Hope and fan engagement have spiked like gas prices.
Which means a flood of questions for our off-season Maple Leafs mailbag.
How will the team approach the No. 1 draft pick? What will happen with Morgan Rielly and Craig Berube? What’s up with those Matthew Knies trade rumours? And surely the lottery is rigged, right?!
What are the chances the Leafs trade down to acquire more assets and choose a defenceman? —@Andrew84868
This was the most common question submitted, Andrew. And for good reason.
General manager John Chayka and the Maple Leafs both have a history of trading down to multiply assets, and this year’s presumed top pick, Gavin McKenna, is not an absolute no-brainer on the level of Matthew Schaefer (2025), Macklin Celebrini (2024) and Connor Bedard (2023).
Several amateur scouts point to fellow winger Ivar Stenberg as the better, safer two-way force. Further, the Leafs’ system is screaming for defencemen first, centres second and wingers third. Blue-chip defencemen Chase Reid, Keaton Verhoeff and Carson Carels should all go top eight.
There is a legitimate conversation to be had about getting cute here. Ultimately, we don’t see it happening.
While Chayka is both an outside-the-box hire and thinker, trading No. 1 — or selecting anyone other than the Canadian kid with the highest upside and greatest hype — is simply too bold and risky a move to pull off so early in his tenure.
Last time a team traded away the first-overall pick, in 2003, the Penguins jumped up to snatch Marc-Andre Fleury. The Panthers went for volume, getting Nathan Horton (third overall), Stefan Meyer (55th overall) and prospect Mikael Samuelsson.
Meyer played four games and scored zero points for the Panthers. Samuelsson scored three goals in 37 games before bolting back to Europe. And while Horton racked up five 20-goal seasons in Florida, Fleury helped backstop Pittsburgh to three Stanley Cups and is one of the most beloved Penguins of all time.
Don’t look a gift horse in the galaxy brain. And don’t go against the wishes of Leafs Nation in your seventh week in office.
How do the Leafs restructure the blue line if all the guys are locked up? Should they ask Morgan Rielly to waive, or because of our lack of puck movers do we have to keep him? —@Tenkay23
Toronto’s top seven D-men are all under contract for 2026-27, and of that group only Simon Benoit and Philippe Myers lack trade protection. The Leafs must get younger and more mobile on the back end. So, I asked Chayka your first question.
“Flexibility is a real asset, and obviously we don’t have that in that position,” the GM replied. “We’re gonna have to make some decisions and see how we can create some flexibility. But I’m aware that they’re under contract. Again, it’s a priority for us to try to find a way to improve it.”
Veterans Jake McCabe, Brandon Carlo and Oliver Ekman-Larsson all have value on the market. Plenty of competitors are desperate for minute-munchers on the back end. The Sharks, for example, have Dmitry Orlov and no other NHL defencemen signed for next season.
Rielly is the biggie, though.
The man is deeply loyal and still one the Leafs’ best offensive threats from the back. Yet a change of scenery feels due. I got sent a note: “Rielly for Darnell Nurse: Who says no?” The Leafs say no. They need puck movers. Only with more coming in do they move Rielly, who will call his own shot here.
Mats Sundin famously bristled when then-GM Brian Burke asked him to waive his no-trade in his final Leafs season. Sundin was asked point blank if he’d ask a Leafs player to do the same.
“It’s a good question,” Sundin replied. “I don’t know if I would put a player in a position that I got put in.”
With a new GM in place, will the Leafs be using a scalpel, chainsaw or machete to the roster? —@MrEd315
The top-down mandate is to build around Matthews and William Nylander. Plus, it’s pretty difficult to rev up the chainsaw when six of your best players have full no-trade protection, five others have partial no-trade protection, and your prospect and draft pick capital pales in comparison to most of the league.
Is there a worry that Matthews’ relationship with Shane Doan can negatively impact his relationship with Chayka? —@IZunaDrop66
Interesting thought, but I don’t believe so.
Doan — who has already had employment conversations with the Vancouver Canucks — will be moving on. He was handpicked by Brad Treliving, and Chayka was running the Coyotes when the franchise pushed Doan out.
