adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Sports

Brad Treliving on the criticism the Maple Leafs’ core players face in the market. "Whether it’s raining or sunny, it seems to be the core four’s fault every day… Quite frankly, I don’t want to hear the [core four] term"

Published

1 year ago

 on

Photo: Dan Hamilton/USA Today Sports

Treliving: There certainly was no master plan. It was difficult. I loved my time in Calgary. We got to that point where we moved on. When you are sort of wired to do this, all of a sudden, it is like doing the 100-yard dash in an 80-yard gym. It just stops.

I’ll be honest with you. There were a few days there where the stress level was down. There were no crises going on. I thought, “This is not too bad.” There was a “Help Wanted” sign at the little coffee shop where my wife and I go. When she was starting to get applications and hand them to me, I thought it was maybe time to get back going.

I was excited when Shanny phoned. All of these jobs are a privilege. It is a privilege to work in the game and in the league. But there are some that are different, and this is the Leafs.

You guys hear that a lot here, but when you come from the outside to this market, whether it is to play or scout, it is just something different. The opportunity and the responsibility, I am well aware of. I was excited to get back on the horse quickly.

With all due respect to the different places you have worked in the NHL, when you sit in the office and put the Leaf pin on, does it have that big-time type of feel to it?

Treliving: 100%. This is no disrespect to anywhere at all. But [O’Dog] knows it as a player. If you go from Carolina to here, there is no disrespect, but…

Going in there today and walking through the room, you see the logo, you look up, and you see the pictures. It hits you. I am usually a guy — and my wife will confirm this — who is not considered a really emotional guy with things like this, but this one hit me.

You think of people today. Today, I think of the late great Pat Quinn and the people that came before. You see that logo. You see the pictures on the wall, the people that have come, and the history. It hits you.

It hits different than anywhere else. It is real. It is exciting today.

Now that you are going to be behind the curtain and seeing everything up close and personal, what is the thought process behind confirming some of what you have, whether it is the talent level, some of the character of the guys, or the culture of the group in the room? Are these some of the things on your checklist to try to confirm early on in your tenure?

Treliving: For sure. You feel like you are drinking out of a firehose right now. There are a lot of things to do, but as we go along, to me, it is all about building the relationship.

The hockey world knows that this team has elite-level talent. That is really hard to come by. I say it all the time. If you look at the top, top guys, look where they were drafted. Look at the numbers where they were drafted. There is a lot of pain that you have to go through to get those types of players. They are hard to come by.

We have lots of talent. Now, to me, it is getting to know people. It is getting to know what makes people tick. It is them getting to know me. It is building those relationships. Once you have those relationships built and there is trust, then you can push people — maybe to points they thought they couldn’t before.

The big message for me right now… It is easy for me because I am coming from the outside. It is my observation. I was asked about the core four. For me, that is a big lure to take this job. Those are some of the best players in the world. It is hard to acquire them and find them.

Part of how I operate is that I am fiercely protective of my players. For those players right now, we are not putting all of the responsibility at the feet of the core four. Quite frankly, it is not about four. I don’t want to hear that term. This is the Toronto Maple Leafs. It is not about one, two, four, or five guys. It is about 23-24-25 guys on our team.

You treat everybody fairly but not everybody equally. There are certain guys who will bear more responsibility. For this group to achieve what we want to achieve, we are going to do it collectively. It is not just by the want and will of one or two or three or four guys. It is going to be the entire group.

That is my early [message] coming in here. Whether it rains or is sunny, it seems to be the core four’s fault every day. Let’s make sure everybody is engaged. Let’s make sure we have contributions from everybody. You need that to have ultimate success.

Brad Treliving, Toronto Maple Leafs GM
Photo: Dan Hamilton/USA Today Sports

Is that messaging directed to the other players within the room and the coaches, or is that directed toward the fans and media? There is so much focus on the core four, and if they are all going to be back, you probably aren’t going to eradicate that from a fan perspective. There is so much focus on the four guys. Is it about the 19 or 20 other guys in the room, or are you directing the message to the market?

