<p>It&#8217;s Saturday, so here are Leaflets. Literally nothing is happening with the Leafs right now so let&#8217;s make some mountains out of mole hills.</p>
<h2>The Goofus and Gallant analysis of player summers</h2>
<p>Gallant Max Domi spent his summer in the gym working out to get in the best shape of his life. Goofus Mitch Marner spent the summer riding on a jetski with his dog.</p>
<p>WHO CARES?</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t know how many times this is going to need to be rehashed either with Nylander, Matthews, Marner, Phil Kessel, or any of the other Leafs who have dared to find a moment of happiness after disappointing playoffs.</p>
<p>There are reasonable things to consider with Mitch Marner like the fact that he doesn&#8217;t have a contract beyond this season, the history of his negotiations when it comes to next contracts, and whether the Leafs should be welcoming the opportunity to redesign their roster when Marner&#8217;s contract expires as a potential move in a new direction. You can still be pissed off that Mitch Marner, who was coming off an injury, had yet another underwhelming playoff outing and honestly, I&#8217;m not telling anyone to like Mitch Marner.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that if seeing Mitch Marner find joy in his life outrages you, that&#8217;s most certainly a you problem, not a Marner problem.</p>
<p>Marner will never be accused of being a gym rat and even if this summer he decided to commit to that lifestyle, it wasn&#8217;t going to result in Mitch putting players through the glass or attempts to speed bag anyone who crosschecks Auston Matthews. Let the man have his time and from everything seen with Mitch lately, a mental health break from hockey is probably the best thing for him.</p>
<p>As for Max Domi, expectations need to be tempered here too. It&#8217;s great to see him out there working his ass off but I&#8217;m willing to bet the dude with Mark Wahlberg and Tom Brady in his contact list has found some time for a little fun as well.</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll just chalk this up to it being &#8220;best shape of his life&#8221; season.</p>
<h2>Confidently unconfident</h2>
<p>A lot can be made of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5672796/2024/08/06/nhl-front-office-confidence-rankings-2024/">The Athletic survey</a> that placed the Maple Leafs 30th on the front office confidence rankings. Honestly, I don&#8217;t think there is anything wrong with that placement.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s safe to say that every year involves some level of waiting to see what happens next with Brendan Shanahan. So far his plan hasn&#8217;t yielded success. There has been a loyalty to a core that has limited the opportunity to pursue other strategies and the oversight for the GM position might be excessive based on what Kyle Dubas alluded to on his way out the door. Before you even get to the rest of the front office, it&#8217;s hard to imagine that Brendan Shanahan has left anyone feeling confident in the Leafs Hockey Ops department. (The fact that Shanahan&#8217;s other two GM hires Kyle Dubas and Lou Lamoriello placed 29th and 32nd in the rankings is also noteworthy.)</p>
<p>Moving onto Brad Treliving, it&#8217;s hard to see him as anything other than a mixed bag. Re-signing Matthews is great, but the Nylander contract was a miss. Bringing in Chris Tanev was a strong move, but every other defensive decision has either gone poorly or is coming with some pretty big question marks.</p>
<p>Treliving&#8217;s philosophy about limiting changes in season, not confidence inspiring. When you&#8217;ve won then you can have a philosophy, until then, assume you don&#8217;t know everything.</p>
<p>Treliving&#8217;s history in Calgary&#8230;well&#8230;I think there would be more confidence if Flames fans weren&#8217;t so thrilled when Treliving&#8217;s time in Calgary came to an end. The lack of consistency in results in Calgary also points to a struggle with building a team that was sustainably good.</p>
<p>Now step away from the big two in Shanahan and Treliving and I can start making a lot of cases for confidence. Brandon Pridham absolutely knows how to manage the cap. The Maple Leafs have a strong analytics program, and player development that is second to none. We might not yet know what Shane Doan does but even there the guidance counselor type role he often gets noted for has added some value to the team.</p>
<p>August is also the time for optimism and I&#8217;d imagine most teams are feeling a bit better about their teams and front offices at the moment, but from a Leafs perspective, Treliving bringing in Berube, adding Tanev, and gambling on a new goaltending tandem are all encouraging moves. The Leafs could have come out of this summer in a far worse position than they are in.</p>
<p>That said, this front office is going to be judged by the line &#8220;everything is on the table&#8221; and when the changes made have largely been conventional and lack a defining new direction, there is going to be plenty of underwhelmed fans responding to The Athletic&#8217;s poll. The lack of clarity on Marner is certainly a factor as well and he has become polarizing enough that Marner still being a Leaf but without a contract for the 2025-26 season is enough to shake confidence with every part of the fan base regardless of what their opinion on what the best outcome for Mitch is.</p>
<p>A poll is just a poll and is easily ignorable by the organization. That said, we already know that Brendan Shanahan is under the microscope, would an underwhelming 2024-25 be enough to put Treliving on the hot seat too?</p>
<h2>Hakanpaa Watch: Day 41</h2>
<p>Jani Hakanpaa attended a Finnish golf tournament wearing a Dallas Stars jersey.</p>
<p><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-107925" src="https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/08/hakanpaagolf.png?resize=654%2C693&#038;ssl=1" alt="" width="654" height="693" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/08/hakanpaagolf.png?w=654&amp;ssl=1 654w, https://i0.wp.com/publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/08/hakanpaagolf.png?resize=283%2C300&amp;ssl=1 283w" sizes="(max-width: 654px) 100vw, 654px" /></p>
<p>I&#8217;m not really sure how much more needs to be said on Hakanpaa other than it&#8217;s a weird situation. The fact that Brad Treliving specifically spoke to what Hakanpaa would bring to the Leafs and that wasn&#8217;t followed up with an official announcement from the Leafs, no appearance on the roster page on the team site, and just absolute radio silence really seems to point to this being a mess that Toronto was hoping to sweep under the rug and were in fact unaware of the severity of the injury that Hakanpaa was overcoming.</p>
<p>Some transparency here would be great, even if it is a deal in principle for Hakanpaa to be a Leaf once Hakanpaa is ready to play. Or if the deal is going to be signed after being medically cleared in September.</p>
<p>Uncertainty doesn&#8217;t go over well in Toronto and this situation is possibly another reason why confidence in the front office isn&#8217;t what it used to be.</p>


