Things behind the scenes with the Maple Leafs have not been right for three years and this season it blew up
Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
You could classify the Maple Leafs organization as a dormant volcano, with this year being the tectonic shift needed to create an explosive eruption.
Pompeii, Vesuvius, Bay Street — what do these three have in common? Catastrophic eruptions that completely changed the landscape of their respective areas. While the first two are marvels of nature, the latter is a completely man-made disaster.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have really started to blow things up and with the onus being on finding a new data-driven mind to lead the team, it had to start at the top.
Toronto's boiling point finally spilled over into a firestorm of changes
However, it seems like that magma-laden core was building up pressure long before things came to a head.
The Maple Leafs have reportedly been in turmoil for nearly three years, and things finally came to its climactic end after years of disappointment and questions about coaching and roster construction.
As James Mirtle put in on the JD Bunkis podcast:
From what I've been hearing the last 2.5, 3 years, there's a lot of things that haven't been okay. A lot of things that aren't working behind the scenes, and this year was really all that blowing up in their face.
Nothing was publicly revealed as to what the turmoil behind the scenes was, however if it was going on for nearly three years then it's clear as to why Toronto wasn't able to succeed.
How the pressure building in Toronto ended up creating a disastrous situation
If this dates back to the end of the 2023-24 season, that means that there have been a lot of moves Toronto made that ended up creating a volatile scenario.
They let key names like Tyler Bertuzzi, Michael Bunting and Rasmus Sandin go, gave up too early on players like Noah Gregor, and never capitalized on a record-breaking season from Auston Matthews.
Not to mention there was trouble between Sheldon Keefe and Mitch Marner, the entire Marner saga as a whole could be considered a massive breaking point and the team decided to hedge their bets on some pretty bad deals — upper management saw them ruin the future year in and year out.
This summer they fired the one voice who could actually make a difference in Brendan Shanahan, then Keith Pelley said "Ah you deal with it Brad." Now fast forward less than a year later and Treliving owns a pink slip and Pelley is back to square one.
There is no two ways around it, this is not a new thing in Toronto. Fans know that things have been simmering for a while. You can only watch a team lose every year, and do nothing to improve and expect them to not eventually crack but it's just that enough was finally enough.
Volcanoes lay dormant for years because there is nothing to aggravate them. However, as things decay, degrade, and shift — that magma creeps its way up.
With the pressure reaching its apex, all it takes is one little nudge to cause havoc. Keith Pelley nudged Brad Treliving out the door, and now Toronto has to deal with the seismic aftershocks coming their way.
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Previously on Hockey Patrol
| POLL | ||
AVRIL 4|1023 ANSWERS Things behind the scenes with the Maple Leafs have not been right for three years and this season it blew up Do you think the Maple Leafs' issues have been brewing for more than three years? | ||
| Yes | 960 | 93.8 % |
| No | 63 | 6.2 % |
| List of polls | ||