Treliving: It is to the whole market. I understand there is frustration when a team that everybody wants so badly to achieve the result ultimately doesn’t. More often than not, there is nobody more disappointed than the players themselves. My job is to come here and help.

When I say this, it is a belief system for everybody. I know you are not going to come in here and change a narrative or a thought process just by making a statement, but to me, that is what we are going to keep driving home with our group both inside and out. This is about the Leafs. This is about the team. This is about our group.

We are so fortunate to have some top-end talent, but it is about 23-24 guys. My job is not to change a narrative just by words. It is on all of us to change whatever narratives are out there by actions. That is what we plan to do.

You probably have an idea from the outside looking in about what a team needs to do to win. Now, you are running a different team and have to put some of the thoughts into action with a salary cap and all of the difficulties. You knew what the Maple Leafs were, and now you have to put some of those thoughts into action.

Treliving: Absolutely. It is exciting to me. We all manage everyone else’s team better than us. We always talk, “I can fix your team. Nevermind mine. I have all the answers for you.”

To me, it is exciting. It comes back to the talent level that is here. The one thing I keep coming back to, and I know you get frustrated, but at the end of the day, I know John [Tavares] has been around the league a long time, but if you look at Auston, William, and Mitch, these are still young men. They are still coming into their own physically.

I was talking to Brendan [Shanahan] today. He was 28 or 29 when he won his first Cup. You can go throughout [the league]. Are there people who do it at an early age? Sure, but if you go back in history, whether it be our league or other leagues…

I am a firm believer that you have to build it properly. Once you have built it properly, you continue to tweak and continue to tweak, but you have to have multiple opportunities. You have to be back at the table year after year knocking on the door.

Here is the outsider talking about it. When I watched the playoffs — and I remember we were playing in Dallas last year in our first round, and we were on the off-day of the Leafs-Tampa series — I thought, collectively, Toronto played a better series last year against Tampa Bay and lost than they did this year when they won.

There is some randomness. There is luck. There is a puck that hits the post and goes in. The next year, it hits the post and goes out. We have a final with Florida — who has done a hell of a job — who were a Pittsburgh loss to Chicago away from not making the playoffs.

I bring all of these things up to say: If we keep knocking on the door and you make sure you are good enough to be there and give yourself a chance every year on a consistent basis — and you tweak the areas you need to tweak — eventually, it is not guaranteed, but you hope that when the luck is supposed to go your way, it goes your way. When the bounce is supposed to happen, you’re there. You are back there again.

That is what we have to keep in mind. I know there is a lot of frustration about being here before and not getting it done. We will continue to look at everything to try to make ourselves better, but you have to put yourself in a position each year to hopefully not only knock through the door but knock it down. That is what we intend to do.

You have inherited a coach in Sheldon Keefe. Does he have to pitch himself to you? How does this process work with the evaluation of a coach who is still here and you are the new guy on the block?

Treliving: We are all big boys here. I have talked to Sheldon about it. It is a unique situation. Maybe there is some discomfort, but that is what happens in the business here. We get lots of great things as a result of being involved in the league, and sometimes, there are things that are maybe a little bit uncomfortable.

We are going to go through the process here. I look at Sheldon, and I told him I am not coming in with any preconceived notions. It is out of the GM handbook: When a new GM comes in, he has to bring his own guy, right? It is sort of like saying, “I have to trade a guy for the sake of trading a guy.” If it is not making your team better…

It is easy to make a bad deal. You can do that any day of the week. I come in here and I look at Sheldon’s record. It is a pretty good record. In the last two regular seasons, what has he been? 115 and 111 points.

We haven’t had playoff success. Okay. Sheldon has four or five years in the league as a younger coach. To me, if Sheldon Keefe is on the market right now, he is at or near the top of the list of any of these vacancies.

We have to go through this process — and not just because Brad is coming in, Sheldon is here, and Brad didn’t hire Sheldon. I just don’t think it is always that you have to go bring in your own guy if the best guy for the job is sitting here. That is the process we are going to go through.

I am really excited to get to know him. We have to move through this quickly. We understand where we are at in the calendar. But we have to be pragmatic. We have to be thorough. We are going to go pedal down here and move through things as fast as we can.

