Leafs GM Treliving believes answers are in house after quiet deadline

The Maple Leafs had a day off in Montreal on Friday. General manager Brad Treliving met the media in Toronto following the trade deadline. 

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It was a relatively quiet trade deadline in Toronto. 

"We tried to make moves to address certain areas but, at the end of the day, a lot of the answers are going to come from the guys in the room," said general manager Brad Treliving. "That is the reality of the situation."

Treliving did address some pressing needs during his first deadline at the helm of the Leafs. He swung a deal with the Minnesota Wild on Friday to acquire Connor Dewar.

"He is a defensively responsible centre," Treliving said. "I don't think you can have too many centre men. He is proficient on the penalty kill. It is a specific area we wanted to see if we could help ourselves with."

The Leafs are 22nd in penalty-kill percentage this season. Dewar is averaging more than two minutes of shorthanded ice time per game this season. He has also scored 10 goals in 57 games. 

The Wild received Dmitry Ovchinnikov and a third round pick in the 2024 draft as part of the trade. 

The other area Treliving sought to strengthen ahead of the deadline was the blue line, which lacked right-shot options and length. Treliving brought in righty Ilya Lyubushkin from Anaheim on Feb. 29 and 6-foot-5 southpaw Joel Edmundson from Washington on Thursday. 

"We were excited to get Joel," Treliving said. "He is a big, long, rangy defenceman. He adds length and physicality. He adds experience. By adding him and Boosh, we have added some size and bite on the back end. Now, we have to do it by committee."

Treliving readily admits his defence remains "a work in progress" and it will take time to determine the correct mix. 

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Treliving entertained the possibility of parting with the team's first-round pick in the upcoming draft, but ultimately decided against it. 

"I just didn't feel there was something that made sense for us in the very short term," Treliving said. "It is good to have that asset."

The Leafs also retained their top prospects, including London Knights forward Easton Cowan, who's currently on a 31-game point streak in the Ontario Hockey League. 

"He is a heck of a player," Treliving said. "There was no thought of moving Easton."

As the sun rose Friday, Treliving said the Leafs had already come to the conclusion that any of the bigger deals they had considered would not come to fruition. 

"I would categorize it as a business-as-usual deadline day," the 54-year-old executive said. 

And now the focus turns to the stretch drive. Even without a big add, Treliving believes his team can do big things. 

"We have a group that is driven," he said. "We have a group that is hungry."

The core is cooking. Auston Matthews is on pace for 71 goals. William Nylander is on track for 109 points. Mitch Marner is trending toward 100 points. All those numbers would be career highs. 

"There is great potential for our group," said Treliving. "Our top guys are having good years. They are elite players. We want that to continue. As good of a season as they are having individually, their mindset is all about the collective group and making sure that our game is at the point it needs to be at this time of the year."

Despite dropping a pair of games against the Boston Bruins this week, the Leafs have still won 10 of 13 overall since Feb. 11. In the Eastern Conference, only the Florida Panthers have a better points percentage than the Leafs during this stretch.  

"Ultimately, I believe in our group," said Treliving. "We have to turn that belief into getting the job done."

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It was hard for Edmundson to watch his new team lose 4-1 on Thursday night in Boston. 

"Playoff atmosphere," he observed from the press box. "Sitting up there was tough. I just wanted to get out there. All those scrums and fights, that excites me. That's playoff hockey and I think I play my best hockey during playoffs. I definitely wanted to be out there."

Edmundson, who was in Pittsburgh preparing for a game with the Capitals when he learned he'd been traded, didn't make it to TD Garden in time to be an option to play. 

"We could use a guy like him in a game like this with them being as physical as they were," said Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe. "I thought we got pushed around a little bit on the back end to start early in the game, but having a guy like him will help us there."

Edmundson immediately becomes Toronto's tallest defender. 

"I just take care of my own zone," he said. "Kind of a stay-at-home defenceman. Nothing flashy. My job is to make the other forwards miserable. I like to play hard with a heavy stick in front of the net and in the corners and just play tough, so that's what I'm going to bring."

"He can pair, really, with anybody on our team because of the type of game that he plays," Keefe said. "He can support any partner."

Edmundson may be a lefty, but the 30-year-old made it clear he can handle shifts on the right. 

"I haven't played it too much the past couple years, but I have in the past," he said. "I mean, I can pick it up no problem again, no issue at all. The way the game is played these days you always get mixed up out there."

The Brandon, Man. native brings a championship pedigree having won the Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019. He also helped the Montreal Canadiens reach the Stanley Cup final in 2021. The Habs upset the Leafs in the first round that season. 

"It's an elite core," Edmundson said. "They've been together for several years now and every year they just keeping better and better. It was a fun series, but also a tough one back then. I'm glad to be on this side now."  

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Thursday's game featured two fights and seven roughing penalties. 

"I liked a lot of things about our game, in particular the competitiveness of our team in what was by far and away the most physical game we have played this season," said Keefe. 

The Leafs were playing on consecutive days and only made it to their Boston hotel around 3 am due to some travel complications. 

"If you take the physicality of the game with where we were at with our energy, we don't like the result at all, but I like that our guys stood in there," Keefe said. 

"We were really physical to start the game," Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. "We were finishing checks and in turn we got the lead. The game got out of hand, they got physical in trying to send a message maybe for playoffs ... I liked our physicality. Theirs is a little too late."

Trailing 4-1 after 40 minutes, the Leafs were determined not to go down without a fight. 