It's Saturday, so here are Leaflets. Literally nothing is happening with the Leafs right now so let's make some mountains out of mole hills.
<h2>The Goofus and Gallant analysis of player summers</h2>
Gallant Max Domi spent his summer in the gym working out to get in the best shape of his life. Goofus Mitch Marner spent the summer riding on a jetski with his dog.

WHO CARES?

I don't know how many times this is going to need to be rehashed either with Nylander, Matthews, Marner, Phil Kessel, or any of the other Leafs who have dared to find a moment of happiness after disappointing playoffs.

There are reasonable things to consider with Mitch Marner like the fact that he doesn't have a contract beyond this season, the history of his negotiations when it comes to next contracts, and whether the Leafs should be welcoming the opportunity to redesign their roster when Marner's contract expires as a potential move in a new direction. You can still be pissed off that Mitch Marner, who was coming off an injury, had yet another underwhelming playoff outing and honestly, I'm not telling anyone to like Mitch Marner.

What I am saying is that if seeing Mitch Marner find joy in his life outrages you, that's most certainly a you problem, not a Marner problem.

Marner will never be accused of being a gym rat and even if this summer he decided to commit to that lifestyle, it wasn't going to result in Mitch putting players through the glass or attempts to speed bag anyone who crosschecks Auston Matthews. Let the man have his time and from everything seen with Mitch lately, a mental health break from hockey is probably the best thing for him.

