{"id":542220,"date":"2026-04-05T15:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542220\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T15:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T15:06:19","slug":"leafs-need-to-be-prepared-in-case-2026-27-season-falls-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/542220\/","title":{"rendered":"Leafs need to be prepared in case 2026-27 season falls apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u2018 2025-26 season was a disaster, as the team was mathematically eliminated from contention<\/a> for the Stanley Cup Playoffs earlier this week. <\/p>\n

With the team missing the playoffs for the first time since 2014-15, there\u2019s lots of discussion over what the Leafs should do moving forward. Toronto already fired general manager Brad Treliving and they\u2019ve begun the search for potential replacements. There\u2019s also discussion as to what the team will do with head coach Craig Berube going forward. <\/p>\n

But what may be most important is what the team will do beyond next season. If the Leafs\u2019 2026-27 campaign goes as poorly as their 2025-26 season, then the franchise may have to make some difficult decisions going forward. <\/p>\n

On Thursday\u2019s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE<\/a>, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by The Fourth Period\u2019s David Pagnotta for another edition of \u201cInsider Notebook\u201d to discuss the Leafs\u2019 <\/p>\n

Tyler Yaremchuk: Let\u2019s walk down this exercise a bit: If you\u2019re the new Leafs GM and Keith Pelley is giving you a five-year contract and you can retool and do it your way, but then you talk to Auston Matthews and realize if this next year doesn\u2019t go well, he\u2019s walking out the door. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s putting the new GM and president in a really, really tough spot, where they might not be able to go into the offseason and say, \u201cHey, let\u2019s take our time and reevaluate.\u201d They\u2019re forced into action early, based on that sort of a timeline. <\/p>\n

David Pagnotta: Pelley mentioned that perfect scenario where they find a new guy in the middle of May. That gives you a month-and-a-half ahead of the draft and all the movement that occurs ahead of that time, then July 1. <\/p>\n

Whoever comes in will have to have that sub-plotted plan, that Plan B scenario in case the 2026-27 season doesn\u2019t go well. You have to be comfortable in your messaging to ownership, to the rest of the team and to the fanbase if it gets to that point where you\u2019re saying, \u201coh crap, here\u2019s the new direction we need to go in.\u201d <\/p>\n

Technically, they can use Auston as a scapegoat and say \u201cthis was his decision, we\u2019re going to honor it and get better but it\u2019s going to be longer than we anticipated.\u201d Again, it may never come down to that, but you have to prepare for that potential outcome. Whoever comes in running the ship on the hockey side for the Leafs, be it president or GM, both will have to know exactly what Plan B is going to be if crap hits the fan again, next season. <\/p>\n

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here\u2026<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs\u2018 2025-26 season was a disaster, as the team was mathematically eliminated from contention for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[5,20,5172,4,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-542220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-maple-leafs","10":"tag-mapleleafs","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","14":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116352725221282637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}