OverDrive - Johnson on the Maple Leafs' team direction, rebuild potential and Treliving's roster outlook

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

TSN Hockey Analyst Mike Johnson joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the NHL, the Maple Leafs' team direction, if a rebuild is possible for the roster, sports science on the team, Brad Treliving's vision in Toronto and more.

With corporate traveler, you get a dedicated travel expert and 24-7 support. So business travel feels effortless. Big meetings land. Business grows. With corporate traveler, the booking is just the start. Search corporate traveler today. Mike Johnson, our TSN hockey analyst joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline. Sorry to make you wait there, Johnny, but I wanted to give Jonas the floor there.

What is your understanding of the Leafs, you know, this year, the way they operate compared to past years? I was fascinated to listen. No problem, boys. Happy to listen along. I have no idea. I have no idea about their sports science department and who runs and who's got the authority. I don't know if there's an idea that's how true living in Brubay wanted to eliminate some of the science behind the decision making and wanted to go by their gut or more traditional measures. I have no idea.

I think the only thing I would say in Jonas Nudos, he talked about at Hayes, I'm aware that even the Maple Leafs for all their values, you, they are still a business. If you own the business, you don't want to waste money. You don't want to spend millions and millions of dollars. You don't have to. But if you're looking at the way that the Toronto Maple Leafs can have a competitive advantage in their industry, it is not with the money they can spend on players. That's not a competitive advantage for them.

It's the money they can spend on other things. And so whether it's sports science, whether it's the chefs that they have, whether it's the training facility, whether it's the plane, whether it's the hotel, whether it's the Assues, whether it's whatever, that to me should be a continual area of evaluation and refinement where the Toronto is able to say, okay, we're not looking at waste money. So I own the team. I'm not looking at a waste money. But how can we give our team everything and also maybe something other teams don't have

as good as? And it might be incremental 1%. Might be half a percent. It might not matter this year. It might matter next year. But if you believe it matters, then that's things that they should spend money on. And that doesn't mean bloated. Nudel talks about the traveling circus, like people everywhere, a trillion.

But the people that matter that can make a difference in your competitive success on the ice, they should not be outbid or out-resourced for anything. Right. Well, and now when you consider where they are in this cycle of things, you know, the belief was, okay, you use all these resources to get you to the top. You know, they're closer to the bottom right now, but the resources are still very valuable and need to be utilized here for them to get back into a position to succeed.

And it's pro scouting, it's amateur scouting. Like, I don't know where things stand on that. Not that I would expect, you know, every year there's some state of the union from the leaves. Like, this is who we've hired, this is what we have. This is where people are. But as you know, Johnny, you're following. I mean, the games, the individual games, are losing. meaning because they're 10 points out and it's ugly.

You know, like we'll break down the games. We're talking about players, of course. But there is a, it is, the scope is starting to expand. It's becoming more of a big picture conversation. What do they do? How do they get out of this? And they've got to be crafty, right? They got to be, they got to be creative, crafty, and they got to win,

they got to find some guys like diamonds in the rough. They're long overdue for that. I don't know how they're going to do it, but, you know, that's got to be the expectation, doesn't it? Johnny, they've got to find some young guys that can step in and play over the next couple of years that maybe other teams don't see the value in. I feel like that's a lot of pro scouting,

amateur scouting, player development. Whether it's college free agents, whether it's European free agents, whether it's other guys in organizations that are you believe you can extract more value from that you see something that they don't. Yeah, 100%. The focus of this organization today,

of course it's on the games and tomorrow night and three and four and all the rest. But it's really for them to get to where they're trying to go, which for the last seven years, to their credit, it has been about trying to win that year. And they've been close enough to warrant that conversation.

We can debate how close they have been, but it's been the focus and it should have been the focus, not so much anymore. Now it's about, okay, what do we do with this team? How do we get it moving forward and Hayes to your point? How do we find some ways to win some transactions? Like that's what they got to do and then be, you know, good with what they decide to do and the assets they acquire and how they manipulate it all around. Yeah, that's a jigsaw puzzle.

That is extraordinarily complex. But that's what the people who have that job, Brad Tree Living in his group, all of them, that's their job right now. And their job is as important as it has ever been to make beliefs not be in the situation next year. And a lot of talk, you know, lately about rebuild prong saying take it down. the studs and all the rest of it. And, you know, the idea sort of taking it down to the studs would be to what? Get a franchise player to get an elite level town. Like, taking to the studs is not going to get them a player better than William Elander or a player better than Austin Matthews. You would take it down to the studs and hope you get three years of Austin Matthews. Like,

they already have the thing that you get it to the studs for, which is like the super high-end players. You can dump Matthew Nyes in there as a really good player. It's all the other stuff that they have sort of, you know, they've missed on some, they've aged on some, they've injured on some, and it's all sort of chipped away of what they were supposed to be this year, and they have to find a way to get that all back to where they think can surround those core pieces and be a better team next year. So, Johnny, where do you start? I mean, you know, do you, if you're Keith Pelly, do you decide, okay, this is the group

that I want to make these decisions moving forward? Like, do you think that first and foremost, you go, Tree's my guy? I don't know if you have to come out and say it, but you just go, we need to do this. Tree, you're the guy who's going to execute it. Chief, you're the guy who's going to coach it. Like, do you think it starts there or where do you think they start and, you know, move on from there? If I'm Keith Pelly, I sit down and have a meeting with Brad Trude Living. What's your vision of the future of the team?

