Brad Treliving Reveals Maple Leafs Next Move If Mitch Marner Walks in Free Agency

As Toronto heads into the summer with a lot of questions regarding their future, one thing we know for certain is that Mitch Marner is more than likely headed out, and life without him will be different, but not the end of the world by any means.

Which is why Brad Treliving is preparing for everything, and if he can't keep his star forward in town, he knows that he needs to do whatever he can to improve the team regardless:

Treliving is basically saying; look we aren't giving up hope completely, but we need to figure out our direction and who best fits that this summer.

Whether that involves heading to the free agency pool and acquiring someone like a Sam Bennett or Brad Marchand to toughen them up, or try and secure Nikolaj Ehlers as a potential Marner replacement is unknown, but Treliving has options.

Though, he seems that his options are pretty bare compared to at least 2026:

In layman's terms; you can't just have your pick of the litter. Which is unfortunate for Toronto but there is still one burning question.

There is a lot offense the team is going to be missing given that Marner is most likely gone. That's a potential 90-100+ points every season, and you're down arguably your best playmaker.

But Toronto is not the offensive dynamo they were with Sheldon Keefe. Craig Berube employs a more defensive structure, and while Marner's great on defense; it's more about a collective effort for Berube than one player.

That means role players become vital, and wanting to build his team with defensively savvy, two-way players might lead them to move away from the superstar scorers and try to go a different direction; as they started to this season.

Plus, you're talking about adding small role players to fill minor holes; the offense will be just fine (especially if Matthew Knies and John Tavares re-sign) but even then, you don't need 4/5 players hitting 90-100 points.

Florida's highest point total was Sam Reinhart's 81; outside of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in Edmonton? Evan Bouchard with 67

Both teams are headed back to the Finals once again, and Toronto is once again a failure.

A culture change might just be necessary and the Maple Leafs might want to wait before they jump the gun and try to replace Marner's point production; with Berube they might not need it.

Plus, they'll need all the money in the world to offer McDavid a deal next year, if he decides to test the market himself.