing to execute either in building out his own staff or the Maple Leafs roster.

Whether it is just at the General Manager level or whether the Maple Leafs need a President of Hockey Operations the one universal truth should be that a major change is needed at the top of Hockey Ops. Either a General Manager that is excited to go it alone and is eager for the opportunity to the Maple Leafs into a winner or a President of Hockey Operations that might not go scorched earth on the ice but is capable of assessing who they want running critical areas of the team and has a plan for what the Maple Leafs need to look like in 2026-27 and beyond.

One thing that seems to be certain is that if the Maple Leafs are going to be looking for a President of Hockey Operations, the sooner the position is filled the better. And even if that position can’t formally be announced right away, that candidate having a plan for what they are going to do once they take the job is vital as evaluation periods and delays in decisions on managers, coaches, free agents, and players with trade clauses has sunk the Leafs offseason before.

While Shanahan was never able to get the Maple Leafs to take the next step and his loyalty and stubbornness about his vision might have held the Maple Leafs back at times, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the wheels completely feel off the team after his departure and the team needs someone to map things out in a way that while we might fully agree with, at least offers some understanding of what is going on with the organization.

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