The Toronto Maple Leafs might not have outright shocked the hockey world when they fired GM Brad Treliving on Monday night, just ahead of the Leafs’ vengeful matchup with Radko Gudas and the Anaheim Ducks. Many saw the dismissal coming at some point in the near future. But the timing was, at the very least, mildly surprising and prompts some reflection on the proper time to move on from a general manager.

For the Leafs, it seemed to be about sending a message. This Leafs season was meant to be at least semi-competitive, but has resulted in a disaster. Not just a disaster, but an embarrassment. There was definitely some symbolism at play in firing Treliving ahead of the Anaheim game, in which the Leafs desperately tried to restore their reputations after watching their captain get injured with no response a couple of weeks ago. It all felt a little too late for the 2025-26 Leafs, and for Treliving, it was literally too late.

In Toronto, the coach seems to have lost faith in the players, the players seem to have lost faith in the coach, and the fans seem to have lost faith in both. Upper management felt the need to do something, and soon, to send a message of unacceptability. And they chose Treliving, the person with overarching responsibility for the group, as the one to fall first.

Of course, there are also some practicalities at play here. By canning Treliving now and beginning the search for a replacement well before the offseason, whoever takes over has plenty of time to prepare for things like the Entry Draft and the Free Agent Frenzy. It also gives the new GM plenty of time to consider some of the big moves that might come this summer for the Leafs, including but not limited to a potential trade of Auston Matthews. Such things take a lot of consideration, and if Treliving is no longer the man with the plan, it makes sense to get someone else in there as soon as possible to start doing that consideration.

What does this all have to do with the Vancouver Canucks?

But, if it happens, when is the right time?

Traditionally speaking, the Canucks have tended to make such changes in the offseason. Of the 12 full-time GMs they’ve had in franchise history, only three have been removed mid-season, with those being Hal Laycoe in 1974, Pat Quinn in 1997, and Jim Benning in 2021. The rest have been fired (or quit) right at the end of a season, or in the summer that followed.

The Canucks don’t have that same embarrassment factor as the Leafs. Which is not to say that the Canucks’ performance this year hasn’t been embarrassing, but just that the expectations were generally lower. Some expected a bounce-back from the Canucks this year, but they had already missed the playoffs last year and entered this campaign with the whole Quinn Hughes debacle hanging over their heads. This season was less of a rug pull for Vancouver fans than for Toronto fans, which lessens the need for someone to immediately and publicly pay the price, as Treliving just did.

The next most important consideration, when it comes to timing, is probably the Entry Draft. The lottery goes down on May 5, and the draft itself follows on June 26. That is still almost three months away, and there are basically two schools of thought on that.

On the one hand, some might see value in keeping a managerial team in place through the draft, and then making changes thereafter. The thought goes that said managerial team has spent the entire year preparing for the draft anyway, whereas incoming management might be left scrambling. On that front, the Allvin-Jim Rutherford regime has a decent record on amateur scouting, and there may be an impetus to give them one last chance at the podium.

On the other hand, these are important decisions being made, especially when it comes to the Canucks. The 2026 Entry Draft may be, no exaggeration, the most important draft in franchise history. That becomes more true the better the Canucks perform in the draft lottery. If the team has already decided that Allvin is not the one to lead them forward – as the Leafs had with Treliving – then do they really want him at the wheel for such a crucial moment?

Whoever the Canucks pick this year is going to become the centrepiece of the rebuild. It makes sense for the person in charge of the rebuild to make the decision about who that player will be, rather than inheriting it.

Most would agree that, if Allvin and/or Rutherford are to be replaced, that should probably happen before trades and free agency open back up. The regime’s record on those fronts is spotty enough, especially recently, to warrant someone else handling those sorts of transactions. Especially if those transactions include items as big as, potentially, Elias Pettersson.

The real choice is before or after the draft. And the smart money seems to be before, and well before, if possible. Fire the GM on the last day of the season, and the Canucks have about two months to find and hire a replacement, and for that replacement to get prepared for the draft. That’s a lot of time, but the more the merrier for a moment of such import. Make the change in the next week or two, however, and the new GM gets even more prep time. They have more time, specifically, to craft a whole-team vision ahead of the draft, and to ensure that who they pick fits right into the middle of that big picture.

If it’s happening, the sooner, the better, is what we’re saying.

One last consideration worth mentioning has to do with the GM search itself. The Maple Leafs are already on the hunt, and there are only so many strong managerial candidates out there. Let another team or two fire their own GMs, and suddenly we’ve got a competitive market.

It would be a real shame to see the Leafs poach someone the Canucks had their eye on for the position, especially if it were a candidate with some strong personal ties, like Abbotsford GM Ryan Johnson. One more reason to make the change as soon as possible is to ensure that the Canucks get a free and clear choice of the manager they want most and are not forced to make any sort of compromised decision.

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