TORONTO — With a summer of tumult behind them, a clean slate sitting before them, the Toronto Maple Leafs gathered at the club’s training facility Wednesday to usher in the start of a long-awaited training camp. And on the first day of the new campaign, the focus seemed as much on what wasn’t in the room as what was.
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Maple Leafs opened camp without Mitch Marner, the former franchise stalwart gearing up for the new season 3,600 kilometres away, in a Vegas Golden Knights sweater. Sitting in the theatre room of the Ford Performance Centre in Etobicoke, Ont., on Wednesday, clad in a dark grey Maple Leafs hoodie and a white team ballcap — flanked by his alternate captains — Auston Matthews reflected on his discussions with Marner before his longtime linemate left town.
“Those are always tough conversations to have, obviously,” Matthews said. “You’re teammates but you’re also friends — he’ll be a friend of all of ours for life. So those are always tough conversations. But at the end of the day, you know, he made his decision.
“We wish him nothing but the best moving forward. We’re moving on. Bringing in some new faces, some new guys that we’re super excited about. We can’t really dwell on the past.”
Morgan Rielly, the longest-tenured Maple Leaf, and the one who’s witnessed the most turnover throughout his 12 years in Toronto, echoed the sentiment.
“It’s challenging,” the defender said. “I mean, you get to know someone, become friends with them. But people make choices. As a player, and as teammates up here, you have to just carry on. We have a new challenge now this year and in this training camp. I mean, guys leave all the time. Mitch was a polarizing guy because of how talented he was. But for us, it’s onward. We’re looking forward to hitting the ice tomorrow, and that’s where our focus is.”
“We’ve turned the page,” added general manager Brad Treliving, speaking alongside head coach Craig Berube earlier in the day. “We’re moving forward. We wish Mitch all the best, but our focus is on our team. Not what was.”
Of course, navigating life after Marner will be more than simply a symbolic embrace of a new chapter.
There’s the matter of replacing the 100-point production the star winger provided as he led the club in scoring last season, and of replacing the Selke nominee’s presence on the penalty kill, too. And then there’s the question of who slots into No. 16’s former spot on the top line beside Matthews — a question made more pressing by the need for a bounce-back campaign from the captain this season.
“You’re not just replacing him,” Treliving said of his former winger. “To me, it’s not just replacing 100 points. Someone’s going into that spot, and they’re going to have production — to me it was about rounding out the roster, and I feel good about it. But the reality is: we’ll see. We’re going to watch now, and see where everybody fits.
“I like the depth of our centre ice, not just the four guys in the middle — we’ve got lots of options for guys that can play in the middle. I like the depth throughout our lineup, in the bottom of our lineup — I think we’ve increased the depth there. Obviously we’ve lost a player that touched a lot of parts of the game, but the guys that we brought in can kill penalties, they can handle some different jobs. We’ll see how everything fits as we go forward here.”
Berube confirmed that Max Domi and newcomer Matias Maccelli will get shots on the top line alongside Matthews and Matthew Knies. Maccelli appears set to get a look first, as Treliving announced Domi is day-to-day with a lower-body injury suffered in the lead-up to camp opening. The winger isn’t expected to be sidelined for long.
“Obviously with Matthews and Knies, they formed some good chemistry last year, but with a guy like Mitch out of the lineup, you’re looking for somebody that can make some plays,” Berube said of his top line. “Guys that can pass the puck, little give-and-goes with Matthews and Knies.
“Maccelli’s a good playmaker, we know that. And obviously Max is one of those guys too. We’ll see how it looks and how it goes — it might not be those guys if it doesn’t work. We’ve got to figure that out.”
While the plan for the moment is to fill the top spot internally, Treliving said Wednesday that he’s still on the hunt for a new top-six forward.
“It’s not been from a lack of trying — there’s just not a lot of them out there that everybody’s willing to hand over to you,” the GM said. “Today’s no different than yesterday or the day before — you’re always looking to try to improve your team. League-wide, it was a slower summer. … There wasn’t a ton of movement. In most cases, teams kept their players.
“It’s a cliche, but wherever we can try to improve our team, we’re going to try to improve our team. We would like to add in that location, but again, it’s trying to find that player that is available and at [the right]cost.”
Regardless of whether the Maple Leafs land an impact forward or not, or whether Maccelli finds his footing on the top line, the reality is the Maple Leafs will have to fill the offensive void left by Marner’s departure by committee. To that end, the majority of the team has been in Toronto skating and training for weeks, said Matthews, working to integrate the new faces into the group.
That said, there’s an understanding, too, that the remaining members of this Leafs core will have to raise their level if Toronto is to take a step this season. While much of the focus in that regard will fall on Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares, Treliving pointed on Wednesday to Rielly as a key part of that equation, too.
“Morgan and I had a real good chat at the end of the year, a real honest chat, about where his year was at, what I think he’s capable of. And I think it’s something that he took to heart,” the GM said. “I don’t know if there were many days that he wasn’t in this facility [this summer], from about a week after the end of the season. I’m real proud of the summer he’s put in.
“He’s a big piece for us. Getting Morgan Rielly back to the level that we know he’s capable of will have an impact on our team.”
For his own part, Rielly said he arrives at the new season aware of the gravity of the moment, and as prepared as he could be.
“I did a lot of reflecting over the course of the last year, and during the off-season, and had some healthy but challenging conversations with a number of people — most importantly myself,” he said Wednesday. “I believe I did everything I could to be prepared for a great season. … My goal was to leave no stone unturned in trying to bounce back and have a great year. What that looks like — I believe it’s always going to be team-first, and if we’re able to execute as a team and play within structure, everyone’s going to look great and we’re going to get the results that we’re looking for.
“But for me, it’s about being in shape, skating, playing to [my]strengths, being dangerous, shooting the puck, and taking it from there.”
His head coach heaped even more praise on the veteran blue-liner’s off-season work, noting Rielly took a step late last season and into the post-season, and will be expected to pick up where he left off. But Berube appears focused more on the collective than any one of the club’s individuals, a shift that’s marked a noted difference from previous Maple Leafs regimes. And one spurred on even more by the departure of No. 16.
“We lost a player, a real good player here, but we added three new players to our lineup, and I’m excited about that,” Berube said Wednesday. “I know Tre talked about DNA last year, and I thought he did a hell of a job changing that over the summer, adding these players. So I’m excited to see where they fit in and how they look.
“It’s a change, we all know that. Losing Mitch and bringing in three new players, it’s a change, for sure. What excites me is I don’t have to hear ‘Core Four’ anymore.”