As for Max Domi, expectations need to be tempered here too. It's great to see him out there working his ass off but I'm willing to bet the dude with Mark Wahlberg and Tom Brady in his contact list has found some time for a little fun as well.

We'll just chalk this up to it being "best shape of his life" season.
<h2>Confidently unconfident</h2>
A lot can be made of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5672796/2024/08/06/nhl-front-office-confidence-rankings-2024/">The Athletic survey</a> that placed the Maple Leafs 30th on the front office confidence rankings. Honestly, I don't think there is anything wrong with that placement.

It's safe to say that every year involves some level of waiting to see what happens next with Brendan Shanahan. So far his plan hasn't yielded success. There has been a loyalty to a core that has limited the opportunity to pursue other strategies and the oversight for the GM position might be excessive based on what Kyle Dubas alluded to on his way out the door. Before you even get to the rest of the front office, it's hard to imagine that Brendan Shanahan has left anyone feeling confident in the Leafs Hockey Ops department. (The fact that Shanahan's other two GM hires Kyle Dubas and Lou Lamoriello placed 29th and 32nd in the rankings is also noteworthy.)

Moving onto Brad Treliving, it's hard to see him as anything other than a mixed bag. Re-signing Matthews is great, but the Nylander contract was a miss. Bringing in Chris Tanev was a strong move, but every other defensive decision has either gone poorly or is coming with some pretty big question marks.

Treliving's philosophy about limiting changes in season, not confidence inspiring. When you've won then you can have a philosophy, until then, assume you don't know everything.

Treliving's history in Calgary...well...I think there would be more confidence if Flames fans weren't so thrilled when Treliving's time in Calgary came to an end. The lack of consistency in results in Calgary also points to a struggle with building a team that was sustainably good.

Now step away from the big two in Shanahan and Treliving and I can start making a lot of cases for confidence. Brandon Pridham absolutely knows how to manage the cap. The Maple Leafs have a strong analytics program, and player development that is second to none. We might not yet know what Shane Doan does but even there the guidance counselor type role he often gets noted for has added some value to the team.

August is also the time for optimism and I'd imagine most teams are feeling a bit better about their teams and front offices at the moment, but from a Leafs perspective, Treliving bringing in Berube, adding Tanev, and gambling on a new goaltending tandem are all encouraging moves. The Leafs could have come out of this summer in a far worse position than they are in.

That said, this front office is going to be judged by the line "everything is on the table" and when the changes made have largely been conventional and lack a defining new direction, there is going to be plenty of underwhelmed fans responding to The Athletic's poll. The lack of clarity on Marner is certainly a factor as well and he has become polarizing enough that Marner still being a Leaf but without a contract for the 2025-26 season is enough to shake confidence with every part of the fan base regardless of what their opinion on what the best outcome for Mitch is.

A poll is just a poll and is easily ignorable by the organization. That said, we already know that Brendan Shanahan is under the microscope, would an underwhelming 2024-25 be enough to put Treliving on the hot seat too?
<h2>Hakanpaa Watch: Day 41</h2>
Jani Hakanpaa attended a Finnish golf tournament wearing a Dallas Stars jersey.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-107925" src="https://publish.theleafsnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/08/hakanpaagolf.png" alt="" width="654" height="693" />

I'm not really sure how much more needs to be said on Hakanpaa other than it's a weird situation. The fact that Brad Treliving specifically spoke to what Hakanpaa would bring to the Leafs and that wasn't followed up with an official announcement from the Leafs, no appearance on the roster page on the team site, and just absolute radio silence really seems to point to this being a mess that Toronto was hoping to sweep under the rug and were in fact unaware of the severity of the injury that Hakanpaa was overcoming.

Some transparency here would be great, even if it is a deal in principle for Hakanpaa to be a Leaf once Hakanpaa is ready to play. Or if the deal is going to be signed after being medically cleared in September.

Uncertainty doesn't go over well in Toronto and this situation is possibly another reason why confidence in the front office isn't what it used to be.

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