The Toronto Maple Leafs saw their season slip away post the Winter Olympics, and those results prompted the management to take hard decisions. It eventually led to changes in management as general manager Brad Treliving was fired on Monday.
With that change, Treliving’s biggest decisions have been a talking point, including the departure of Mitch Marner.
Insider Points to Mitch Marner’s Exit as Brad Treliving’s Folly
Marner is now at the center of the discussion around Treliving after the latter’s exit from Toronto. It was Treliving’s decision to move Marner in July 2025 through a sign-and-trade deal to the Vegas Golden Knights, with Nicolas Roy coming back the other way. The move came after months of uncertainty, as both sides failed to reach a long-term agreement.
Toronto entered the 2025–26 season without a clear replacement for Marner’s role, and that gap became clear as the season went on. The team has had a 32-30-13 run and is 7th in the Atlantic Division, putting them in a situation to miss the playoffs for the first time in 10 years.
The team’s defensive struggles and injuries have made it harder to stay in the race. This led to the management change when Treliving was dismissed on Monday.
During a recent discussion on his podcast The Sheet, Jeff Marek pointed to how the situation played out.
“It’s airing out laundry. But when it became obvious that Mitch Marner was not going to waive his no-trade, whether it was for Vegas for Shea Theodore, whether it was Carolina for Mikko Rantanen, it was real obvious that Marner [wanted to leave on his own terms]…
“But Treliving never went out there and said, ‘Look, we’re trying to do something here, and this guy won’t waive his no-trade.’ I know managers don’t do that, but that is one of the things that’s going to hang on Brad Treliving here.”
Pierre McGuire questioned how the situation reached that point despite Marner’s role on the team. He said, “Why was there this unbelievable angst towards Mitch Marner? Why couldn’t they have sorted this out? I’ve coached players who have disliked the general manager that we all work for.
“They disliked the ownership group that we might have been involved with. You know what I mean? But you found a way to make it work, especially if they were an important player. I don’t understand how this whole thing got so taken off the track about Marner.”
Marek added more context from a past conversation with Adam Oates about Marner’s role. Marek quoted Oates saying, “Why is it always Marner has to do things for everybody else? Mitch has got to go fetch the puck for Auston Matthews. Mitch has to go and kill this penalty. Mitch has to go… But no one does anything for Mitch. He said, “Who’s doing anything for Mitch Marner?”
Marner’s road with the Vegas Golden Knights hasn’t exactly been a bed of roses. Vegas fired Bruce Cassidy over the weekend, replacing him with John Tortorella for the run-in.
For his part, Marner has recorded 71 points in 74 games with Vegas, while Toronto now looks ahead after a difficult season that ended with more questions than answers.
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