Did the Maple Leafs Fire Treliving to Avoid Heat from Hughes Over Failed Knies Trade?

The news is out there officially now: the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens had a deal. Matthew Knies was headed to Montreal, and in return, Toronto was getting four pieces. Someone filed the paperwork late, the clock struck 3:01 p.m., and just like that, one of the biggest trades of the deadline evaporated.

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But there’s another alleged layer to this story that’s only now coming to light. It’s not confirmed and it could be speculation, but there was an apparent conversation that put the Maple Leafs in an awkward spot.

According to Toronto Star reporter Jonah Sigel, Canadiens’ GM Kent Hughes was furious with then-Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving after the deal collapsed. A deal was done, and because Treliving seemingly got overly relaxed (or got cold feet after agreeing to the deal) Hughes intended to hold Toronto to the deal. Sigel reports that Hughes said, “If you aren’t fired by summer, you have to honor this trade.”

Now, we all know it doesn’t really work that way. The trade wasn’t filed on time and the league squashed it. As such, the deal was dead and no one can force that deal to be revived. However, there’s a bit of a code amongst NHL executives and, according to this story, Hughes felt like Treliving broke it.

Hughes considered the done in principle, and it wasn’t him who backed out of it. In fact, Treliving didn’t technically back out of it either. The league wouldn’t accept it, and to Hughes, that meant revisiting the conversation and finishing what they started.

Whether Treliving would have let Hughes know later that he was glad the deal never happened, or intentionally delayed submitting the trade, Hughes apparently believed the blame for the blown deadline fell squarely on Toronto’s end. We may never know why that trade got filed late. Was it intentional or not?

The package Montreal had assembled was serious — Zharovsky, another prospect, and two first-round picks going to Toronto, but many believe it wasn’t a home run return for Toronto. That’s why, with new management in place, the deal appears to be off the table now. And, it’s an easy out for the Leafs. They can simply say, ‘Treliving might have wanted that deal, but we didn’t, and our new GM doesn’t either.’

Again, the NHL wouldn’t have forced anyone back into the trade and Hughes would have had no recourse. The best he could have done was held the deal over Treliving’s head in any future conversations. Perhaps Toronto didn’t want that. Maybe, they got wind of the trade and said goodbye to Treliving, in part, to make sure that the Maple Leafs could start fresh.

Treliving is now gone, replaced by John Chayka and Mats Sundin. The man who botched the deal, the man Hughes wanted to hold to it, is no longer in the building. Whatever verbal commitment existed between Hughes and Treliving dissolved the moment Treliving was shown the door.

Chayka is under no obligation to entertain the move at all. He inherited this franchise, not its previous GM’s handshake agreements.

The whole saga raises a question worth sitting with: how often does something like this happen in the NHL and we simply never hear about it?

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