I am coming in with no master plan other than that we want to get the very best coach for this team. I think we have a pretty damn good coach in place right now. Let’s just see where things go.

In terms of the limitations around your involvement in the draft, what are you allowed to do and what are you not allowed to do?

Treliving: Right now, that is probably a better question for Brendan. I know there have been some restrictions. We will try to clarify in the coming days what those are. Whatever they are, they are. I have full faith in the staff here in terms of their preparation for the draft.

I know everybody is sitting here going, ‘The draft is coming up, and the manager…” Wes Clark and his staff are prepared for the draft. We will see what is going on. If we have to bring out the fake afro and the rubber gloves, we will, but hopefully that can get straightened out in the coming days.

Surely, you don’t have to recuse yourself from draft conversations when there are meetings amongst your staff? 

Treliving: We haven’t had those yet. I have been doing the [media] circuit today. I am going to sit with Brendan, and I know he is hopefully going to have some clarification here once we get going tomorrow.

 

728x90x4

Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Sports

Washington Capitals 3-2 win ends Dallas Stars’ winning streak

Published

1 day ago

 on

October 18, 2024

By

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tom Wilson, Dylan Strome and Taylor Raddysh scored to help the Washington Capitals end the Dallas Stars’ season-opening winning streak at four with a 3-2 victory Thursday night.

Wilson’s goal was his third in three games, Strome his second of the season and Raddysh his first since joining the team in free agency last summer. Charlie Lindgren made 22 saves as the Capitals wrapped up this early homestand with back-to-back wins.

The Stars fell from the ranks of the league’s unbeaten teams despite a short-handed goal by Colin Blackwell and one at even strength from Jason Robertson. Rookie Oskar Bäck set up Blackwell for his first NHL point.

Casey DeSmith was screened on two of the three goals he allowed on 26 shots.

LIGHTNING 4, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov scored the winning goal with less than a minute to play just 1:27 after Brandon Hagel had tied it and Tampa Bay rallied to beat Vegas.

Kucherov’s second goal of the game with 55 seconds left was his sixth of the season.

Janis Moser had a goal and two assists for the Lightning, who remain unbeaten. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.

Brayden McNabb, Pavel Dorofeyev and Ivan Barbashev had goals for Vegas. Adin Hill turned aside 21 shots.

Jack Eichel, with two assists on Thursday, now has 10 points this season in five games and reached reached double-digit points faster than any other player in Vegas history. He is the 10th U.S.-born player to accomplish the feat.

After Barbashev put Vegas up 3-2 early in the second, Hagel pulled Tampa Bay even at 3 with 2:22 remaining in the third.

BLUE JACKETS 6, SABRES 4

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Kirill Marchenko and Mathieu Olivier each had a goal and an assist and Daniil Tarasov made 21 saves to help Columbus to a win over Buffalo.

Yegor Chinakhov, Adam Fantilli, Zachary Aston-Reese and Damon Severson also scored for Columbus, and Zach Werenski added two assists.

Ryan McLeod, Owen Power and JJ Peterka scored for Buffalo, and Jiri Kulich added his first NHL goal. Devon Lev stopped 19 shots for the Sabres (1-5-1), who have lost two straight road games and five of their first six overall.

CANUCKS 3, FLORIDA 2, OT

SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — J.T. Miller scored 2:09 into overtime and Vancouver got their first win of the season, beating Florida.

Teddy Blueger and Quinn Hughes had goals for Vancouver, with Kevin Lankinen stopping 26 shots.

Anton Lundell got his fourth goal in the last three games for Florida and Jesper Boqvist also scored for the Panthers, who got 30 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.

Florida remained without forwards Aleksander Barkov (lower body) and Matthew Tkachuk (illness).

DEVILS 3, SENATORS 1

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 shots and lost his shutout bid in the final minutes as New Jersey beat Ottawa.

Erik Haula, Nathan Bastian and Paul Cotter scored for the Devils, who won for the third time in four games and improved to 5-2-0.

The Senators, who were coming off an 8-7 overtime victory against Los Angeles on Monday, struggled to beat Markstrom.