Certainly, the respected Doan has strong connections to several Leafs, including Matthews, Matthew Knies and (more low-key) Nick Robertson.
That said, I’d like to believe that Matthews’ decision on his future will be based purely on whether he thinks he can win a Cup in Toronto. The captain’s family has known Chayka since he was teenage phenom in Arizona. And Chayka is tight with Tie and Max Domi, one of Matthews’s closest friends on the team.
Toronto was top 12 in xG% and CF% for four straight years. Then Berube made a bottom-10 team in both last year, saved in 2024-25 by being second in sv%, and this year fell to 29th in xG% and 32nd in CF%. How can management justify bringing him back with league-worst numbers and a No. 1 pick incoming? —@Leafs_Storm
Chayka was essentially asked this exact question — and it’s a valid one — last Monday off-camera.
“Look, I understand data. I started a data company, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Chayka responded. “Data is one part of the puzzle. And I think you need to look at what a coach is given. You need to look at what he’s good with. And you got to take it into part of the entire holistic review of things. But I would definitely ask that question of Craig and get his input as well.”
Reading between the lines: Berube was also given a roster short on puck-moving defencemen and defensively responsible forwards. It’s not the coach’s fault that a one-time Selke finalist walked out the door last summer.
I understand Chayka and Sundin waiting to decide Berube’s fate until after meeting with him. They just got here; Berube has insight on every player to share. Gather information.
If Toronto does retain Berube after the debacle of 2025-26, we sure hope that it won’t be based on the club being committed to Berube for two more seasons. Management must do what’s best for the hockey. And there’s a pretty good coach in Bruce Cassidy just sitting out there.
Why are people still talking about Knies being traded? Does the kid want out? Literally the only reason I’d trade him. So, what gives? —@Beer_Gurouche
Did you catch Knies chugging a beer at the Raptors game? Or celebrating RJ Barrett’s OT miracle shot? Or finding out about Toronto’s draft lottery win while attending a Marlies playoff match alongside Nylander?
Doesn’t seem like a kid who wants out to me.
What gives is that Knies is the rare Leaf without any trade protection and Treliving was under pressure to recoup as many assets as possible at the trade deadline. The GM tried flipping his stud power forward into three pieces.
Chayka has had his eye on Knies since he played for the Junior Coyotes. He doesn’t sound eager to move him.
“Knies is a really unique player. I think his blend of size and skating and skill is really, really hard to find,” Chayka told me. “I’m not aware of what happened at the deadline or what previous regimes thought. I think Mats and I are going to go through and evaluate the roster and make some decisions.
“Ultimately, if you’re making a decision, you’re trying to get better. I think you’d be really hard-pressed to do better than Matthew Knies.”
With upstarts like Anaheim, Buffalo and now San Jose making noise with young and fast teams, do you think Dubas was right all along in terms of build philosophy but wrong on timing? —@sunofthebay
There will be books written about this topic.
Kyle Dubas was right to build around young, dynamic talent, no doubt. He did not negotiate early enough or hard enough when Matthews, Nylander and Mitch Marner were wrapping their entry-level deals. Then he suffered an unforeseen blow of bad luck when the virus sucked fans out of arenas, and the salary cap flattened.
That’s simply crummy timing. The pandemic arguably harmed the Leafs’ competitive window more than any other team.
That said, Dubas kept doubling and tripling down on four expensive forwards and one expensive offensive defenceman. He didn’t recognize the value of homegrown depth players such as Zach Hyman and Connor Brown. He never pivoted and addressed the roster’s weakness on the blue line. There was no Kawhi-DeRozan moment.
I’ve long wondered about Alex Pietrangelo’s pending free agency with St. Louis in 2019-20. That should’ve been the guy Dubas went after, hard. Instead, he ended up in Vegas and won his second title there.
Pietrangelo had everything Toronto needed: big, gritty, skilled, right-shot defenceman with a Cup ring.
Who knows? Maybe Pietrangelo would’ve never signed in Toronto anyway. Ah, well.
Right after congress inspects Connor McDavid’s skates for secret hidden jet packs, performs a deadliness analysis of Cutter Gauthier’s stick, and conducts a deep dive into how Henrik Lundqvist became so damn handsome.