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The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a state of limbo following their traditional early exit from the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday. The players and head coach Sheldon Keefe held their end-of-season media availabilities and it was essentially the same boiler plate responses, with most of the players saying the team was close and that they believed in the core group, but there has to be a realization that bringing back the band for another try is not going to happen.

The chatter following the loss from a frustrated fanbase was essentially to burn everything to the ground, fire Brendan Shanahan, fire Keefe, trade Mitch Marner to Timbuktu, but as is the case most of the time, those emotional utterances will fall on deaf ears. The decision-makers at MLSE will be final arbiters of change.

It is difficult to interpret what something like a scheduling delay means, but the Leafs on Monday afternoon pushed the managerial availability from Thursday to Friday and specified that MLSE Chairman Keith Pelley, Team President Brendan Shanahan, and GM Brad Treliving will speak will be there. The indication that Shanahan will be there could be a sign that he will survive any purge of the Leafs organization, but it could mean absolutely nothing. In Buffalo, the club announced that head coach Don Granato would talk to the media later in the week and 24 hours later he was fired.

At this juncture, it appears to be a virtual lock that Keefe will be dismissed. The delay could be to get his replacement locked up on a contract. The coaching landscape became a bit clearer on Tuesday, as the Ottawa Senators hired former Leaf Travis Green as their head coach, and the St. Louis Blues took the interim tag off of Drew Bannister.

Currently, San Jose, Seattle, Winnipeg, and New Jersey have openings, and Los Angeles and Columbus have interim bench bosses. Craig Berube is rumored to be in the mix for the Devils position but could be on the Leafs list of potential hires if/when Keefe is let go. A few insiders have mentioned the name of three-time Cup winner Joel Quenneville, but he would have to get clearance from the NHL to be hired.

The roster situation is not going to be immediately rectified, other than Treliving trying to get players like Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi, Joel Edmundson, or Ilya Lyubushkin signed before July 1. Domi and Bertuzzi both indicated in their exit interviews that they wanted to re-sign with the Leafs, so we will see over the coming days whether the feeling is mutual.

Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek on the 32 Thoughts podcast indicated that there is some interest from Toronto to extend defenseman Jake McCabe, who is entering the final year of his contract, but any questions regarding long-term extensions and the future of the club have to start with the core group for next season, and the possibility of having four forwards making $10.9 million, $11 million, $11.5 million and $13.25 million.

All the chatter regarding trying to get John Tavares and Mitch Marner to waive their no-movement clauses is wasted breath. The only way they will do that entering the final year of their deals is if they are open to going someplace else. Tavares turns 34 in September, and while not an $11 million player, he is still effective and the club’s captain. If the Leafs pulled some of the tactics that some have suggested to get a well-liked and respected player, their name would be mud in NHL circles.

As for Marner, the 27-year-old may be ready to leave his hometown, despite all he said on Monday, but it is just as possible that he could say he wants to stay and that puts Treliving in the impossible situation of bringing back the group that shown up to this point that they cannot win when it counts. If he says he is open to a deal, there may be a lot of interest, but the Leafs will likely have only a select number of teams to negotiate a deal with and that will lower the return they will get in a trade.


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