Brady Tkachuk was the only scorer for the Senators, beating Markstrom, with a power-play goal with 65 seconds remaining in the third period.

Anton Forsberg, making his second straight start and hoping to rebound after getting pulled Monday, made 32 saves in the loss.

Haula opened the scoring early in the second period and Bastian added a short-handed goal, giving New Jersey a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes. Cotter scored midway through the third.

RANGERS 5, RED WING 2

DETROIT (AP) — Artemi Panarin had his eighth career hat trick and New York rolled to a victory over Detroit.

Panarin became the first Rangers player to have multiple points in the first four games of a season. He scored twice on the power play. Vincent Trocheck also had a power- play goal and assisted on all of Panarin’s goals.

Jonathan Quick made 29 saves in his season debut. Victor Mancini also scored.

The Rangers have won the last five meetings, including twice this week. New York had a 4-1 home victory over Detroit on Monday night.

Moritz Seider and J.T. Compher scored for Detroit. Red Wings goalie Cam Talbot was pulled in the second period after allowing five goals.

KINGS 4, CANADIENS 1

MONTREAL (AP) — David Rittich made 26 saves a night after being benched in the second period in Toronto, helping road-weary Los Angeles snap a three-game losing streak with a victory over Montreal.

Los Angeles improved to 2-1-2 on a season-opening, seven-game trip necessitated by arena renovations.

Rittich rebounded after allowing four goals on 14 shots in a 6-2 loss to the Maple Leafs. Alex Laferriere, Mikey Anderson, Andreas Englund and Adrian Kempe scored.

Justin Barron scored for Montreal (2-3-0). Sam Montembeault stopped 28 shots. He made a save on Kevin Fiala on a penalty shot.

BLUES 1, ISLANDERS 0, OT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Joel Hofer made 34 saves and assisted on Jake Neighbours’ goal at 2:04 of overtime in St. Louis victory over New York.

Hofer had his second career shutout in his and the team’s second overtime victory of the season.

Philip Broberg carried the puck into the New York zone and made a centering pass to Neighbours for the winner.

Islanders goalie Ilya Sorkin made 29 saves.

Blues defenseman Nick Leddy sat out because of a lower-body injury, the first game he has missed this season. Leddy played in all 82 games last season.

OILERS 4, PREDATORS 2

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Brett Kulak scored twice and Connor McDavid added his first goal of the season to lead Edmonton to a victory over reeling Nashville.

Jeff Skinner also scored and Calvin Pickard made 25 saves for the defending Western Conference champion Oilers, who have won consecutive games after beginning the season with a three-game skid.

Filip Forsberg and Jonathan Marchessault scored and Juuse Saros made 32 saves for Nashville (0-4).

Forsberg’s goal midway through the first period gave Nashville its first lead of the season. That lasted less than six minutes before Kulak tied it.

Kulak sealed it with an empty-netter in the final minute for the defenseman’s first career two-goal game.

BLACKHAWKS 4, SHARKS 2

CHICAGO (AP) — Tyler Bertuzzi and Nick Foligno each scored a power-play goal, and Chicago beat San Jose.

Taylor Hall and Jason Dickinson also scored for Chicago. Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen each had two assists.

Hall, who missed most of last season because of right knee surgery, put the Blackhawks in front 4:20 into the first period. It was Hall’s first goal since Nov. 5 and No. 267 for his career.

Tyler Toffoli and Fabian Zetterlund scored for San Jose, which trailed 3-0 early in the second. William Eklund and Mikael Granlund had two assists each.

The Sharks dropped to 0-2-2 under Ryan Warsofsky, who was promoted to head coach in June.

Petr Mrazek had 20 saves for Chicago, and Vitek Vanecek made 23 stops for San Jose.

KRAKEN 6, FLYERS 4

SEATTLE (AP) — Eeli Tolvanen, Jordan Eberle, and Shane Wright scored three goals in less than three minutes in the second period and Seattle held off a Philadelphia rally in a victory.

Tolvanen’s goal broke a 2-2 tie at the 14:57 mark. Eberle made it a two-goal game with a goal at 17:44. Eight seconds later, Wright scored to give Seattle a three-goal lead.

