Toronto Maple Leafs GM, when asked about adding a top-six forward
Sportsnet: Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving was on The Kyper and Bourne Show and was asked about adding a top-six forward.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Bourne: “So Tree, one thing that you’ve referenced in some pressers and even are sort of alluding to here is, you know, you had wanted to add maybe another top six forward to play, perhaps alongside Matthews and Knies. What do you see, like playoffs, when playoffs start that right wing position? What is the path to getting that solved? To finding the answer you want alongside Austin Matthews.”
Treliving: “Well, I think step one right now is seeing, you know, I know everybody’s focused on that one spot, and, and, and, and I get it and, and certainly we are. But you don’t know where chemistry is going to come from, right?
NHL Rumors: Colorado Avalanche, and the Calgary Flames
You don’t, you don’t know, you don’t know where. You know who may have a match. You can, you can sit here and put it down on a piece of paper, but you know everybody, you know everybody will have an opinion on it. But till you get out in the ice, you see who fits with who. And some of it too is, is sort of the job description, right?
We all know what the prototypical top six forward looks like in terms of creating offense, and those types of things. But sometimes it needs a little bit of a different ingredient. Whether it’s defensive player, somebody that can get in on a fore check and create, you know, create loose pucks, create space, all those types of things.
So I think for us, you know, we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves and looking at the playoffs. We’re looking at, you know, and it sounds like a motherhood statement, but we’re just kind of looking at tomorrow, right? Like we got to go through, through camp here and see if there’s chemistry with different guys that we have right now.
And so that’s, that’s, that’s the process, right? We, you, practice, you talk, you know, Chief (Craig Berube) and I’ll talk every day. We talk with our staff in here, of different ideas. You’re looking internally, you look externally. You know, it’s easy to say, let’s go get a top six forward. Well, who is that? What is the cost?
NHL Rumors: The Toronto Maple Leafs and Anthony Stolarz Continue to Work on an Extension
So that’s, that’s, that’s really where we’re focused, Justin. Is, is okay, we’ve got, we’ve got our group in camp, we’re six days in or whatever we are. Is there, is there a fit? We’ve seen Matias Maccelli up there right now. They’ve had one preseason game under their belts. You know, Max, Max is just now factoring the group he was, he was working through an injury the first few days.
So, and maybe there’s some other, you know, maybe there’s something else internally. So we’re going to continue to look internally, while also continue to look outside and see is there, is there an availability for somebody that can come in and help us.”
Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? Rumor roundups and hot topics from around the league. We’re also posting some stuff on Instagram.
