I am officially at a loss for words.
If you woke up this morning hoping that the firing of Marc Savard was just the first domino in a long-overdue housecleaning, Elliotte Friedman just threw a bucket of ice water on those hopes. According to his latest report, while Savard is gone, a similar fate “does not await Craig Berube or Brad Treliving.”
Let that sink in for a second.
We are currently watching the most expensive, most talented roster in Toronto history sit in last place in the Atlantic Division. We are watching a team that just got outscored 14-4 on a winless road trip. And the message from the front office? “Everything is fine. The plan is working.”
It is absolute madness.
The Scapegoat Strategy
Don’t get me wrong—Marc Savard had to go. You cannot run a power play featuring three 90-point players into a 13.3% ditch and expect to keep your keycard to the building. But firing an assistant coach after a 5-1 shellacking in Dallas is the hockey equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Savard didn’t build this roster. Savard didn’t trade for aging grit while the team’s speed evaporated. Savard isn’t the one standing at the podium telling us to “look at the process” while the team falls to 15th in the Eastern Conference. By declaring Berube and Treliving “safe,” MLSE is essentially telling us that being at the bottom of the standings in late December is acceptable. Where is the urgency? Where is the fire?
A Season Slipping Away
As a fan, the most infuriating part of the Friedman report isn’t just that they’re keeping the status quo—it’s the arrogance of it.
- Auston Matthews is on pace for a career-worst goal total.
- The Power Play has managed only two goals in the entire month of December.
- The team is 15-15-5. That is the definition of mediocrity.
If this were any other market—or frankly, any other era of Leafs hockey—heads would be rolling. Instead, we are being asked to “trust the process” of a GM whose “snot and grit” vision has resulted in a team that is slow, frustrated, and remarkably easy to play against.
Who is Accountable?
If Treliving is safe and Berube is safe, then who is actually responsible for this disaster? If the players have “quit” on the system—as it looked like they did in the third period against Dallas—and the leadership isn’t changing, what is the solution?
Waiting for the holiday break isn’t a strategy. Hoping the power play fixes itself by “committee” isn’t a plan. It’s a surrender.
If Keith Pelley and the board are content with a last-place team, they should just say it. Because right now, the silence from the top is deafening, and this report that no further changes are coming feels like a slap in the face to every fan who spent their hard-earned money on a jersey this season.