"Whenever Toronto plays Boston, it's going to be a war out there," said centre Max Domi, who was whistled for roughing Brad Marchand and fighting Charlie McAvoy in the third period. "We hung in there and we kind of made a pact in the locker room that no matter what happens we're going to stick together. Yeah, that was one of the positives we can take [from the game] is we had a lot of guys stand up."

Leafs defenceman Jake McCabe and Bruins centre Charlie Coyle both got fined by the NHL Department of Player Safety for crosschecks committed in the game. 

"It was just an emotional game from both sides," said Marchand, who was the victim of McCabe's stickwork. "It starts when you get crosschecked in the throat pretty early. I mean, that's going to get anyone riled up. From that point forward, it was an emotional game all the way through for both teams."

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The Bruins also beat the Leafs 4-1 on Monday in Toronto. 

"They're really sound," acknowledged Domi. "I mean, all five guys on the ice are pretty locked together. They don't give you much. They track hard and they play faster than you think they are as a team. You got to give them credit, but we're looking forward to playing them in the future and we know what we have to do to beat these guys."

If the season ended today, the Bruins and Leafs would face off in the first round of the playoffs. Boston won all four games between the teams in the regular season. 

"It means nothing," Marchand said. "Once playoff time starts it's a whole new season. You start scouting each other way more. Once playoff starts you really bear down on the defensive game, you tighten up, play so much more physical."

The Bruins have won seven straight games overall against the Leafs. 

"There's no concern about that," insisted defenceman Morgan Rielly. "Whoever we play in the first round of the playoffs we'll be ready to go. We're a month away. There's still lots to improve upon, lots of runway left in the season."

Boston entered the week in a rut having just lost 5-1 to the New York Islanders. The Bruins had just three wins in an 11-game stretch (3-3-5). But after holding the Leafs and Edmonton Oilers to three goals in regulation time over three games, they are feeling much better. 

"We've always been a checking team that can score and not a scoring team that can check," Marchand said. "So, we got to continue to focus on that." 

"They made it hard on us to create offence," said Rielly. "They manage the puck. They don't make a lot of mistakes. Their special teams is good, obviously. They're at the top of the standings year after year for a reason."

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Nylander was held off the scoresheet in both games against the Bruins this week. And Toronto's leading scorer committed a costly turnover on Thursday. 
 
With the Leafs trailing just 1-0 in the second period, Nylander was skating high in the offensive zone with no one behind him when Trent Frederic knocked the puck  off his stick and scored on the ensuing breakaway. 

"He should've shot the puck or moved it a lot quicker," Keefe said. "We cover that area of the ice a lot in terms of minimizing risk in there. At that moment, we didn't do it and we paid for it. You can't do that in games like this against teams like this that are not going to do that to themselves. Those are the little things that are the difference in the game."

Nylander was benched in last Saturday's game against the New York Rangers for a poor defensive effort. He didn't miss a shift on Thursday. Keefe noted that the mistake in Boston was well-intentioned. 

"That, to me, is Willy trying to make a play," Keefe said. "He is trying to make things happen. He makes a lot of things happen up there in different spots, and then we celebrate them ... He made a mistake, but it is not one that you sit a guy for. If he does it again maybe it's different, but you can't go overthinking every single mistake that a player makes, especially those who are trying to make plays."

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Joseph Woll allowed four goals on 25 shots in Thursday's loss. 

"I liked my process and ultimately that's what I have control over," he said. "Obviously I'm not happy with the result and I want more from myself to give to this team. I'll keep working, and keep working on the process."

Two of Boston's goals came on the power play, including one on a 5-on-3 advantage. And Frederic scored on a breakaway. But the goal Woll wants back is the fourth one, which came on an unscreened point shot from defenceman Brandon Carlo. 

"I'll have to go back and look at it," said Woll, who also allowed four goals in Monday's loss to the Bruins. "Maybe playing the tip a bit too much." 

Coyle was trying to get a stick on the Carlo shot while jostling with Leafs centre John Tavares.

"It is a wrist shot from the blue line that's pretty routine stuff," said Keefe. "Both teams have a bunch of those in the game and one of them happened to go in."

Amid some of the rough stuff in the third period, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman skated out to the neutral zone and challenged Woll to a fight. 

"It probably didn't call for it," Swayman acknowledged. "I see all my guys go in, it's a team effort, we all go in. He's my buddy and I respect the hell out of him and his game, so it was just an opportunity, but nothing happened."

What was Woll thinking when his 2018 World Junior teammate skated to the red line? 

"I'm not sure," he said. "I'm trying to win a hockey game. I'm trying to do everything I can to help my team win."

Woll prefers to tune things out when the temperature rises in games. 

"Over my years I've tried to do a good job of separating the emotion from the game," he explained. "I think that's a good thing for a goaltender to do especially as you get towards the postseason, there's a lot of chippy games and emotional games with big rivals. For me, I'm focusing on making the next save and focusing on winning the game."

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Top-line winger Matthew Knies left Thursday's game following a collision with Marchand in the first period. 

"It is two guys who are kind of going for the same ice and don't really see each other," Keefe said. "Their guy realizes that he's on the tracks quicker than our guy and prepares for it. That's all I see there."

Treliving spoke with Knies on Friday and reports the 21-year-old rookie is feeling better. 

"All signs are pointing to him doing really well," said Treliving. "We will continue to see how things go throughout the day. I anticipate that he is going to be fine and available for tomorrow."

Treliving said Knies wanted to return to Thursday's game, but was held out as a precaution. 

The Leafs play in Montreal on Saturday. 

Toronto will hold a morning skate at the Bell Centre at 11:30 am.