Canucks Management
He’s a Penticton boy and he went to high school in Tsawwassen. Whether it’s next year or next month, recently fired Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving would leap at the chance to work in his “favourite city in the world”.
That’s a description he’s uttered more than once. British Columbia lives in his heart and he still has a residence in the province.
So is he qualified? Is he “damaged goods” based on the Maple Leafs tenure? Those are the only questions that matter.
The answer to the first question for the Canucks is yes and the answer to the second one is no.
He actually finished in Toronto with a regular season win-loss record of 129-82-and-27. His clubs were defeated in back-to-back years in the playoffs, once in seven games by the team’s frequent nemesis, the Boston Bruins, and then by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers; in 2024 in the first round, and in 2025 in a devastating seven-game, second-round series that appeared to sidetrack the entire franchise.
Most of any bad vibes probably had to do with Treliving having to trade away one of the “big four” forwards, Mitch Marner, to the Vegas Golden Knights for 3rd line centre Nicolas Roy last July 1st. This past trade deadline he flipped Roy to the Colorado Avalanche for a 5th-rounder in 2026 and a conditional 1st-round 2027 NHL Draft pick.
Did big D-man Brandon Carlo pan out entirely after being acquired from the Bruins for a 1st rounder at last season’s deadline? Not yet, but Treliving won’t be there to see if the 29-year-old righty finds his game with a year remaining on his contract. Toronto gave up a 2025 4th rounder, prospect Fraser Minten, and this summer’s 1st-round pick.
Like Carlo on the ice, Treliving entered an off-ice situation in continual flux. Longtime Maple Leafs President and alternate governor Brendan Shanahan, who joined the club in the spring of 2014, departed after the 2025 playoff loss.
His big boss Keith Pelley, CEO of Maple Leafs Sports And Entertainment and the man who ultimately fired Treliving last week, arrived in 2024 with a reputation for change. Again, not the greatest working environment for a GM with a new corporate boss, a hockey president heading out the door a year later, and a head coach in Craig Berube who just finished the second year of a tumultuous tenure.
Not ideal conditions and not a lot of time to get the program established. A Canucks rebuild would be a different story.
Circle back to Treliving’s nine year GM tenure with the Calgary Flames from 2014 to 2023.
Of note, when an exodus occurred in the summer of 2022, with star winger Johnny Gaudreau deciding to move closer to home and go to the Columbus Blue Jackets in free agency, Treliving was also forced to make a deal for feisty forward Matthew Tkachuk. He managed to get a 2025 first rounder, coveted D-man Mackenzie Weegar, veteran scoring winger Jonathan Huberdeau, who took way too long to figure things out, and a mild prospect.
But rather than evaluate the minutiae of every transaction, simply look at the overall results where it matters most.
The Flames made the playoffs in five of Treliving’s nine years, winning the Pacific Division title in his penultimate season and finishing two points out of the playoffs in his final campaign.
His club beat the Canucks in six games in the first round of the 2015 playoffs, one of just three overall postseason series wins during his tenure. His teams finished with a regular season record of 362-265-and-73.
In 2023 the writing was on the wall, as was the opportunity. Timing is everything. Who’s going to pass up a chance to run the Toronto Maple Leafs, corporate dysfunction and all? Probably no one.
Meanwhile, the Flames have been a sailboat without any wind since he left.
Should he get a crack at the Canucks?
First of all, Treliving is enormously well-liked and universally respected; never a bad thing when one is trying to make deals. Given his background in the minor league management trenches and in player development evaluation as an NHL assistant GM with the Coyotes, a rebuild could be right up his alley.
It definitely can’t get any more messed up in Canucks-world than it is right now. In this scenario, Treliving could be the calm after the storm.
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