GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs Brad Treliving was recently on TSN’s OverDrive in an interview where he stated he is still looking to add more pieces to the team.
It’s been a busy summer for Leafs GM Brad Treliving, as he has added players like Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Jani Hakanpaa and Anthony Stolarz to the team at the start of free agency, and most recently was involved in the captaincy switchover from John Tavares to Auston Matthews. On a recent episode of TSN’s OverDrive, Treliving revealed that despite all this action, he is not done adding to the team yet.
The Leafs have a lot of young prospects pushing for roster spots, such as Easton Cowan and Fraser Minten, and they did lose Tyler Bertuzzi during free agency and have not actively signed any free agent replacement for his loss. Bertuzzi had a good year with the Leafs last year, playing in all but two games, and scoring 21 goals and 43 points during the season. He was also very physical and really got under the skin of other players. He will be hard to replace.
Nick Robertson is also another issue the team is dealing with, as he publicly requested a trade and the team has yet to move him, or even sign him for that matter. He is looking for a bigger role on a team and feels like he cannot get that in Toronto due to the “core four” up front. Robertson played in just 56 games last season, as he was a healthy scratch for several games and also dealing with injury. In those games, he managed to score 14 goals and add 13 assists. There’s no doubt that if he had a bigger role on a team he could easily crack the 25 goal mark, if not more one day. He has a ton of potential.
The team also signed Jani Hakanpaa to a 2-year contract but he hasn’t been medically cleared yet due to an injury so that deal is currently on hold. Hakanpaa missed 18 games due to injury with the Dallas Stars last season, and managed to score two goals and 12 points in his 64 games with the team.
Despite the fact that Brad Treliving mentioned he is looking to add to his roster, he didn’t give any specific names of who he’s targeting, and also did not mention whether he is attempting to do this by making trades or by signing free agents. Training camp is closing in however, so he will need to act quick, therefore Leafs fans can expect to see moves a lot sooner than they think.
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