3 ways to fix this struggling, bad Toronto Maple Leafs team

The Maple Leafs are a bad hockey team.

That’s their identity as they wrap up their holiday schedule with three games in the next four days heading into Christmas.

Never mind how the Leafs look if they’re forechecking hard or playing with structure or scoring when they get the opportunity. These things infrequently happen at the same time, certainly not with any consistency to lead one to believe the team is eventually going to find the right path to actual playoff contention.

No, the Leafs are just plain bad. They nailed that in a 4-0 loss in Washington on Thursday night, playing with no passion or a necessary level of competitiveness.

This was a) after rallying to beat Chicago on Tuesday, which should have provided a source of motivation; b) following a day off from the ice on Wednesday, taking fatigue out of the equation; and c) against a Capitals team that lost three in a row, including being outscored 10-1 in its previous two games.

Four points out of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference before games on Friday? That the Leafs are. They’re also a single point ahead of the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets, who sit together in the conference basement.

Are the Leafs doing anything to make a convincing argument that they’re going to rise out of the Eastern Conference muck and make a charge to the post-season?

No. If you think the Leafs have the ability to do so, there is nothing that you could point at right now and say, “Here’s where they give me confidence that they will rebound.”

General manager Brad Treliving has three options.

Make a coaching change

It has to be an awfully difficult time for Treliving.

Barely 18 months have passed since Treliving concluded that a “new voice” was required behind the bench, so Sheldon Keefe was fired.

In came Craig Berube, who enjoyed a season-long honeymoon in 2024-25 as the Leafs won the Atlantic Division.

Though the majority of the nucleus didn’t change, they’re a shell of that team now and Berube has run out of answers.

That Berube was more disappointed than angry following the loss in Washington should have been a shot to the heart of every player on the team.

If Treliving decides his choice of Berube was wrong, what good would come out of it? Would Peter DeBoer or Peter Laviolette or John Tortorella or Bruce Boudreau or Derek Lalonde or anyone else make enough of a difference with this group to turn it around? If so, what would be the end result? Another early exit from the Stanley Cup playoffs?

The Leafs are not a tweak or two away from being a contender.

One area that could use an immediate improvement is possession. The Leafs are 30th at 45.6%. In Keefe’s four full seasons as coach, the Leafs were never worse than 16th at season’s end and not below 51%.

The core of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly is on its third coach with Berube, following Keefe and Mike Babcock.

A Berube firing might be Treliving’s “easiest” option right now. It would also be a harsh indictment of the Leafs’ best players.

One in-house change that should be made: Put someone else in charge of the power play. Assistant coach Marc Savard, an offensively gifted performer during his NHL playing days, can’t make heads or tails of it.

Make a trade

Treliving could put some substance into the trade rumours that have been around the team for much of the season and pull the trigger on a deal.

Once the National Hockey League holiday roster freeze ends at 12:01 a.m. local time on Dec. 28, of course.

To what extent would a trade really help, though? The bold-face names — Matthews, Nylander, Tavares and Rielly — all have a no-movement clause.

Max Domi (13-team no-trade clause), Dakota Joshua (12-team NTC) and Calle Jarnkrok (10-team NTC) have modified clauses.

You’re not trading regular healthy scratch Matias Maccelli for anything of substance. Nick Robertson was one of the few Leafs who hustled in Washington.

Matthew Knies or Easton Cowan? Why cut off your nose to spite your face?

Many figured a change in the core was needed when the Leafs were eliminated in the second round by the Florida Panthers last spring. It happened with the departure of Mitch Marner — who was never going to re-sign with Toronto — to the Vegas Golden Knights.

And yet the Leafs are playing their worst hockey in years. There’s more to that than simply because you’ve lost one of your best regular-season performers.

Do nothing

This could be the best option: Put it on the players’ shoulders for a change.

If the core is as confident in itself as it likes to say it is, then let them figure it out.

This was Rielly on Tuesday morning before the Leafs met the Blackhawks: “We believe in the people, the structure, the coach, and everything we have going on.”

Since, the Leafs have played 11 minutes of inspired hockey, which was enough to eke out a win against a Chicago team that was without star Connor Bedard and is not a playoff contender.

A majority of opponents would have put the Leafs away before they had a chance to come back late in the third period.

The Leafs have become proficient at acknowledging when they play without passion or a necessary compete level, most recently on Thursday night. Usually, it’s not rectified in their next game, definitely not through 60 minutes.

There’s no guarantee the Leafs will be any better against an inferior (though not by much) Nashville Predators outfit on Saturday night as the three-game trip continues.

Is it Berube’s fault that a lack of urgency and passion are issues? No. That’s on the 18 men who put the blue and white on every game.

Hard work comes from within. If the Leafs are holding themselves accountable in private, they’re not very good at it.

If a coaching change is made and there is a marked improvement in those areas, what would it say about a group that we would then know stopped playing for Berube?

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun