Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving’s hiring process for their next head coach and who are the potential candidates to replace Sheldon Keefe.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “Sheldon Keefe out. Who are the leading candidates? Do you know if there is a preferred candidate that the Maple Leafs have their eyes on, Brad Treliving etc?
Friedman: “I, look, I think there’s gonna be a lot of, a lot of this is gonna go around Craig Berube and the way that Treliving thinks about hockey, you would think that Berube would kind of fit that.
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It is not Brad Treliving’s way to just hand the job to somebody. I can always be surprised, but I think, I expect that unless he feels that there’s somebody who’s his guy, who he’s not going to get unless he just hands them the job.”
Marek: “Right.”
Friedman: “I would expect he’s going to go through a process. And I think he’s going to talk to people like Berube. I wouldn’t be surprised if he interviews Todd McLellan. You know, someone reminded me this morning that you know, we saw a lot of Jay Woodcroft and they wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to talk to him, either.
I think I’m like a lot of people and thinking that if I was doing, if I was wagering, I’d have Berube at the top of the list. But it’s not like Treliving to rush into a person unless circumstances forced him to do so. And we should mention that that could happen here.
You know, like there’s a bunch of openings right now. The New Jersey one I think is pretty coveted by people. I think there’s people who that think that New Jersey is on the way up and Berube is a very serious contender for that job.
But I would prop this too, and I heard it’s possible McLellan might get a second interview there.
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So I mean, like, I think it probably comes down to a couple of things. He probably wants to do a few different interviews, but it also could come down to who he thinks he might lose someone too.