Renovating around the stars

Fixing Leafs without touching the core is a tricky proposition for Treliving

- DAVE FESCHUK

The Leafs have added some playoff experience to their blue line by signing Chris Tanev, left, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Jani Hakanpää.

No one ever said Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving had an easy job.

It was a little less than two months ago that Treliving sat at a table with MLSE CEO Keith Pelley and Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and listened to what sounded a lot like an acknowledgment that, 10 years into the Shanaplan, something substantial had to change in Leafland.

All of which left Treliving to answer a difficult question: How do you make a substantial change to a team when you can’t do much about changing its core?

Because let’s face it, as much as a majority of Leafs fans would be perfectly happy to see Mitch Marner playing elsewhere next season, it’s Marner — like every other member of the Core Four — who holds full control over his career until his contract expires. Still, barring a miracle deal to shake the foundation of Toronto’s faulty build, the Leafs would no doubt like to be able to spin the notion they’ve made real change (real improvements, even) as they wait for the clock to run out on the Core Four era.

The beauty of being a perennial playoff failure like the Leafs is this: You’ve got a transaction-filled offseason, plus a presumably successful regular season, to convince people that this time it’ll be different.