Leafs GM knows his needs, but deal-making is the challenge

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There is much that Brad Treliving wants to accomplish in the second half of this Maple Leafs season, a lot of which may not be possible.

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He wants another centreman. He wants another Top 6 defenceman. He might want someone to run his power play from the point.

He wants an awful lot. But he’s realistic enough to know that everything he wants may not be attainable or available by the time the National Hockey League trade deadline comes around in early March.

The difficulty starts with his own roster. Who is he willing to trade? Who does another team covet in any deal? How can he get what he needs when he doesn’t own a first-round pick to dangle for the upcoming June draft — that one belonging to Chicago from the trade Kyle Dubas made for defenceman Jake McCabe.

So how does Treliving get the third-line centre he so covets? And how does he pick up another defenceman? And how does he do any of that when he doesn’t have a whole lot of his major league roster that is of interest to possible suitors.

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The best thing about this Maple Leafs season is where the club finds itself in the standings. That’s partly representative of the type of hockey Craig Berube’s team has played in his first season as head coach. But it’s also representative of the weakest Eastern Conference there has been in years. The possibilities remain intriguing.

The Leafs scored one goal Tuesday night at home against the Dallas Stars after being shut out Saturday night by the Vancouver Canucks. One goal in two home games. One goal and about six goal posts hit. Some of that is bad breaks, a lot of it is playing too much of the game on the periphery, where few goals are ever scored.

Treliving has already said he isn’t going to find a centre better than Auston Matthews or John Tavares in any trade he’s going to attempt to make, which is a logical approach for any general manager. And more than anything else, that’s why everyone knows he’s looking for a third-line centre.

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Not scoring in January is situational for this Leafs team. William Nylander, who reverses from breathtaking to invisible through portions of every season, is at the wrong end of the spectrum right now. He has one goal in his past 12 games.

Nylander’s slump coincides with Mitch Marner scoring one goal in nine games and Tavares scoring one goal in seven games.

You add those three slumps together as one and it makes some sense as to why the Leafs have lost three in a row. You add those three slumps together and it makes Treliving more steadfast that he needs a third-line centre of some mettle. He doesn’t necessarily need a goal-scorer, but instead an energy player, a playmaker of some kind, a difference-maker the way Seattle’s Yanni Gourde was a difference-maker when Tampa Bay was winning its most recent Stanley Cups or the way a Scott Laughton could contribute if brought in from Philadelphia.

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Philadelphia has already let it slip that it would want a first-round pick for Laughton, if it in fact decided to trade the long-time centre. Seattle probably wouldn’t get that much for Gourde, which puts Treliving in a challenging position.

What can he offer up for a centre that anyone is going to want? It’s not likely they could trade a Nick Robertson for the kind of centre the Leafs want? He hasn’t shown enough to be that type of trade prize.

They’re not going to trade Bobby McMann or Matthew Knies, players whose skill sets are built for playoff hockey. So what do they do?

The problem with dealing a 2026 first-round pick is a team in need of help won’t necessarily find that attractive. The Leafs look at their prospect pool and realize they don’t want to deal that pick away, unless absolutely necessary.

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Maybe the Leafs could look at trading prospects who aren’t at the NHL level, such as Easton Cowan or Fraser Minten or this year’s first-round pick, Oshawa defenceman Ben Danford — and there is a lengthy history against trading away young defencemen.

And all this happening in an Eastern Conference that is jammed with teams thinking they’ve got a shot at the playoffs. The longer that continues in the standings, the more clogged the trade market will become.

Maybe the best thing that can happen to the Leafs in the second half of the season would be a return to form from Morgan Rielly. They need the longtime leader to play at a higher level. They need him to play at Morgan Reilly level. If that can be accomplished, that’s like making a trade of significance.

The Leafs need help now and heading to the playoffs. Apparently, just about everybody in the herky-jerky NHL does. All of this puts additional pressure on trade talks and possible free agent pickups such as Tony DeAngelo or John Klingberg.

Treliving knows exactly what he wants and what he needs. Knowing it is one thing. Getting it done is another matter entirely.

ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve

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