And I hear it. And then if I believe in it, okay, how do you make that happen? and now I hear it and I believe in it, but he's my guy. I don't know if I need to say he's my guy. I've already said he's my guy. But if he's not or he doesn't have the vision that I think we should go on, and I'm the ultimate boss, then I would change that guy.

And then whoever is Brad Tree Living or whoever that next guy might be, again, if I'm running the team, now I take that vision and where we're headed. And that vision includes like how we play and what our style is, and X's and O's, and I go to Craig Barube and I talk to him, okay, this is how we play. play, how do you think we should play? If I agree, Craig Brubay is still the coach. If I disagree,

or the new GM or the old GM, if he's still there, disagrees, then it's a different coach. Like, I think that the world, as the least have known it for the last nine years, which has been a great run. I think I read somewhere in the last nine years, they have the third most wins in the regular season. They've been a model franchise, incredibly successful without playoff success, okay? That's well established. They're not that team right now. They want to get back to that team but they're not that team right now. So I have that evaluation noodles. GM, okay, yes, no.

Coach, again, yes, no. And then have a vision where we're going, what we look like, how we get there. And I also want to say, like, how we play when we get there. Like, I don't, you know, what style are we going to have with this new vision that we're going to go forward with and what's that going to look like? And I think that's the conversation you start with. And then you do that like now because you have to make. decisions in the next week and the next five weeks to make sure that you start down that road

all on the same page. So, Mike, I think you've identified one of the tricky challenges with the way that they're set up. The person asking those questions is Keith Pelley. Is Keith Pelley qualified to ask those questions and know what the right answers should be? Like, I was thinking as you were talking, like one of the questions I think they have for the next six months, how do we get a number one defenseman or something close to it. But like is Keith Pelley asking those questions? Like what is you know what I mean? Like it just doesn't feel like

it's set up to be successful with him there and no president in between. I can't speak to Keith Pally's specific hockey knowledge. The point is he has the job. That is his job. Or to have confidants,

whether he wants to call Brian Hayes or I'll call noodles or call you or whoever. People that would help, you know, guide his opinion if he's not sure what his opinion should be or could be. But that's his job. And again, if you don't think that works, then you have to go above Keith Pelley, which is what? Edward Rogers?

And like, say, or whatever runs the MLSC and say, is he the right guy? But whoever that is, how you want to go, at some point you have to trust the people, right? So, you know, you got to trust Keith Pelley, the ultimate decision maker is capable of making these ultimate decisions. And then you have to trust the tree living or somebody is, then Craig Brubay or somebody is, and the scout or somebody is, and down you go. That's what an organization is. It's a fair question.

Keith Pell is relatively new. He's been around hockey forever, but he's also been around media and golf and a whole bunch of things. But I have to believe, if you're the decision maker, you've got to be able to make the decisions. Yeah, that's ultimately the job. I mean, and that's it. When you get rid of the president, he's the one.

Well, it's like, think about that. They replaced Brendan Shanahan, who had a really successful run running this team. Obviously, there was stuff that they didn't do right that we've talked about ad nauseum, but he had a long history here, long history as a player, and now he's gone. It's kind of the same thing. He's not been replaced. And in his place is a person who runs MLSC and has a million other things.

The business executive. It doesn't, like, imagine if Brendan Shanahan was running M or was running like CTV or, you know what I mean? You'd be like, wait, what? Yeah. But that's the equivalent. that's the reality. He's got to figure that out. And listen,

to be fair, I think when Shannie, when Shannie took over, was his title not like he was president of all things? Yeah. And, like, in charge of marketing and sales and business development. And like,

and like I have the ultimate respect for Ben and Shannon. He's a bright guy. He's not a Harvard NBA, I don't think, right? So people in sports worlds get sort of involved in doing things that they are maybe not classically trained to do, whether it's Shanny running a business or whether it's

Keith Pelly having, you know, impact on hockey decisions. I don't think that's probably as abnormal in big sporting franchises. Does Bob Kraft know a lot about player personnel? Good point. Or, you know, but I bet he's in on it. Jerry Jones is in on it. You know, like I think we see this kind of stuff in sports, not that unusual. Well, keep in mind one last thing here, too, is with, regardless of what you feel

Brandon Shanahan's role was or what he was doing, he's another bright hockey mind in the room. that you're lesser then. You're lesser. Like Brad Tree Living can't go to him and say, I'm thinking of doing this. Like there's one less hockey brain. Exactly. One less resource.

I like having resources in the room that challenge each other. You don't want a bunch of yes men. So that's Brendan Shanahan. You take away a massive hockey brain out of the equation. You know, it weakens the system regardless. You know, how you view it. You just took out another resource for Brad Tree Living. Yeah.

And what matters now is that the system, that entire organization is more important than ever in the last four, five, six years. That's the iron. Because of where the team is on the ice. Yeah. When the team was really good, it was about just the GM and making decisions and trying to find a way to, those fine tune things. But when it's sort of bigger, a bigger picture is required to make these decisions and make a soon, then then you want to have faith in your organization

that they're up to the challenge. Absolutely. All right, Johnny, we'll leave it there. Have yourself a great weekend. We'll do it early next week. All right, fellas. Jonas, try not to stir it up so much anymore, right? Listen. I can't. This is like Watergate, man. Jonas is, I think he's going to win an award for those.

I was all over it. Like a tree called right in to the fandoms is brilliant. Oh, yeah. Watergate, man. Jonas Siegel. Thanks, Mike. I love it. All right, Johnny. Talk soon, buddy. Mike Johnson, joining us here on the Maple Toyota hotline.

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