Jared McCann tied the game at 2-2 with the first of Seattle’s four second-period goals.

Cam York and Jamie Drysdale scored to pull Philadelphia within 5-4 in the third period, but Oliver Bjorkstrand responded with a goal to push Seattle’s lead to two with just over five minutes left in the game.

Scott Laughton scored twice for the Flyers in the first period, while Brandon Montour scored one in for the Kraken.

Chandler Stephenson had an assist in his 500th NHL game. Seattle’s Philipp Grubauer had 21 saves.

Source link

Continue Reading

Sports

Canada’s Dabrowski, New Zealand’s Routliffe out of Japan Women’s Open after walkover

Published

2 days ago

 on

October 17, 2024

By

 

OSAKA, Japan – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe are out of the Japan Women’s Open tennis tournament.

Spain’s Cristina Bucsa and Romania’s Monica Niculescu advanced to the final on Thursday by way of walkover.

The fourth seeds were supposed to play the top-seeded Dabrowski and Routliffe in the semifinals.

Bucsa and Niculescu will next face third-seeded Ena Shibahara of Japan and Laura Siegemund of Germany in the final.

Dabrowski and Routliffe defeated Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Eri Hozumi in the quarterfinals 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday to advance.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Sports

Mountain West commissioner says she’s heartbroken over turmoil surrounding San Jose State volleyball

Published

2 days ago

 on

October 17, 2024

By

 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said Thursday the forfeitures that volleyball teams are willing to take to avoid playing San Jose State is “not what we celebrate in college athletics” and that she is heartbroken over what has transpired this season surrounding the Spartans and their opponents.

Four teams have canceled games against San Jose State: Boise State, Southern Utah, Utah State and Wyoming, with none of the schools explicitly saying why they were forfeiting.

A group of Nevada players issued a statement saying they will not take the floor when the Wolf Pack are scheduled to host the Spartans on Oct. 26. They cited their “right to safety and fair competition,” though their school reaffirmed Thursday that the match is still planned and that state law bars forfeiture “for reasons related to gender identity or expression.”

All those schools, except Southern Utah, are in the Mountain West. New Mexico, also in the MWC, went ahead with its home match on Thursday night, which was won by the Spartans, 3-1, the team’s first victory since Sept. 24.

“It breaks my heart because they’re human beings, young people, student-athletes on both sides of this issue that are getting a lot of national negative attention,” Nevarez said in an interview with The Associated Press at Mountain West basketball media days. “It just doesn’t feel right to me.”

Republican governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming have made public statements in support of the cancellations, citing a need for fairness in women’s sports. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee in this year’s presidential race, this week referenced an unidentified volleyball match when he was asked during a Fox News town hall about transgender athletes in women’s sports.

“I saw the slam, it was a slam. I never saw a ball hit so hard, hit the girl in the head,” Trump replied before he was asked what can be done. “You just ban it. The president bans it. You just don’t let it happen.”

After Trump’s comment, San Diego State issued a statement that said “it has been incorrectly reported that an San Diego State University student-athlete was hit in the face with a volleyball during match play with San Jose State University. The ball bounced off the shoulder of the student-athlete, and the athlete was uninjured and did not miss a play.”

San Jose State has not made any direct comments about the politicians’ “fairness” references, and Nevarez did not go into details.

“I’m learning a lot about the issue,” Nevarez said. “I don’t know a lot of the language yet or the science or the understanding nationally of how this issue plays out. The external influences are so far on either side. We have an election year. It’s political, so, yeah, it feels like a no-win based on all the external pressure.”

The cancellations could mean some teams will not qualify for the conference tournament Nov. 27-30 in Las Vegas, where the top six schools are slated to compete for the league championship.

“The student-athlete (in question) meets the eligibility standard, so if a team does not play them, it’s a forfeit, meaning they take a loss,” Nevarez said.

Ahead of the Oct. 26 match in Reno. Nevada released a statement acknowledging that “a majority of the Wolf Pack women’s volleyball team” had decided to forfeit against San Jose State. The school said only the university can take that step but any player who decides not to play would face no punishment.

___

AP college sports:

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending